Drawing the Penumbral Veil

Rules

Performing the Ritual

Performing this ritual takes at least 10 minutes of roleplaying. If the ritual is cast using the Imperial Regio it requires at least 5 minutes of roleplaying instead.

During the ritual the casters must be in a strong Night regio. This ritual targets a territory, and must be performed at a regio in that territory. If the ritual is used to target an Imperial territory, it may instead be performed at the Imperial regio at Anvil.

This ritual is a shroud.

Effects

The ritual targets a single territory. At the completion of the ritual the target territory is sheltered by a shadowy penumbra that dissipates and blinds attempts to scry the territory or divine information about it with magic. Unless the divination or scrying ritual is performed with a magnitude at least equal to the magnitude of the veil, the only information it can gain is the presence of a Night enchantment and the magnitude of the effect.

Any scrying or divination ritual that attempts to penetrate the veil, or any ritual that attempts to actually remove it, must have a magnitude at least equal to the of the veil

Anyone traveling to the territory will find that the night sky appears strange and unfamiliar - the stars are not where they are expected to be, and the moon often seems closer, or further away. The more mana has been spent to create the veil, the more unfamiliar the night sky becomes. This may cause some consternation among the folk living in that territory.

The effect of the ritual lasts for a year (until the start of the Profound Decisions Empire event four events from now).

Removing the Shroud

The shroud can be penetrated by any divination magic of sufficient magnitude, but this does not remove it. It can be removed prematurely by the performance of Piercing Light of Revelation, provided the magnitude of that Day ritual is at least twice the magnitude of the shroud.

Additional Magnitude

You may increase the magnitude of the ritual to create a more powerful veil.

Description

This ritual is a two-edged sword. It makes it very hard for enemy magicians to scry on events in the target territory, but it also attracts attention. What could the magicians be doing in that territory that is so important? The Freeborn magician Alcin i Guerra used to claim that he spent much of his spare time at Anvil weaving this ritual around random territories in the Empire to confuse and unsettle barbarian shamans. He made such extensive use of the ritual that it is still called Alcin's Celestial Confusion in some parts.

There are several ways to empower the shrouds created by this ritual, including the inky black myrrh from the Tower of Light and Shadow, available to the Penumbral Watcher. The Whisper Gallery are also known to provide boons to empower this ritual. In both cases, the use of peculiar magical consumables is known to influence the visual effects that follow in the wake of the shroud. For example, it seems that several Whisper Gallery boons simply occlude the stars over a territory entirely, leaving a blank sky with only the moon and occasionally the Wanderer visible.

Following the Autumn Equinox 386YE, the entire Empire except for Casinea, and those territories in barbarian hands such as Mournwold, Therunin, and Madruga were wrapped in a Penumbral Veil. It's not clear who was responsible, or what their aim was, but given the specificity of the effect it seems likely the effect was the result of dozens of castings of the ritual rather than a single powerful effect created by an Arcane projection.

Common Elements

A common focus for this ritual is a map depicting the target territory. It is sometimes obscured during the casting, or even burnt at the completion. Sometimes the map is created from sand or painstakingly drawn with salt or coloured powders, so it can be obscured with a gesture by the ritualists. Another common element involves the use of shuttered or dark lanterns, or flickering candles, or dim lightstones which provide limited illumination and are passed from ritualist to ritualist around the central map focus, symbolizing the shifting of the stars that accompanies the ritual veil.

The rune Wyr is commonly used during this ritual, and the constellation of The Wanderer is often invoked.