Garden of Teth-Anon

Rules

Performing the Ritual

Performing this ritual takes at least 2 minutes of roleplaying. This ritual targets a coven. At least three members of the coven must be present throughout.

This ritual is an enchantment. A target may only be under one enchantment effect at a time.

Effects

This ritual places an enchantment on the target coven (or the coven bond itself) rather than the individual ritualists.

Once per day, the coven may perform a ritual and draw on the power of this enchantment. Each contributor who is part of the coven who has not mastered the ritual being performed gains an additional rank of lore for purposes of that ritual.

While this ritual is in effect, members of the coven experience a powerful roleplaying effect: by meditating for a few moments with a ritual text or arcane projection they can simulate many different methods of performing that ritual, and explore ways to perform the magic more effectively or uncover potential obstacles to completing it. This can take a long time subjectively, but only a few minutes in real time. While meditating, they always find themselves in a beautiful garden although details vary between individuals.

When cast with more than one contributor, this ritual always counts as a use of the coven bond and counts towards the number of rituals the coven can perform that day.

The effect lasts until the start of the next Profound Decisions Empire event.

Description

According to scholars of Day, this ritual works by capturing the resonance of every time in the past that the coven did not perform a ritual, and every point in the future where they will not perform a ritual, and using the echoes of those moments to allow the coven to perform additional rituals now. Ritualists who are part of the coven often experience stange moments of deja vu, or have fleeting memories of rituals they know they did not perform but might have performed. When actually performing a ritual, these sensations become stronger - occasionally a ritualist may briefly hallucinate that they are performing a different ritual, in a different place, at a different time. These impessions are rarely overpowering, but can be unsettling the first few times they occur.

It is worth noting that the power of this enchantment goes into effect immediately; even though the ritual is always cast using the coven bond, the ability to cast another ritual that day is available straight away.

Common Elements

This ritual is often performed under the open sky, with as little secret as possible. Some covens choose to use a public spot, or the Anvil regio, specifically to reduce the secrecy of what they are doing. The magicians often use things associated with past rituals, and it is very common for the coven to bring all of their ritual talismans along even if they are not going to use them, to encourage the connection between past, present and future rituals. For the same reason, they will often include any children who they hope will become future magicians and join the coven. Indeed, for some covens (especially Varushkan cabalists) one or more of the contributors will be a youngster coached and mentored by a more powerful magician.

Symbols of doors, threshold and passages are often used; Urizen magicians may evoke images and symbols of the net of the heavens while Navarr ritualists obviously make connections between the great dance and the idea of moving the ability to do a future or past ritual to a point at which it is more useful. Some covens end the ritual back-to-back, or in groups of three, reinforcing mystic ideas of a threshold as the ever-moving now between the past (the backwards looking figure) and the future (the forwards looking figure).

The runes Ophis and Sular and Aesh are commonly invoked, as is the rune of dominion or the subtle rune Queros which synergises well with the subtle energies used in this magic. The constellations of The Key and The Lock are regularly used, and many covens evoke the image of The Door or The Three Sisters as well. It is not uncommon for the ritual to evoke the power of sphinxes who are viewed in some quarters as possessing powers to see the past or future, or to use symbols of Vigilance, Wisdom or Ambition.