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

I discovered the ritual text that ultimately gave rise to this work when browsing the shabby stalls at the Bazaar of Whispering Torches in Sarcophan. It had been cast casually into a pile of scrolls and books, mostly unsettling erotica, poor quality poetry, and political polemic against the Bedelaar Huisbaas. The toothless shopkeeper obviously had no idea of the value of the book. I purchased a black herbal and a water-damaged collection of poems about monstrous creatures lurking in the tombs to conceal my interest. He haggled more over the herbal than the ritual book. The book itself was damaged – some of the pages were badly burned, three near the front had been torn out. There was enough writing remaining, however, to gain an understanding of the effect and the processes used. The translation took long enough, but the real difficulty was bridging the gap between the principles of the enchantment and anchoring it to the coven bond. The book was warded with a simple Winter enchantment that protected it from time and the elements – a simple divination suggested it was much, much older than the Delves themselves and most likely predating whatever civillisation had built the ruins. The construction of the book was quite ingenious – a single massive sheet of parchment had been folded and painstakingly sewn again and again, and bound between thin pieces of moonsilver. From the original text, Teth Anon was a noble magician in the court of an ancient king. The text was full of references to his wealth and the power of his magic and the many divinations he performed on behalf of his master (I could find no information about this ancient king at all). He appeared to be quite an unpleasant fellow, in my opinion; he reveled in exposing the weaknesses of the king's political opponents and in wielding power over the weak in the name of his royal master. The book took great lengths to explain the origin of the name – Teth Anon cultivated a garden of meditation through which he scattered polished mirrors composed of many metals. There were many diagrams and a great deal of esoteric theorising about the various lengths and positions of walls and plants. The inspiration he received during his many meditations helped him to perform powerful improvisational magical effects. He spoke often of the way time seemed to slow whenever he meditated here; how an afternoon could seem to stretch and stretch as he meditated. He theorised that by capturing this meditative state, by allowing ritualists to subjectively stretch each moment of spellcasting they could perform important calculations quickly and adjust their ritual performance as the magic was being woven. In this way, great precision could be achieved.

It is important to note that the enchantment only helps contributors. A magician must not only be part of the coven, but must be able to help perform the ritual that is being cast – which almost always means they must have some understanding of the ritual realm being employed. The effectiveness of the ritual depends entirely on the abilities of the coven. A coven with a narrow focus on a small handful of rituals they have all mastered will find little use for it. It is much more useful when employed by a coven that seeks to perform a wide range of magical effects – whether they are rituals some of the coven have mastered, or improvisational works of magic created from whole cloth. If there is a weakness to this ritual it is that a loose coven, or a coven that is very large, may find that the power of the enchantment has been drawn earlier in the day by a different part of the magical group. As an enchantment that targets the coven bond. The ritual is exclusive with several other enchantments that effect a coven such as Twist of Moebius, Crystalline Focus of Aesh, or Standing at the Threshold. A marginal note references the way the original ritual interacted with the use of an item called a “Covenstone of Unremembered Days” (which Teth Anon apparently possessed) to provide a significant increase to the power of a coven to perform precise, effective magic.

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.