Ritual: The Seven Lamentations of Frailty

THE SEVEN LAMENTATIONS OF FRAILTY (Five minor charges – special)

There are seven ancient syllables uttered by a dying victim of the first treacherous assassin to ascend. The ascension took the curse and formed a great power within them and around them. They became words of murder and deceit, of seeds that bloom flowers of hatred and lamentation.

They are seven syllables and if spoken, those that hear them are marked for murderous death. It does not matter if it father against son, brother against brother, or stranger against stranger, death will come for one or all.

Typically recorded in obscuring ciphers and codes, the words usually lay dormant, but someone in the world knows them, the cruelty sits on their tongue, waiting. If they are sorcerers and wise men, they may understand the terrible power and consequences of speaking them aloud. They have many names. Sometimes people speak of the Septafuge, others speak of the Eleventh Plague, the First Broken Seal, or the Iscariot’s Rhyme. Whatever they speak of, those that know speak in respect.

The Seven Lamentations are seven syllables of a spoken language long gone to dust with its culture. It is safe to read them and they are simple to memorise, a General Education check will suffice.

If you speak them, you have to speak them face to face. There can be no barriers between your voice and the listener. Microphones will not work, unless your voice travels to the listener unaided. You cannot phone someone, leave a voice message, record on tape, or wave file in the mailbox. This will only make the Lamentations move to more minds.

If you speak the name in a crowded room there is a chance everyone will hear it. Roll a generic 15% Notice check for the extra person or people and the highest die result indicates the maximum number of people the Lamentations will target.

This ritual has never crossed any ocean, it haunts Europe and the Middle East. It has never migrated to Asia, America, or Australia. Some say it the ritual cannot move across moving water but rumours say of its use in England. No one knows for sure.

Ritual Cost: Five Minor Charges – Special.

Ritual Action: When you speak the Seven Lamentations, the listener is marked as the target and the next day when you wake up you will have no shadow. You do not require any charges, merely a magick roll. Your shadow becomes a special demon or revenant, called the Wronged (Post Modern Magick, page 132).

The Wronged unerringly tracks its target down with the speed of a flying bird, and possesses a nearby random person, and the possessed person then attacks the target by any means, to kill them. It will not stop with just one possession it will keep on until the target is dead.

If you do not possess five charges, the Wronged goes on. It jumps to possess another random person and if it does, the Wronged continues to murder again. If you actually have five minor charges, immediately you lose the five charges, you shadow returns as soon as it can without causing more murder along the way.

If the Wronged is bound, you never get your shadow back and the Seven Lamentations will not work for you until your shadow returns. Destroying the Wronged kills you.

If you do not possess Post Modern Magick, treat the Wronged as a Revenant but it can throw a minor Unnatural Phenomenon once a day and a Significant once per week. It looks like a disembodied shadow.