Every rose has its thorn, and now you can, too!
Cost: 2 significant charges
Effect: The skin of the caster of this ritual becomes harmful to others. Though the outward appearance remains unchanged, anyone attempting to grapple, restrain, or otherwise hold onto someone who has cast this ritual will feel dozens of sharp pricks, as if they were trying to hug a rose bush. Any attempts at retaining a grip on this person requires a Body check to resist the pain, and most likely an Unnatural stress check. While this doesn’t cause any damage, it’s certainly unpleasant.
Ritual actions: Obtain the seeds to a rose bush. Plant them in a place that has some significance to you- the back yard of the house you grew up in, the grave site of your sister, or something like that. Every full moon, fertilize the plant with a mixture of feces from an animal born on the same day of the year as you, half a pint of your own blood, and half a pint of water consecrated by a priest of any religion. After six months, the bush should be sufficiently large for the rest of the ritual. Find the largest flower on the plant, and cut it off, along with the vine it’s attached to. Boil this vine in a cast-iron pot with half a pint of water from a natural spring for one hour. After an hour has passed, add half a pint of your own blood and let this mixture simmer for another hour. If done properly, the water should turn a murky green color. The ritual takes effect once all of the water is drunk, and lasts for 24 hours. The same rose bush cannot be used in subsequent castings of this ritual.
This is the first ritual I’ve created, so please, let me know what you think.
The cost/ritual effort versus the effects seem to be pretty high versus pretty weak to me. Maybe, with the amount of effort put into the ritual, I’d actually have prolonged grips do the “knives cut“-type of damage; 1 WP per turn. This would subsequently amp up the madness check as well.
That aside, I love it, even just the way it is. I can really see a lot of interesting, sadistic, and deviant ways to use it.
Perhaps have it also slowly shred non-metal bindings as well.
Wratts: Good point. Having it do a bit of damage would certainly make it a bit better. I thought about making it do damage, but I wasn’t sure how best to implement it. If I ever use it, I’ll probably go with your idea.
Requiem: Another good idea. I hadn’t even thought of that.
If this ritual shreds non-metallic bindings, how many times a day do you have to get changed as it rips its way through your clothes? Don’t wear your best suit.
Alternatively go au naturel
I can only imagine the reaction somebody would have when a man covered in ragged clothing starts hugging people he doesn’t like.
Possibly you could dope someone you don’t like with the potion? – Would prove quite inconvinient if they are pornomancers.
Doping someone with this would be difficult because of the taste (vaguely plant-flavored water and blood, not a pleasant combination) and the necessity of drinking all of it, but if you managed to do so, it’d be quite effective
“Try some of Papa Johns old recipe spicy gumbo – eat it all up now, I insist”.
Hm. Yeah, that could work pretty well.
A quick thought: Rituals don’t HAVE to be balanced in the cost/benefit ratio. In fact, given some of the theories about why some of them (though not necessarily all of them) work – echoes of previous realities – it might even make sense for some of them not to give much bang for the buck. You’re trying to record an album from an echo, it’s going to be a hassle.
That said, it’s not all THAT much effort. Raise some chickens/rabbits/rats (anything that breeds quickly) and you have a source of the feces (and if you have a library of rituals, you might be able to raise the animals so that they’re useful in other ways, too). Grow a bunch of small rosebushes (possibly in the yard of the house you grew up in… which you inherited or visit your folks at fairly often). Collect a little blood each day. Tear up “used up” bushes and buy new ones.
As far as uses go, value in the eye of the beholder.
I could easily see a reclusive gardener who does this spell just for those times they have to go out in public. They finish the ritual and go out and then people give them their space on the bus, on the sidewalk, no one wants to bump into them, and they have a just-in-case surprise in case they get attacked (which they have an irrational belief will happen and an irrational fear of how bad it will be when it does).
Not sure if it should do actual physical damage.
Most rituals tend to not have overt physical effects – that’s more an adept magic thing – so I think it’s more appropriate if the stinging is just in the grabber’s mind.