Book of Bone and Ebony

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CHAPTER FIVE NECROMANCY Just as with sorcery, only a select few in or out of Creation can manipulate the Essence necessary to use necromancy. The Celestial Exalted, the Deathlords, select hekatonkhire and God-Blooded (Ghost-Blooded and Abyssal Half-Caste) make up the short list of beings able to control the Essence of the Underworld on such a scale, and only the Abyssal Exalted and the Deathlords can achieve mastery over the Void Circle. Powerful death-tainted artifacts may allow limited necromantic power, whether by simulating a spell’s effects or granting access to much of the Shadowlands Circle. Such items are phenomenally rare and seldom have any power in Creation, leaving these dark wonders among the hoards of the Deathlords and a few of the mightiest nephwracks in the Labyrinth. Such artifacts are dangerous for any but the favored of the Malfeans to use: The player of any mortal attempting to channel such power must roll her Essence with each attempt. A failure tears away her life and automatically raises her spirit as a mortwight. The player of a ghost who dares to abuse the power of the Abyss must roll each time as though the ghost has been touched by the Whisper of Oblivion (see Exalted: The Abyssals, p. 284). The Malfeans may also be capable of granting their most devoted servants such power by direct investiture, though such extraordinary gifts invariably corrode sanity and soul. 117 CHAPTER FIVE • NECROMANCY NECROMANTIC INITIATION Learning to cast necromancy is, as with sorcery, a mind-opening experience. Potential necromancers begin to perceive the world in an entirely new light, shadowed by the truths of the Underworld. For those who have already become initiates of sorcery, the sister process for necromancy is eerily familiar, yet a world apart. Those who are unfamiliar with sorcery find the process as difficult as that for sorcery. Although the power of necromancy comes from a negative source, the use thereof is not a negative thing. Learning to use necromancy includes a set of five tasks much more similar to those of sorcery than the average mortal ghost-hunter or exorcist might expect. It is also worth noting that people cannot simply “discover” necromancy and initiate themselves through accident and the beneficence of nature. While necromancy was, in the beginning, discovered and not taught, this was done by powerful and brilliant Twilight Caste Solars who already had centuries of experience with sorcery of all stripes. It was their exploration of and experimentation with the Essence of the Underworld, the Labyrinth and the Void that led them to discover this dark mirror of sorcery. No mighty Salinan sorcery (see Savant and Sorcerer, pp. 17-18) remains in place to teach a would-be necromancer through fortuitous happenstance.
EXALTED • BOOK OF BONE AND EBONY 118 NOT QUITE NECROMANCY... The masters of the shadowy powers of the Underworld aren’t the only ones who raise zombies and skeletons or speak with the dead. Mortal thaumaturges (see the Exalted Players Guide, Chapter Three, for more information) can, with much effort, achieve some similar effects. The most common method for imbuing a corpse with a semblance of life and the ability to obey one’s instructions is to use the Art of Summoning to conjure a nemissary. Knowing whether a specific ghost has the ability to manipulate dead flesh is generally a matter of experience, but it may be represented with a difficulty 2 Intelligence + Occult roll. A thaumaturge may instead attempt to summon any ghost with a nemissary’s abilities. This adds 2 to the difficulty of the summoning, as the summoner is casting a general call into the Underworld and fishing for the most qualified ghost. JAWBONE ECHOES (RITUAL •) Jawbone Echoes is used to speak with the dead — not with spirits, but with the corpses themselves. Its influence is weak and fleeting, however, and the thaumaturge willing to use this ritual to speak with a corpse at length is often a lone thaumaturge. The ritual requires a single mote of Essence or one Willpower, spent as the name of the ritual is repeated face to face with the body. The thaumaturge then kisses the corpse, straining to kiss ever more deeply until a sickeningly sour taste hits the tip of his tongue. The thaumaturge may then ask one question of the corpse and get one answer. The corpse knows only what it experienced in life and what happened to it after all potence left it with its hun and po souls. The jawbone must be present and in one piece for this ritual to be effective, and the ritual can work even if only the jawbone is available. GARROTE AND MURDER MANSION (RITUAL ••) The thaumaturge must begin this ritual by carefully making chalk from the bone of the subject corpse. The chalk is used to lay out the floor plan and make a rough image of the body’s former house, home or haunt. The thaumaturge must know and whisper one hundred fondnesses that the corpse’s former hun held while she forms the images, making this ritual expensive in knowledge, if not in silver or jade. The ritual takes approximately an hour and costs one Willpower. The body will then animate and follow the thaumaturge’s commands. Use the template for the common zombie (see Exalted, p. 299), except that a zombie raised by Garrote and Murder Mansion constantly exhales air from an unknown source. An ear laid close to the zombie’s mouth will hear the thaumaturge’s voice whispering the one hundred fondnesses, repeated ad infinitum. The chalk drawings are gradually blown away by an intangible wind, disappearing entirely over the course of a
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AND A Compendium of Necromantic Lor
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