Book of Bone and Ebony

The next time the target of the spell looks into a mirror,
the message comes flowing out of it to be read. Once the
bloody words are understood, they lose cohesion and begin
to run down the smooth surface of the mirror. At this time,
if the target of the spell chooses, she may wipe clean the
mirror and lightly cut her fingertip. Using it as a stylus, she
may write a short message on the mirror, and it will be seen
by the necromancer when next he looks in a mirror.
There are additional spells of the three necromantic
circles that take advantage of mirrors’ strange qualities.
Invisible Doorway, of the Shadowlands Circle, costs 18
motes of Essence and a lethal health level. It allows the
caster to open a doorway between Creation and the
analogous position in the Underworld through any reflective
surface. Anointing it with his blood, the crimson
becomes the shining quicksilver blood of the Malfeans and
the surface becomes a portal, which remains open for three
turns. After this use, mirrors shatter, ponds boil and silver
tarnishes. White Shard, a Labyrinth Circle spell, costs 28
motes and allows the necromancer to communicate faceto-face
between two specially treated mirrors. The
communication afforded by White Shard lasts for up to
half an hour. The Barless Gate is of the Void Circle and
costs 42 motes to cast. With it a necromancer may step
between any two mirrors in the Underworld in a form of
instantaneous travel. Invoking the Barless Gate violently
shatters all spiritual or physical wards barring such travel
at the recipient’s gate.
BONE PUPPET DANCE
Cost: 16 motes
Target: One creature
Considered requisite among those who wish to be
known as masters of the walking dead, this spell is completed
by the utterance of a single syllable of command, the
sound of which burns through the air to brand itself
invisibly on the center of its target’s ribcage. Once the
brand is made, the necromancer commands complete
obedience from the skeleton, and any living flesh around
that skeleton is in for a nightmarish time.
The skeleton will immediately begin attempting to
enact the necromancer’s will, moving to attack its owner’s
friends, bearing a message to the East or performing back flips
for the necromancer’s amusement. The inherent difficulty in
controlling another being causes any action attempted by the
skeleton — who otherwise acts with its host’s dice pools — to
be at a dice penalty of the host’s Essence.
If the host does not wish to be the necromancer’s
servant, as is likely, he must to act against the actions his
skeleton is carrying out. He may exert control over his
body with little mental effort, but even as he drives his
body through force of will, his skeleton is resisting. His
bones burn and scream, unable to perform as their necromantic
master demands. Every action taken by the host is
at -1 die, and every turn in which he wrests control from
121
CHAPTER FIVE • NECROMANCY
his tormented frame, he suffers two levels of lethal damage
as his bones blister his muscles and claw at him from
within. This damage can only be soaked by natural soak
(and is unaffected by hardness ratings that do not reasonably
affect wounds coming from within the body).
The effects of this spell last for a number of hours equal
to the necromancer’s player’s successes on a Charisma +
Occult roll. Trying to control a body that resists requires
more of the spell’s available power, so every turn in which
the host painfully controls his own body reduces the
remaining hours of servitude by one. When this number
reaches zero, the spell ends. If the host is killed as a result
of attempting to remain in command of his body, the
skeleton claws its way free of the flesh which restrained it
and becomes a permanent zombie under the control of the
necromancer (see Exalted, p. 299).
A necromancer can cast this spell upon an already
extant skeleton to animate it as a permanent servant, or
she can target a skeleton that is already animate, ripping
control from its current master. This technique is so
spiritually abusive that it inflicts the caster’s Essence in
dice of bashing damage, soakable only with Stamina, to
the necromancer from whom she took the skeleton.
BONFIRE VISIONS
Cost: 13 motes
Target: One bonfire
Although abysmally rare in the Underworld, the
bones of a creature that once lived must be collected before
the necromancer may cast this spell. Splintering the bones
and piling them on the ground, the necromancer hurls a
ball of blue flame into the pale white kindling, which
bursts into flame. The fire is large but controlled and
always burns a pale blue-white. The light is drowned out by
the strong rays of the sun, and in Creation, the fire will
soon go out. But in the Underworld, the light of the bonfire
burns brightly. Ghosts can see the clear light for miles
through the dreary Underworld, and they are drawn to it.
Any ghosts who peer into the flame during the hour
in which it persists can look in upon any of their Fetters
with perfect clarity, without the requisite Arcanoi. This is
often a boon for which ghosts are willing to pay, either in
goods or in services.
DEATH FLIES TWO SAILS
Cost: 14 motes (seven committed)
Target: One sailing vessel
There is no safety in sailing upon the Sea of Shadows.
Spectres float on the boundless black waves, vile shadows
are able to seep in with the smallest leak, and hekatonkhire
lurk in the depths and do not always slumber. A necromancer
with this spell need fear none of those things.
Standing with her feet in the lapping waters of the
Underworld’s dark ocean or its murky rivers, she sings an
eerie lullaby to the depths. After seven minutes, the song is