A Ritual of Blood

Blood Ritual: Blooding the Soldiers
A Soldier is only as good as the training he's received. And a soldier with no real combat experience is no soldier. This ritual is known by very few ven. Only the Mwrr family knows it and they don't give it out freely. The ritual is designed to give soldiers the combat experience they will need if they are to protect and/or conquer for their Liege. It is Bloody, it is effective, and sometimes, it is deadly. When a noble ven conscripts a personal guard or secret army, the sorcerer will go out with the army on the eve of their first battle. The battle is usually against a soft target, one that can be easily defeated. The target doesn't even have to be against another guard or army. As I said it is designed to give experience not to conquer. The sorcerer cuts himself and bleeds into a large bowl. The soldiers then wash their hands in the blood as the sorcerer performs the ritual. As the blood is still wet on their hands, they charge into battle.

Blooding the Soldiers Ritual
A ven can only learn this ritual by using a story adventure. If they succeed in the story adventure, then they may spend a season action to learn the ritual. Once he knows the ritual the sorcerer swears never to reveal it to anyone. Well anyone that is not Blood of the Serpent, more specifically, anyone not of the Mwrr family. This ritual may only be used on green soldiers, soldiers that have not seen combat. Otherwise it doesn't work. Only PC or NPC characters may perform it. Ranked Vassals may not know this ritual. When the Ritual is performed the sorcerer cuts himself and takes at least a rank 2 injury. The Personal Guard or Secret Army then washes their hands in the blood as the sorcerer performs the rest of the ritual. The Personal Guard or Secret Army then gains a number of dice equal to the rank of the injure on their very next attack. So if the sorcerer give himself a rank 5 injure, the guard or army gains 5 dice to use during the attack. After the attack, whether successful or not, the Personal Guard or Secret Army becomes a rank 1 Band Vassal. Although they have 1 free bonus dice to use on all actions that correspond to their duties. This bonus dice lasts a number of seasons equal to the rank of the injury the sorcerer received, minus one. So the sorcerer that gave himself a rank 5 injury, the Personal Guard or Secret Army would have the bonus dice for 4 Seasons. Were as if the sorcerer only gave himself the minimum rank 2 injury, then the Personal Guard or Secret Army would only have the bonus dice for 1 season. Also the injury the sorcerer gave himself in order to perform this ritual doesn't heal at the normal rate. It takes 1 season per rank. So even the rank 2 injure that normally would heal in 2 days takes 2 seasons to completely heal.


I'm not completely satisfied so I'll be still working on the details. I think I will run it by the folks at the HotB Forums.

Blood makes the soil rich!

Blood makes the soil rich!

Blood makes the soil rich!