So you want to learn Blood Magic eh?

The Discipline of Thaumaturgy encompasses blood magic and other sorcerous arts. Thaumaturgy is the unique possession of the Tremere and one of its most jealously guarded secrets. As such all this knowlege is strictly OOC information, not every Tremere knows all of these powers or of their existance.

Thaumaturgy is a versatile and powerful Discipline. Like Necromancy, its practice is divided into two parts: paths and rituals. Thaumaturgical paths are applications of the vampire's knowledge of blood magic, allowing her to create effects at her whim. Rituals are more formulaic in nature, most akin to the ancient magical "spells" of bygone nights. Because so many different paths and rituals are available to the arcane Tremere, one never knows what to expect when confronted with a practitioner of this Discipline.

When a character first learns Thaumaturgy, the player selects a path for the character. That path is considered the character's primary path, whenever the character increases her level in Thaumaturgy, her score in the primary path increases by one as well.

Thaumaturgical Paths

Paths define the types of magic a vampire can perform. A vampire typically learns his primary path from his sire, though it is not unknown for some vampires to study under many different tutors and learn all their secrets.

Secondary paths may be learned once the character has acquired two or more dots in her primary path, and they must be raised separately with experience points. Furthermore, a character's rating in her primary path must always be at least one dot higher than any of her secondary paths until she has mastered her primary path. Once the character has achieved mastery of the fifth level of her primary path, secondary paths may be increased to that level.

Each time the character invokes one of the powers of a Thaumaturgical path, the thaumaturge must spend a blood point and make a Willpower rll against a difficulty of the power's level + 3. Only one success is required to invoke a path's effect - path levels, not successes, govern the power of blood magic. Failure on this roll indicates that the blood magic fails, while a botch signifies that the character loses a PERMANENT Willpower point. Obviously, Thaumaturgy is not an art in which one merely "dabbles."

Thaumaturgical Rituals

Rituals are Thaumaturgical formulas, meticulously researched and prepared, that create powerful magical effects. Rituals are less versatile than paths, as their effects are singular and straightforward, but they are better suited toward specific ends.

All Thaumaturges have the ability to use rituals, though each individual ritual must be learned seperately. Cost in experience is the level of the ritual in experience points.

Rituals are rated from 1 to 8, each level corresponding wto both the level of mastery of Thaumaturgy the would-be caster must possess and the relative power of the ritual itself. Unless stated otherwise, a ritual requires five minutes per level to cast. Casting rituals requires a sucesseful Intelligence + Occult roll, for which the difficulty equals 3 + the level of the ritual (maximum 9). Only one success is required for the ritual to work, though certain spells may require more successes or have variable effects based on how well the caster's roll goes. Should a roll to activate a ritual fail, the Storyteller is encouraged to create strange occurences or side effects, or even make it appear that the ritual was successful, only to reveal it's failure at a later time. A botched ritual roll may even indicate a catastrophic failure or summon an ill-tempered demon...