Subject: More rituals
From: [email-masked] (Benson Fong)
Date: Wed, 21 May 1997 19:28:51 -0700

I was rereading some of Randall Garret's "Lord Darcy" stories, and some
of the spells struck me as good Voodoo-style rituals.  Here are two:

Loyal Object
Defaults to (I dunno; appropriate path-4?)
     This ritual prevents the caster from being separated from prized
possessions for too long.  The ritual may be cast on any portable object
and begins working at any time the caster wills it to.  When set into
operation, the next person who passes by the object and happens to be
heading in the general direction of the caster will pick it up and carry it
along with him.  If he goes in a different direction, he will put the
object down.  The next person heading towards the caster will then pick it
up until he changes direction or reaches his destination, leaving it for
the next person, and so on.  Eventually, the object will make it back to
the caster.
     Passers-by will only move the object if it is convienient for them to
do so.  For example, they may cross a room to pick it up, but not cross a
river, go through doors, or get it from a concealed or locked location
(unless they happen to be unlocking or uncovering the object's location
anyway).  Likewise, a pen or book will move quickly, since they are light
and very portable, while a stone statue will likely stay where it is unless
a group of professional bodybuilders with a pickup truck happen to drop by.
The ritual will not work on someone who recieves or steals the object
directly from the caster, and carriers get a Will roll minus the caster's
level of initiation to resist carrying obviously dangerous objects or
disobeying orders against carrying such an object.  Carriers will be
unaware of what they are doing, and people who aren't carrying the object
will ignore it entirely.
     The speed with which the object returns to the caster is up to the GM.
A gym bag full of magical equipment can make its way from one side of a
major city to another in as little as a few hours, while a sword lost in
the underbrush during a battle may take months or years to come to light,
and just as long to make its way from a small village to the big city where
its owner lives.

Reassemble
Defaults to (I dunno; appropriate path-5?)
     This ritual operates a bit like a rewind button.  Cast over a volume
(up to the caster's Initiation squared square yards), any objects in that
area that were once part of a now-broken whole will "back up" and
temporarily rejoin with other pieces.  For example, broken bits of pottery
will resume the shape of their vessel, or fallen buttons will hop back onto
a garment.  An extremely powerful caster could restore fallen castle walls
or push an avalanche back up a hill.  This does not restore the broken
object, but rather puts the pieces into their original position.  In the
case of the castle wall, the pieces are likely to stay where they came
from, since they were originally stacked up.  A broken cup or window,
however, will fall apart again when the spell expires.  The caster can hold
an unstable shape together for (Intiation dice - Initiation) x 4 seconds.
A caster with one level of initiation could only hold an object together
for (1d-1) x 4 seconds, while an advanced initiate (level seven) could hold
it together for nearly two and a half minutes (7d-7) x 4.  The GM should
roll the "hold time" in secret.  The caster may attempt to increase the
hold time by making additional skill rolls at -4 for every additional roll
(roll at -4 to double time, roll again at -8 to triple, and so on).
     Once an object is reassembled, the caster may attempt to make the
reassembly permanent.  However, this roll is at -5, plus an additional -1
for every square yard the ritual initially drew material from.  A very
skilled adept might rebuild an entire house or mountainside, although most
will only be able to fix cups and windows.  Permanently reassembling an
object will only fix the pieces together, not create new pieces to fill
in gaps.