Hero's Journey

Rules

This ritual is part of Urizen lore rather than Imperial lore.

Urizen Lore

This ritual is part of Urizen lore rather than Imperial lore. Any Urizen character with the appropriate lore can master or perform this ritual. A character from another nation who mastered the ritual before it became part of Urizen lore may still perform it, but does so under the usual rules for performing a ritual learned from a ritual text.

Performing the Ritual

Performing this ritual takes at least 2 minutes of roleplaying. This ritual targets a character, who must be present throughout. The target character must possess the hero skill. This ritual is an enchantment. A target may only be under one enchantment effect at a time.

Effects

The target gains two additional hero points. At the completion of the ritual, they receive a mystic vision related to things that are happening, have happened or may happen at the event. The information is often cryptic and is not a catalogue of events that will happen, but rather the suggestion of things that are likely to happen, or that are relevant to those events.

An individual target can receive only one vision at each event; whether that be from this ritual, contributing to Signs and Portents, consuming Goosewhisper Infusion, or any other method.

While under the enchantment, they also experience a roleplaying effect: You are keenly aware of the significance of any impending social or martial confrontation. You feel the urge to carefully prepare for the forthcoming conflict, to ensure they are worthy of a hero's name. You find it hard to contemplate shying away from this confrontation, no matter the danger.

The effect lasts until the start of the next Profound Decisions Empire event.

Additional Targets

This ritual can affect additional characters from the same banner. Each additional character increases the magnitude by 11. Additional characters must be present throughout.

OOC Elements

The result of this ritual is liable to be delivered in the form of an out-of-character written vision, acquired from GOD or the referee processing the ritual. The target is free to roleplay however they like - they may play through the process of receiving the vision, or act as if they have been in a waking trance and the vision has already passed. As the vision is purely out-of-character information, it is important not to show it to other players.

As with Signs and Portents, it is not possible to direct this ritual to gain information about specific topics. It also doesn't matter where the ritual is performed - a single pool of visions exists that Signs and Portents and similar effects draw on.

Description

This ritual was added to Urizen lore by the Crescent's Eye, a group of Kallavesi mystics, in reciprocity following the illuminates of the Stallions Volition gift of Dissipating Silks to Runesmith's Law after the consecration of Elos docks. It relies on combining the resonances of inspiration and emotions, granting the target a vision of an important event that was, is or might be and enflaming their passions to go and be the hero that bends the weave of fate to their will, just as the Fist of the Mountains did in their last stand on the shores of Redoubt.

Initially, academics at the Heliopticon questioned why two disparate effects were combined into a single ritual. It would surely be more efficient to have one ritual that grants the target visions similar to Signs and Portents, and one ritual that grants additional reserves of heroic strength like Champions Shining Resolve. The visiting mystics stated there those two rituals bore no similarity to Hero's Journey, in the way that simply having a field and flower is not the same as tasting honeybread. A second question was raised as to how a ritual of such magnitude was codified seemingly with the use of a college of magic or aid of an eternal. The visiting mystics again cryptically responded that they looked into the future where the text had already been made, and aligned their dreams with it. The ritual had already been made; it was simply a matter of acquiring it from themselves.

Stormcrows from the delegation to Canterspire advised that the ritual was best employed in combination with the practice of guided dreaming and employing a relevant aura to aid the target in pursuing the objective revealed to them. Other priests were somewhat suspicious about allowing Night magic to have such an intimate role in guiding the path of the souls of the faithful.

This ritual creates similar effects to the Goosewhisper Infusion. Experimentation has suggested that the potion and the ritual both allow one to reach the same extended state of consciousness - visions received using the potion are the same visions created by multiple uses of the ritual, and vice versa (OOC Note: This means that a given individual has only one vision each event, regardless of whether they are using a ritual or a potion).

Common Elements

Performance of this ritual is often done in a somewhat closed setting, with the members of the coven sat around a supine target, guiding them through the visions as they tell them to the casters, encouraging them in their agency to affect the visions that they are seeing. The members of the coven themselves often each hold some trinket belonging to, or symbolising the target, aligning themselves with the skein or essence of the recipient.

Astronomancers are advised to use the Door or the Stallion in this ritual, but under no circumstances the Wanderer, so as not to invite disaster. Unsurprisingly, Gralm and Ull are the most resonant runes for the ritual, though ones the Urizen are least familiar with using given how tied they are to the culture of the three traditions.

Goeticists argue back and forth on whether it is more likely to help or to harm to invoke Janon in the casting of the ritual; it is a matter of personal (and acquired) taste for a coven to do so.