Thirst of the Devourer
While Agramant is subject to the enmity of the Imperial Conclave, it is illegal to perform this ritual.
Rules
Winter Magnitude 24
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.
This ritual is an enchantment. A target may only be under one enchantment effect at a time.
Effects
Whenever the target succesfully delivers an IMPALE in melee, they immediately regain up to three lost hits. The ritual does not grant the target any ability to call IMPALE.
While under this enchantment, the target experiences a roleplaying effect: Whenever you regain hits due to this enchantment, you feel a rush of power and confidence. Once you have used this ability once, you feel an urge to experience it again even when they are not injured.
The effect lasts until the start of the next Profound Decisions Empire event.
Description
This enchantment clearly calls on similar resonances as Coil of the Black Leech, there are some suggestions in the original text that it was codified at a similar time. How trustworthy those notes are is difficult to sy; the Black Drop Society It draws on a formal agreement between mortal magicians and the eternal Agramant.
Thirst of the Devourer entered Urizen lore shortly before the Winter Solstice 384YE, as part of a book entitled Ceremonies of the Black Drop Society. The attendants of the Great Library were deeply uncomfortable with the rituals in that book and their presence among Urizen lore, more due to their illegal nature than any sentimental concerns about their origin. They were apparently all submitted at the same time as Treacher's Quill, but Phaleron itself intervened to delay their appearance in lore while it pondered how best to respond. In the end it decided to do the only reasonable thing; present the rituals to the Urizen as part of their lore as agreed when the lore was established. The Celestial Library does not enjoy causing trouble for its Urizeni allies, but the Gift of Knowledge is available to every Imperial citizen; it cannot pick and choose who can contribute rituals via the ritual.
The Childer of the Black Drop were a sorcerous cabal of magicians well-versed in Winter lore who were committed to collecting every scrap of lore they could find about the eternal Agramant. While they claimed to be seeking some kind of weakness that could be exploited to protect the Empire completely from his depredations, all thirteen members were - perhaps inevitably - declared sorcerers by the Imperial Conclave in Summer 354YE. In pursuit of their quest they had apparently used magic in very unwise ways - mastering rituals that drew on the power of Blood-on-the-Snow to "better understand his dark temptations". They were unrepentant, and eight of their members were killed in the resulting fracas. Five of them - Johann Perivale von Sarvos, Wilhelm Ecaso di Temeschwar, Padik Tarvin of Tassato Mestra, Tomazi duPain de Holberg, and Jodeya Watiker di Tassato Mestra - were unaccounted for. Shortly before the Summer Solstice 384YE, the bodies of four of the remaining members were discovered in a cottage in the Vardstein Vale. The final surviving Child of the Black Drop - Jodeya Watiker di Tassato Mestra was only recently accounted for, and there is speculation that she may have been responsible for using Gift of Knowledge to place this wicked ritual into Urizen lore.
Common Elements
Often involves drinking of the ritualist's blood. Rune of Hunger. Claw.