Ritual Magic and Human Sacrifice

[leon]

Virgin sacrifices and whatnot for accomplishing a ritual are the bread and butter of bad guys in fantasy. Yet, while Eldritch Wizardry's cover suggests it, no rules for such stuff exist therein, or in any other supplement.

So the question is: why do bad guys do it in D&D? What do they have to gain from it (apart from sadistic pleasure)? For the anti-cleric we can assume that it's pretty obvious: His dark lord requires him to offer human sacrifices in order to grant him spells. But the magic-user doesn't seem to gain anything out of it. How can that change?

There are some guidelines for sacrifices in EPT (both human and otherwise) in order to ask for divine intervention. And there's also Carcosa, where it has rituals for Sorcerers. I'm considering using these two sources in my game, giving M-Us the sorcerer rituals (and perhaps to clerics as well).

What do you do for ritual magic, if you use it at all?

[bluskreem]

In my generic Mystara/ Phoenix Barony world I introduced a Carcosan "Demonologist" called the hooded one. He was intended to be the BBEG, but the game died out before he got his chance to wreak much havoc, andf the players were more interested in other going-ons anyways.

[grodog]

IIRC some of the rules in The Primal Order may hints at some of this. I'll have to check in a few weeks, though, since those books just got packed up.

IIRC#2 some of the early demonology articles in TD touched on human sacrifice, although not really anything concrete in terms of any derived benefits from doing so.

[leon]

Dec 4, 2010 23:45:28 GMT -6 grodog said:

IIRC some of the rules in The Primal Order may hints at some of this. I'll have to check in a few weeks, though, since those books just got packed up.

You mean the 1992 Wizards of the Coast book?

[thegreyelf]

I included ritual sacrifice in my Secrets of Acheron supplement which goes hand in hand with my Age of Conan rules...but I'm not sure how well it'd attach to a normal D&D magic user as the spellcasting in AoC is completely different.

[rabindranath72]

Not sure it's directly relevant...but Gary Gygax in the DMG discusses how a third level spell would kill someone if the spell were to be powered by life force. From this, you could extrapolate that a sacrifice might grant a bonus third level spell or less, or the casting of such a spell. For each spell level above third, double the number of sacrifices, e.g. 2 persons for a 4th level spell, 4 persons for a 5th level, 8 persons for a 6th level one and so on up to 64 persons for a 9th level spell (a mass sacrifice!)

[leon]

Dec 8, 2010 7:43:51 GMT -6 rabindranath72 said:

Not sure it's directly relevant...but Gary Gygax in the DMG discusses how a third level spell would kill someone if the spell were to be powered by life force. From this, you could extrapolate that a sacrifice might grant a bonus third level spell or less, or the casting of such a spell. For each spell level above third, double the number of sacrifices, e.g. 2 persons for a 4th level spell, 4 persons for a 5th level, 8 persons for a 6th level one and so on up to 64 persons for a 9th level spell (a mass sacrifice!)

Good catch! This paragraph can be used for augmenting spellcasting power through sacrifice. Although the system you propose is a bit too much. Not even the most perverse spellcaster would kill 64 people in order to gain 1 additional 9th level spell (not worth the trouble considering a 20th level caster can cast 2 9th level spells without much trouble).

Here's a thought: For each (sentient) creature you sacrifice you gain 3 spell slots which you can use to cast any spell you know and can cast. Each spell level costs 1 spell slot. So by sacrificing 1 creature you can cast 3 1st level spells, one 2nd and one 1st, or one third level spell.

Perhaps more powerful creatures have a more powerful life force. So you gain one additional spell slot for each HD above the first. For example a 2 HD creature would grant 4 spell slots and a 12 HD creature 14 slots.

[leon]

Dec 8, 2010 7:12:21 GMT -6 thegreyelf said:

I included ritual sacrifice in my Secrets of Acheron supplement which goes hand in hand with my Age of Conan rules...but I'm not sure how well it'd attach to a normal D&D magic user as the spellcasting in AoC is completely different.

I read the relevant section (great work BTW!) and it would prove problematic with D&D since, unlike Chainmail, spellcasters don't roll anything for casting spells.