The Ignoblis Ritae (Sabbat)

Common Ignoblis Ritae The common Ignoblis Ritae include: • Acceptance: This ritus inducts a True Sabbat into a preexisting pack, making that individual a full member of the coven. Typically, an Acceptance ritus is a game or individual challenge for all members of the pack, establishing the new hierarchy of dominance. If the individual does well, she is respected as an equal. If she does poorly, she may not be allowed to join the pack at all. This ritual is also performed to celebrate the sect’s acceptance of new True Sabbat when they are given Initiation through the Creation Rites. • Danse Macabre (also called the Farewell Ritus): This Ignoblis is more somber than others, and packs use it to bid farewell to the spirits and memories of fellow Sabbat after they have been destroyed. The farewell rites usually involve each person in attendance offering a sacrifice to go with the departed. When this ritual is performed on a nomadic pack leaving an area, these sacrifices are often gifts given to help that pack survive its travels. • Running the Gauntlet: This ritus includes physical games and challenges involving direct combat between two or more participants, always performed in some public manner, so that the rest of the Sabbat can watch and learn from the battle. • Sacrificial Rites: This ritual involves the sacrifice of a human, werewolf, or vampire. Typically, the first half of this ritus is a challenge to acquire an appropriate sacrifice (alive and not significantly harmed). Such a sacrifice is usually defined at the start of the ritus, and then the vampires are sent to perform the task. If they succeed, the sacrifice is performed in the bloodiest method possible, and its remains are left behind so that the enemies of the Sabbat can see, and fear, the power of the Sword of Caine. • Stealth: The Ignoblis Ritae of stealth come in many varieties, from vowing silence and cutting out tongues, to see who can remain silent the longest, to physical tests of silence, such as moving through a Camarilla-controlled area without gaining the attention of the enemy. • Sun Dance: The Sun Dance ritus is held from sunset to sunrise without pause. Pack members usually dress in masks or paint, depicting their greatest battles or most significant points of pride. The Sun Dance is a test of endurance; no wounds may be healed from the moment the ritus begins to the moment the sun rises on the next morning. The ritus involves chanting, dancing, counting coup upon other sect members (through a single strike) and praising one’s pack accomplishments. • Vision Quest: In some packs, if an individual wishes to become leader or seeks guidance from Caine, she goes on a vision quest. The Sabbat member’s vision quest involves meditation, starvation (no feeding for at least a week before the ritus), and a pageant play by her pack and associates. The topic of the pageant is always a relevant story of Caine or of vampiric myth and history, related to the individual’s questions and concerns. The individual seeking enlightenment watches this pageant (along with any other audience, often at an esbat). If her faith is stalwart enough, she is said to receive a vision of a course of action, though doubters say this may simply be hunger and the will of the Beast rising within her psyche.

System Participating in an Ignoblis Ritae provides a +1 wild card bonus to one challenge performed within the next three nights. Once this bonus is used, it is lost until you participate in another Ignoblis Ritae. This bonus must benefit an action that parallels the specific Ignoblis performed. For example, if your pack creates a ritae that involves dodging burning coals as they are hurled at you, you might use the +1 bonus of the Ignoblis to Dodge, or to resist a frenzy brought on by fire, but you cannot use it to shoot a pistol or attempt to use a Dominate power. A character cannot possess a bonus from more than one Ignoblis Ritae at a time.

Ignoblis Symbels On occasion, members of the Sabbat will participate in social duels: symbels. These symbels are Ignoblis Ritae, and they tend to be darker and bloodier than the archaic practice might suggest. The Sabbat is comprised of vampires who relish their undead nature, and they enjoy the act of frenzy and the release it provides, allowing their Beast to show dominance. Symbel duels tend to be actual fights, competitions to the first blood or some predetermined losing condition. Ordeals tend to be genuine tests of endurance, fortitude, and courage, designed to prove oneself to the sect or to humiliate the other competitors. A member of the Sabbat thinks nothing of brutalizing her fellow members in the name of fun or to show that she is the superior predator. A symbel in the Sabbat isn’t a light-hearted challenge; it is a matter of ambition and preeminence, a way to humiliate one’s rivals before things escalate to Monomacy. Both the clergy hierarchy and the Vicars of the political factions pay close attention to how a Sabbat member performs in symbel challenges. Proving oneself in these bloody confrontations can break a vampire’s reputation or open a door to rank or leadership in combat, elevating her personal power within the sect. Victors of an Ignoblis symbel receive the fleeting status Victorious.