Ritual of Rejuvenation

This is mostly a plot-device ritual, but I wrote it up since it came to feature pretty prominently in my game.  Its purpose is to extend the life of its caster… perhaps by sinister means.  This is the ritual used by evil magicians to bargain with the Raven Queen, trading others’ lives for their own — but it can also be used by a good magician, albeit less effectively.

Rejuvenation

Level: 15
Category: Binding
Time: 8 hours (and see below)
Duration: Permanent
Component Cost: 5,000 gp (and see below)
Market Price: 7,000 gp
Key Skill: Religion

Rejuvenation treats with the powers of life and death to extend the caster’s natural life span.  The ritual can also turn back the clock, restoring its caster’s body to a younger state.  Any ill effects of aging can be wiped clean, leaving the caster young and vigorous again.

The use of this ritual is a risky proposition.  While the great powers are not unwilling to intercede with the goddess of death, and she herself is not unwilling to bargain, she does not willingly allow any mortal being to escape death’s grasp completely.  Though a powerful magician may delay his own death for decades or even centuries, she will eventually call the debt due.  Inadvertently offending her by a mistake in this ritual might well speed that process along.

The effect of this ritual depends on the result of the skill check:

Higher check results add an additional 50 years per 10 additional points.

The indicated amount of time is added to the character’s maximum life span.  The caster may choose to what extent his body reflects the change.  For instance, an 80-year-old human wizard who achieves a ‘50′ result could choose to appear 18 years old, 30 years old, or 80 years old — but regardless of this choice, his lifespan increases by 100 years, and he gains health and vigor accordingly (which would make for a remarkably hale and spry 80-year-old, for instance).  The caster’s personality and memory are not regressed by this ritual, nor does the caster suffer any ill effects — for instance, the 80-year-old wizard does not regress into infancy unless he chooses to, nor does he forget anything he has learned in his 80 years of life.

A botched ritual that attracts the Raven Queen’s wrath causes the death goddess to take a personal interest in ending the caster’s life.  From that point on, once per week, the caster will be attacked by servitors of the Raven Queen attempting to carry out her sentence — cultists, Sorrowsworn, and otherplanar creatures will all be dispatched until a group succeeds in killing the caster, or until the caster dies through some other means.

The more this ritual is used to extend the caster’s life, the more likely subsequent castings are to draw the Raven Queen’s ire.  The caster suffers a -1 cumulative penalty to his Religion check for each time he has previously cast the ritual, whether it was successful or not.  Attempting to cast the ritual after attracting the Raven Queen’s wrath will automatically fail.

Death is more reluctant to grant reprieve to an epic character; at the epic tier, the material cost of this ritual is 50,000 gp.

"But I need that +2!"

It is possible to conduct a sacrifice as part of this ritual in order to improve the caster’s check result.  A sacrifice can be in the form of wealth, or in the form of another’s life, which is traded for one’s own.

A sacrifice of wealth grants a +2 bonus to the check for every multiple of the material cost.  For instance, an epic caster sacrificing 100,000 gp (in addition to the 50,000 gp cost of the ritual itself) would gain a +4 bonus to the roll.

A sacrifice of blood must be of fey, immortal, natural, or shadow origin, and must be a living humanoid, beast or magical beast.  A humanoid or a magical beast with Intelligence of 6 or greater grants a bonus to the skill check equal to its level.  A humanoid or magical beast with Intelligence 5 or lower, or any beast, grants a bonus equal to half its level, rounded down, with a maximum of +4.

Multiple creatures may be sacrificed by a driven or desperate caster.  In this case, the caster gains the highest bonus for any individual creature, and an additional +2 for each doubling (approximately) of the number of sacrifices.  Sacrificing 4 creatures is worth a +4; 8, +6; 16, +8; and so forth.  Sacrificing unintelligent humanoids, magical beasts, or beasts still cannot produce a bonus greater than +4 — the Raven Queen considers such lives of little worth in comparison to the magician’s.

It takes at least one day to properly prepare a sacrifice for the ritual before the 8-hour casting time can begin.  In the case of a large sacrifice (such as an entire village), the GM may rule that additional time is required.

Musings

This is a little kludgey, since it was developed partly out of necessity.  In particular, I’m thinking that the whole sacrifice bit should probably be a separate ritual, one which serves to empower other rituals (or at least other religious rituals) in general.

Although the whole extending-my-life-span shtick is a classic wizard bit, the flavor of this ritual cries out for Religion as its basis.  This may be because I developed the evil version initially, and retconned in the unaligned, no-blood-sacrifice-necessary version later, since it seemed to make sense.  It’s a Binding ritual because it represents a bargain with the Raven Queen (or with a patron power who will in turn bargain with the Raven Queen).  An argument could easily be made for Restoration, although that would make the key skill Heal, still not Arcana.  Honestly, I don’t see anything wrong with using Arcana or even, with a little refluffing, Nature as the key skill here.

I based the cost off Raise Dead.  That’s the ‘value’ of  ‘a new life,’ right?  And extending your lifespan by 50 or 100 years effectively grants you a new life…

I’ve been thinking that perhaps this should grant an additional percentage of base lifespan, instead of a fixed number of years.  Haven’t done anything with that idea yet, though.  It wouldn’t be too hard to jury-rig by changing each instance of “years” in the table to “%”.

Potions of Longevity would kind of make this ritual obsolete.  Thing is, I never liked Potions of Longevity; they seemed like an easy out.  I do like the evil sacrifice on the altar in order to stave off death for another century, though.  I also like when death inevitably catches up, which is the reason that cumulative penalty is in there.  Eventually, the caster will fail, and death will be waiting…

The numbers might be a little generous.  In game, the point is generally for the PCs to interrupt the ritual and rescue the sacrifices.  Upping the penalty to -2 per casting or reducing or capping the sacrifice bonus helps to address that, if you’re worried.  But how many adventurers or major NPCs die of old age?  Precious few, really…

Related posts:

1. Defining the Raven Queen
2. Encountering the Raven Queen
3. Seeking the Raven Queen
4. Fox Magic: Martial Feats
5. Virtue: A Homebrew Alignment Variant