TheKaishar/RitualOfRebirth
Ritual of Rebirth (Void Circle)
Originally authored by Brandon L. Quina, aka CrownedSun\\ Cost: 50 motes
The transformation from living to undeath is a delicate one. At first, the Necromancer simply learns to play with the basic clay of life and imbue it with some of the energy of death, raw spirits suited to little more than hunger and gross motor skills. Zombies are primitive unintelligent things, useful perhaps in numbers but lacking many redeeming qualities otherwise. Later, the Necromancer begins to perfect the art of raising the detritus of life and bringing it unlife. He brings the art of Zombie-creation to its pinnacle, fitting as much free will and intelligence as possible into the rotting shell of a once-mortal. All of this was accomplished in the First Age, pioneered by Twilight Caste Exalted who explored the boundaries between Life and Death. None, however, reached the final plateau.
The Deathlords carried the science of reanimation forward, discovering new and more potent magic’s. First, it was largely a matter of scale. Ensuring the rise of all the Hungry Ghosts slain with an area, or creating hordes of less powerful zombies. Eventually, however, the Deathlord Eye and Seven Despairs began to experiment with the human soul, and it’s connection to its body. He gathered much knowledge during these days, exchanging knowledge with other Deathlords and leaving more in his wake. Knowledge of Shadow was taken from the Father of Darkness, leaving in return knowledge crucial to the creation of shadowy-specters. The Lover Clad in a Raiment of Tears showed him much of preventing decay, keeping the body whole – what she received in return is not widely known. The Dowager of the Irreverent Vulgate in Unrent Veils had already shown him much of the nature of the human soul, in the distant past, and he put that knowledge to use as he experimented with fell powers. What started as a quest to create a new and more potent form of animate dead became something else, a quest to join the soul with the flesh?
Kaishar is a word literally meaning “Reborn” in Old Realm, typically used to describe God-Blooded who are taken into Godhood. The term was not familiar, though, and remained largely one of the interest to the Savants – few formally mortal Gods wished reminders of their mortality and thus the term was shunned, until the Eye and Seven Despairs sought a name for the newly created being that he had unleashed. The Rebirth of a Kaishar is a delicate process, affixing the soul of a recently deceased supplicant with his body – or, more rarely, with the body of another being. The Ritualistic Death of the supplicant must occur during Calibration, when the walls between the Underworld and Creation are thinnest.
The Supplicant was very likely gathered far before his reanimation; for the Rebirth is most trying and only the strongest of souls can survive the transitions. First, the Supplicant must have a Willpower score higher than 7 and at least one virtue over 3 (most animators have a favorite Virtue which they favor for their Kaishar). Stamina, and Intelligence must both be three or higher. The preparations for the rebirth result in the subject learning Lore and Occult 2, if he did not know them beforehand. Most learn the “Necromancy” specialty of Occult.
The actual Death of the Supplicant is on the eve of the first night of Calibration, at the end of an hours long ceremony. The Supplicant has already gone over this process several times before the day of his rebirth, and a single misstep here dooms the entire process. The Supplicant must make an Intelligence + Occult (Necromancy) roll, requiring at least one success else the subject reincarnates as normal (or falls into Oblivion, depending). Death is usually by knife, though the executioner (which need not be the caster) must be careful not to damage the body too much (Dexterity + Medicine, difficulty-3). If the subject struggles at all during the execution, the ritual is ruined – roll the subjects Willpower, possibly with Conviction dice added in as well.
Once the Supplicant is dead, the difficult part of the ritual begins. Most times the process of preparation has already begun before Calibration, with alterations in the subjects diet some weeks before his death. However, the actual process cannot begin until the soul has vacated the body and been placed within a Bauble of the Captive Soul. The Body must be treated in various alchemical solutions, anointed with various reagents gathered from the Underworld, and kept out of the Sun for the entire week of Calibration – if at any point he is reached by Sunlight during this time period, even the Anima of a Solar, the ritual is ruined as the body begins to rot. The various ingredients of reanimation typically require an expenditure of about 5 minae (400 dinars). The process itself requires most of Calibration, and the timing is crucial. If it takes too long to prepare the body the ritual will fail as the final stages will occur after Calibration itself has ended.
The actual recalling the spirit is quite simple, but the timing adds a measure of urgency to the entire process. The ritual must be finished by the hour of midnight in calibration, and cannot be begun until night has fallen on the final day. The set-up is somewhat time consuming, and if the body is not properly prepared the Kaishar is flawed. However, assuming everything goes well the body undergoes its rebirth into Death.
The new-born Kaishar must then be fed the blood of a sacrifice, as an offering to the Dark Gods that oversaw the ritual. Failure to offer this ritual sacrifice (which can, and often is, voluntarily and need not be fatal) results in the Kaishar being shortly overcome with undying rage against its creator. The newborn Kaishar, after it’s offering of blood, is typically quite disoriented and has few memories of its prior life. These will return to him in a number of weeks equal to his Intelligence, albeit slowly and often not entirely complete. Kaishar tend to view the world in a somewhat detached and impersonal way due to these incomplete memories of life.
The exact properties of a Kaishar vary from individual to individual, but certain common threads run along the reanimates as a whole. Kaishar have a Personal (but not Peripheral) Essence Pool, which can only be rebuilt by drinking the blood of the living similar to the process used by an Abyssal. They also exhibit a number of Charm-like abilities, only a few at first but with the capability of learning more as they grow in power and experience. These are based on their Attributes, much like Lunar Exalted, though are much more individually weak.
Physical Attributes have charms that increase the power and puissance of the Kaishar, lending him great strength or the ability to shrug off mighty blows. Social Attributes are used for empathic and mental control as well as shapeshifting. Mental Attributes can heighten senses, or exert control over the outside world and its elements.
The drawbacks of the process are generally well known, the most pressing of which is the presence of the Seed of Oblivion within the Kaishar, which rages at its eternal existence and seeks to drag its host into corruption and final dissolution. This soul-half has been known to occasionally take control of the Kaishar, using him in various ways to fulfill its own goals and the Goals of the Dark Gods. In addition, the Kaishar is deeply alienated from humanity and becomes even more so as its existence continues.
