When a Ritual or a Curse is cast against a victim, in practice we consider the case of a Player's Character, one shall consider the following parameters:

  • The Power of the Ritual (or Malediction), taking the form of a Level of at least 1 and reaching in some cases very high values (beware!), in function of the Power and Skill of the one or several performers and of the quality of their work;
  • Its Effect: in function of the distance to the victim in terms of space (or time?), the consequences for him or her;

For the remaining, the summoning of the Lwa is generally performed once per night, at the highest moment of a ceremony where numerous persons can possibly gather. It can happen that the incantation be cast a second or even a third time in case of failure during the first attempts but it rarely happens during the same night because Possession Rituals are extremely exhausting. As well, Rituals for Maledictions are not to be taken lightly, even for the most powerful Bokor, because then intervene the Lwa directly and it is never a good thing to disturb a Lwa without a good reason…

There is thus no big difference with the case of the Puppets and Talismans, except on the following points:

  • The Voodoo Power which can result from a Ritual can be enormous because it can surge from the association of the Power of several Voodoo Priests, that of the possessed persons by the one or several Lwa, as well as a part of that of the other participants…
  • Power of the Ritual or Malediction effects generally only once and there is thus only one Roll in Opposition to do for the victim. If the Ritual is performed several times, it is generally after previous failures and over a sufficient duration for the performer to recover from one time to the other.
  • The Effects of a Ritual or Malediction are most of the time terrible and they often engage the life of the victim… And everything would only be decided on one Roll of a Dice!? Well, since their action can spread over quite a long period of time before taking its full effect, that still lets the possibility for the victim to become aware of something before the end, which can be simulated by making additional Rolls. The results of those Rolls cannot influence anymore the Effects of the Malediction but they can lead the victim to become aware that something abnormal happens.
  • If some Talismans partially protect or support fighting against the Effects of a Ritual or Malediction, it is most of the time only through the performance of another Ritual that it is possible to completely block and undo them…

To finish, let us take an example to show what can be the Power of a Ritual performed at a Voodoo ceremony where participate:

Two Mambo (Power 16 and 14), about a hundred participants (each participant contribute one Point in case he or she get a Critical Success in a Roll versus pure Power – hence let's say + 5 Points for the present case - which can also statistically be dertermine to avoid throwing a hundred times the Dice!), of which one is rode by Baron Saturday at the culminating point of the Ritual (+ 11 Points coming from the Power of the possessed person); that Ritual can thus be considered having a total Power of 46, of which to deduct some points, according to the type of Ritual and the distance at which the victim is, let's say, –3 per kilometer)… It is clear that even someone like our friend Berthomeu had better be very far away!

Please note that we have on purpose not fixed, in those rules, very precise parameters for Rituals and Maledictions. The reason is that the Voodoo is fundamentaly extremely various in its forms and that the Power delivered in our World by the Lwa can vary considerably, as well quantitatively as qualitatively. In other words, we leave it up to you again, friend Game Master, to decide on the best choice, case by case, for the good development of your Scenarii!

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