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Cost: 15 motes
Target: One creature
This spell requires an Arcane Link.
This simple ritual twists the victim’s spirit, weakening it with the essence of the Underworld and infecting him with a twisted and unquenchable desire for the blood of the living. The sorcerer must have or must forge an arcane link to the victim prior to the beginning of the ritual (such as a bit of hair, or a scrap of clothing), but this is by far the most difficult part of the process. The rest of the ritual takes about 15 minutes, and requires the character have both a simple clay bowl and the blood of a mortal who has lived in a Shadowland for at least the past year or one who has committed cannibalistic acts. The blood is collected in the bowl and stirred lightly with the casters fingers, then eventually dribbled lightly on the arcane link while the caster whispers soft prayers to the Dead Gods. The only sign that this ritual has taken place is that the victim feels a vague sensation of blood on his palate soon after the ritual has been completed.
The victim feels the effects of this curse the next time that he seeks to eat any kind of normal food. No matter what he should attempt to eat, he finds it dry and flavorless on his tongue and even if he forces it down it does nothing to ease his growing hunger. Only nearly raw bloody meat has any flavor at all, and even it only fires the hunger of the character rather than soothing it. At the same time that the character looses all taste for normal food, he finds himself deeply craving blood. In particular, the victim finds that he hungers for living blood, most especially that of his own kind. It is the only thing that retains taste, seeming like sweet nectar, and is the only thing that sooths the gnawing hunger that slowly grows in his gut.
This spell lasts a minimum of one month, assuming the character is able to resist the urge to cannibalism. Though he will grow more and more famished and often convinced that he will waste away to nothing and perish, the victim of this spell will not die of hunger as long as he is able to force down enough bland and tasteless food to stay alive. It usually requires a Willpower roll, difficulty 2, in order to force yourself to eat every day. The hunger does gnaw away at him, however. Every week that the character fails to kill a human being a drink his blood, he looses one point in a Physical Attribute and takes -1 hunger penalty to all actions (including the roll to eat normal food).
If the character gives in to his urge and murders another human, consuming his blood, things immediately get better. Any lost dots that the character was suffering from return to him almost immediately, and the hunger penalty vanishes. However, the curse extends itself for another month for every human being that the victim kills and consumes. The only way to end this curse is with countermagic or a prolonged fast.
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