Nobody's judging you for your unorthodox witchery, but I just want you to know that I'm here for you if you ever want to talk.
Ritualists are practitioners of blood magic, which in terms of game mechanics mostly means they can save a lot of money by suffering a little pain instead. Many Ritualist abilities carry a cost in Flesh, which means that prudent Ritualists often multiclass as something that has options for restoring it such as Healer or Ghoul.
| Ritualist | Blood for power. | |
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| caret-right | Blood Bond | Share Flesh. |
| caret-right | Harrow | Hurt yourself to hurt them. |
| caret-right | Heartkeeper | Sacrificial hearts spare your flesh. |
| caret-right | Leech | Steal health with attacks. |
| caret-right | Masochism | Losing Flesh restores Energy/Attention. |
| Utility | plus-circleBloodletting: Every time you would need to spend a point of any resource (Provisions, Supplies, Mojo) to power an ability or effect, you can choose to lose a point of Flesh instead and keep your resources. You can even use such effects when you have no resources remaining at all by substituting your own Flesh. minus-circleEffects Only: You cannot use Ritualist to substitute resource costs for things other than powering abilities, such as feeding yourself, repairing damage, mitigating Stress or similar. |
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| Protection | plus-circleLifeline: As an action, you can establish a mystic bond with any creature within 20 meters of your position. You and the other participant in the bond can both choose at any time during your turn as a free action to send one or more points of Flesh to the other participant. The donor loses the Flesh, and the recipient gains it. minus-circleVoluntary Only: Any transfer of Flesh via a Blood Bond must be done voluntarily. You can certainly always ask your partner to send you some Flesh, but you cannot ever compel it from them. minus-circleLimits: You can only create one blood bond at a time, and it disappears at the end of the current exploration turn. Flesh can only be transferred via a blood bond if the participants are within 20 meters of each other. |
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| caret-right | Alternative | plus-circleBlood Network: When you establish a bond, you can choose to establish it with a maximum of five creatures (yourself plus up to four others) at once. Any participant can choose to send Flesh to any other participant so long as they are within the 20 meter range. minus-circleNetworking Cost: Establishing a blood network requires a sacrifice of 1 Flesh. Blood networks disappear at the end of the current exploration turn just like normal blood bonds do. |
make this passive, always on, full group
| Offense | plus-circleHurt People Hurt People: You may choose to lose 1 Energy whenever you make an attack with any weapon. When you do, the attack deals +2 damage. | |
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| caret-right | Alternative | plus-circleDark Knight: You can choose to deal +5 bonus damage instead of the normal +2. minus-circleDeep Wound: Dealing +5 damage causes you to lose 1 Flesh instead of 1 Energy. |
| Offense | plus-circleAdorned With Life: When you strike the killing blow on an enemy, you can remove their heart (or similar life-symbolizing organ) instantly. This adds their heart as an item to your inventory. plus-circleSqueeze Out: The next time you would lose Flesh for any reason (including being attacked or sacrificing it to power an effect) you can choose to destroy carried hearts instead. Every heart destroyed in this manner reduces lost Flesh by 1 point. This can reduce lost Flesh to 0 but not below 0. minus-circleRitualist's Touch: Creatures killed by anybody but you are not ritually pure enough to yield useful hearts. Hearts can be carried by anyone, but can only be used by you and only function when they're in your inventory. minus-circleEven A Cooler Won't Help: Unused hearts rot or otherwise become useless at the end of each session. |
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| Protection | plus-circleBlood Siphon: Whenever you make an attack with any weapon and the trigger die is 10+, you immediately regain 1 point of Energy. | |
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| Protection | plus-circleReaper's Boon: Whenever you make a killing blow with any weapon, you immediately regain 1 point of Flesh. | |
| Protection | plus-circleI Feel So Alive: Pain serves only to energize and focus you. Whenever you lose Flesh for any reason, you restore up to 5 points of both Energy and Attention immediately afterward. minus-circleOverflow Reminder: Energy is limited by Flesh as usual, so you probably won't ever actually regain 5 Energy at once from Masochism. |
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| Protection | plus-circleFlirting With Death: If you use any Ritualist ability to remove your own last point of Flesh, your death and dismemberment roll afterwards is always automatically a 12. | |