Here is Chapter One, a look at the Camarilla and the Tremere thaumaturges within it. In my notes, I asked Jason to dig deeper into some of the topics discussed here: more material around how the other Camarilla clans interact with and use the Tremere, as well as expansion on the personal cost of being reviled by outsiders and used as a cog by your own Clan. I cut a few rituals to make room for that material, but I’m building a file of cut material to use in some way down the road (perhaps as a free release, a Kickstarter stretch goal, or something else).
Comments
8 responses to “The Ivory Tower”
Something I’d like is a clear statement on how you can learn Blood Magic: it’s like an in-clan Discipline (meaning that you need a Mentor for learning all the basic), an occult knowledge (meaning that a Brujah with a knack for occult can learn Necromancy from a grimoire stolen to the local Giovanni) or both (you need a Mentor for learning all the basic and then you can advance your knowledge with lore gathered somewhere)?
It is learned like a Discipline.
About the image: I gotta say… that syringe seems a bit redundant at that point. Also, vampires and Tupperware makes me chuckle.
That all being said… I think he missed the pot a bit (guys are so bad at aiming.)
Okay, okay… enough commentary about the image from me. 🙂
It’s just an image I found online.
I just wanted to say I love everything about this chapter, and would almost call it damn near perfect.
Great job!
Adam
Thank you, Adam. It was a lot of fun to write.
This has less to do with the chapter than with the book in general, but I just read this…
Terms like ‘thaumaturge’ and ‘sorcerer’ and ‘blood magician’ all seem interchangeable here, and I’m not sure that’s right. It was just this kind of terminology creep (or sloppiness, or whatever one calls it) that led to the frustrating feel of Second Edition ‘Everybody has Thaumaturgy!’ I felt that Revised Edition fixed a lot of that, but Rites of Blood has some of that same creep to it. Of course, that’s just my take on it.
Other than the above and some irritating pronoun confusion (why yes, I DO have a degree in English!), I really love the chapter!
What do you feel the distinctions are? What would you offer as an acceptable generic term for someone who uses any form of blood magic?