TEXT: EN World EN5IDER | Fell Ritual Boons
  EN World EN5IDER | Fell Ritual Boons
   
  writing Mike Myler
   color art Sade
   
  editing James J. Haeck
   
  layout Eric Life-Putnam
  Fell Ritual Boons
  F
  ell rites are usually the purview oF 
  NPCs—cult masters, demon-worshiping 
  nobles, and mad priests—but not always! 
  There are games in where engaging despicable 
  acts or being a corrupted protagonist is intended. 
  “Fell Ritual Boons” is for these players and GMs—
  if you are out to slay dragons and save princes, 
  the following discussions and character options 
  may not be for you—but if you’re comfortable 
  with dwelling in the darkness, please read on for 
  advice on running an evil game!
  
  Fell Ritual Boons | EN World EN5IDER
  Fell Ritual Boons | EN World EN5IDER
  Consent
  Ambiance is important whenever evil plays a 
  palpable central role that goes beyond simplistic 
  motivations for NPCs and for this reason alone 
  a GM should seek the consent of everyone in a 
  gaming group. Jokes and quips are a frequent part 
  of most games, but if the content of a campaign 
  is about candle-lit rituals and gruesome acts, the 
  tone of a session will fall apart quickly due to 
  light-hearted commentary (no matter how funny). 
   Consent should also be a concern for GMs as 
  not every player is necessarily prepared for a 
  long, graphic description of someone having their 
  legs slowly torn off by a monstrous demon. What 
  if a player has actually witnessed an industrial 
  accident where someone lost their legs? While 
  that certainly has the capacity to be an extremely 
  memorable and horrifying experience for that 
  player, they (very understandably) may not want 
  to be reminded of it. Have a group conversation 
  of what players are and aren’t comfortable with 
  and consider the following topics when seeking 
  the consent of a gaming group before engaging in 
  macabre horror roleplay:
   
  ▶ Decapitation or Disembowelment
   
  ▶ Dismemberment
   
  ▶ Extremely Graphic Violence
   
  ▶ Religious Violence
   
  ▶ Sexual Violence
   
  ▶ Torture
  With a baseline for what is or is not acceptable 
  territory for the game to traverse, the GM can craft 
  narratives and plot arcs that explore the darker 
  sides of roleplaying games. These should create 
  ample opportunities for players to be despicable 
  and vile, pushing the boundaries of morality and 
  encouraging them to walk ever darker paths. In 
  situations like this a common problem tends 
  to arise very quickly: teamwork. After all, why 
  should the cutthroat mercenary suffer the prattling 
  of a mage that takes coin that could be hers; 
  why should a power-hungry dark priest tolerate 
  anyone other than themselves benefiting from his 
  sacrifice? In short, avarice and greed can be just as 
  damning to an evil game as comedy.
  Circumstances and Pacts
  Evil PCs are naturally disposed to being, well, evil, 
  and that doesn’t exactly encourage equality and 
  teamwork. While this can be great in the context 
  of a narrative toolset, it makes for a challenging, 
  sometimes difficult experience in a tabletop 
  gaming environment. To address this issue, GMs 
  can make use of a few different tools to help keep 
  a group of diabolical adventurers from tearing 
  one another’s throats out.
   Plot. The first and foremost route that a GM 
  should use to unify evil PCs is the narrative 
  one. Intertwined by fate, the adventurers need 
  one another in order to enact a ritual that will 
  empower them all, keep a common foe at bay, 
  or otherwise serve everyone in a manner that 
  attempting alone would be tacitly impossible. 
  There is strength in numbers as well—if the world 
  around the PCs is predicated to unveil their dark 
  deeds, a united front will last much longer than 
  isolated individuals that go against the grain.
   Mechanical Benefits. While there can be many 
  reasons for evil PCs to act against one another, the 
  motivation is usually greed. A simple answer is 
  to provide something in exchange for acting like 
  a team player. This might be bonus experience 
  points each session, extra gold, or inspiration 
  rewards, but by providing an incentive to 
  encourage friendlier play, the GM brings party 
  unification back into balance despite the absence 
  of morality.
  Open Game Content
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  including maps and illustrations (including illustrations in the public domain), narrative and descriptive 
  text, character and place names, trade dress, “EN Publishing,” “EN World,” “EN5ider,” EN Publishing 
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  EN World EN5IDER | Fell Ritual Boons
  EN World EN5IDER | Fell Ritual Boons
  Ritual Feats
  All rituals have a sacrificial cost of some kind; if 
  your group uses the alignment rules, these costs 
  may have a mechanical impact. Moreover, most 
  civilized settlements do not take kindly to rituals 
  that require sacrifice and ridicule or castigate 
  those found performing them.
  Ancestral Sacrifice
  Prerequisites: Arcana or Religion proficiency, 
  Ceremonial Relics
   Using dark rites and primordial chants, you 
  draw out the life force of a creature similar 
  enough to you that the energies of their soul can 
  be gathered up as it leaves the Material Plane and 
  warped to reinforce your own.
   You are able to make ancestral sacrifices. 
  Making an ancestral sacrifice requires a creature 
  that is both older than you and of the same race 
  (and if applicable, subrace). After spending 10 
  minutes preparing the ritual space, you may kill 
  the elder creature to gain one of the following 
  benefits. You are only able to benefit from one 
  ancestral sacrifice at a time.
  ▶ You regain all spell slots and limited use
  abilities as if you had taken a long rest.
  ▶ You gain a number of temporary hit points
  equal to half the elder creature’s maximum
  total hit points or half your maximum total
  hit points (whichever is greater). These
  temporary hit points last for a maximum
  number of hours equal to your proficiency
  bonus.
  ▶ You gain the use of a feat, class feature, or
  trait that the elder creature possessed, or
  you gain proficiency in the skills the elder
  creature had proficiency in. After a number
  of hours equal to your proficiency bonus, the
  knowledge fades.
  ▶ You gain proficiency in a type of saving
  throw the elder creature had proficiency
  in. After a number of days equal to your
  proficiency bonus, this resilience fades.
   Tertiary Benefits. No one person can be all 
  things to all people at all times. The powerful 
  necromancer might have a capacity to intimidate 
  but turning the ear of someone in the king’s court 
  will be beyond his reach—though a malevolent 
  and deceptive bard will have a much easier 
  time reaching so high profile a target. Both can 
  benefit greatly from a dark warrior able to fend 
  off the champions of justice that seek to stop 
  the influence of evil, and the stealthy arts of 
  an assassin to quell witnesses will aid them all. 
  The strong pull of greed might spur audacious 
  characters to attempt subterfuge against their 
  allies if they think they can get away with 
  it, but GMs should encourage diverse and 
  complementary character roles for PCs and design 
  adventures that utilize a variety of strengths to 
  reinforce the benefits of working together. 
   Another good way to curb group subterfuge is 
  with contacts. These individuals can be used both 
  to encourage the PCs they are connected with to 
  avoid injuring their companions in any way, but 
  also as tokens that can be targeted with hostility 
  in revenge for slights between party members. In 
  addition to that, these contacts can provide ease of 
  play for other aspects of the game—one PC might 
  know a good fence, another an esoteric collector 
  that sells magic reagents of all kinds, and another 
  could have a positive relationship with the local 
  head of law enforcement. 
  New Kit
  Ceremonial Relics (15 gp): These tool kits fre-
  quently include candles, votives, reagents, esoteric 
  dust, and all manner of occult ephemera. While 
  none are themselves enchanted with power, by uti-
  lizing the correct invocations they can help unlock 
  dark secrets of the otherworldly and supernatural.
  
  Fell Ritual Boons | EN World EN5IDER
  Fell Ritual Boons | EN World EN5IDER
  Auromancy
  Prerequisites: Arcana, Religion, Proficiency 
  Bonus +3
   You learn how to read and manipulate the 
  subtle impressions left by souls as they travel 
  across the Material Plane. By gathering up a bit 
  of a creature's physical embodiment you can 
  manipulate their aura from afar, working an effigy 
  of your victim to diabolical ends.
  ▶ After a long rest choose either Investigation
  or Perception. The passive score for the skill
  you choose increases by 5.
  ▶ After collecting at least 1 ounce of hair, skin,
  blood, or other part of another creature’s
  body you are able to fashion it into a small
  effigy tied to the creature’s life force. So long
  as the creature you make the effigy from is
  within 100 feet per diabolist level (or 100
  feet per proficiency bonus, whichever is
  higher) and you are able to see it, you may
  cast cantrips, make melee weapon attacks, or
  use the Necromantic Touch ability against
  the creature by targeting its effigy. After
  damaging a creature through the effigy a
  number of times equal to its Hit Dice, the
  effigy is destroyed if you do not make a
  Wisdom saving throw (DC 10  + Hit Dice of
  target creature).
  Master of Rituals
  Prerequisites: Arcana or Religion proficiency, 
  Ceremonial Relics, Proficiency Bonus +3, ability to 
  cast ritual spells
   You have delved deeply into the secrets of 
  ritual magic and are able to beseech powers from 
  beyond the veil to gain supernatural gifts, though 
  never without cost. 
   By performing an hour long ritual that costs 
  50 gp in materials, you are able to grant yourself 
  or one willing creature one of the following ritual 
  powers. A creature may have a number of ritual 
  powers equal to one-third its proficiency bonus.
   If a ritual power lets you cast a spell, you are 
  able to do so without spending a spell slot or 
  providing any components (verbal, somatic, or 
  material). In any case, a ritual power can't be used 
  in the area created by an antimagic field or a similar 
  effect, and a ritual power’s effects are susceptible 
  to dispel magic and the like (the ritual power itself 
  can't be removed from a creature by anything 
  short of divine intervention or a wish).
   Power of Bloodletting. Boil an amount of 
  blood (hit points) equal to double the target’s total 
  hit dice. When you deal damage with a melee 
  weapon attack, you may choose to deal between 
  1d4 and 1d10 additional damage but you also 
  take the same amount of damage. This ritual 
  power fades after a number of days equal to your 
  character level.
   Power of the Beast. Sacrifice a beast. You gain 
  the benefits of an enhance ability spell to one 
  ability of your choice so long as the sacrificed 
  creature has a higher ability score than the 
  affected ability score. This ritual power fades after 
  a number of days equal to your character level.
   Power of Mana. Sacrifice a fey. This ritual 
  power has 6 charges. You can use an action to 
  expend some of its charges to cast the following 
  spells: detect magic (1 charge), identify (1 charge), 
  or dispel magic (3 charges). This ritual power fades 
  once all its charges have been expended. 
   Power of Negation. Sacrifice an aberration. 
  This ritual power has 6 charges. You can use a 
  reaction to expend a charge to gain advantage on 
  a saving throw against a spell or other magical 
  effect. This ritual power fades once all its charges 
  have been expended.
   Power of Summoning. Sacrifice an innocent 
  humanoid. You can summon a fiend or undead 
  creature of a CR equal to or less than half the CR 
  of the sacrificed creature. This effect otherwise 
  functions as the conjure elemental spell. This ritual 
  power fades after the summoning is completed. 
  
  EN World EN5IDER | Fell Ritual Boons
  EN World EN5IDER | Fell Ritual Boons
  Ritualistic Slaughterer
  Prerequisites: Arcana or Religion proficiency, 
  Proficiency Bonus +3, Evil alignment
   You have a capacity for killing en masse, 
  slaughtering fellow humanoids with the same 
  disposition as a farmer culling livestock—or 
  possibly even reveling in the bloodshed.
   
  ▶ Choose a weapon to become your ritual 
  slaughter weapon. While wielding your 
  ritual slaughter weapon, you gain a bonus to 
  critical hit damage equal to your proficiency 
  bonus.
   
  ▶ When you kill a creature of a CR equal to at 
  least half your character level, you gain a +1 
  bonus to damage rolls made with your ritual 
  slaughter weapon for a number of rounds 
  equal to your proficiency bonus. This bonus 
  stacks with itself and the other bonuses from 
  Ritualistic Slaughterer.
   
  ▶ When you kill a creature of a CR equal to 
  or greater than your character level, you 
  gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls made with 
  your ritual slaughter weapon for a number 
  of minutes equal to your proficiency bonus. 
  This bonus stacks with itself and the other 
  bonuses from Ritualistic Slaughterer. e
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Dungeons & Dragons [multi]/5th Edition (5e)/3rd Party/EN World EN5ider/EN5ider 104 - Ritual Boons.pdf