Building Your Bound

Prerequisite: Resolve •••+
Effect: Most people turn away at the sight of blood, other bodily fluids, or exotic biology. Your character has seen enough that nothing turns her stomach. When other characters must resist shock or physical repulsion from the disgusting and morbid, your character stands her ground. You do not need to make Composure, Stamina, or Resolve rolls to withstand the biologically strange. This doesn’t mean she’s immune to fear; she’s just used to nature in all its nasty forms.
Notes: Sin-Eater characters receive this Merit for free, even if they do not meet the prerequisites.

• Gain the Voodoo Specialty in the Academics Skill.
•• Gain the Language Merit in a language of choice.
••• Gain a Skill dot in Occult.
•••• Gain the Reconciler Merit at three dots.
••••• Choose a single crossroads. This intersection serves as a three-dot Cenote for the character, generating three Plasm per chapter.

Notes: Sin-Eaters who begin play as members of a krewe receive one dot of Mystery Cult Initiation for free. In addition, krewe celebrants automatically know all krewe Ceremonies whose dot rating is equal to or less than their Mystery Cult Initiation rating.

Effect: Your character has somewhere she can go where she can feel secure. While she may have enemies that could attack her there, she’s prepared and has the upper hand. The dot rating reflects the security of the place. The actual location, the luxury, and the size are represented by equipment. A one-dot Safe Place could simply be out of sight, out of mind, or feature minor security systems. A five-dot Safe Place could have a security crew, infrared scanners at every entrance, or trained dogs. Either place could be an apartment, a mansion, or a hidey-hole.

A Safe Place gives all owners an Initiative bonus equal to the total Merit dots.

Any efforts to breach the Safe Place suffer a penalty equal to the Merit dots invested. If the character desires, the Safe Place can include traps that cause intruders lethal damage equal to the Merit dots, or bashing damage equal to twice the Merit’s dots. The traps may be avoided with a Dexterity + Larceny roll, penalized by the Safe Place dots.

Notes: Each instance of this Merit reflects a different place.

Reenact the mysteries of your krewe’s faith, enrobing a celebrant in mythic power.
Requirement: Ritualist must be a member of a krewe that has at least one Regalia (p. 177).
Subject: One celebrant of the ritualist’s krewe.
Duration: One chapter or until resolved.
Symbols: Symbolic representations of the myth to be reenacted.
Ritual: Reenact a parable or myth that illustrates a key tenet of the krewe’s understanding of the mysteries of the Underworld.
Dice Pool: Presence + Occult
Success: The subject gains the relevant Regalia Condition.

Form a new krewe, bind someone to a krewe, or expel a member.
Duration: Permanent
Subject: Any number of willing participants.
Dice Pool: Presence + Manipulation
Symbols: Geometric shapes. Acts of endurance. Oaths and promises.
Ritual: Use physical objects or actions deeply connected to the krewe’s values. Dance all night, smear each other with mud sanctified with cool stuff you scavenged and pinky swear to have each other’s backs. Endure a grueling exam about the finer points of Socratic thought and the virtues of different types of encryption as you work together to draw a perfect triangle in the sand. Do it in reverse to excommunicate a celebrant, stripping them of power and office.
Success: All participants who do not have any dots in the krewe’s Mystery Cult Initiation Merit gain one dot free of charge. If the Ceremony is to create a new krewe,
the players work together to design the Merit first.

Alternately, revoke a celebrant’s membership in your krewe. They still keep their Mystery Cult Initiation dots, but lose access to any benefits that rely on the krewe’s goodwill or shared resources. They may redesign any lost dots per the Sanctity of Merits rule (p. 85).

Offer yourself as a conduit for the dead, allowing the ghost to speak from your mouth in their own voice.
Subject: One ghost within earshot.
Duration: Scene
Symbols: Fresh rainwater, a clay pot made by hand under a full moon, the ghost’s iPhone
Rituals: Sanctify an open vessel or body of water and place an object that belonged to the ghost at the bottom of it, then call to the ghost and offer the service of your tongue. Smear your lips with a mixture of ash and bitters and invite the ghost to speak. Call the ghost’s disconnected phone number on a cell phone that gets no service.
Dice Pool: Stamina + Composure
Success: The target ghost can speak through your mouth for as long as you allow it. Your voice is recognizably that of the target ghost.

Help a ghost that has resolved its Anchors move on — past this world, past the Underworld, to whatever awaits it beyond.

This Ceremony can only be performed outside the Underworld, once a ghost that has resolved all of its Anchors.

Symbols: A circle of white salt. Doorways and liminal spaces. Emotional farewells.
Rituals: Perform the last rites of the ghost’s religion. Take one last shot "for the road" as the bar closes out. Burn the ghost’s remains on a pyre of sacred woods and holy oils, that the ghost might climb to heaven on the smoke.
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy
Success: The ghost passes on, leaving behind an afterimage evocative of the life they led. Often it is quite pleasant, tinged with a sense of closure and their best self, but occasionally the shade vanishes with a noxious gas or an earsplitting scream.

Any Sin-Eaters present regain all spent Plasm.