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11 Overview
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44 Mysticism is the discipline that links Beyonders to the supernatural in Lord of Mysteries. Rituals are the specific procedures Beyonders use to channel mystical power: divinations, summonings, blessings, hypnoses, advancement ceremonies, Tarot Club gatherings, and pacts with higher-Sequence entities. The system underpins almost every Beyonder ability, potion preparation, Sequence advancement step, and major story beat in the campaign.
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66 Components of a Ritual
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88 Most Beyonder rituals share four components:
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1010 Setting: the physical location must match the ritual's nature. A divination ritual prefers a quiet candlelit space; a sea-themed ritual prefers an open shoreline or a ship's deck; a Sequence advancement ritual routes through a specific Pathway-aligned chapel.
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1212 Materials: ingredients vary widely. Common materials include candles, incense, ritual chalk, blood from a Beyonder donor, an artifact from a target's body (hair, fingernail, blood drop), and Beyonder-specific potion ingredients.
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1414 Verbal components: most rituals require chanted phrases, often in archaic dialects of Loen or in pre-Fifth-Epoch occult tongues.
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1616 Performer state: the performer must be in the correct mental and emotional state. Acting in role boosts effectiveness; acting out of role can fail the ritual outright. This is the source-material source of the Acting Method mechanic.
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1818 Common Ritual Types
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2020 Divination: reads the future, the past, or hidden truths. The Seer Pathway's signature ritual category.
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2222 Summoning: brings an entity (a spirit, a Beyonder consciousness, an artifact) to the ritual venue. Risky: failed summonings can summon the wrong entity.
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2424 Hypnosis: places a target into a trance state. The Spectator Pathway's signature ritual category.
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2626 Blessing: applies a temporary buff to the target. Most Pathway-aligned blessings tie to specific deities of the Seven Orthodox Churches.
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2828 Sealing: locks an artifact, an entity, or a memory away from access.
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3030 Advancement: the Sequence advancement ceremony. Pathway-specific. Drinking the next-Sequence potion is the centrepiece, but the surrounding ritual structure (location, props, verbal components) shapes whether the digestion succeeds.
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3232 Tarot Club gathering: one of the setting's most distinctive rituals. In the source material it is convened by Klein Moretti at a set weekly time in the Sefirah Castle within the Gray Fog. Members project consciousness through the Fog to attend.
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3434 Player Rituals
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3636 The player performs rituals throughout the campaign. Most rituals are gameplay activities, with the player executing each ritual step:
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3838 Selecting a ritual venue or transitioning the camera to one.
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4040 Placing the required ritual materials. The exact ritual interface has not been confirmed for the current build.
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4242 Performing the ritual's verbal components.
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4444 Maintaining performer state (the Acting Method check during the ritual).
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4646 Watching the ritual resolve. Success grants the ritual's outcome; partial success grants partial outcome and a sanity cost; failure can trigger negative outcomes (sanity loss, attack from an unintended summoned entity, regression of Sequence).
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4848 Failure Modes
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5050 Rituals fail in specific, costly ways. Common failure modes:
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5252 Wrong materials: substituting an ingredient or omitting one. The ritual either fails to complete or completes with a corrupted effect.
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5454 Wrong verbal components: missing the timed chant pattern. Drains sanity, may invoke the wrong entity.
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5656 Wrong performer state: failing the Acting Method check. The most common failure mode for novice players. Drains sanity heavily and can corrupt the ritual's outcome.
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5858 Interrupted ritual: an enemy attack or environmental disturbance breaks the ritual mid-way. Drains sanity and discards the ritual's invested materials.
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6060 Wrong target: aiming a divination, summoning, or sealing ritual at the wrong target. The ritual completes but its effect lands on the wrong subject.
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6262 Mysticism in the World
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6464 Most ordinary citizens know mysticism exists but treat it as superstition. The Seven Orthodox Churches preach a sanctioned form of mysticism through public worship and church-affiliated divinations; private rituals (the kind Beyonders run) are more secretive. The boundary between socially-acceptable mysticism and unorthodox occult practice is one of the campaign's recurring social tensions; the player's Acting choices and faction reputation interact with that boundary in nuanced ways.