| Cup of Itz (• • Life, • Prime) Dead Magic 77 |
| One Mayan fresco shows a priest sacrificing his own blood that he
might hold the power of the gods. A large decorated bowl with a
paper in it is used to catch the blood, and the paper is then burned;
smoke from the paper travels through a hole above the altar into the sky
with the gods. In return, the gods grant the supplicant a bit of
their divine energy, which similarly comes down from the sky and into the
priest. The rite is clearly similar to other forms of sacrifice used
by some Tradition mages (see Heart's Blood, Mage Revised. p. 182),
but this version is a bit more fearsome -- the typical Mayan form of the
ritual required the mage to pierce his genitalia with a long needle and
squeeze out the blood for the enchantment. System: Successes generated on this Effect allow the mage to bleed out his own life and turn it into Prime energy, as with the Heart's Blood rote. However, the addition of the Life magic gives the mage an opportunity to minimize the worst effects of the damage; although it can't prevent the injury, at least the mage needn't suffer overmuch from the pain of the rite. Mayan priests probably indulged in some hallucinogens or narcotics along with the ritual -- or, at least, that's what Technocratic historians posit. |