Maelstrom Rules - Skills: Ceremonial Skills

Key Concepts
If you have chosen to be a devotee of one of the deities available to you then you may purchase one or more of these skills. These skills are only effective with regard to the deity to whom you are devoted. If you are not a devotee then you cannot purchase or use these skills.

There is no points cost to be a devotee.

Ceremonial skills
Initiate: If you have this skill then you know the ceremonies required to initiate another character into your faith. Once initiated, the character becomes a devotee of your faith. You can only initiate another character into the faith that you are a member of. You cannot initiate someone against their will and you cannot initiate an eidolon or undead character.

To be initiated into a faith you must give your true name to the priest performing the initiation. The priest will not realise if the name you have given him is not your true name, but the initiation will fail.

Lay To Rest: If you have this skill then you know the rituals and ceremonies required to lay a deceased character to rest. A correctly performed ceremony means that the soul of the deceased is sent straight to your deity, keeping it safe from anything that might otherwise waylay it.

This skill can be used to send an undead soul to your deity if you know the undead character’s true name.

Excommunicate: Excommunication is the knowledge of the ceremonies required to remove a person from their deity’s protection. You need to know the true name of a character and their location to excommunicate them. An excommunicated character is completely cut off from all divine favour and cannot use any skills or items that require him to be devoted.

Supplicate: You know the ceremonies required to perform a supplication to your deity. Your deity is more likely to respond if there are additional devotees present during the supplication.

And so it began......

Dawn breaks, war looms, the evil Lord is gathering his armies to wage a campaign of destruction upon the free peoples of the world. It is up to I, Sir Maximilan Pegasus to stop him, with my trusted band of adventurers we must gather the enchanted sword of Tek, the Shield of Way-Lem and the amulet of Subsidence and together we shall slay this abomination! “TIME FREEZE” And bam, the fantasy world fades away, the enchanted sword of Tek in my hand is a rubber sword smothered in coloured ribbons with a laminated card cable tied to the hilt, I look down and I’m wearing plastic armour and unflattering heropants, and the magical world of my imagination washes away to reveal a field in Wigan, but you know what? It’s larp and I’m a larper, it’s what I do.
I started larping when I was 17, I’d never role-played before, I’d never played D&D or Warhammer, never played WoW or any form of online game, I’d never even read Lord of the Rings, I feel somewhat privileged that I hadn’t done any of those things, I think it gave me an untainted attitude towards what larp could be, I had no preconceptions about saving the maiden fair, slaying the dragon or smiting the liche, to me it was just a new thing to try.
It was cold, really cold, 10am on a September morning, the rain was battering down and I’d been given a faux fur tunic, a mouldy old sword and been pointed towards a man and told, “You’re monstering, there’s the ref he’ll tell you what to do.” I obeyed, I played wave after wave of zombies, orcs and various line monsters and to be honest, was cold, bored and hungry. That is, until lunchtime, the teams switched sides, I got into the kit I’d scrounged up, as with most first timers, a black trenchcoat. I took the mouldy old sword, stood with my fellow adventurers and it hit me, I’m a god damn hero!
Pow, there it was, a new larper was born.