Ritual Primer

Overview:

Rituals are an advanced mechanic in Mythic Adventures. They come after the normal spells and should be treated as a performance as much as a skill use. Having extra props, going beyond the minimum, adding flair and flavor, can all increase your chances of success, but are not required to successfully complete a ritual.

Recommendations for new casters:

READ the ritual

Make sure you understand the required props, materials, steps listed, and the words that are the minimum requirements to complete the rituals. I have unfortunately had to flub casters several times because they did not complete a required step, or were missing a component or prop. Practicing at home or in a calm environment can get you familiar with the steps so it’s smoother at an event.

Enhance Your Performance

There’s a big space in the mechanics for the ritual marshal to grant you a bonus for your performance. Having great props, props for things that are normally tags, embellishing your style (singing the chant, dancing the path, or if you have a custom or practice before you start a Ritual or adding materials to your instruments), or including other characters in the performance, even if just watching and guarding, can all factor into their choice.

Just Keep Chanting

If something unexpected happens, or you realize you’ve messed up, or whatever, you can always correct yourself in the middle and keep going. There’s room in the mechanics for the marshal to penalize you for mistakes without automatically failing the ritual, but if you stop the performance, it will be a flub. That doesn’t mean it can’t be a flub if you’re too far off, but correcting and moving on is always better than stopping.

Pronunciation

As long as we can hear the letters/words on the ritual page, we’re generally ok with your pronunciation choices as long as they’re consistent. But if you’re unsure, we’re happy to provide our thoughts. Some of us are better with languages than others, so you experience may vary.

Additional Thoughts:

Rituals get harder and more complex as the level rises. So do the marshals expectations of precision and execution. Level 1 rituals could be seen as training rituals, and marshals tend to be forgiving with newer casters. For example, I’m ok with a generally circular shape, even an ellipsoid will work, if the level 1 ritual calls for a circle. For a level 6 ritual, I’m pulling out a compass on my phone to check your NESW directions if they’re listed in the ritual. There aren’t any hard mechanical botch conditions at this time, but mess up a big enough ritual badly enough, and there may be consequences and after affects at staff discretion.

Shopping for a marshal that always goes easy on you, doesn’t point out your mistakes, even if they’re painful or costly, will only hurt you in the long run when you move on to rituals that need to be marshaled by staff, or you can’t get your preferred marshal. And those rituals usually have higher costs. If you have any questions, about pronunciation, about the steps in the ritual, or if you have an idea for an embellishment but aren’t sure if the marshal would see it as an error, ask them. They will answer you. Please understand that it may not be the same with every marshal as we are not, yet, a hive mind, so you may need to verify for future castings if you got permission for an alteration previously.