A Stallia Ceremony - Magnitude 10 - The Labyrinth
Performing the Ceremony
Performing this Ceremony takes at least 2 minutes of roleplaying. This Ceremony targets a location somewhere in the world.
Effects
Summons and sends a blessed creature to a target location. It will arrive in a season or longer, depending on location. This creature is a target for scrying by those who know it exists, but is almost impossible to find and kill by those who don’t know what they are looking for.
This creature, while magical, travels at mundane pace, and will only be available to be scried after a season has passed. Being a specific focus for scrying, spells used to scry the Blessed Falcon count as having double magnitude for the purpose of effects that would block scrying efforts.
Unless found and destroyed through concerted effort, the magical creature will stay in position for a year.
Extra Information
- The arrival of the Blessed Falcon does not provide a vision by itself, but needs to be targeted by a scrying spell in order to actively give information.
- A Blessed Falcon existing in a location makes all information gathering Ceremonies more likely to give information on that particular location (Signs and Portents, Dream in the Witch's House, etc.)
- The Blessed Falcon can be used for other purposes that need to target a specific location for as long as it exists
Description
The Blessed Falcon is, when visible, eminently a creature straight from the Sphere of Stallia itself, manifested into our realm through the Grace of the Spheres. Pitch black, with red and golden pinpricks of colour across its plumage, it looks like an old Galaxy turns within its wingspan - those who gaze on it swear that it seems to move before snapping back to the original pattern after they blink. The cold eyes that gaze from the creature seem to have human intelligence within their depths, and those that climb to their hidden perches to study them swear that they whisper strange words that slide over the mind like a cold stream while they're not being directly observed.
These viewings are few and far between, for the Falcon is typically invisible, a power that seems inherently tied to their existence. Whilst their presence can be felt, and they can be detected using magic by the skilled who know what they are looking for and roughly where to look, this makes them extremely unlikely to be stumbled on by accident. They seem to prefer perching on the roof of towers or places of knowledge and/or solemnity, their cold dark eyes sending a chill through all those they observe.
Performing the Ceremony
Whilst some priests swear by the inclusion of items related to falconry or birds in general in the performance of this Ceremony, there is dubious evidence of the efficacy of their usage. What is absolutely clear, however, is that clear instruction and intent are absolutely vital to the success of this Ceremony. Describing in exacting detail exactly where the Falcon should go, and what it should spend its days observing seems to have a clear link to the quality of other Ceremonies targeting it - the intelligence of the otherworldly creatures is beyond doubt, and those who have been lapse in their descriptions have commonly found their summoned helper to be exactingly particular (and almost petty) in following the technically correct intent, rather than the clear intent of the instructions.