Mortal sorcery

Mortals cannot perform magic on their own, as they lack the requisite Ka-Elements. At most, they may contribute to a nephilim's rituals—or use certain enchanted items, as these possess their own Ka (see Gamemaster's Companion p36-7, Enlightened Magic p65). However, the secret societies have learned how to harness the nephilim in order to perform magic themselves. There are three ways this is done: sacrifices, elixirs, and homunculi (see Nephilim rulebook p191-2, Secret Societies p37-8).

Sacrifices allow the mortal sorcerer to cast one sorcery or summoning ritual by bleeding a nephilim to open a connection to the magic fields. The process is a simple additional component to the ritual: the nephilim's blood is fatally spilled upon the material representation of the spell's element (see "Table of Traditional Magical Tools and Affinities", Liber Ka p52).

Elixirs allow the mortal sorcerer to store Ka-impregnated blood for later use. This requires creating a special enchanted vessel that exists solely to store the magical blood. Drops of this blood are then spilt to power rituals. Each time a spell is cast, the stored Ka is diminished; thus, all elixirs must eventually be refilled.

A nephilim who is sacrificed to fuel a spell or elixir may attempt to resist on a Solar-Ka contest. They will probably die of blood loss anyway, but the mortal sorcerer would have done so in vain. If the mortal sorcerer uses litharge tools to do the bloodletting, then the nephilim resists at reduced capacity.

Homunculi are nephilim who have been enslaved and transformed by a perverse combination of alchemy and summoning. The victim has been mutilated thru an alchemy procedure and subject to magical oaths thru a summoning ritual. The process involves the destruction of their stasis, removing their immortality.

Note: The rules for sacrifices, elixirs, and homunculi were never updated for the Enlightened Magic rules. I will undertake that myself in a separate post.

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