I have been looking into artefacts recently, and stumbled upon a very useful piece of information called "The Catalogue of Relics". Basically, there was a young sir who really loved artefacts, and actually collected them and compiled information about them and their nature in a kind of semi-scientific document I got my hands on. But one of the biggest treasures in this is actually this very ritual, which he used to "tame" the artefacts in his collection so their big amount wouldn't result in his house imploding.
I will shortly talk about effect, (according to the "Catalogue") and side-effects first and detail the recipe thereafter. It is apparently a pretty powerful ritual that can render most artefacts harmless at least for a while, and it kind of creates an artefact itself, but that also means that the instructions are very complex and long. I apologise for that - maybe someone with more talent for rituals than me (*coughnoahcough*) can extrapolate the most necessary steps, but I don't dare to omit anything.
Effect: This ritual can be used to, in flowery words, put an artefact to sleep. It remains dormant as long as it is under the light created by this ritual, seemingly losing its supernatural attributes. Depending on the power and "sentience" of an artefact, the effect will be stronger or weaker - a neverending matchbox for example might fall asleep easily, and remain dormant for a while longer after leaving the light, but the power of an evil, mass-murdering doll might only be weakened just enough to keep it locked up in a room, and it will wake up and be filled with vengeful anger as soon as the light does not touch it anymore.
Side-effects: The strongest side-effects of this ritual are heavy nightmares and insomnia. When physically relatively close to the artefacts in question, it is also very likely that one will encounter them in dreams. Especially some artefacts that, as the collector described it, are not fond of being put to sleep, might pop up frequently to turn peaceful dreams in bad nightmares. Apparently though, the collector was aware of a variation of the Dream Cleansing ritual (it is called differently and what I caught of it sounds slightly different too, but he does use the term "trap room") and reported that those artefacts can be trapped just like entities. Still, keep such strong artefacts away from other people! The collector wrote about one case when the daughter of a visiting couple fell asleep on his couch and woke up crying and very distraught - apparently, one of the more dangerous artefacts had chased her in her dreams, and he ended the anecdote with the words: "I shudder to think what would have happened to the girl if she hadn't been saved by a light sleep and her quick step." Weaker artefacts don't seem to be much of a problem though.
He also did report though that most artefacts did not take well to waking up again. His suggestion is that some of them react "angry" to being woken up from their slumber, while others are infuriated about having been forced to sleep. He did not elaborate on the exact consequences of an artefact reawakening, but he did say: "for a time, it will be worse than if it had never been put to sleep at all."
Instructions:
You need:
- A candle
- A piece of glass (size depending on your needs and preferances), or several - the glass must be clear!
- A ball of glass (for example an emptied snowball or decoration for a christmas tree - the more fragile, the better)
- A vessel (can be a simple plastic bottle apparently, but it must be sealable best you can)
- Some water to fill the vessel with (the purer the better)
Also, you need to be able to become lucid in your dreams (but that is a very useful ability when dealing the paranormal in general).
At first you fill the vessel with the water, seal it and put it under your pillow, together with the ball of glass (careful with that though) and the candle. Try to fall asleep, but don't break any of the ingredients while you do.
As soon as you begin to dream, try to become lucid. You can either go to your trap room now or just open the nearest door you can see in your dream, no matter which kind of door, gate or portal it is. You will find the candle, the ball and the vessel in it. Make sure to grab the vessel and the glass ball first and to hold them in a way that renders you able to still carry the candle comfortably - only then pick up the candle.
It will immediately light up, and wherever it casts its light, it will reveal things - sometimes pictures, sometimes writing. You are advised to not spend any time with that though - instead, look for a corridor revealed by the light. From the moment you pick up the candle, you have only a limited amount of time, so go fast when you walk through the corridor - but keep the candle on at all costs. Without its light to show you the way, you will definitely get lost, and it's implied that you can stumble head on into the void if this happens. IF the candle goes out, don't move! It will be dark around you and you might hear scary noises in the dark, but you must remain where you are until your dream ends or you might be lured into the grasp of something that's just waiting for you to come along. Remaining in the spot where the candle went out should usually be safe though, and the collector wrote that despite using this ritual on a quite regular basis, he only had to deal with the candle going out twice.
At some point, the corridor will open to a really beautiful grotto. You know that it's the right place when a peaceful feeling washes over you. You will probably feel relaxed, and might even become sleepy, but try not to fall asleep there. Apparently it's not too dangerous, but you won't accomplish anything and will probably still experience the side-effects plus a nasty headache. So try and stay awake.
You will quickly become aware of a quiet, melodic sound in the air, almost like lazy singing. Follow it, and you should find a very clear little lake very quickly. In it, often on a rock or little island, rests what the collector called The Siren - it seems to be a being with a different shape every time he encounters it. When you approach the lake, The Siren will be sleeping, but she will wake up soon, and then you have no hope of completing the ritual, so don't stand and stare for too long (as pretty as she may be).
The lake is made up of a lullaby she sings to herself in her sleep - apparently sometimes you can even watch how the sound drops from her lips while the breathes. It's pretty much made of sound, which from up close should look a bit like glistening, liquid air? It is very light, and when The Siren wakes up and takes her leave, she will stir the lake as well and the sound will dissipate. So careful.
Step closer, open the vessel and quietly and carefully empty the water into the lake. The sound in the lake should become a bit more "solid" from mixing with the water. Then fill the vessel again with the result and seal it. There should also be a torch or something similar (the collector spoke of occasional cases where it looks like a will'o'wisp or firefly made of actual fire) nearby. Take the ball of glass and open it (even if there's no way to do that in reality, it should be easy to open in the grotto) to catch some of the fire within. It will continue to burn inside the ball.
If you want, you can now look for a comfortable place in the grotto and either watch The Siren until she wakes up and leaves (often waking you up when the lullaby lake, stirred by her, washes over you) or finally give in to the urge to fall asleep that tends to get stronger the longer you are in the grotto. Just make sure you still have the ingredients on you, do not lose or let go of them. You will wake up in your bed, and find the utensils under your pillow.
The water in the vessel will seem to have become even purer and lighter, the ball of glass will be empty, but warm to the touch, and the candle will pretty much look completely like before, even if it burned down in your dream. Don't worry about breaking any of these things by this point, they will have become surprisingly sturdy all of a sudden.
To complete the ritual, you need the piece of glass now. Break or open the ball of glass close to the candle - a small flame should almost jump from the ball to the wick - and then immerse the piece of glass in the water from the vessel (dip it in or pour the water over it). Finally, hold the piece of glass over the candle. It will now change color, usually to the colour prevalent in The Sirens shape when you met her.
The glass is now enchanted with her lullaby. Any light cast through the glass will now force an artefact to become dormant. And as long as light is cast through the glass, the effect stays stable - only when the light flickers, goes out or becomes very, very weak the effect might be weakened as well. The actual light source does not matter - it can be a candle, an electric light or even the sun. It can also first be a candle which is then replaced by a lightbulb before the candle is completely burnt down. That does not matter. The only important thing are the light and the glass.
According to the collector, this ritual is one of the original reasons for why so many churches have stained glass windows. The tradition possibly began with several people doing this ritual so they could enchant a window, ensuring safety from the paranormal inside the church. It's very likely that the ritual of the collector is very different from that original one though, and therefore might not be sufficient protection from anything but artefacts.
By the way, the lullaby water and the candle are reusable until the vessel is empty and the candle burnt down entirely. You do not need to repeat the ritual everytime to light the candle - once you have used it once, you can relighten it with any kind of fire and it will work again. The candle will only burn down proportionally to the water from the vessel being used up, but don't try to exploit that by making the candle your infinite light source - the collector wrote: "[It] will notice, and then it will just burn down and take the water with it." So only use the candle to enchant glass.
And maybe use it up rather quick than too slowly, because apparently the nightmares (many of them will be about The Siren) might last at least as long as you still have the water around.
The spell of the glass can already be broken by a shadow breaking the beam of light, so be careful. The best way to go about this is to always have at least two Lullaby Lights handy and directed at the artefact, so if one fails you, the other one will act as a failsafe. With very dangerous objects, you won't be very lucky unless you lock them up in a room filled with this light, but since it might be possible to enchant whole lightbulbs, that might actually be possible. In most cases, artefacts will only react to the light when fully immersed in it, so keep the enchanted glass safe - splinters are of little use to you.
There's no word of effect on sentient beings, apart maybe from a slightly relaxing, secure-ish or soothing feeling when touching the light. And I don't have any resources on its effect (or lack thereof) on entities - but judging from how even strong artefacts can already struggle against it, I wouldn't get my hope up.
Oh, and I did test this with parenthesis. I will upload a sketch of the pattern later, but it only blew out four candles. Probably because most problems are caused by the artefacts upon breaking the spell of the ritual, not by the ritual itself - I suppose the fourth candle is for the little walk through the corridor. The lines of the sketch were very solid, showing that it is a protective ritual rather than something that can be utilised as an actual weapon.
I apologise that it got so long in the end, but I never know what to mention and what not. And the collector made a huge amount of notes (most of them in horrible handwriting) that I tried to decipher and incorporate. Let's see if I can also provide some useful information about artefacts in the future.
Fri Jan 25, 2013 7:18 pm
Looking forward to your findings, trusty explorer. (You are like my court magician or scientist).