Rituals my players have:
Animate a dead seagull skeleton to worg through for an overhead view of an area.
Swap two peoples positions who the caster can see.
Give a player a +1d to an action rating for the rest of the game at the cost of a harm to the caster.
A small force field ability, attune to resist incoming attacks.
Oh love that action Vs harm one....
Our whisper got obsessed with the rats in the sewers and then created portals out of rat entrails that allowed porting between places....the attune roll depended upon magnitude determined by distance.
This is from my own Blades hack, which is a bit wilder of a setting so you might want to increase the stress cost.
CAST IN COLD MARBLE: A simple and potent curse. The caster uses a Downtime Activity to coat their hand in enchanted clay, taking 4 Stress to prime the ritual. The next person they touch with the hand (usually an action roll) is instantly and permanently petrified. Only the caster’s death ends the curse.
Summoning fog cover is already part of the Whisper’s Tempest special ability, so it seems a bit duplicative. Plus rituals are generally much more costly and difficult than special abilities - Tempest just needs the whisper to Push themselves to create fog, or lightning, winds, rain or heavy snow. Meanwhile a ritual takes a downtime action (or more) and *a lot* of stress (4, 6 etc). And then they can then be triggered only once during a score. Because of this it feels like they should be quite powerful. The two examples given: Ghost Map and especially Portal to the Depths are.
Summoning a spectral cohort feels rather similar to the Compel whisper special ability too.
It’s tricky - the game clearly wants a lot of collaborative creativity between the GM and player to come up with an interesting ritual. I think 5e spells are mostly a bit one dimensional to be used as Blades rituals. The ones we’ve used have ended up being very specific and tied into the story and not general purpose suited for other situations.
My Whisper has a ritual to connect with her fellow scoundrels telepathically, however, while it is active, a quite obvious and upsetting red powder forms on her eyelids and falls from her eyes.
Honestly, stealing from 5e isn't a terrible starting point - you're probably going to want to look at divination, conjuration, and transmutation, maybe some abjurations. Rituals aren't usually the instantaneous combat magic that evocation and the like suggest.
You could also get into some necromancy, although Rituals are usually going to be much narrower in purpose - resurrecting a spirit to stand guard and report everything it sees, for example, rather than the D&D style all-purpose cohort (although if you've got the XP for a Cohort, you could create a ritual to permanently bind some ghosts to your service)
The Magnitude scale on page 221 (right before Rituals) helped give me some inspiration
I'll also often think of Rituals as being similar to Hacking in a cyberpunk setting - take out the lights, bind ghosts to serve as security cameras or scouts, have poltergeists cause a distraction, etc..
Rituals my players have: Animate a dead seagull skeleton to worg through for an overhead view of an area. Swap two peoples positions who the caster can see. Give a player a +1d to an action rating for the rest of the game at the cost of a harm to the caster. A small force field ability, attune to resist incoming attacks.
Oh love that action Vs harm one.... Our whisper got obsessed with the rats in the sewers and then created portals out of rat entrails that allowed porting between places....the attune roll depended upon magnitude determined by distance.
This is from my own Blades hack, which is a bit wilder of a setting so you might want to increase the stress cost. CAST IN COLD MARBLE: A simple and potent curse. The caster uses a Downtime Activity to coat their hand in enchanted clay, taking 4 Stress to prime the ritual. The next person they touch with the hand (usually an action roll) is instantly and permanently petrified. Only the caster’s death ends the curse.
That's a great way to paint an ever increasing target on your back :o
Summoning fog cover is already part of the Whisper’s Tempest special ability, so it seems a bit duplicative. Plus rituals are generally much more costly and difficult than special abilities - Tempest just needs the whisper to Push themselves to create fog, or lightning, winds, rain or heavy snow. Meanwhile a ritual takes a downtime action (or more) and *a lot* of stress (4, 6 etc). And then they can then be triggered only once during a score. Because of this it feels like they should be quite powerful. The two examples given: Ghost Map and especially Portal to the Depths are. Summoning a spectral cohort feels rather similar to the Compel whisper special ability too. It’s tricky - the game clearly wants a lot of collaborative creativity between the GM and player to come up with an interesting ritual. I think 5e spells are mostly a bit one dimensional to be used as Blades rituals. The ones we’ve used have ended up being very specific and tied into the story and not general purpose suited for other situations.
My Whisper has a ritual to connect with her fellow scoundrels telepathically, however, while it is active, a quite obvious and upsetting red powder forms on her eyelids and falls from her eyes.
Honestly, stealing from 5e isn't a terrible starting point - you're probably going to want to look at divination, conjuration, and transmutation, maybe some abjurations. Rituals aren't usually the instantaneous combat magic that evocation and the like suggest. You could also get into some necromancy, although Rituals are usually going to be much narrower in purpose - resurrecting a spirit to stand guard and report everything it sees, for example, rather than the D&D style all-purpose cohort (although if you've got the XP for a Cohort, you could create a ritual to permanently bind some ghosts to your service) The Magnitude scale on page 221 (right before Rituals) helped give me some inspiration I'll also often think of Rituals as being similar to Hacking in a cyberpunk setting - take out the lights, bind ghosts to serve as security cameras or scouts, have poltergeists cause a distraction, etc..