070 - I Don't Recall

Ritual: I Don’t Recall

Cost: 1 significant charge.

Ritual Action: Want to interfere with some legal proceedings? You’ll need some ceylon black tea and a handful of lead paint chips (enough to fill your palm, but not spill out when you close your hand) from a location where you spent part of your childhood. Grind the chips into dust and stir them into a cup of the tea. Drink it prior to being deposed as a witness before a trial, pouring out the tea leaves on to the feet of a statue of Lady Justice.

You have about 45 minutes to finish the deposition, about as long as the caffeine levels will take to peak inside your system. This can be extended by brewing and drinking more of the lead paint-tea blend (you don’t have to repeat your offering to Lady Justice though). On average a deposition lasts for about 2 hours, but can range from under an hour to several days depending on complexity. Maybe bring a thermos.

This ritual also works in jurisdictions with equivalent but not identical pre-litigation investigation procedures, although the type of tea required varies.

The GM should roll for the ritual in secret. If a player wants to stake the use of a passion on a flip-flop or reroll in the event of a failure it is considered spent regardless of the outcome. Justice is blind.

Effect: If the ritual succeeds and the matter comes to trial your deposition matches whatever testimony you then give. Your original actions are a false memory. This is obviously disconcerting to anyone relying on the inconsistent information, especially if they filed documents and made arguments to that effect. On both sides. Rank 2-4 Unnatural check disconcerting.

The downside is that you’ll never know whether it worked until you’re on the stand, trying to bamboozle the opposing counsel with a bunch of crap that flies in the face of your original testimony. Great way to perjure yourself and look like an untrustworthy asshole to everybody. Plus the lead poisoning.