Under Construction

The following guide is strictly opinion, covering what I consider to be the optimal practices around using Cruac. This is the second iteration of this guide, the first got eaten by the wiki changeover and needed an update to tabletop mechanics in any case. The original iteration of this page was pilfered by a foul fiend who has yet to provide his promised gift for doing so, though as he preserved the concept/template it is somewhat forgiven.

Note about Content

Please do not add to or delete content from this page. This is Jahn's guide to Cruac. Feel free to hit me up with ideas and feedback though, that's what the talk page is for :-)

Overview

What is Cruac?

Cruac is the Covenant advantage of the Circle of the Crone. It costs a vitae/blood to use, and requires an action or actions.

Bah, Theban is better than Cruac!

False. Theban is more direct and has more clear combat powers, but Cruac offers a superior toolbox and can be applied with greater creative thinking (More on this later).

In Particular:

Theban costs Willpower. Willpower is far more limited harder to replace than Vitae.
Theban has specific item requirements for their ritual casting. Few things are more hilarious than a Theban sorcerer casting Prisoner of Denial (Offering is to burn an image of the target) and frenzying away.
Cruac can help you a myriad ways outside of game, both before it and during downtime. Theban rarely does such.

Those interested in Theban more should visit Corey's Guide to Theban, and then be devoured for being Heretics.

What's this sodding casting thing?

Casting Cruac is an extended draw. That means you spend a point of blood to start casting. You keep casting until you:

A - Succeed (Yay!)

B - Stop casting (Um... ok...)

C - You get interrupted (Noooo!)

You need to get as many successes as the level of a ritual.

For instance, to cast Drops of Destiny, a level 1 ritual, you need a total of 1 success. For Maw of the Crone, a level 5 ritual, you need a total of 5 successes.

If you don't have enough successes on your first action, then next turn you can choose to continue casting and have another draw, until the above A, B or C occurs.

So... how many successes did I get?

Some rituals, not all, give a better bonus the more successes you get. The amount of successes is counted from your final draw, not the total of your extended action!!!

Examples are:

Boris attempts to cast Sacrifice of Odin, a level 4 ritual.

On his first turn, he rolls average, and gets 2 successes. As a level 4 ritual, that's not enough.

The next turn, he rolls again, and gets 2 success. Never the less, that adds up to 4, enough total successes for the ritual required.

Note that it is best to have a high enough pull to succeed on your first roll.

Cruac Optimisation

Each dot of Cruac gives you access to all the rituals at that level, ergo you want the levels with the most effective rituals. Like Theban, there are two main "exit points" for Cruac that optimise xp expenditure, and they both affect sheet creation or where you sink your ingame xp.

The first exit point is at level two (2). I am of the view that every Crone should buy up to Cruac 2, as the cost is not exhorbiatant and this level has some of the best rituals.

The second point is sadly all the way up at five (5). Three (3) and four (4) aren't a waste, but the gains are limited, particularly if you don't aspire to get to the highest level.

Cruac rituals fall into two camps, the first only requires enough successes to pass the ritual or are cast when you are not in a hurry, the second is reliant on high successes for best effect. You cna build to the former and have a modest Cruac pull, or you can go for the second which requires some stacking.

Boosting Your Cruac Draw

A number of factors affect your ability to use Cruac, as covered below.

Cruac: Expensive and required. Either maximise it, or stop at the first break point, as covered above.

Manipulation: The second most expensive stat, but dependent on your clan can have great synergies (as expanded on below in “Clan / Bloodline Synergies with Cruac”)

Occult: The cheapest of the three required stats. It is the cheapest to buy if you need to hit the damage cap, but that is extremely rare for Cruac rituals.

That damn Chicago ritual: Check book for name of Cruac boosting rite

Willpower: A strength of Cruac is that willpower can be spent freely. If you have a success required Cruac build, use the hell out of it.

Merit - Altar: Altar is a cheap merit from the Crone book. It boosts Cruac draws, but you essentially have to be at your haven. It is ideal for the dabbler Cruac user or someone willing to be inconvenienced to maximised their Cruac draw.

Merit - Necropolis:

Taurobolium: The bloodline Discipline of the Galloi boosts Cruac draws, but a Galloi cannot use the discipline on themselves if there's two of you or you have a buddy, be their best buddy!

Clan / Bloodline Synergies with Cruac

Several Clans, and their Bloodlines, have great synergy with Cruac. Any such affiliation utilising a power that employs either Manipulation or Occult in its draws happily doubles up.

Clan Nosferatu - Can benefit from the Necroplis merit mentioned above, can become Galloi (See below). Nightmare also has multiple powers that run off Manipulation.

Clan Daeva - Free dot of Manipulation, Majesty synergy.

Bloodline Galloi - An odd case, in that their unique dicscipline is great on a Cruac user but cannot be employed on themselves.

Appropriate Rituals for you!

This does not cover all rituals.

I've mentioned in the notes column if you should "pre-cast" rituals at game start.

Feeding

While in general blood is more available than willpower, it is always better to have more. Unfortunately there isn't a clear cut answer here, as it all depends on the system utilised by the relevant ST for the game.

The book default system is a single D10 Blood draw + relevant merits. It can be painful, you want blood for Cruac but the supporting merits don't come cheap. Things to do/check:

Do they allow downtime actions to produce extra blood? If they do then burn those action, two at least each month. If this option is available you can skip buying any feeding related merits.

Haven Location. Combined with allies, Haven merits can be very cheap. If you can find five Crone all willing to throw 2xp into the shared haven merit then you all get +5 to your blood pool, you can conceivably get away with that.

Herd. No sharing, so more expensive, but has the joy of not dissapearing with PC/players that die/stop coming to game.

Do they do feeding scenes at game? Storyteller reliant, and the success/worth of doing so is dependen on their views. If relatively risk free, may well replace the need for the above merits.

Level One

Ritual Level	Ritual Name	Rough Synopsis	Notes
1	Abduction to the Underworld/The Appeasement of Demeter
1	Balancing the Four Humors
1	Blood Witness
1	Boyar's Caul
1	Confidence in Adversity
1	Drop's of Destiny
1	Fires of Inspiration
1	Genius Loci
1	Mother's Touch, The
1	Pangs of Prosperina
1	Pythian Renewal
1	Rigor Mortis
1	Spring Sanctification
1	Tapas, Rituals of Penance
1	Taste of Knowledge
1	Visage of the Crone

Level Two

Ritual Level	Ritual Name	Rough Synopsis	Notes
2	Amemet's Pursuit
2	Barrier of Blood
2	Cernunno's Horn
2	Cheval
2	Dreaming the Other
2	Gora Mukhi
2	Harai
2	Hawthorn Barrier
2	Heliolater's Warning, The
2	Hydra's Vitae
2	Imperious Call
2	Maiden Skin
2	Maya
2	Mononoke
2	Mother's Eye, The
2	Painted Fears
2	Path of Thorns
2	Prey's Blood
2	Rex Sanguis Sacrorum
2	Rite of the Bloody Crossroads
2	Rite of the Circle Path
2	Soul's Work
2	Succulent Buboes
2	Wisdom of the Soul

Level Three

Ritual Level	Ritual Name	Rough Synopsis	Notes
3	Beloved Deodand
3	Blood Portrait
3	Deflection of Wooden Doom
3	Doorways of Eyes and Mind
3	Final Service of the Slave
3	Fire the Cauldron
3	Flower od Demeter
3	Hag Mask
3	Hand of Seth, The
3	Metamorphosis
3	Mother's Blessing, The
3	Mother's Mark, The
3	Rain
3	Servant From the Hidden Realms
3	Song of the Blood
3	Taste of Destiny
3	Tiamat Offspring
3	Tickblood
3	Touch of the Morrigan
3	Veiled Curse

Level Four

Ritual Level	Ritual Name	Rough Synopsis	Notes
4	Blade of Tu'at
4	Bleeding the Tarantula
4	Blood Price
4	Eternal Guardian of the Dark Moon
4	Eye of the Norn
4	Fount of Wisdom
4	Mask of Blood
4	Sacrifice of Odin
4	Thrashing of Apep's Coils, The
4	Willful Vitae

Level Five

Ritual Level	Ritual Name	Rough Synopsis	Notes
5	A Child from the Stones
5	As One
5	Blood Blight
5	Crone's Revival
5	Curse of Ahasverus
5	Feeding the Crone
5	Heart's Curse
5	Ianus' Blessing
5	Regression
5	Rite of Going Forth by Day
5	Roving Hut

To be checked: Love-Lies-Bleeding

Ultimate Cruac Monkey's

If you want to be the Cruac monkey with the Ultimate draw and damage cap, you will need:

BP6;
Nosferatu;
Flaw - Swollen Skull;
Intelligence 6;
Academics 6;
Composure 3, at minimum;
Resolve 3, at minimum (for a minimum Willpower pool of 6);
Willpower 7 (Extra xp may be need to spent here);
Cruac 5; and
Rituals Sanctity and Sanguine Exaltation.

That is a HUGE outlay though, and you'll need some friends to keep you alive when (and it will) shit goes down.

If you pursue this path, your Cruac Pool will be a disgusting:

Intelligence 6 + Academics 6 + Swollen Skull 2 + Cruac 5 + Sanguine Exaltation 2 + Sanctity 5 = 26, with a damage cap of 6

Even if you enter play on BP5, Intelligence 5 and Academics 5 - your draw will still be 24.

The rationale behind the BP6 and the 6 dot stats is to increase your Damage cap. You do not have to push both Intelligence AND Academics to do this. If you wanted to push damage cap to 6, but save yourself a little xp (30xp), only buff Academics to 6 and be happy with a draw of 25.

As an example of the power - this build can do 6 agg to anyone, and 7 agg to a Mekhet. I confess that i do not know if the +2 from Swollen Skull counts towards damage cap. If so, this figure increases to 7 agg to anyone, and 8 agg to Mekhet.

If you want the Cruac monkey with the greatest output, you will need:

Ventrue;
Bloodline - Icarian;
Composure 5;
Resolve 5;
Bloodline Discipline - Constance 5;
Cruac 3, at minimum; and
Rituals Sanctity and Sanguine Exaltation.

Not as hefty outlay as the previous example, not as disgusting in offensive potential, but still nothing to be sneezed at.

That's a pool of 15 Willpower this build has access to. That's a lot of Hauberks of Blood, Legionnaire's Blessings and Blandishments of Sin that can be output.

Sample Builds

Best ritual at each level in italics.

Basic

This is essentially for those that want a little bit of useful Cruac.

The Basic Support Class - can easily stop at Level 2

:* Level One: Hauberk of Blood, Crown of Thorns

Level Two: Prison of Denial, Sanguine Exaltation, Resistance of Discipline, Liars Plague, Bird of Sin, Sanctity
Level Three: Legionnaires Blessing, Blood Fire, Blandishment of Sin, Lash beyond Death
Plus the Veridical Tongue devotion

The Basic ranged sniper - can stop at Level 2

:* Level One: Crown of Thorns

Level Two: Prison of Denial, Bird of Sin, Sanguine Exaltation, Sanctity
Level Three: Blood Fire, Blandishment of Sin

The Basic self sufficient combatant - level 3 is where its at for you

:* Level One: Hauberk of Blood, Vitae Reliquary

Level Two: Prison of Denial, Resistance of Discipline, Wings of the Seraph, Sanctity
Level Three: Blood Fire, Legionnaires Blessing, Blandishment of Sin
Plus any number of weaponry based Fighting Styles

The Buff-bot

Those that want to buff their chums with Cruac 5. Willpower maxxed to 10 should be highly considered. This is likely the most valuable build to a coterie (one of whom should have the merit: Inspiring).

Level One: Hauberk of Blood, Vitae Reliquary, Paladin's Absolution
Level Two: Sanctity, Sanguine Exaltation, Resistance of Discipline, Lightning Rod
Level Three: Legionnaire's Blessing, Blandishment of Sin, Lash Beyond Death, Blood Fire (note: this is for yourself)
Level Four: Song of the Prey, Spear of Faith
Level Five: Rain of Blood, Wrathful Judgement

The Paranoid

Those that are paranoid and have Cruac 5.

Level One: Sinners Song
Level Two: Prison of Denial, Resistance of Discipline, Wings of the Seraph, Lightning Rod
Level Three: Blood Fire, Pharaoh's Paces,
Level Four: Call of Amonial, Display of Beast, Sacred Haven
Level Five: Rain of Blood, Damned's Day

The Ranged Coterie of Three<

This is for a coterie of 3 Cruac casters. Bird of Sin and Stigmata can be hit multiple times per target, whilst Blandishment of Sin increases lethality.

Level One: Vitae Reliquary
Level Two: Prison of Denial, Sanguine Exaltation, Resistance of Discipline, Bird of Sin
Level Three: Blood Fire, Blandishment of Sin, Pharaoh's Paces
Level Four: Spear of Faith, Stigmata
Level Five: Rain of Blood

The Warrior of God

Those that are the walking will of GOD!!!

Level One: Hauberk of Blood, Vitae Reliquary
Level Two: Prison of Denial, Damned Radiance, Sanguine Exaltation, Sanctity, Resistance of Discipline, Bird of Sin
Level Three: Blood Fire, Blandishment of Sin, Lash Beyond Death, Legionnaire's Blessing
Level Four: Spear of Faith, Stigmata, Display of Beast, Purifying Light
Level Five: Rain of Blood, Wrathful Judgement, Night of Hell, Fires of Vengeance

Handy Dandy Combo's

Wrap up

As you can see with Cruac, the glut of really useful, good rituals occurs at levels 2 and 3. Levels 4 and 5 offer relatively few rituals worth their bang for their buck.

You'll note that Sanctity, Sanguine Exaltation, Prison of Denial and Blood Fire feature heavily throughout.

Hope you've enjoyed this, and that it helps your separate the gold from the FLUFF. Cheers.

Jahn's Guide to Cruac

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