Ritual magic

This article covers a topic relevant to Pathfinder Second Edition. For the Pathfinder First Edition equivalent, see occult ritual.

A group performs a mysterious ritual.

Ritual magic is a powerful form of magic that holds a prominent role in Golarion's history as well as the present day. While esoteric and complex, they remain a way for people otherwise untrained in spellcasting to achieve feats of great magical power. Its nature inspires groups of all types to hunt and control or destroy ritual instructions.

Description

Rituals are spells and are cast using one of the four magical traditions. They require a primary caster and often multiple secondary casters, but a ritual's casters do not need to know the art of spellcasting, so any person can learn how to perform rituals.

History

Seoni performs a ritual in the Pact Hall of Piren's Bluff, as Kyra and Shiyara observe.

Due to its origins in the distant past and active efforts to destroy knowledge of ritual magic, the history of ritual magic is difficult to ascertain.

Design and practice

The shortest rituals take one hour to cast, while others can take as long as a week or more.

Examples of rituals

Merisiel and Kyra perform the heartbond ritual.

See also: Category:Rituals (Second Edition)

• The heartbond ritual uses divine magic or primal magic to bind two willing creatures in sincere affection while in possession of a physical token representing the bond, and allows them to sense each other's relative position and condition, or even to communicate telepathically.
• The awaken animal ritual (a primal spell) and awaken object ritual (an arcane or occult spell) respectively grant sapient intelligence to animals and mundane objects.
• atone
• binding circle
• planar displacement
• planar servitor
• resurrect
• wish

References

For additional as-yet unincorporated sources about this subject, see the Meta page.