Mmmh, It's a great ritual for those who are willing to undertake it. Personally, though, I only plan on doing the one origami butterfly which I will keep with me, because I'm too environmentally-conscious for the littering and waste of paper involved in the rest (translation: yes, I am too damn lazy to fold 101 of those things).
As for the inner workings of the servitor, I've been thinking about this and here's the way I see it:
Its basic function would be to gather small amounts of energy from each one of us who make offerings to it and to pool this together in one shared energy reservoir. Then, when someone calls upon it for assistance in a ritual, it can spend some of that energy to boost the spell being cast, effectively giving everyone here the capacity to perform their private rituals with a power-level equivalent to large group workings.
Because of this, I believe that offerings should be performed separately, since when you're preparing for a ritual you still need all your own energy to go through with it. I think everyone participating should make their own little origami butterfly and keep it somewhere in their home. Whenever they want to, they can go to it and offer it some form of candy (anything sweet, sugary or colorful; I think that maintaining consistency in the offerings is preferable since this becomes part of the symbolism associated with the servitor). The servitor will then take this as a permission to draw some of the person's energy to itself (don't do this when you're really tired!). There is no fixed amount required from anyone, although one should try to make donations proportial to the amount they use. The servitor would only honor requests from those who have offered to it at least once (Participation in the creation ritual will count as an offering).
The programming might roughly look like this:
Basic Program:
1-Hover around and seek out representations of its symbols (the origami butterfly and the sigil). Remain aware of them and of anyone interacting with them. Wait for contact.
2-If contacted, determine if the caller is using the appropriate name, symbols and procedure as assigned at creation. If not, ignore contact. If yes, proceed.
3-Determine purpose of contact:
If an offering, go to program A.
If a request, go to program B.
Program A: Accepting Offerings
1-Is the caller on your contributors list?
Yes, skip to step 4.
No, proceed.
2-Scan for the caller's identity and perform a background check to determine elegibility, judging from things such as past magical actions, perceived intents, Barbelith status... [Note: My original intent here would be for it to contact Dabh Surgot, whom I understand is responsible for watching over Barbelith and its members, and ask him for his judgment of particular members and their suitability and trustworthiness for playing around with the energies of others. This seems within his chords and would facilitate the process. However, I suppose I should get the opinion and permission of his creators for this. This would have been Wyrd, right? Is she still around? Or does anyone else feel they can speak for Dabh?]
If the caller is rejected, Ignore contact.
If ze is accepted, proceed.
3-Add the caller to your contributor list.
4-reach in and draw out some of the caller's energy.
~Guidelines: If the caller is specifying in his communication an idea of the amount he wishes to donate, rely on this. If not, draw only a small amount which will not significantly influence the current state of the caller (sometimes the energy produced by the consumption of the offering might be enough). If in doubt, rely on the size and quality of the offering as an indication. Never absorb an amount of energy which would endanger the health of the caller, even if ze wishes so. never absorb so much that ze will be unable to function normally, unless ze specifically states that they intend to go to sleep afterwards.
5-Add the collected energy to your reservoir.
Program B: Granting Requests for Assistance
1-Is the caller on your contributors list?
No, ignore contact.
Yes, Proceed.
2-Record and analyze the intent and specifics of the ritual being performed.
Is it a Barbelith group ritual with a stated official name?
If yes, set aside a separate energy reserve where all the energy granted to every participant to the ritual will be stored together, along with a permanent recording of the ritual, then go through steps 3 to 5. once everyone has participated, treat it as one massive individual spell and continue from step 6 on.
If not, treat it as an individual spell and proceed.
3-Calculate the probability of the ritual's intent to become reality. From this, evaluate the quantity of energy which will be necessary to influence the course of events so that this figure becomes sufficiently promising.
4-Draw energy from your reservoir to try and reach that level.
~Guidelines: Maintain statistical data on the number and size of requests and offerings that you receive every day. always consider these when selecting an amount to spend. Make sure that you will always remain at an acceptable energy level. Distribute it as evenly as possible between different callers. Do not favor any one request over others, except for group rituals which take priority over individual ones. Make sure to always retain enough energy to perform all your basic functions and to defend yourself against anything which might covet your energy reservoir.
5-Add the amount of energy selected to the caller's own energy being spent during the ritual.
6-Verify the fail-safes included within the ritual and make sure that they are set to take into account the modified energy levels before making their verifications and taking effect.
7-Re-cast the whole spell using your recorded information on the ritual and the new amount of energy.
I also suggest that we use Spiral Amplifly as a title used to refer to it and that we keep Aurelia as its True Name, used in contacting it ( and which we might want to keep quiet).
That's it, whaddaya think?
Might be mistakes in there, I'll edit tomorrow, tired.
<mumble>Sleepless night...goddamn deadlines...</mumble>
[ 29-12-2001: Message edited by: Gus ] |
