So I was thinking about the Ordo Lebes in White Night and how they were able to put up a Ward, like with Thaumaturgy, though even working together it was pretty minor. I personally like the idea that some minor talents can perform minor rituals to some effect, without being as powerful as the Rituals power. Note that I'm also talking about something different than Common Rituals that don't rely on the power of the ritualist at all.
So here's my simple idea. I'm open to comments about whether this makes sense, whether it's necessary (maybe I missed something), if there's a better way to do it, or any other thoughts or comments.
Minor Ritualist (-1 Refresh)
This power gives a very minor form of thaumaturgy. You have some power, but not nearly as much as a full wizard or focused practitioner. You can perform true rituals and fuel them with your own power, but they are always minor.
Effect: You may use the Lore skill to perform minor rituals. These are handled as Declarations or Assessments and the effect is mechanically limited to placing, discovering, or removing aspects (though in play it would be described as a weaker version of thaumaturgy). The normal rules for for Declarations and Assessments are used, with two differences. First, the rituals always take considerable time to perform (on par with Thaumaturgy). Second, the base duration of teh aspect (for declarations) is an afternoon, then the duration can be increased by adding +1 to the difficulty before rolling (+1 difficuly per step up on the time increments table).
I thought about using more details, like a stripped down Thaumaturgy system, but decided that since it's limited to Declarations and Assessments (which can be done with any skill, really) there wasn't any reason or benefit to the thaumaturgy systems in this case. Plus, I'm really thinking about using this for NPCs rather than PCs (minor talents, the paranet, etc. are going to play a signficiant role in my campaign that just started), so I'm not too concerend about details since it will mostly all be done "off-camera" anyway.
So, anyway... any thoughts? My first thought is to ask whether it's even necessary. I think that the longer duration (at the expense of taking considerable time to do) adds enough to be worth one refresh. Also, this is meant for minor talents. Most people can't even do these minor rituals (they're limited to Common Rituals), so making this a Power reflects that you need to be at least a Minor Talent to do this. I suppose that if the feedback is that it isn't worth 1 refresh, then I could just make it a -0 cost Power (you'd still have to take it and it would still make you a Minot Talent, costing you the Pure Mortal +2 Refresh bonus).
-John B.
