Disrupting a ritual circle

[Papa Gruff]

Hey there fellow GMs it's me again with an other question I was confronted with during our last gaming session.

What happens when the circle of a complex ritual is prematurely broken to prevent the ritual from going through. For example: what happens if the circle of a sanctum invocation or an entropy curse is disrupted by throwing something through it while there have been a couple of dozen shifts channeled into the construct?

There are two imaginable outcomes and I'm not certain witch one would make most sense where the DF canon is concerned:

• The spell fails, releasing it's energy as backlash or fallout upon the caster in the circle. This is potentially very very bad and I'm not aware of any example of this within the canon. Yet it has a certain appeal in a dramaturgic way. The rules say that backlash and fallout happen if the channeling of energy fails... but in this situation it technically doesn't. So: Is backlash/fallout viable when disrupting a charged ritual circle?
• The spell fails, releasing it's energy into nothingness. The effort of the ritualist goes to waste, as the channeled energies hold by the circle disperse into the natural magical background. As for the first point there aren't a lot of examples for something like that. The only thing that comes to my mind is from Welcome to the jungle comic
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  where Harry throws a stone at the cauldron of the Hacatian Hags to spoil their ritual of assention
  .

How do you handle the breaking of a ritual circle. I'm looking for opinions here. Have I overlooked something in the rules?

[MijRai]

I'd say it depends on how strong the ritual is. For the Blood Rites spell, breaking the circle would unleash the energy on everything inside. For something like one of Harry's simple tracking spells, I'd say it would be like a small breeze blowing out.

[KOFFEYKID]

In stormfront breaking the circle released oodles of magic in the zone which harry and victor used for spell slinging. In Blood Rites it would've caused the death of everybody inside but I think that was more of a consequence of pissing off HHWB.

[babel2uk]

My ruling on it would be that disrupting the ritual circle should cause an automatic failure on the caster's discipline roll for that round. Forcing them to choose to take the backlash to continue the spell (at least long enough to release the energy safely), or to release the energy as fallout.

The fallout could place the aspect of 'uncontrolled magic' on the scene, which could then be invoked by any caster present to aid their own spells.

Having said all that,

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as shown in Changes, it's possible for a caster to cast a thaumaturgy spell entirely within their own mind, but that takes time and precision. This does theoretically mean that a disciplined caster could continue with and complete the spell after the circle was broken, if given the chance to do so (i.e. not pounded into the ground by a rampaging PC).

[Papa Gruff]

My ruling on it would be that disrupting the ritual circle should cause an automatic failure on the caster's discipline roll for that round. Forcing them to choose to take the backlash to continue the spell (at least long enough to release the energy safely), or to release the energy as fallout.

The fallout could place the aspect of 'uncontrolled magic' on the scene, which could then be invoked by any caster present to aid their own spells.

I like the idea of the fallout as a scene aspect. It is kind of a mix between the two points from my original post.

Having said all that,

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as shown in Changes, it's possible for a caster to cast a thaumaturgy spell entirely within their own mind, but that takes time and precision. This does theoretically mean that a disciplined caster could continue with and complete the spell after the circle was broken, if given the chance to do so (i.e. not pounded into the ground by a rampaging PC).

I don't think that you are completely right on this one. The construct of the spell is planned before casting a thaumaturgical spell and - at least as I understand it - tied to the preparations witch include the circle. If your construct is broken in my opinion you can't simply try to take it up with your mind, since that's not how you designed the spell. If you have the spell construct fully going in your mind then it can't be broken. Nobody seems to do that though... perhaps the Merlin... hm

[wolff96]

My ruling on it would be that disrupting the ritual circle should cause an automatic failure on the caster's discipline roll for that round. Forcing them to choose to take the backlash to continue the spell (at least long enough to release the energy safely), or to release the energy as fallout.

The fallout could place the aspect of 'uncontrolled magic' on the scene, which could then be invoked by any caster present to aid their own spells.

I like this idea quite a bit.

Having said all that,

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as shown in Changes, it's possible for a caster to cast a thaumaturgy spell entirely within their own mind, but that takes time and precision. This does theoretically mean that a disciplined caster could continue with and complete the spell after the circle was broken, if given the chance to do so (i.e. not pounded into the ground by a rampaging PC).

This I don't agree with, though.

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The spell in question was, from the ground up, a purely mental construct.  If the spell is designed that way to begin with, all well and good.  If it's designed to use a circle, implements, and other ritual aids and then that physical construct is disrupted...  I personally wouldn't let a caster switch it to purely mental mid-ritual unless it was something really simple.  (Like caster's Lore rating or less.)  The difference is that one was designed to be purely mental -- Harry's Spell -- and one was designed with a circle and that 'crutch' was suddenly broken.

[babel2uk]

This I don't agree with, though.

That's fine it was purely theoretical, and I didn't mean that just any caster could do it. It would take one with a very high mental discipline, who potentially wasn't leaning particularly hard on that crutch.

[tymire]

Though technically all you would have to do is walk up and pinch the person.   As distracting someone would be extremely easy.  Heck the moment something enters the area the circle is at well, good luck keeping it together, when you know something just "broke" it.

[tymire]

Also considering what he was doing, breaking it wasn't really a worry for him, the summoning itself was his entire goal.  If he tried to do that to any nuetral parties well... wouldn't have to be worried about anything else. 

[Todjaeger]

Don't forget the purpose of a circle in the first place.  It is either to contain something, or shield a ritual from outside magic/energy.

In the case of someone breaking a circle during a significant ritual, not only is there the possibility that the caster(s) concentration could be disrupted, but also that the 'background' energy or magic in an area could start flowing into and becoming part of the power gathered for the ritual.  This could result in the ritual having more power than the caster(s) wanted, or could even control.  It is also possible that depending on the nature of the magic or energy, it could effect the results of the casting.

In Turn Coat for instance: (Spoiler alter)

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When Harry was doing the sanctum invocation ritual at Demonreach, after he drew the circle, but before he empowered he, he stripped completely except for his pentacle.  It was mentioned that he did this not so much because the ritual required it, but to reduce the chances that any of the enchantments on his gear could cause interference.  Granted, a sanctum invocation is apparently not a very common, or safe ritual, particularly when cast at a location as friendly as Demonreach, it does make it seem that for delicate or high energy castings, even a little errant magic can have a major (negative) impact.

[JosephKell]

You take an action that becomes a Block on their next discipline control roll.  You basically substitute a higher difficulty.

So a careful ritual caster might try to gather 1 shift of power each exchange, but if you make a Fantastic Weapons rolls (to throw a rock at the ritual), their next control check is 6 instead of 1.

[Becq]

You take an action that becomes a Block on their next discipline control roll.  You basically substitute a higher difficulty.

So a careful ritual caster might try to gather 1 shift of power each exchange, but if you make a Fantastic Weapons rolls (to throw a rock at the ritual), their next control check is 6 instead of 1.

Nice!  This means that a highly disciplined spellcaster might be able to carry on through with the ritual despite the interruption, but at the very least it makes it more difficult to 'concentrate'.

One other thing to consider is that if the ritual does require physical components, and you destroy them, then this might require the caster to make up the complexity 'deficit' immediately or suffer the consequences of the spell failure.  For example, if I used a Summoning Circle In My Basement to give me two shifts toward the complexity requirement, and that circle was damaged and thus made useless for the ritual, then I'd probably need to either invoke an aspect (assuming I had a Fate point and an untapped aspect handy), or suffer a mild (or greater) consequence.