I really like the idea, but if it's a permanent effect I think it either needs to cost a major charge, or it needs to be harder to do.

For example, maybe the climax of the ritual is doing one of those stupid death-defying stunts they show in Red Bull commercials... without safety equipment. If you make your casting roll, you're wings sprout halfway down the cliff and you fly to safety; if you fail, SPLAT!

I don't know. I think it might be worth more significant charges, but not a major charge. The fact that it's permanent is more of a hassle than it's worth. To wear normal clothes, you're in constant discomfort and have this weirdly-hunched back. If you want to actually use your wings (and how often is flight under one's own power really useful, anyway?), you'd better hope that nobody sees you, lest you wake the Sleeping Tiger and get the Sleepers after you. Not to mention every two-bit occultist who wants to know the secret.

Seriously. Buy a plane ticket. It's cheaper. Trust me.

I'd say three or four sigs might be more appropriate, but it's fine as-is. It's the perfect ritual to leave as a trap for dumb occultists. Sure, you have wings. Now what? Was it worth it?

It might also be appropriate to make the sacrifice more difficult — like an endangered species (oh great, now the Sleepers, the EPA, and the WWF are after you) or something only found in an Otherspace.

Besides, have you ever had a Red Bull? That's punishment enough. ZING!

The wingspan of at least 100 feet means there is absolutely NO hiding those things. And No chance you won't be spotted if you fly during the day.
Hope that's a typo.

It's not a typo, and it's part of why I made it only cost 2 sigs. Seriously, you'd need a really enormous wingspan to get a human body off the ground with actual working wings, about 100 feet if I remember right. I'd still hold you could probably get away with night flight, unless in a reasonably well lit city.

If making the sacrifice harder, I'd probably go with finding more and/or rarer birds rather than a rarer type of bull.

Still, can see why you might want to up it to 3 sigs as written.

OK, can't edit on this forum...

Seriously, unless the ritual causes massive changes to the victim's bone structure to make them light enough, reasonably sized wings wouldn't cut it scientifically speaking. Of course, that would make it that much more of a trap ritual, while making it easier to have been hidden from the public - unless there was a spell out there to do the bone structure change, too...

I like the effect. I like the fact that it performs as promised, and yet comes with enormous drawbacks that a reasonably wary duke should have seen coming. Magick at a terrible price is thematic gold.

What I don't like is the Red Bull or the buffalo wings. Taking ritual symbolism from a current advertising slogan and modern-day recipes makes this obviously a newly-developed working ritual -- something no-one but the Comte is supposed to be able to create anymore. The final part of the ritual ought to be more old-school in flavour.

(Or, in the alternative, it should at least have a really convincing explanation as to why the Comte felt it worthwhile to create a blatantly Tiger-disturbing ritual that riffs on pub snacks and energy drinks.)

Had an idea - perhaps it is an old spell of ancient greek origin that has been thematicly updated.

Flight of Icarus (also known as Icarus's Folly)

Substitute falcons or pigeons for seven birds of the same genus (perhaps it was once white doves becasue pigeons are rock doves) - An ordinary bull was once the sacred white bull (quite vivid painted with blood and sacrificing it may suggest assumption of the godhead) - Substitute the high-energy drink red bull for the sweet ambrosia of the gods, Honey Mead! (not the most popular tipple of the ancient greeks but one probably recognised as the original alchoholic beverage).

Besides you need something to wash down those "Buffalo wings" ?!?

Including modern items in the ritual don't preclude the ritual from being ancient. What if some half-mad duke, high on mystic incense and gifted with prophecy, made a ritual that uses specifically modern references.

Also, don't forget that the Comte's ability to make new rituals is really only because he is so adept with symbolism. Rituals theoretically exist "out there" and are discovered by sapient beings; the Comte merely knows how rituals work, and so can "discover" new rituals by deducing how they should work. It is entirely possible that people discover rituals by accident or learn new rituals through communion with the Statosphere.

The ritual "Prowess of Bruce Lee" is implied to have been taught by a demon (p. 99 of UA2). It is also noted that demons learn occult knowledge because of their current state, and so they might know some secret rituals.

It is also stated that no one knows how the "Prowess of Samson" was updated into "Prowess of Bruce Lee." It's possible it was deduced through one of the other methods described, or that the Comte did indeed develop and disseminate a new ritual.

After all, the Comte does mysterious things to keep reality moving. What if the ritual is actually important to his plots. Maybe he needs to show everyone the truth of magick to create a new Avatar and push the Clergy closer to 333 members, or maybe he just places junk rituals out there to eliminate stupid dukes. It's hard to determine the Comte's motivations.

If this was a post modern update to an old ritual (just a different slant on the components) perhaps you cannot rid yourself of the damn wings because some ancient, forgotten but vital component of the ritual is missing that allowed you to shed them once your task is done?

I heard there are actually three versions of the ritual. The one known to most dukes is the one above; sure, it gives you wings, but why would you want that?

There's a second one that requires a little more mojo, some exotic components, and is probably hellaciously illegal under modern environmental protection laws. That one, though, is more magickal: your wings aren't as big, and you can shed them at will. Or they automatically collapse into a bunch of feathers afterward; I forget which. My cousin says Daedalus helped develop that version, but his apprentice fouled it up.

The third version, though, is the original. Supposedly, it teaches you the secret of the Cruel Ones, but that's only half-true. Really, it turns you into a Cruel One, forced to guard the demonic prison of the afterlife.

Well, at least, that's what I heard.

I heard that you can magickally get rid of the wings by flying as close to the sun as you can. The wings will shed their feathers, and melt off like wax leaving no indication that they were ever there. The only problem is getting back to the ground safely.