Not every ritual out there is really worth someone’s time. But can you really risk not knowing it?

Power: minor
Cost: 3 minor charges

Effect: If the ritual is successful, the caster can then twist his head around 360-degrees without any ill effect once. The neck seemingly warps and twists to make up for the head, but the body otherwise can remain stationary. Cracks and creaks of bone can be heard, but aside from a slight pain in the neck afterward, no physical problems should arise from a successful use of the trick.

Ritual Action: The Robespierre Hat Trick has a long-and-torrid history. Contrary to the name, it did not begin with the architect of the French Revolution, but instead began with the Egyptian mystics. Long ago, when the pharoahs demanded both knowledge and entertainment from their courtly magicians and seers, one mystic showed his pharoah this trick and was beaten to death by the court. But his legacy lived on.

Every century since, court magicians (who would ultimately give rise to the stage magician) attempting to mimic the trick. Some succeeded, and were either killed by the terrified masses or exiled by their patrons for such a horrific display of magic. Others failed. Rumors following the trick tell of an initiate in the Scottish Lodge of Freemasonry, who despite any talent for magick, managed to mimic this trick via loose bones in his neck. He was found lying face-down in a gutter in Glasgow, while his body faced the oppisite direction.

Others tell of how three different victims of the French Revolution attempting to use this trick, forgetting of course that twisting your head around 360-degrees didn’t do you any help if you were trapped by your neck.

But enough history, now the trick.

The caster begins with three cups, three red balls, and an audience. The size of this audience doesn’t matter, so long as more then one pair of eyes is watching you. You begin by taking the first ball, cupping it in your hand and using sleight-of-hand, moving it beneath the first cup without anyone seeing it. Repeating this with the second and third cup, you must then show the audience that the balls have “appeared” beneath the cups.

You then set the ball onto the cups again, and repeat this trick. As you cup each ball, you must speak a sacred word. This is the key point. Each is a word passed down within the stage magician community from the Egyptian courts. Thanks to their presence in the public conciousness, these words have slipped out into the mainstream as “Hocus”, “Pocus”, and “Alakazam”. After these words are spoken in a loud tone, the cupped balls must find their way under the center cup. With this, the ritual is primed and ready.

Let it rip, you won’t get applause like that every day.