Now people who live in glass houses can throw rocks, well bricks.

The Blame Game
a.k.a. Hot Potato
Power: Significant
Cost: 2 Significant Charges
Effect: Performing this ritual produces a hot potato. Whoever owns the hot potato when it goes off is instantly known as the perpetrator of some transgression. It may be as harmless as people thinking the character brutally dumped a former lover or it may be the rap for mass murder. The owner of the hot potato is the primary inhabitant, or owner, of the last residence the potato was tossed into. The hot potato is chucked through a window to pass it along. Those who own it get a Soul roll to get the rules intuitively.

When the potato goes off, after a random amount of time ranging from a few minutes to several decades, everybody becomes aware of the guilt of the owner. It doesn’t matter if physical evidence contradicts it, everybody believes that the person did it. This exonerates the actual culprits at the expense of the potato’s owner. If nonsensical situations are produced, for instance a 90-year old woman beating a man to death with her bare hands, people may rationalize it as an accomplice or burst of strength or anything else. Those involved, especially the victim, are subject to Self checks as their old memories are hard to reconcile with the new awareness of the “true” culprit.

As a note just because the blame has been passed doesn’t mean anybody who once carried it is now free from legal entanglements. While everybody now knows the ritual performers didn’t do it that doesn’t mean they are just let go. Appropriate legal channels must be pursued.

For 2 more significant charges fabricated crimes may be passed along in this manner. In this case conviction is unlikely as even though the jury will feel that the individual did it there is jack shit in the way of evidence that a crime actually happened. This is little comfort to those who are blamed for fictitious child abuse, rape, or cannibalism.

Ritual Action: To play the Blame Game you need a brick, a blank piece of paper, a piece of evidence of the transgression, and all the participants in the transgression. This includes people directly responsible, those who could be legally implicated, and those smeared with blame by the victim’s own words. A piece of twine helps but is not required.

All of the individuals smeared with blame sit in a circle around the brick and play a game of “Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?” Except it is “Who Murdered John Harris on August 24th?” or whatever. The person who is going to actually cast the ritual is the person who starts the ball rolling and is named last and does not have to be involved in the crime. They are, however, risking a lot if they are not. As each part is said, slow and clear and how it is played by kids, the blame comes off with each denial and passes to the next person. If the ritual is interrupted the blame is off those who have gone already. Once the caster is implicated they pass the buck in general by saying, “You Did It” and writing it on the sheet of paper. All of the ritual components are attached to the brick in someway and then the brick is tossed through somebody’s window as the caster screams, “Was It You?”

To pass the hot potato, as such bricks are known in the OU, the current owner picks it up and says “Couldn’t Be” (yes they say it capitalized or it doesn’t count) and then find another window to toss it through as the caster did. Hot potatoes don’t go off mid air, but may go off right after landing, giving new victims no time to respond.

Players should not know how long their hot potato is going to last, and shouldn’t know how you derive the random length of time. The more erratic the better. There is some anecdotal evidence that repeated use of this ritual by the same group leads to shorter and shorter fuses, to the point where the potato goes off before the ritual even starts.

On the other hand the first brick is still in circulation. When it goes some poor schmoe is going to have a lot of people very angry at him, but on the plus side idiots won’t be blaming the Jews anymore.