Sin deeply, then bathe your sins away.

The act of bathing carries a clear symbology: by washing the body, you wash the soul.

You know this purity intimately. In this state of innocence, anything is possible. It is an elaborate, splendid thing, and you seek it.

You seek to return to the waters from which you were born. Dirty, guilty and tainted by the evils inside you and around you, you seek cleansing.

Symbolic Tension: The ablutomancer seeks purity and forgiveness, but can find it only through deeper and deeper defilement.

Generate a Minor Charge: Spend four hours in the water. If the water has been scented, purified, and ritually prepared beforehand, you can generate a minor charge in an hour instead. This could be a Baptist ceremony, an Afro-Caribbean devotion, or any other traditional or fabricated ritual, so long as it involves a formal, structured ceremony.
Generate a significant charge: Bathe in ritually prepared water for an hour after you have committed a serious sin. (Exactly what constitutes a “serious sin” is subjective, and up to the GM, but unwarranted violence, betrayal, theft or blasphemy would do the trick.) Alternately, bathe while you’re under the effect of a curse or other malignant magical effect. This won’t get rid of the curse, but see the “Purification” formula below.
Generate a major charge: Bathe in ritually prepared waters for an hour, after committing a truly horrific act, which hurt over a hundred people in an unrecoverable way, and which also left you physically soiled.

Taboo: Your state of innocence lasts only while you are bathing. You keep your charges only so long as you are nude (or wearing special vestments intended only for ritual bathing), and submerged at least halfway in water.

Blast: The ablutomancy blast is quite limited — it only affects a victim who’s in the same body of water that you are. The victim’s flesh drains into the water. This might mean blood seeping from pores, but, at higher levels of damage, could leave the victim’s body dissolving into a frothy red mass.

Charging Tips: Because most ablutomancy requires stationary bathing, charging isn’t really a factor. Gather charges when you need an effect, and commit misdeeds when the opportunity presents itself.

Starting Charges: None.

Minor Formulas

Minor Ablutomancy formulas can be used on yourself at the listed price, they can instead affect someone else at a cost of two additional minor charges. (An exception is “Wash Away Your Sins” which is always designed to affect others.) You can only affect others if they are in the same water that you are.

True Bathing
1 minor charge (3 if used on another)
You clean yourself deeply. Any poison, drug, infection, contamination or dirt is dissolved away.

Refresh the Body
1 minor charge (3 if used on another)
Heal damage equal to the sum of the dice.

Freshness
2 minor charges (4 if used on another)
For the next 24 hours, gain a 10% bonus to any one skill related to charm or beauty until the next day.

Harsh Cleansing
3 minor charges
This is the albutomancy minor blast. It does damage equal to the sum of the dice rolled.

Baptism
3 minor charges (5 if used on another)
You hear voices which seem to be a saint or god of your faith, whatever that might be. The voice offers guidance, advice and encouragement. You cannot specify what answers you will receive, but this divination will always provide some useful insight into your current situation.

Significant formulas

Absolution
1 significant charge
You become overwhelmed with a sense of peace, safety, innocence and forgiveness. You can remove a single Hardened or Failed notch from any Madness Meter.

Purification
2 significant charges
Cleanses the soul thoroughly. Purification removes any curses or negative magic effects on you. Additionally, this formula heals damage equal the the value of the dice roll.

Amniotic Return
1 significant charge
This is the Ablutomancy significant blast. It does damage equal to the result of the dice roll. The victim’s flesh dissolves into the water.

One Water
2 significant charges
This formula is only used while you are alone in a still body of water. It’s used to spy on other water. Looking into the body of water, you can see and hear everything that happens in or above another small body of water — or section of a larger body of water — that you specify. You can keep watching as long as you are alone and watching the water. You can also go to the place you are watching: if you close your eyes and submerge yourself entirely, you’ll surface again in the body of water you are watching. Since you’re still in water, this doesn’t violate taboo.

Primordial Genesis
2 significant charges
Create an animal to do your bidding. The animal can be anything you’ve seen in person that spends time naturally in the water, and fits in your bath. For instance, you could call on a crocodile, crab, stingray or beaver, but not a dog or a elasmosaurus. When you create the animal, you can give complex instructions that it will understand, but otherwise its intelligence is normal for its kind. For instance, you could call on a duck and tell it to deliver a letter to a specific address, and give street directions – but the duck wouldn’t otherwise be smart. The animal dissolves into water instantly if you violate taboo.

Major Effects
Stop aging. Permanently become incredibly attractive. Gain the power to become a dolphin at will. Make a body of water impassible to enemies and hostile spirits. Dissolve a major artifact or creation.

What You’ve Heard
Reverend Ann “Siren” McHanrahan runs Baptismal, a “Pan-Christian Women’s Spa and Healing Retreat.” Baptismal is located on the site of a natural hot springs in northern California, and caters to the very wealthy. Reverand Ann herself has developed a pattern of systematically harassing and antagonizing adepts of San Francisco, Portland, and Nevada, often surprising them with her remarkable ability to recover quickly from injury and hardship. She gained very negative Sleeper attention once by sending a hippopotamus to attack an enemy.