Make an enemy recently? Need to make them pay? Head on down to the local Poetry Slam!

The Rhyming Curse
Minor Ritual
Cost: 5 Minor Charges

Ritual Actions: Concentrate on your enemy. Think about everything that he or she had done wrong and how you’re going to make them pay, pay, pay! Write all of this down in a notebook, stream of consciousness style, and make it good and long–there’s no set limit, but the emotions must be real. The caster must feel genuinely wronged by the target or this won’t work. Burn the notebook and collect the ashes. The caster should then mix the ashes with a quantity of his own semen (if male) or menstrual fluids (if female) and poor the mixture into an ink pot. Using an old-fashioned fountain pen used for no other purpose but this ritual and high-quality rag paper, write a poem about your target–on the spot, no revisions and no planning beforehand. Do that and you’ll have to start over. Names need not be used, but there should be enough identifiers that the target will be able to identify him or herself. Feel free to use insulting terms. Something bad needs to be described as happening to the target–death, crippling disease, bankrupcy, etc. Be creative. Contrary to the title, this poem need not rhyme–haikus are popular with uninspired casters because they’re easy to write (bad ones are, anyway). This poem must be recited in public, before an audience and the paper eaten for the ritual to take effect.

Effects: Something bad but non-fatal will happen to your target, generally causing a great deal of inconvenience and/or embarassment, by the next new moon. He or she will be passed over for promotion (or even fired), get audited by the IRS, the tranny will drop out of their brand-new car, etc. The event will in no way be predicted by the poem, the caster has no control over what happens, but the event will occur. As a rule of thumb, the monetary/social cost of the curse is not crippling and the effects will not threaten the target’s life–just make it difficult for awhile. There is rumored to be a Significant version of this ritual called Greek Tragedy, which does considerably more–invoking the cosmos to make the victim accidentally kill his or her father, unknowingly commit incest, be reduced from millionaire to begger in a single week, etc.