Ablution (sage ability)

Ablution is an expert-status sage ability in the study of Piety, enabling the ceremonial cleansing of persons or objects with water. Though a primitive practice, the individual's faith is strong enough to allow the water used to possess cathartic properties that can remove moral defilement, as well as physical uncleanness. It is thus related to ritual purity.

Situations in which ablution applies are described below. Strangers able to perform ablution may be petitioned to help a party, but as they are extremely pious, they cannot perform the ritual for coin or merely upon being asked. They must be convinced of the character's circumstance, and value as a person, before they will assent to perform the ritual. One cannot perform the ritual on his or her self.

Moral Circumstances

Moral defilement describes any character, regardless of religion, that has placed a barrier between his or her self and the religion to which they belonged. It may be that the character changed religions, and now wishes to return, despite having been ex-communicated. It may also be that the character has unintentionally caused a great wrong, and is fearful to confess that wrong to the church — because it was the church, or powers supported by the church, to which the wrong was done.

Ablution cannot ensure the ex-communication is removed, or that the character need not confess as is necessary to be forgiven. But, if the ablution is performed first, the character may count upon a fair trial, and a right to be heard. The wrongdoing is not removed, but the motivation and guilt of the wrongdoing is. So long as the character makes restitution, there is at least a chance that the character's good name may be restored.

Unnatural Circumstances

If a character is possessed, or afflicted by the undead, or with lycanthropy, then ablution can serve the character well. If used in concert with the spell exorcise, the possessed character need not roll a check against his or her strength (only constitution and wisdom). If the afflicted character can receive the ritual of ablution in time, the body's cursed flesh can be washed away.

Ritual

To succeed in washing away the defilement, the individual must be submerged in clear, fresh running water; the water may not be silted or muddy, or moving so slowly as to appear motionless, or be of any body like a lake or a sea. In the ritual, the knowledgable character holds the afflicted under the water three times in succession, for ten seconds each time. The water must be deep enough to permit complete immersion. This action must take place within an hour of the affliction occurring, or else it's too late. Once the ritual is complete, the individual will feel better, their soul rested — and others who witness the person afterwards will sense that a change has taken place, and will more readily forgive the individual his or her sins.

If the ritual is performed in a river known for its holiness, then the water's appearance or degree of movement is of no importance, nor does it matter how much time has passed. It may be, however, that an individual that has become undead, or a lycanthrope, must be wrestled during the ritual — as surely this affliction will make itself known to its fullest degree during the individual's ablution.

This assumes a player character, who would truly wish to revert to his or her previous self ... but a creature that does not wish to revert cannot be affected by ablution.