RItuals come in levels 1 through 5

Dismissable means dismissable at will with no gestures or other rigamarole instantaneously at any distance. Dismissal only requires that the caster be conscious it takes no time.

Rituals come in levels 1 through 5

rituals cost 1 exp per level

no ritual can shut down a power of equal or higher level and if a ritual shuts down a power it can have no other positive side effects

No ritual can have a direct positive or enchancing effect on any discipline power i.e. no ritual that makes your obfuscate work on cameras, no ritual that makes your astral projection look real or lift objects, no ritual that lets your presence entrancement or dread gaze, really anything other than awe work on animals.

casting a ritual is a difficulty 3n challenge with one retest per 5 traits of the challenge where n is the level of the ritual.

casting a ritual takes 5 minutes per level of ritual unless otherwise noted.

Level 1 powers you can only lose energy and points off of your sheet but gain some sort of effect. 

i.e. in the Lesser Deflection of wooden doom you take a health level as you insert the splinter into your tongue.

level 2 you can move points around on your sheet but they must remain in type, use occult to retest stealth or create a situation where you can use mentals instead of physicals for a challenge.

level 3  cannot create any effect that lasts more than a night, cannot have an effect as good as a level 1 discipline, does not require sacrifice off of the character sheet but can require  sacrifice of other things. cannot cancel powers.

level 4 first time can cancel powers, can cancel other rituals , can be as good as a level 1 discipline. Can move around points on a sheet regardless of type but there will always be energy loss in the transfer. can make items that last a month, no more.

Level 5 like level 4 but more energy efficient, can make permanent items at some sort of cost. all wards fall under this category.

meta ideas:

Utilizing powers and capacities from outside the caster's character sheet. 

rituals come in several flavors when cast each style of magic flavors the magic learned.

straight thaum should be the standard

Abyss Mysticism, settite sorcery and all necromancy  should be just worse in every way. idea - one category easier to cast but only effects lasts an hour. if the ritual lasts an hour or less, ritual lasts half the time. any product of the ritual also only lasts an hour (kindred wards, hearts in jars etc. it is wise for settites to cross train)

Assimite spells can be cast with a full hand, but the hand must still be free to move and the caster must move at least 3 steps to cast (imposing a -2 penalty to actions including the test to cast the ritual, using celerity to erase this penalty is ridiculously blood intensive as celerity lasts seconds and rituals take minutes.

Kauldun should be more powerful but cost more. rituals take twice as long to cast and cost an additional blood. they have an additional retest against being dispelled or unwoven.

Sample rituals straight from the mouth of dave

lvl 1

Pebble from the Mountain

caster chants over a pebble and loses the highest level dot of a discipline of their choice, they then place the pebble on the tongue of an underling where it dissolves. the underling immediately gets the benefit of one additional level of the discipline up to the caster's level of the discipline before he cast the ritual. This dedicates one of the underling's experience tracks and they may spend it on nothing else but learning this discipline until they have learned a level. this counts as a live fire exercise the teacher of the discipline in this instance is the underling or the caster of the spell for experience purposes. The caster cannot use or regain the use of their discipline until the underling has completed his training or dies. Unweave ritual cast on this spell results in the underling gaining the discipline and if they do not have the requisite exp, the points come directly out of their mental traits. This also occurs if the caster dies

one cannot be the subject of more than 2 of these pebbles at a time due to lack of experience tracks. one can cast this spell as many times as they like amongst as many people as they like with respect to the above limit.

lvl 2

donning the mask of shadows.

caster creates a mask that becomes covered in writhing darkness. it dissolves at dawn, when they wear this mask they must use occult in place of stealth on any concealment challenge. 

lvl 4 Heart of stone

Lasts 1 night, cannot be dismissed.

caster is not a valid target of social challenges. all attempts fail. As a note, magesty would still work as it is not a social challenge and if a will is spent, the victim of magesty is the initiator of the social challenge and thus can lose. For the duration of this ritual the caster cannot initiate mental challenges. not even mentals vs physicals. They fail any attempt to engage. Note this does not render them helpless against dominate as they are not initiating that challenge.

when this ritual ends the caster's heart disgorges a stone into their body doing 2 lethal

Lvl 4 Leaden Heart

ritual lasts the night and is non dismissable.

caster cannot be targeted by social challenges but must relent to all physical challenges

leaden heart requires 1 kg of boiling lead into which the caster plunges his hand doing 1 lethal

Lvl 5 Heart of Brittle Iron

As per Leaden Heart but dismissable at will reflexively. doing so costs 1 lethal health level. The ritual requires the material component of a diamond worth resources 4 which is not consumed in the casting but if the ritual is ended early it shatters and is no longer useable.