Note: This is a hengeyokai rite only.
Rite of Quiet Burial[]
(Level Three) This rite is commonly used on offenders who have proven themselves in need of time alone to contemplate their wrong-doing. They receive it -- for they are buried alive and left in the dark earth until the punishment is complete.
The subject is escorted to the place of burial, where the rite master binds his wrists and ankles with white cord and draws the hengeyokai symbol for "silence" on his forehead. The attendants then lower the subject into the prepared pit (administering any blows necessary to quell resistance along the way; the subject need not be conscious during this portion of the rite). The ritemaster then writes the subject's offense on a piece of bark, then throws it onto the subject's chest while intoning the story of the infraction to the four winds. Once the tale is complete, all present cover the subject with earth and tamp down the grave.
If the rite is performed successfully, the subject will not need to breathe, eat or drink for the rite's duration (which usually lasts from sunset to sunrise). Of course, the live burial is a harrowing experience, and the subject must make three successive Willpower rolls, all difficulty 8, or lose a permanent point of Willpower. If any of these rolls are botched, the unfortunate sinner may go temporarily insane. (The Storyteller may select an appropriate derangement.) At the rite's completion, the malefactor is exhumed, and all is considered forgiven. However, such a claustrophobic experience usually does much to set errant Hengeyokai back on the path of virtue.
System[]
The ritemaster makes the usual Charisma + Rituals roll. If the rite fails, the ritemaster will know immediately. In such cases, most order the subject to be unearthed immediately, presuming the Emerald Mother has decreed such a punishment too strict for the offense in question. However, it is not unknown for certain strict ritemasters to leave particularly "corrupt" individuals under to be rid of them once and for all...
Source: Hengeyokai - Shapeshifters of the East