To perform a Ritual is to give a Belief a body. It is the structured performance of actions and intentions designed to reinforce a narrative, strengthen a community, and, in the most profound cases, exert the force of a collective will upon the Tapestry itself.

Within ATET, Ritual is the verb of enacted Faith. It is the bridge between the internal world of belief and the external world of tangible consequence. It is the system that governs everything from a simple, shared meal that reinforces kinship to a world-altering rite that calls down stars. Magic in ATET is not a separate system; it is ritual that has become so saturated with belief that the Tapestry has no choice but to listen.

The Philosophy of Ritual - The Habit of Belief

A ritual is a story told through action. It is the process by which an abstract concept—a hope, a fear, a conviction—is made real and repeatable. This act of structured repetition is a fundamental engine of both social stability and metaphysical power.

The system is built on a unified continuum:

• Social Rituals: At its base level, a ritual is a social habit. A family’s nightly dinner, a crew’s drinking session after a long haul, a community’s annual harvest festival. These acts serve a crucial psychological and social purpose: they reinforce shared identity, strengthen social bonds, and deepen the participants’ confidence in their collective Faith. Their power is in the bonds they forge between people.

• Metaphysical Rituals: When a ritual is performed with immense, focused Faith, over long periods of time, or at a place of great symbolic power, its narrative weight can begin to warp local reality. The belief becomes so powerful that it exerts a physical pressure on the weave of the Tapestry. This is the origin of what other settings would call “magic.” The path-hymn of the Cultist that reshapes the city’s streets is not a “spell” learned from a book; it is a social ritual that has achieved escape velocity from the purely symbolic.

The Mechanics of Performance - The Rite

Every established ritual is a Rite—a data structure that acts as its blueprint. An agent seeking to perform a ritual is driven by a Goal to enact a specific Rite.

The Anatomy of a Rite

A Rite defines the necessary conditions for a successful performance:

• Participants: The required number and type of agents (e.g., 1, 2+, Members of Hegemony Faith).
• Location: The required context (e.g., Anywhere, Near Geothermal Hearth, Atop a Mountain at Midnight).
• Components: Required symbolic items (Sacrificial Offering, Ancient Text, Shared Meal).
• Action Sequence: The ordered set of verbs that must be performed ([Chant], [Kneel], [Consume], [Ignite]).
• Intent: The core Symbol Tag or Belief that all participants must share for the ritual to succeed (e.g., [devotion], [remembrance], [binding]).

The Performance

For the player, performing a Rite is an interactive process. The Subjective Interface will guide you through the Action Sequence, prompting choices or actions at each stage. Success depends on fulfilling all the conditions of the Rite.

The Crafting of Rituals - The Emergence of Habit

New rituals are not researched from a tech tree. They are invented through a process of emergent, belief-driven experimentation.

1. The Novel Act: An agent performs a unique sequence of actions that leads to a surprising and emotionally significant outcome. This creates a powerful MemoryEntry.
2. The Hypothesis: The agent’s BeliefUpdateSystem analyzes this memory and forms a new, low-confidence Belief: “This specific sequence of actions might have caused that positive outcome.”
3. Reinforcement: Driven by this new Belief, the agent may attempt to repeat the sequence when faced with a similar situation. Each perceived success strengthens the Belief’s confidence and strength.
4. Codification: After enough successful repetitions, the sequence is codified in the agent’s mind. A new, personal Rite is born. The agent has created a habit born from a superstition.
5. Propagation: The agent can now teach this Rite to others through Conversation. If it is adopted by a group and woven into their culture, the personal habit becomes a powerful communal ritual, its narrative force growing with every new participant who shares the Intent.

The Spectrum of Failure

A ritual’s power comes from its precision. A failure to meet the conditions of the Rite can have consequences ranging from the mundane to the catastrophic.

• Fizzle (Simple Failure): The most common outcome. The Intent was not shared, a component was missing, or a step was performed incorrectly. The ritual expends resources (time, components, willpower) but has no effect. This can lead to a minor loss of confidence in the associated Faith.
• Unintended Consequence (Narrative Failure): The ritual succeeds, but the Intent was too broad or flawed. The casters get what they asked for, but not what they wanted. A ritual for “strength” might grant immense physical power at the cost of empathy. A rite to “bring back the beloved” might return their body, but not their soul.
• Backfire (Catastrophic Failure): This occurs when a powerful ritual is attempted with a fundamentally conflicted or corrupted Intent. The narrative energy, unable to resolve cleanly, collapses inward or lashes out. This can cause direct psychic damage to the casters, summon a hostile entity that is a perversion of their goal, or permanently taint a location with negative or chaotic Eidos, making it a dangerous and unstable place.

To perform a Ritual is to engage directly with the narrative physics of the universe. It is a tool of immense power for those with the clarity of Faith to wield it, and a profound danger to those who approach it with a divided heart.