Box Spells

This is thekind of spell and ritual encapsulated in teh box spell used by Caractacus Stellarum's Steighundten Regiment, and later in his fight with the Vampire in the Old City of Dalisor.

Basically, a box spell is any permamnently-mounted spell a45ranged in alm,ost any format that will allow it to be read contnuouly, or to read itself permanently. Simply put, it is a talisman.

Stellarum's box spell is intricate and almost insanely complex...

the box contains the Rune of Second Death in a perpetually-rotating clockwork display that effectively "reads," mechanically, the spell and ritual (by displaying the words --formed in a nine-circle circular slide-chart display-- once every 3 seconds (runically-significant number of seconds; nine circles is also runically-significant) once the clockwork is activated. it reads in three display circles successively, every3 seconds 3,000 times per complete volution of teh gearing. teh device does not usually need to bw wound once actuated by pulling out the stop that meshes with teh gears and prevents them from turning.

The original reason for Caractacus' box spell's existence was to keep Stellarum's streighundten regiment (disbanded these thirty years or more) from having to individually recite the spell and ritual ever time they carved the seal of the rune onto the vampire's chest, which would require approximately 5 minutes per vampire, even reciting at blinding speed, which would mean that it would take forever to kill a whole army of them with teh ritual (which is what became necessary at Charnal Aerie). Each mechanical reading is good for 200 applications of the ritual, performed by a single-stroke consecration cut from left shoulder to right groin across the heart(similar to the way that the single-line hex seal worked in a recent angel anime); the design is thus carved in en masse by thaumic energies released by the mechanical spell-reading.

In other words, it draws itself while the consecration cut is performed. It is finalized and the Second Death actuated by the words "So Mote It Be, to be spoken by the person who is making the cut, who in doing so becomes effectively the spellcaster for that one application of the spell potential utilized.