Much like The Order, the Haunters have many rituals - both great and small - to mark the passage of their days. They have a ritual to greet a new member in the faith, and a ritual for deciding if a mortal is worthy of insanity. There are rituals for learning a new Path of Fear, and new Arts within that Path, not to mention other Numen that the Goddess Mania would find pleasing.

Some rituals are public, and some are private, or to be experienced by only a few people at once. The following are among the major rituals of the Calling, and it is expected that all Haunters be present for them.

* The Induction

When a new member joins the Haunters, she is blindfolded and presented to the entire group in the Gateway. The Grandmother stands beside her, dressed {and sometimes Shaped} in the aspect of the Goddess Mania, and asks all there to reveal the Mysteries of the Goddess to the new member. This is done orally, and in unison, while the Grandmother places the occasional dream, memory or nightmare inside the would-be Haunter's mind to act as a visual aid.

Once this is done, each member comes before her, places her hand upon the new member's forehead, and says "I am Manes {member's name here}, a servant of the Goddess, and your new friend." This goes down the line until the Grandmother's turn, at which point she leads the new member through a series of ritual questions.

When the questions are answered to the Grandmother's satisfaction, she removes her mask of Mania, and assumes her normal form. She then removes the new member's blindfold, and formally introduces herself: "I am your Grandmother, a servant of the Goddess, as are we all, and as are you, now."

The ceremony is sometimes finished by everyone going outside the Pit, finding the first lawbreaker they see and letting the new member perform her duty upon that unfortunate soul. This is mostly done to gauge the skills and inventiveness of the new member, so that Haunters with similar skills and outlook can take her under their wings, but sometimes it's done just to make sure she was serious about what she said during her Induction.

* The Presenting of The Mysteries

Every so often, the Haunters perform a strange sort of morality play in which ordinary mortals are used as unwitting actors. These Mysteries pit the participants' virtues and ethics against their vices and inner drives - not to mention the other participants - so that the Maniae can see what happens.

A common practice is for the Calling's members to find a group of people who are completely and utterly beyond saving, and slowly twist each person towards fulfilling a certain "part" in the Mystery. They let it build up ever so slowly, and then, right at the boiling point, they find a way to keep the mortals from leaving the stage, and invite the rest of the Alliance to come and watch what happens.

Such spectacles are usually reported as "3-Hour Massacre at Local Restaurant," "Supermarket Rape-Torture-Murder Spree" or "Entire Family Dead at Each Other's Hand" on the news. The authorities do the best they can to keep the really terrifying details out of the respectable papers, but the tabloids and undergrounds go wild with the suppressed information.

And the entire city shudders and looks over its shoulder, wondering how real the "real" world really is.

* The Feast of Mania

In ancient times, at various times of the year, the high priests would roll away the stone that covered the Pit of the Maniae, and let them out of the Underworld. Faithful mortals put tribute directly under the face of Mania, which adorned each house as a ward against evil, and held feasts on behalf of the Goddess and Her spirits. They would also bake bread in the image of those spirits {also called Maniae} for Her emissaries to enjoy.

No one - other than modern Pagans - has followed those traditions in over a thousand years: no stones are rolled away, no Maniae are baked, and the face of the Goddess has been replaced by other things.

However, the Maniae still hold their Feasts.

If the Haunters of a Necropolis believe that the wickedness or disbelief of their Domain has gotten too high, their Grandmother can call for a Feast. No one bakes them bread, anymore, so Fear and nightmare are their new meat and drink {along with the Essence they can harvest from their Arts}. And they no longer feel like they have to be given the mortals' "permission" to have a party, either.

They usually wait until the Dark of the Moon to actually hold it, as the Concords are out walking their boundaries, and the Alliance can be ensured of total privacy. But they can do it whenever they feel they need to, just as they can have as many Feasts in a year as their Grandmother feels are warranted. It's something of a fine line: if they hold too few then the living forget, but if they hold too many it spoils the crop.

During such Feasts, the Haunters don't need to wait for someone to break a law or defy the Gods. Instead, they work their arts on whomever first catches their eye, and give that mortal a damn good scare. If they can find a lawbreaker in action, then so much the better, but they won't go specifically looking for them on Feast nights.

The only hard rule of the Feast of Mania is that no mortal may be killed - at least not on purpose - and no one driven completely insane. After the Feast is over, the Haunters go back to their usual ways, but during the Feast night the mortals under their dominion can at least be ensured of surviving until morning.

But if they decide they can't take anymore around 4 AM, and reach for the pills, anyway, then whose fault is that...?

* The Falling

The final act in the tenure of a Haunter is expected to be her rejoining the Goddess in the Underworld. It usually takes place when the Haunter is one close step away from being completely filled with Angst, or has grown so weary with her duties that she can no longer perform them with care and joy. If she can secure the permission of the Grandmother - who speaks for Mania on this issue - then she may announce her Falling.

This is done at the Gateway, with the Haunter standing in the middle of it, and the Grandmother directly behind her. When she feels she is ready she allows the Grandmother to place her hands upon her, and all other members of the Alliance join hands with the Falling one as well. It's common for two Haunters with Castigate to be the ones on either side, so that they can give her some last morsels of Tainted Essence, and help her on her way.

As the Haunter states her name, and a recording of what she has done, she passed her stored memories, fears and nightmares to the rest of the assembled Concord, so that all might share of her contribution. The Grandmother, meanwhile, makes copies of these things for herself, so that they may be kept in a central location for the Alliance to share.

If it's timed right, the Haunter's last and most cherished thoughts are spread around the group just as she fills up with Angst, loses her connection to her Anchors and falls through the Barrier. As she goes into the waiting arms of the Goddess, below, the Alliance breaks the chain of hands and rejoices, calling her name and venerating Mania, as well as other Haunters who went down before her.