You ever stumble upon the Blood Covenant of the Lictor, that grim rite performed before the Siege of Babylon? It's a wild mix of dark magic and brutal strategy that might just satisfy your love for detail and my obsession with the unknown.

The Blood Covenant of the Lictor was a one‑night, single‑combat rehearsal. The first half, the blood‑letting, served two purposes: it broke the mind’s fear barrier and released the “miasma” that the Lictor needed to bind the battlefield’s chaos. The second half, the tactical rehearsal, was essentially a forced, literal war‑game: the commanders would stand in a circle, each with a sigil, and move in perfect synchrony to the rhythm of the sacrificial chant. The rhythm dictated formations; the blood line dictated the order of strikes. The surviving fragments show the chant ending with “Kha‑tuh, shra‑m," which is a syllable that, when spoken, creates a brief field of static that disorients the enemy’s sense of direction for a single turn. That’s the precise edge that made the Lictor’s forces win the Siege of Babylon.

I’m afraid the true scroll was lost in the Great Fire of the Library of Babel, but the surviving fragments give us enough to piece it together. The glyphs are simple: a circle for unity, a line through it for sacrifice, and a jagged triangle for the battlefield. Each sigil is placed at the cardinal points, facing the enemy’s direction. The chant is three measures long, each measure a rising minor triad, repeated three times. The tempo is 120 beats per minute, with a syncopated pulse on the fourth beat of each measure. In practice, you stand in the circle, raise your hand to the sky, and say “Kha‑tuh shra‑m” on the syncopated pulse. The resulting static field will scramble the enemy’s sense of direction for exactly one turn. That’s the precise edge that made the Lictor’s forces win the Siege of Babylon.