A profane ritual invokes pure msawhat by violating the laws of life and death. There are a few ways to do this, but the most common is to kill someone in a way that prevents their soul from passing through the Gates. This varies greatly by species and person, but common methods include sealing someone's mouth with a special seal (usually wax made from their children's ground up bones and fat), removing their still-beating heart and burning it, either plucking out the eyes without letting them blink or sealing them permanently with the bone and fat wax, creating a special Grey Circle out of grave dirt, burying the coffin top-down, digging up the body and moving it to a strange place (or only part of it), tricking them into promising their soul to another fate then murdering them (or driving them to suicide), etc. The method must affect the soul or the body's connection to the soul. More complicated methods might invoke mental or emotional bonds to the soul as well, such as psychological torments that disconnect the soul from its traditional path. Once a profane ritual is performed, the invoker gains access to the spilled msawhat that comes from the Grey Lands because of it. The price of this is the slow corruption of their own soul or body (or both), and the powers they get are based on various undeath powers (see Undead for now). These powers do not usually last long unless it was a particularly impressive ritual, so users often return to the ritual.