Content Warning: This guide describes and discusses the source text’s treatment of sexual offenses and sexual violence, sexism and sexist slurs, stalking, graphic gun violence and torture, and drug and alcohol use disorders. This guide also refers to the novel’s explicit depictions of sexual practices, including ones that mimic acts of sexual violence. Examples include consenting nonconsent or prearranged “rape” fantasies (the text uses the term “forced sex” fantasy, which is replicated in this guide), breath play/erotic asphyxiation, and degradation during sex. In addition, The Ritual features scenarios that it frames as “dubious consent” or “dubcon,” which are controversial terms developed in fanfiction communities to refer to supposed instances of questionable consent.

A document outlines the code of conduct for a secret society called the Lords, emphasizing the members’ loyalty to the group. A Lord is a “Leader, who believes in Order, knows when to Rule, and is a Deity,” (1). To be included in the society, a member must pass three initiation trials, after which “he will forever know power and wealth” (1). Someone who passes these tests will be given “a reward,” implied to be a woman.