Animalism
Auspex
Celerity
Chimerstry
Daimoinon
Dementation
Dominate

Fortitude
Melpominee
Mytherceria
Obeah
Obfuscate
Obtenebration
Potence
Presence
Protean

Quietus
Serpentis
Temporis
Thanatosis
Valeren
Vicissitude
Visceratika

Learning Disciplines

When you choose your character’s clan, the character gains access to that clan’s three innate disciplines. If you choose to purchase a bloodline merit, the clan’s native disciplines may be altered to reflect the differences between that bloodline and the pure blood of the parent clan.

At character creation, you assign one of your character’s native, or “in-clan” disciplines 2 dots and 1 dot to each of your character’s two remaining in-clan disciplines. You can then use initial experience points (XP) and XP gained from flaws to purchase additional dots of the character’s in-clan disciplines.

With the Storyteller’spermission, you may also buy the first 3 dots of non-native, “out-of-clan” disciplines, so long as those disciplines are common to the setting. You cannot purchase more than 3 dots of a specific out-of-clan discipline (though you may buy more than one out-of-clan), nor may you buy rare disciplines during character creation.

After character creation, you can freely purchase your character’s in-clan disciplines with XP.

Once a character has activated an out-of-clan discipline by learning the first power, she does not need to drink more blood in order to learn additional levels of that discipline.

Even after the blood bond fades, she still retains the ability learn more. However, she will need further instruction (and more Willpower expenditures) from a qualified teacher who possesses the discipline in-clan. This may be a different teacher than the one who initially taught her in the first place.

To learn 1 or more dots of an out-of-clan discipline:

• The student must find a teacher who possesses the desired discipline in-clan, and has mastered at least the level she wishes to learn.
• The student must drink a point of Blood from the teacher to awaken the potential to learn a discipline not innate to the student’s clan. If the student already possesses a dot of the discipline to be learned, she may skip this step. The student cannot learn other powers or disciplines from the ingestion of this Blood.
• The teacher must spend 1 point of Willpower for every power to be taught, and inform the student which discipline (and which powers) he is teaching her.
• The teacher must be in contact with the student and must give her instruction from time to time, but teaching does not consume a downtime action. The student must actively train, and, therefore, must spend 1 downtime action per power to be learned.
• The student must spend the XP to purchase the power or powers.
• The student need only drink 1 point of Blood from the teacher to gain the capability to learn all of the powers of a given Discipline, even if learning from multiple vampires. The individual powers still need to be taught and learned separately. The Blood ingested counts towards the blood bound.

Each dot of Willpower spent by a teacher in this manner refreshes after playing two game sessions or after one month (whichever is longer). After spending 2 Willpower in this manner, the teacher will regain 1 Willpower after two game sessions/one month; she will then regain the 2nd Willpower two game sessions/one month after regaining the first, and so forth.

Example:

Barnabus the Brujah has 4 dots of Potence and wishes to teach Potence to Tanya the Toreador. Potence is an in-clan discipline for Brujah. Tanya drinks 1 point of Barnabus’s Blood, thus activating Potence within her own blood. She now has one month to learn the discipline. Barnabus then spends 1 Willpower, and Tanya spends a downtime action. Lastly, they inform their Storyteller that Barnabus is teaching Tanya the first power of Potence.

After playing in two games, Barnabus recovers his spent Willpower. Tanya wants to learn more Potence, and Barnabus agrees to teach her. Tanya will not need to drink another point of Blood; she has permanently activated Potence in her blood by successfully learning the 1st dot of the discipline. Barnabus could choose to spend 3 Willpower and teach Tanya the next 3 dots of Potence all at once (assuming Tanya has enough earned XP to purchase those powers). If he did so, Barnabus would be 3 Willpower down for two games (or one month); 2 Willpower down for four games (or two months), and 1 Willpower down for six games (or three months). After that, Barnabus’s Willpower would be back to normal.

Barnabus will be unable to teach Tanya the 5th dot of Potence until he purchases it himself.

Focuses

Most powers have a focus effect. Focus effects are bonus abilities granted to characters who possess the correct focus. If your character purchases a power and has the correct attribute focus, she can attain additional benefits when using that power. For example, a character with 3 dots of Stealth can normally use Cloak the Gathering to extend her invisibility to effect up to three nearby allies. If the character using Cloak the Gathering is Intelligence-focused, she gets the focus bonus of that power and can instead extend the effect to up to six allies. Focus bonuses come into play when the person using the power has the correct focus, regardless of whether her targets have the focus or not.

Thaumaturgy and Necromancy cannot be learned as easily as other disciplines.

To purchase a path of Thaumaturgy or Necromancy, your character must possess a specific merit that allows her to do so, such as the Thamaturgic Training merit (or a similar clan-specific Thaumaturgy/Necromancy merit) and justify the education in your character’s background. If you wish to purchaseThaumaturgy or Necromancy after your character enters play, you must purchase the merit during play. Formore information on these specific merits, see Merits (link opens in a new window), Necromantic Training and Thaumaturgic Training.

Elder Powers and Techniques

Characters with the correct generation (8th, 7th, or 6th generation) can learn elder powers. Learning an elder power requires your character to go through the same steps as learning other powers of that discipline.

To learn an in-clan elder power, your character only needs to go through the process of experimentation and personal study. Learning an out-of-clan elder power requires a teacher who has that discipline in-clan and knows the specific elder power in question.

A character cannot teach a specific power she has not mastered. Further, the instructor must spend 1 point of Willpower, and the student must spend a downtime action and the required XP, as per the steps of learning any discipline.

Techniques, on the other hand, do not require a teacher. A character who possesses the prerequisite powers for a technique can naturally develop it by spending a downtime action and the required XP, as if the technique were native to the character’s blood.

Using Disciplines

The following general rules apply to all discipline use:

• Discipline powers do not cost Blood to activate, unless specifically stated in the description of that power.
• A power’s effect can only be focused on one target at a time, unless specifically stated in the description of that power.
• Unless otherwise stated, a power doesn’t stack with itself. For example, if you have a power that can be activated to give your character a +1 bonus, you cannot activate that power a second time and double the bonus to gain a +2.
• Any discipline that has a cost to activate, such as Blood or actions, lasts for one hour unless otherwise stated in that discipline’s text.
• By default, a vampire must be able to see a target clearly in order to use a power on that target.
  • Sensory-enhancing powers may allow a vampire to target subjects at a distance (outside the range of normal sight).
  • Technological assistance is not sufficient to target powers at a distance. The target must be observed with the vampire’s own senses or powers. Use of binoculars, sound amplifiers, video cameras, or other such gear cannot be used to target a power.
• Unless otherwise stated, a user can cease using a power by spending a simple action.
• Discipline descriptions are written as though vampires are using these powers. However, unless specifically noted otherwise, the descriptions include ghouls, revenants, or other supernatural characters that can possess and use the powers.
• For the purposes of discipline descriptions, partially supernatural characters (such as ghouls and revenants) are considered “mortal.” If a power is described as having a greater effect on mortals, it will also have that greater effect on ghouls.
• The discipline’s test pool (noted in the initial description of the discipline) applies to all powers within that discipline, including elder powers. It does not necessarily apply to techniques; refer to each technique to determine its individual test pool.

A number of discipline powers refer to situational modifiers, such as relenting, wound penalties, and line of sight. For more information and an explanation of those terms, see Chapter Six: Core Systems, page 271.

Gaze and Focus

Many disciplines require the target to have her attention focused on the user of the power. These powers do not require eye contact, but do require having the attention of the individual you wish to control. Anyone whose attention is focused on you is a viable target for powers that require gaze or focus. This includes individuals that are looking into your eyes, holding a conversation with you, attacking you, or using a power on you, so long asyou are the immediate center of her attention. Over the centuries, many individuals have attempted creative ways to avoid making eye contact, but the powers of the blood are not so easily thwarted. Gaze and Focus only requires having the attention of the individual you wish to target.

It is possible for a single person to focus on two or more individuals. If supernatural powers are used to make you pay attention to two different characters at the same time, you might glance back and forth between them or move to a place where you could see both characters at the same time.

Familiarity with the Target

Several powers require you to be familiar with your target. To meet the requirements of familiarity, you must have met your target on at least three separate occasions, and you must have had a conversation with your target for at least five minutes on one occasion. In addition to these requirements, you must have interacted with your target within the past 30 days in order to remain familiar with that target. If you recently met your target at a gathering, spoke to her over the phone, or exchanged letters with her, then you are currently familiar. If you have known the target for 100 years on-and-off, but have not interacted with her within the last 30 days, then she is not currently familiar to you.

Transformative Powers

Powers that significantly alter a character’s physical shape, such as turning into a wolf or shifting into a monstrous warform, are called transformative powers. A character cannot combine two transformative powers; you can only be in one altered shape at a time. For example, a character cannot combine the effects of Shape of the Beast with the effects of Black Metamorphosis. You may either transform into a wolf or have shadowy black tentacles, but not both.

Some powers that physically alter a character are not transformative. Using Feral Claws, Heightened Senses, or a cosmetic use of Fleshcraft to change your face alters a vampire very little, and as such, can be used in conjunction with a transformative power. A character in Shape of the Beast might be Fleshcrafted to appear as a red wolf rather than a grey wolf, or she could use Eyes of the Beast while in wolf form. However, the character could not utilize Shape of the Beast while utilizing Horrid Form.

Transformative powers do not prevent you from using nontransformative powers, so long as the new form has the capacity to meet all prerequisites. Thaumaturgy relies on speech, as do many Dominate powers, and most animals cannot shape human words. A character in Mist Form or Tenebrous Form has no face with which to show her vampiric countenance, and, therefore, cannot utilize Dread Gaze.

When you activate a transformative power that changes you from a humanoid into an animal, or into Horrid Form’s gargantuan monstrosity, clothing and small personal items disappear. These return when you regain human form. Some transformative powers, such as Divine Image, do not alter a character’s basic humanoid shape. Clothing and equipment are unaffected by these powers. By default, a character cannot use weapons while transformed. However, specific transformations do allow you to fight with weapons. This will be noted in the power’s text.

Injuries transfer seamlessly between altered forms. If a character with one eye transforms into a wolf, the animal would also have one eye. If a power withers one of your limbs when you are in wolf form, the corresponding limb will be withered when you transform back.

Unless otherwise stated in a power’s description, it requires a simple action to end a transformative power. Transformative powers automatically end if you go to sleep, become unconscious, or fall into torpor, but do not end if you are staked.

• Feral Whispers

Animals recognize you as a fellow predator and react with suspicion and fear. You can communicate with animals by murmuring to them in growls and using body language. Although an animal is not forced to obey you, it tends to respond favourably to individuals using this power.

System: You can communicate with animals by murmuring to them in growls and using body language. To ask questions of an animal, consult your Storyteller. The Storyteller should respond from the point of view of a local animal that has been drawn by your howls, chirps, or other inquiring noises.

A character who wishes to establish communication must be both visible and audible to the creature. You may speak to a specific animal, or you may use Feral Whispers to interrogate all local wildlife within hearing.

If there are no animals nearby, your queries may go unanswered. Further, if the Storyteller believes you are asking about something animals would not notice (or might not understand), your character may receive a confused or incomplete answer. Asking, “Have any two-legged creatures (human or vampire) passed through here tonight?” will likely receive a reasonable answer. The local chipmunks, stray dogs, or birds could tell you that a pack of six men walked by, and that they were here very recently. However, such animals would be unable to tell one human from another, nor identify the kind of equipment they were carrying.

Focus [Charisma]:
You don’t need to growl or gesture to make yourself understood. Your Beast can communicate directly with the minds of nearby animals. However, such animals must be able to see you while you utilize this power.

Additionally, you no longer need to rely on the animal’s ability to utilize language. When you use this power, you get a mental image of any situation an animal attempts to describe. For example, you would see a memory of the Prince walking to his car, rather than hear a rat’s description and interpretation of what it witnessed.

•• Beckoning

By uttering a howl, a series of chirrups, or some other identifiable animal noise, you summon animals to your location. Depending on how you call, you can select the size and type of animal common to the area. Although these animals are not your slaves, they are relatively friendly toward you and will attempt to assist you with whatever you command.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to summon up to five small animals, three medium animals, or one large animal. You determine the type (and size) of the animals. Normally, these animals will arrive over the course of the next 10 minutes. However, if you choose to summon animals that are particularly common in your area, it may take less time. Summoning especially rare animals may take longer (at the Storyteller’s discretion). Attempting to summon creatures that do not exist within the locale (such as calling a polar bear in the Egyptian desert) will have no result.

Summoned animals are not granted any unusual power to answer your call and must be able to travel to your location. A coyote cannot open a locked door, but will arrive in the parking lot, while a crow could more easily fulfill a rooftop summons. This power confers no special abilities, intelligence, or courage to the animals summoned.

Summoned animals consider you an alpha of their breed. If you use Feral Whispers to communicate, Beckoned animals will attempt to obey your requests. They will work for you until dawn or until they take damage equal to their NPC rating.

Multiple uses of this power do not allow you to summon additional packs of creatures while still controlling the first. However, if your original group of Beckoned creatures is disbanded (by taking damage, fleeing, or dismissal), you can utilize this power again to summon a second pack. Further, Beckoning cannot be used to control animals that are currently under the effect of another practitioner’s use of the Animalism discipline (though you may use Feral Whispers to speak with such animals).

Animals summoned with Beckoning are created using the Retainer rules, with the following additional guidelines:

• Small Animals: Use the rules for 1-point Retainers. Small animals may possess one unusual movement ability. This movement ability allows them to climb, swim, fly, or burrow at their normal movement rate. Small animals include small dogs, cats, and squirrels, as well as most birds, fish, or moles.
• Medium Animals: Use the rules for 3-point Retainers. This category includes larger dogs, brown bears, coyotes, and bobcats.
• Large Animals: Use the rules for a 5-point Retainer. The summoner might Beckon a horse, a stag, or a grizzly bear.

Before going to sleep or entering torpor, you can spend 1 Blood to activate this power. If used in this way, the animals summoned by this power will guard your resting place until they are killed or you wake.

Focus [Charisma]:
When you summon creatures using this power, apply one of the following additional effects. If you summon more than one creature, the chosen effect applies to each creature you have summoned (all are cunning, or can fly, and so forth).

• Unusual Movement: You may summon a group of medium-sized creatures that possess the ability to swim or fly at normal speeds (such as a vulture, eagle, or salmon); or you may summon a single large-sized creature that possesses the ability to swim at normal speeds (such as a shark or dolphin).
• Cunning: You can Beckon an animal with extraordinary cunning for its breed. This animal is capable of understanding and following more complex instructions. You can give if/then commands, such as “Stay by this door while I sneak inside. Bark once if you see a man approaching, and twice if you see a woman.” This animal is a standard example of its type for all other purposes.
• Swarm: You summon a large number of small animals. These might be rats, crows, piranha or similar creatures; remember that Animalism cannot affect insects. A swarm is built using the normal Retainer rules, and a swarm is considered a single creature for the purpose of combat. A swarm moves slowly (one step per action), and killing a single animal has little effect on the overall swarm. To overcome a swarm, you must inflict twice the normal amount of damage necessary to defeat a standard Retainer of its size. A large animal has 5 health levels, whereas a large-sized swarm has 10.

••• Quell the Beast

A vampiric Beast is a fierce creature, eager to seek dominance and act on primitive, violent impulses. However, the Beast can be tamed, or even cowed, by those who know how to master those impulses. Some vampires utilize this power as an alpha would to a lesser creature, forcing her Beast into quiescence. Others soothe their target’s emotions, lulling the opponent’s Beast into a sleepy peacefulness. Whatever the method, the result is the same, and the vampire must temporarily survive without the sharp instincts of her Beast.

System: The target of this power must be a vampire or other supernatural creature capable of frenzy.

When you are the focus of another character’s attention (as per Gaze and Focus), you can spend 1 Blood, expend a standard action, and make an opposed challenge using the Animalism test pool. If the target was in frenzy when this power was successfully used, she immediately falls out of frenzy.

If the target of your Quell the Beast was not in frenzy, she becomes incapable of entering frenzy for the next hour. Further, her Willpower is sapped, and she must spend 2 Willpower (instead of 1) to retest challenges for the remainder of this turn and for the next full turn.

A vampire’s Beast is a critical part of her predatory nature. When it is somnambulant, the vampire is slower to react. If an individual has a Beast trait (or gains a Beast trait) while under the effect of Quell the Beast, she struggles to use Willpower for a longer period of time. For the next five minutes, she must continue to spend 2 Willpower instead of 1 to retest challenges.

Characters with merits or powers that allow them to make retests without spending Willpower can use those merits normally while under the effect of Quell the Beast and do not spend an additional point of Willpower to use those retests. Quell the Beast cannot be used on yourself.

Exceptional Success:
The Willpower-sapping effect of Quell the Beast lasts for the rest of this turn and for the next two full turns (rather than one).

Focus [Manipulation]:
Instead of having to spend additional Willpower to retest, the victim is unable to use Willpower retests at all for the duration of this power.

•••• Subsume the Spirit

The Beast is a palpable thing, capable of influencing the minds and spirits of other animals. Not only can you cause lesser creatures to be cowed, you can actually send your consciousness into an animal’s body, subsuming it completely. The animal’s body becomes wholly compliant to your will, and you can utilize it as though it were your natural form. While your spirit rides within the body of the animal, your own physical form falls into a comatose state. Although you can utilize the full scope of your intelligence, cunning, and memories, you are limited by the physical capabilities of the animal.

System: To use Subsume the Spirit, you must spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to stare into the eyes of an animal; this power will not function on blind subjects or subjects who cannot see your eyes. Make an opposed challenge against the animal you intend to control. If successful, your consciousness is transferred into the target’s body, and its mind is rendered into a fugue-like state.

Because your character’s mind is focused entirely on controlling the body she has inhabited, the vampire has no sense of anything occurring to her native physical form. The character’s original body falls into a torpid state and can neither defend itself nor act on its own. Your body does retain your Fortitude or other powers that are always active while your consciousness is absent. While Subsuming the Spirit, you always know the direction and distance of your real body, although you cannot perceive its surroundings.

Normal and ghouled animals can be targeted with Subsume the Spirit. Supernatural creatures (such as vampires transformed into an animal or werewolves) cannot be targeted by Subsume the Spirit. Be sure to ask your Storyteller if you have a question about whether a creature is an appropriate target for this power.

Normal animals have no disciplines and cannot spend Blood. However, if your character is controlling a ghouled animal, the ghoul holds up to 5 points of vampiric Blood (as per a standard ghoul). The controlling vampire may spend this Blood pool at a rate of 1 Blood per turn, regardless of the character’s generation. You cannot spend this Blood to affect your character’s native form in any manner.

A character cannot use any of her own disciplines while using Subsume the Spirit. You can spend the ghoul’s Blood to fuel the ghoul’s Physical powers: Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence.

While using Subsume the Spirit, a character uses her own Mental attributes and focuses, Social attributes and focuses, Skills, and Backgrounds in challenges. However, you utilize the Physical attribute of the animal for any Physical challenges. This attribute is equal to double that animal’s NPC rating. If the animal you are controlling has the power to fly or is adapted to aquatic life (like a fish), you gain its ability to fly or swim at normal speeds.

Subsume the Spirit lasts until the next sunrise, or until you spend a simple action for your character to leave the animal and awaken. Subsume the Spirit ends immediately if the
character travels more than 10 miles away from her native body, if the character’s native body takes damage, or if the animal she’s controlling takes damage.

Animals do not take damage from sunlight even when controlled by a vampire. However, a vampire with Beast traits still risks frenzy. For more information on frenzy, see Chapter Seven: Dramatic Systems, page 301.

Focus [Manipulation]:
You can use the first 2 dots of your Mental and Social in-clan disciplines while employing Subsume the Spirit. If you are controlling a ghouled animal, you can spend up to 5 Blood to fuel these in-clan disciplines, at the rate of 1 Blood a turn, regardless of the character’s generation. Vampires with this focus who have Animalism in-clan can activate Subsume the Spirit while in Subsume the Spirit, thus transferring directly from one animal body to another. Each new use of Subsume the Spirit requires 1 Blood point, a standard action, eye-to-eye contact, and an opposed challenge (as per the standard use of this power).

• Heightened Senses

You can extend your physical senses beyond human norms. Eyesight and hearing can sharpen to twice mortal limits, while touch, smell, and taste become acute enough to discern even the smallest details with ease. A character can sharpen any or all of her senses, as desired.

System: Heightened Senses is always active. A character’s heightened vision allows her to see clearly, even in total darkness, and to understand sounds too quiet for normal people to hear. When a character with Heightened Senses comes within two steps of an individual hidden by supernatural concealment, such as Obfuscate, the character with Heightened Senses automatically realizes that someone is nearby, although she does not know who or precisely where to find that someone. Heightened Senses provides only a vague warning that something is out of place.

When something blinds you, your hearing can provide adequate compensation for the loss of vision. Normally, characters who cannot see while in combat must use the Fighting Blind combat manoeuvre. So long as your character’s hearing is unimpaired, you may fight without needing the Fighting Blind combat manoeuvre.

If you spend 1 point of Blood and take a standard action, your character sharpens her senses even further. If you do so, you will automatically notice any mundanely hidden objects within line of sight, and you may make an opposed challenge using the Auspex test pool to discern the details of any person or object hidden with supernatural powers, as well as illusionary objects, or objects or people disguised by supernatural powers.

If you pierce a supernatural power in this way, you ignore uses of the same power generated by the same user for the next five minutes. If you possess more dots of Auspex than the target possesses of the power she’s using to generate the concealment (or illusion), the effects of piercing a power persist for an hour instead of five minutes.

Exceptional Success:
If you score an exceptional success when trying to see through supernatural concealment, you will automatically pierce any supernatural concealment (or illusion) created by the same individual for the next hour.

Focus [Perception]:
A Perception-focused character sharpens her senses by spending a simple action, rather than a standard action.

•• Aura Perception

By carefully studying a subject, you can pick out the glowing aura that surrounds all living creatures. The interplay of colours in an aura provides insight into the subject’s emotions, motives, and nature. With practice, you can learn to read these colours. On a normal evening, an individual aura might be comprised of many shifting hues; strong emotions predominate, while momentary impressions or hidden motivations flash past in streaks and swirls. The colours change in sympathy with the subject’s emotional state, blending into new tones in a constantly changing pattern. The stronger the emotions involved, the more intense an aura’s hues become.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood and expend a standard action to make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, your character can read the details of a target’s aura. Typically, this scrutiny is visual, but any appropriate physical sense may be used.

If you are successful, you can discern your target’s creature type (vampire, ghoul, vampire possessing a mortal, and so forth), general mood, any immediate violent tendencies, and whether or not the target has diablerised within the past year. This power does not allow the user to read minds or to discern the truth.

If you fail the opposed challenge, your target’s aura is too murky to make out clearly. Details are vague, and no particular colour or pattern seems dominant. The Blood cost to activate Aura Perception is waived if the target relents to the challenge.

Exceptional Success:
For the next hour, you continue to perceive the target’s aura without further Blood expenditure or challenges. If her mood shifts or she becomes aggressive, you’ll have advanced warning. Mechanically, if your target starts a combat, you may take your simple action before she can take any action. This forewarning does not give you an additional action, but allows you to take your simple action early.

Focus [Perception]:
If your target is within three steps, your character spends no Blood to activate Aura Perception, whether the target is willing or not. If the target is unwilling, you must still make an opposed challenge to use this power.

••• Spirit’s Touch

Living creatures leave behind traces of thoughts and emotions like a rippled wake of water. With this power, a character can read the psychic impressions on recently handled objects or locations that have strong emotional events tied to them. A touch and a moment of concentration can unlock a flood of images and sensations, possibly giving insight into the past.

• Note that you can only use this power on objects or places, and not on people, vampires, animals, or other living creatures. The visions received by the use of this power are seldom clear or detailed, and register more like a “psychic snapshot.” Still, a clever vampire can learn a great deal from a glimpse. Although most visions will reveal the last person to handle the item or be present in a location, a long-time owner may leave a stronger impression, and a long-ago trauma may overwhelm more recent events that transpire at a location.

To get a psychic impression, you must physically hold an item (or touch parts of a location) with your bare skin. As you do so, you enter a shallow trance and glean information from the spiritual residue on the object. You are only marginally aware of your surroundings while using Spirit’s Touch, although a loud noise or jarring physical sensation will break the trance in an instant.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your standard action to touch an object. You can then ask the Storyteller one of the following questions, plus an additional question for every five minutes your character concentrates on the object or location:

• Show me the last person who handled the object.
  • Your character receives a vision of the last person to use the object. The vision generally shows the last significant individual, not simply the most recent person who touched the item.
• How did the individual die?
  • This question may only be asked when Spirit’s Touch is used on a dead body (or part of a dead body). Your character receives a vision of the last few moments of the target’s life.
• When (or how) was the object last used?
  • Your character gains an image of the item’s most recent use and target (a knife stabbing, with the victim’s appearance; binoculars looking down, seeing the Prince’s car; etc.). If the object was recently involved in an emotional event, such as a murder or a robbery, your character gets a brief glimpse of the emotion, and how it relates to the item.
• Are there any strong emotions attached to this object
  • If someone loves or hates the object, or if any deep emotions are relevant to the object’s use, your character will receive such information. This information may be quite old, depending on the object’s nature and associations.

Some objects or locations have particularly strong emotional connections. Your Storyteller may elect to provide one or more answers for free when a character uses Spirit’s Touch
on such an emotionally charged target. Characters using any level of Obfuscate who handle an object or visit a location do not leave psychic impressions.

For the purposes of this power, corpses (including the corpses of supernatural creatures and the ashes of vampires) count as objects and may be targeted by Spirit’s Touch. Vampires who have not met Final Death do not count as corpses.

Focus [Perception]:
When you activate Spirit’s Touch, you may ask three questions instead of one.

•••• Telepathy

Since the ancient days, mortal man has longed to hear the secrets sheltered in another person’s mind, to speak and receive communication from the soul as well as the lips. Telepathy is the pure communication of thoughts, feelings, and desires, and those who can perform such a feat are powerful, indeed. By projecting your senses outward, you can pierce the minds of others, drawing forth their very thoughts. You can link your consciousness to another mind, sending or receiving concepts in the flicker-flash of thought.

System: To activate Telepathy upon a willing target, simply spend 1 point of Blood. No challenge is required, and the target can be located anywhere within the same city (or 50-mile radius of your character’s location). This application of Telepathy specifically does not require line of sight. Telepathy allows the character and her target to send and receive mental messages and simple images.

If you attempt to use Telepathy on an unwilling target, spend 1 point of Blood and make an opposed challenge against the target, who must be in line of sight. If you succeed, your character can send one image or a brief message (something you could say in less than 10 seconds) to the target. Alternately, your character may pull one image or specific piece of information out of the mind of an unwilling target. The information you gain in this way must answer one of the following questions (your choice):

• What are you currently thinking about?
• What does that person or thing you just described look like?
• Where is the person or object you were just talking about located?
• Do you like or dislike the person you’re currently talking to?
• What are you planning to do in the next few minutes?

If a willing character becomes unwilling during a telepathic session, the character using Telepathy must immediately spend 1 point of Blood and succeed in an opposed challenge or be ejected from the now-unwilling character’s mind.

When communicating with a willing target, a single use of Telepathy lasts for an hour, but you can only mentally communicate with one person at a time. If you activate Telepathy on a second target, the first contact immediately ends.

An individual cannot utilize other powers (such as the Dominate powers of Command, Mesmerism, or Forgetful Mind) in conjunction with Telepathy.

The telepath has the option to make herself known when communicating. Otherwise, the target can determine the identity of the telepath by succeeding in an opposed Awareness challenge.

Exceptional Success:
You can ask two of the above questions (rather than one) with each successful challenge when pulling information out of a target’s mind.

Focus [Wits]:
You can maintain Telepathy with up to three willing targets, allowing you to carry on a conversation with all participants at the same time. Participants may talk to you or to each other through this telepathic contact. You must spend 1 Blood per target. To bring new individuals into a link, spend the Blood required. You may eject someone from the link without breaking your communication with any others involved.

Celerity allows you to take additional actions. These extra actions resolve in a series of special rounds known as Celerity rounds. After resolving the everyman round of actions for all characters (performed in initiative order), the Storyteller progresses the combat into the first Celerity round. Each Celerity round is processed in initiative order. After all character actions on the first Celerity round are complete, the Storyteller progresses to a second Celerity round, and so forth, until all players involved have expended all of their actions.

The everyman round and all subsequent Celerity rounds comprise a single turn. Once all Celerity rounds have been resolved, the Storyteller begins a new turn, starting with a new everyman round and moving through Celerity rounds once more.

You can only take Physical actions during a Celerity round. Your character may move, attack, or activate a Physical power, but cannot engage in any Mental or Social challenges.

Celerity and Temporis

A character who has purchased any amount of Celerity cannot purchase Temporis. Likewise, a character who has purchased any amount of Temporis can never purchase Celerity.

You must spend 1 Blood point to activate Celerity for the turn. That expenditure activates all Celerity powers you possess. Activating Celerity doesn’t require an action and can be done at any time (even before your turn in the initiative order).

Some Celerity-based techniques and elder powers require the expenditure of additional Blood or the use of an action to activate. If so, that requirement will be denoted in the individual power.

Each dot of Celerity represents an additional increase in physical speed, and each dot stacks with all mechanical bonuses granted by other dots of this discipline. If a character has Rapidity (Celerity •••), she has the bonuses granted by Rapidity, and also the bonuses granted by Alacrity (Celerity •) and Swiftness (Celerity ••), which she must possess to reach Rapidity.

Using Celerity at the Rapidity level or beyond is a breach of the Masquerade, should it be seen by mortals.

Focus [Dexterity]:
Anytime you activate Celerity, your character gains +2 to Dodge-based defensive test pools.

• Alacrity

You are capable of an incredibly fast response time. By activating Alacrity, you have the ability to make incredibly rapid movements, increasing both reaction speed and reflexes.

System: When you spend Blood to activate Celerity, your initiative increases by the sum of all of the Celerity powers you possess, including Celerity elder powers and Celerity-based techniques.

•• Swiftness

Your body responds so quickly that the world around you seems to slow down. You can use this extra time to draw a bead, increasing your accuracy with ranged weapons.

System: When making a ranged attack, you gain a +5 bonus to determine whether or not the attack scores an exceptional success. Additionally, when dodging, you receive a +5 bonus to your test pool for the purpose of comparing attributes to determine if your attacker has achieved an exceptional success.

••• Rapidity

You can move faster than humanly possible. Before a normal human can move or breathe, you are already acting a second time.

System: When you activate Celerity, you gain an extra round of actions (one simple action and one standard action). Resolve these actions during the first Celerity round.

•••• Legerity

At this speed, you can move faster than the human eye can track clearly. You are a blur to those without this power, and your incredible speed allows for plenty of time to focus, aim, and fire.

System: All of your Dodge-based defensive test pools receive a +2 wild card bonus while Celerity is active. This bonus stacks with the +2 Dodge bonuses granted by the Dexterity attribute focus. Additionally, when you score an exceptional success with a mundane ranged attack (one not related to any supernatural discipline) while Celerity is active, your character inflicts 2 additional points of damage instead of the standard 1 additional point.

••••• Fleetness

You can become a whirlwind of velocity, moving with preternatural speed. Your attacks are a blur of constant motion. You flit back and forth, appearing almost to blink in and out of focus as you fight.

System: When you activate Celerity, you gain an extra round of actions (one simple action and one standard action). Resolve these actions during the second Celerity round.

One of the most important things to remember about Chimerstry is this: illusions can add to the world, but they can never subtract from it. A character could create a chimerical wall and hide behind it, but could not use this power to create a hole in the ground, as Chimerstry cannot “subtract” the dirt that is present. A character cannot use Chimerstry to make items or people invisible, nor to duplicate the powers of Obfuscate. However, you can use Chimerstry to create a chimerical bucket to put over an item and thus hide it. This power cannot alter a character’s overall appearance, as Mask of a Thousand Faces does, but it can change the colour of a trenchcoat from red to blue.

Chimeristry is made of semi-tangible maya, mixed with the mind’s willingness to believe what it can perceive. An illusionary wall can block your progress, but it is not substantial enough to support more than a few ounces of weight. An individual is blocked by a chimerical wall in large part because her mind will not allow her to pass that barrier. However, if a falling person grabs hold of an illusionary rope, it will fail to support her weight.

Chimerstry and Auspex

A vampire using Auspex can attempt to use her sharpened senses to pierce an illusion created by Chimerstry. The Auspex user must use her simple action to make a test using her Mental attribute + Investigation versus the Chimerstry user’s Social attribute + Willpower. The Chimerstry user may opt to use her Social attribute + Subterfuge as a defensive test pool, rather than her Social attribute + Willpower. If the Auspex user is successful, she disbelieves the illusion.

Chimerstry and Sunlight

If exposed to natural sunlight, Chimerstry is instantly dispelled. Technologically produced sunlight or ultra-violet light does not dispel Chimerstry.

Chimerstry and Recordings

Chimerstry has enough material substance to be recorded by electronics, but such recordings do not last. At first, such recordings are perfect, but the quality of the captured illusion quickly deteriorates. After 10 minutes, a recording of Chimerstry loses its substance, acquiring defects and deterioration. Chimerical noises sound tinny and fake; snapshots or visual recordings look like poorly-crafted CGI.

Disbelieving Chimerstry

Recognizing that something is chimerical is not the same as disbelieving the illusion. Disbelieving a construct requires an active attempt to destroy the chimerical creation, indicated by a contest of wills with the illusion’s creator. It is possible to realize that an illusion is false, but fail to disbelieve it. The subject’s subconscious mind simply cannot agree that this construct isn’t real. In this manner, if a character sees a chimerical sword pass harmlessly through an object, she may realize the sword is an illusion. However, the sword will still exist, and will still look and feel real unless she chooses to actively disbelieve and then defeats its creator in a contest of wills.

If a character suspects that something is formed of Chimerstry, she can make an active attempt to disbelieve that illusion. To do so, she must expend her simple action and enter a contest of wills with the illusion’s creator. Make an opposed challenge using your Social attribute + Willpower versus the Chimerstry user’s Social attribute + Subterfuge. If the attempt to disbelieve succeeds, the illusion becomes a semitransparent shadow of itself. Characters cannot interact with items they have successfully disbelieved. For example, after disbelieving a chimerical wall, a character can see through it clearly and can move through the wall without impediment. After disbelieving an illusory sword, the character is unable to pick it up; it will pass through her hand if she tries.

If a character successfully disbelieves an illusion, other individuals will not notice any change in that illusion. Even if the character sees someone walk through an illusionary wall, she must make a separate test and successfully disbelieve it in order to walk through the wall herself. If she fails to disbelieve, she must treat that wall as if it is real, and must bash it down or go around it in order to pass. If a character who has successfully disbelieved a chimerical illusion then does something to demonstrate that it is not real, such as walking through a chimerical wall, it provides an excellent opportunity for other observers to realize that the illusion is not real and call for their own challenges. If an individual fails an attempt to disbelieve an illusion, she cannot attempt to disbelieve that illusion again for five minutes.

If an illusion’s creator disbelieves her own illusion, it immediately ceases to exist. The user must treat her illusions in all ways as though they are real or the maya fades.

• Ignis Fatuus

Maya is a delicate substance, drawn like a gossamer thread from the substance of mortal dreams. You can weave a simple illusion from this delicate material, making it real enough to fool a single sense.

System: By spending 1 Blood and using your standard action, you create an insubstantial sensory illusion. Illusions created with Ignis Fatuus can only affect one of the following senses: sight, hearing, smell, or taste. With this power, you might cause a loud bang as a distraction, give a letter the sweet scent of perfume, or read by the light of a chimerical candle.

These illusions are incapable of movement or change once they have been created.

Illusions created with Ignis Fatuus last for up to one turn per level of the Subterfuge skill you possess.

A character using Ignis Fatuus in combat can distract and confuse her opponents with false sensory input. To do this, you must pay the costs of this power and then make an opposed challenge using the Chimerstry test pool.

If successful, your target is momentarily distracted and loses her simple action the next time her initiative comes up. This use of Ignis Fatuus relies on surprise and, therefore, cannot be used on a specific individual more than once per combat.

Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success with Ignis Fatuus, your target loses both her next standard and simple actions.

Focus [Charisma]:
Those affected by your use of Ignis Fatuus cannot utilize combat maneuvers for the rest of the turn, including all rounds in that turn.

•• Mirage

Your control over the threads of maya has increased to the point that your illusions can fool all senses at once. Although you must anchor these more substantive illusions in reality, they have a far greater depth and stability.

Expend your standard action to alter the appearance of an inanimate object. Mirage cannot be used on creatures or individuals.

Remember that Chimerstry can be used to add to an item, or to cover what is there, but it cannot be used to subtract something from the item or environment. You cannot use this power to decrease an object’s size, but you may increase its size by up to 10 percent. You can alter the way the object looks, smells, sounds, tastes, or feels — or all of the above.

You can make a ragged chair look and feel like an opulent throne, cause a glass of water to smell and taste like fine wine, or change a rolling gurney into a mahogany table covered with candles. This illusion will last for up to an hour. Users of Mirage must completely cover the object they are altering; any part of the foundation that is not covered will be visible through the illusion. For example, you may make a gurney look like a mahogany table, but you cannot make a file cabinet look like a table — the solid body of the file cabinet would show between the table’s legs. You could, however, make the file cabinet look like a table with a tablecloth hanging to the ground, thus covering the entirety of the file cabinet.

Mirage cannot be used to modify the appearance of living or undead individuals, as that is the purview of Obfuscate. It can be used to make simple alterations to clothing, such as colouration, material, or general quality.

Focus [Manipulation]:
Anyone attempting to disbelieve your use of Mirage suffers a -3 penalty to her test to disbelieve.

••• Apparition

No longer confined by the boundaries of reality, your illusions are independent fabrications of dream. They move as you direct them, either on a repeating loop or following your continual, step-by-step instructions. You can give your illusions a semblance of life, causing illusory people to move or speak, illusory water to drip and ripple, and illusory music to change from song to song.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to create an independent illusion that appears real to every sense. This illusion can move either in a predetermined loop, or, with continued concentration by the creator, can change as you wish. A fireworks display can shift and change color, an illusory policeman can appear to walk his beat around a block, and so forth. Illusory objects seem to fulfill their standard functions; an illusory gun can cock its hammer or shoot an illusory bullet (which causes no harm), and an illusory engine can be taken apart and put back together.

Further, your Apparitions will automatically react when they interact with external forces or obstacles. A chimerical flag will blow in the wind, and a chimerical person will walk around a solid object placed in its path.

When you create an Apparition, you determine a simple pattern of actions for that illusion to enact, as per the beat cop’s casual walk around the block. Thereafter, you may expend a simple action to alter your illusion’s activity for one round, perhaps causing the beat cop to stop and have a brief conversation with someone (expending a simple action for every round you make the cop remain still and speak or listen). If you expend a standard action instead of a simple action, you may add, remove, or otherwise make a permanent change in the Apparition’s pre-established patterns, such as causing the beat cop to stop and whistle a brief tune every time he reaches a certain corner in his circular route.

Such alterations to the Apparition’s pattern are accomplished silently, through an act of concentration by the illusion’s creator. Note that your character does not receive any special ability to see or hear through her own Apparition. If the beat cop’s creator cannot hear the questions being asked by the individual speaking with her illusory policeman, she cannot direct the policeman to answer correctly.

Apparition cannot be used to make an illusion with a total mass larger than 10 cubic feet, although the mass can be shaped in any manner you choose. Illusions of creatures or individuals can move, as appropriate for their creature type. For example, an illusionary cop can pace back and forth down a street.

Apparition lasts for one hour, unless the power is ended by its creator, or the creator dies.

Focus [Manipulation]:
You can spend a simple action to set up a triggered response for your Apparition. You might create an illusionary child, reading a book in the corner of your haven, and give it instructions to look up and say “hello” when anyone walks into the room or when a specific person enters the room. Each Apparition can only maintain one such trigger at a time, but the prearranged actions will occur every time the trigger is tripped. Using the above example, the illusionary child will say “hello” to everyone who walks into the room until you alter the pattern.

•••• Permanency

The illusions you create almost take on a life of their own, existing without your concentration and maintaining a continued existence by drawing on the essence of the dream. You may gift your lesser illusions with this capacity, providing them a durability that can outlast even your own existence.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your simple action to make an already-created Mirage or Apparition permanent. The illusion will last until you choose to dispel it, until it is irrevocably unable to continue, or until it is subjected to sunlight. A permanent illusion is irrevocably unable to continue if it is believably destroyed, such as by throwing a chimerical gun into a pool of molten metal, or if the beat cop’s route is completely blocked by a massive tractor-trailer.

Focus [Charisma]:
When activating Permanency, you may spend three full turns concentrating to avoid paying this power’s Blood cost, or you may spend an additional Blood to activate Permanency without using an action.

••••• Horrid Reality

Belief is a tangible thing, capable of near-miraculous things. You can turn dream into reality, lending genuine verisimilitude to your imaginary creations. Your phantasms gain a tangible reality and are capable of interacting with the real world in concrete ways — even causing harm to your enemies, as you choose.

System: Spend 1 Blood and expend your standard action to augment one of your already existing Apparitions with Horrid Reality. For the next five minutes, that illusion cannot be disbelieved and is imbued with the power to physically interact with people. An illusion given credence with Horrid Reality cannot interact with inanimate objects, but can cause lasting harm to mortals, supernatural creatures, and animals.

Apparitions that have been augmented by Horrid Reality may be used to attack, either by secondary means (such as firing a chimerical pistol) or as a primary attacker — the illusionary beat cop lunges and strikes with his nightstick. In either case, the character who created the augmented Apparition is the actual attacker, and the attack occurs on that character’s initiative in a round.

To attack with an Apparition augmented by Horrid Reality, expend your standard action and make an opposed challenge against a single target, using your Social attribute + Subterfuge versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge. If successful, your target takes damage from the item or creature created with this power. Horrid Reality cannot be used to inflict victory conditions other than damage.

Damage inflicted by the use of Horrid Reality reflects the illusion’s apparent mode of attack, and deals either 3 points of normal damage or 2 points of aggravated damage. An illusionary police officer shooting a pistol or using a nightstick inflicts a maximum of 3 points of normal damage, while an illusionary flamethrower inflicts a maximum of 2 points of aggravated damage. Fortitude (and similar powers) can reduce damage inflicted by Horrid Reality.

Even if the illusion appears to affect several people or objects, such as the illusion of a flamethrower, Horrid Reality can only deal damage to one target at a time. This limitation does not prohibit normal issues caused by such an Apparition. If you engulf three individuals in a Horrid Reality flamethrower’s spout, choose one individual to potentially harm. The other two may still frenzy from being engulfed by the Apparition of fire. They cannot, however, take damage from this attack.

Individuals, creatures, or objects created with this power have a maximum number of health levels equal to your dots in Subterfuge, minimum 1. You may create an object with fewer health levels (an illusionary piece of paper wouldn’t be believable if it had 5 health levels). Chimerical illusions cannot directly prevent you from being harmed. A Chimerical wall cannot stop a bullet.

Once Horrid Reality has been used to augment an Apparition, the augmented illusion can attack a target repeatedly; this is an exception to the rule prohibiting a character from using a Social power on the same target immediately after failing. If you fail a Horrid Reality attack against an opponent, you can try again against that same opponent, or someone else, on the next turn.

When you use an item created by Horrid Reality or create an illusory individual, the attacks are precisely timed with the creator’s will; this is why Apparitions augmented with Horrid Reality cannot be used by anyone other than their creator. If you give an augmented illusory weapon to another individual, it loses its potential to cause harm.

An augmented Apparition cannot attack during Celerity rounds, even if it is a weapon wielded during Celerity rounds.

Harmful effects of Horrid Reality are fleeting, as they are based in the substance of dream. Damage caused by Horrid Reality can knock an individual unconscious or into torpor, but it cannot kill. After five minutes, the effects of Horrid Reality fade; injuries erase and unconscious or torpored individuals awaken.

Exceptional Success:
Attacks from your Horrid Reality inflict either 4 points of normal damage or 3 points of aggravated damage, as appropriate for the illusion’s mode of attack.

Focus [Charisma]:
If you expend both your simple and standard actions for your Horrid Reality to attack, you can apply a combat manoeuvre, so long as the manoeuvre would logically apply to
the mode of attack. For example, your illusory beat cop may try to Grapple your foe or Pierce her Heart with a wooden stake. This effect does not bypass the normal requirements for using a combat manoeuvre; your target must be in the Incapacitated wound track before you can attempt to stake her with Horrid Reality. The effects of staking (or grappling) are fleeting and, like damage from Horrid Reality, will fade after five minutes. A character grappled by an augmented Apparition can escape by spending a simple action and making an opposed challenge using her Physical attribute + Brawl or Melee versus your Social attribute + Subterfuge.

• Sense the Sin

The most dangerous enemy is, of course, the one within your own spirit. By speaking with an individual, the user of this power can discover her deepest vices, revealing her spiritual weaknesses to the user’s keen perception.

System:  Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to gaze into your target’s soul. You must make an opposed challenge against your target, using the Daimoinon test pool. If you are successful, you discover how many Beast traits the target currently possesses, as well as the current level of her Morality. Additionally, you discover exactly how your target gained each Beast trait she possesses: specifically, when, where, under what circumstances, and for what reason.

Exceptional Success:
You can read your target’s spirit for the rest of the night, without further challenge. Anytime you see her, you may reexamine her soul and discover if anything you learned initially has changed. If so, you discover the nature of that new alteration, as per a standard use of Sense the Sin.

Focus [Perception]:
If your target currently has no Beast traits, you instead learn the approximate date of the last time your target gained Beast traits, and why those traits were earned.

•• Fear the Void Below

Those who learn the powers of Daimoinon soon begin to see the souls as of others as items to be chained, traded, and utilised for their own ambition or amusement. With this power, the user binds a target’s given word or promise to her primitive terror of ultimate destruction. Those who make such a compact know instinctively and utterly that breaking a promise bound by this power means sacrificing a part of their souls to the void below.

System: When another character makes a promise to you, you can spend 1 Blood and use a standard action to bind that promise with Fear the Void Below. If your target then breaks the promise bound by this power, she must contest against the infernal entities of Hell or be punished by their retribution. Activating this power requires an opposed challenge using the Daimoinon test pool. The target must make the promise of her own free will, and she cannot be coerced through threat or by use of supernatural powers. Further, breaches of this promise must be willing and cannot be similarly coerced.

If an individual bound by Fear the Void Below is Dominated (or otherwise supernaturally forced) to break her promise, Fear the Void Below is not triggered. If the target thereafter breaks the promise of her own volition, Fear the Void Below will still take its toll, as per the normal effects of this power. Further, if an individual bound by your Fear the Void Below is supernaturally forced to break the promise, you are immediately aware of the circumstances under which the target has been forced to break their word.

An individual who willingly breaks a promise bound by Fear the Void Below must make a static challenge using her Mental attribute + Survival against a difficulty equal to your Mental
attribute + Academics. Because this is a static challenge and your character is not directly involved, you cannot use retests. Your victim may retest, as per a normal static challenge. If your victim fails this challenge, she loses a point of Willpower and must immediately repeat the challenge. Losing again incurs another lost point of Willpower and another static challenge. This chain of static challenges continues until the target wins a challenge (either by tying or winning the appropriate tests) or until the target runs out of Willpower. If the effects of Fear the Void Below cause a character to lose Willpower when she has no remaining Willpower, infernal spirits descend. The target’s soul is drawn out of her body and dragged forever into hell. The character immediately dies. Such a character can never be resurrected (not even temporarily), nor can any supernatural power or ability make contact with the damned soul.

A promise bound by Fear the Void Below must be explicit. The target must speak out loud, saying something as direct and clear-cut as “I promise to never tell anyone your name,” or, “I swear never to attack you,” or, “On my word of honor, I will always tell you the truth.” Fear the Void Below cannot be used to enforce vague statements, confirmatory assertions, or general agreements such as, “Sure,” “I agree,” or, “Whatever you say.”

Fear the Void Below cannot be used to enforce promises made to multiple people, such as those made in a public speech, only promises that are made directly and individually to you. For example, if a politician announced her campaign promise to “put a chicken in every pot,” you cannot enforce that pledge. You could, of course, meet with the politician later and ask her to make you that promise personally — and then use Fear the Void Below on that personally-made obligation.

Once used, this power will persist for two games or one month, whichever is longer. After that duration ends, the subject is free to break her promise without any fear of reprisal, and the instinctive fear of doing so will dissipate and no longer haunt her.

Focus [Intelligence]:
If your target breaks her promise, she loses 1 point of Willpower before making her first test against Fear the Void Below.

••• Conflagration

Not all of the powers of Daimoinon are subtle. Some are intended to strike fear into the innocent, and to fulfill the threat of pain and destruction against those who defy your will. By invoking this power, the user calls up searing green fire from the realms of her infernal patrons, exulting in the cruelty of the damned.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to launch a bolt of hideous green flame at your target. This fire is clearly infernal in origin. To strike your foe with fire, you must
win an opposed challenge using your Mental attribute + Academics versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge. If you are successful, your target takes 2 points of aggravated damage as she is consumed by the damned flame.

Conflagration is a Mental power and, as such, cannot be used during Celerity rounds.

You may repeatedly activate Conflagration against a target; this is an exception to the rule that prohibits a character from using a Mental power on the same target immediately
after failing. If you fail a Conflagration challenge against an opponent, you may try again against that same opponent (or someone else) during the next turn.

The infernal flames of Conflagration are fleeting, and fires ignited by the use of this power dissipate within three rounds.

Exceptional Success:
The target takes 3 points of aggravated damage instead of the standard 2.

Focus [Intelligence]:
You can use Conflagration during Celerity rounds.

•••• Psychomachia

With this frightening power, the Daimoinon user combines her ability to read the spiritual faults of a victim with her ability to summon up the energy of the infernal planes. Psychomachia gives life to an individual’s deepest psychological wounds, pitting their target against the most dangerous, shameful parts of her own subconscious.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to make an opposed challenge against your target, using the Daimoinon test pool. If successful, an illusionary manifestation of your target’s anguish and sin appears within arm’s reach of the subject of your power. This incarnation may be the subject’s abusive father, a long-dead lover, a childhood bogeyman, or some other manifestation of her inner wounds. Whatever its form, the malefic anima immediately turns upon your target and seeks to do her harm.

The target of Psychomachia can interact with and be wounded by her malefic anima as if it were a normal creature. You can also see the Psychomachia manifestation, but you cannot interact with it. Other individuals cannot see or interact with this spiritual incarnation and have no means of determining if it is there or targeting it with attacks or powers.

A malefic incarnation created by Psychomachia is a 5-point Stock NPC with 10 points of Blood. It possesses the powers Feral Claws and Heightened Senses, but does not have access to other Auspex or Protean powers. It has specializations in your choice of two of the three standard Physical disciplines (Potence, Celerity, and Fortitude). Additionally, you may select three other skill focuses for the manifestation to possess. Psychomachia cannot be activated during Celerity rounds, but a malefic incarnation that possesses the Celerity focus can take Physical actions during Celerity rounds.

When Psychomachia ends, the manifestation dissipates into foul-smelling, sulfurous smoke, which only you and the target can sense. This occurs after five minutes, when the malefic incarnation takes 5 points of damage, or if your target is torpored or rendered unconscious.

You can only have one Psychomachia manifestation in existence at any one time. Using the power a second time, even if on another target, dissipates the first incarnation of this power.

Exceptional Success:
Your Psychomachia has two additional Stock NPC focuses. These may be used to purchase disciplines or skills.

Focus [Perception]:
When you create a Psychomachia, your manifestation additionally possesses 1 point of Willpower, which it can spend normally. Further, you may give your creation up to 3 more points of Willpower by spending an equal amount of Willpower when you create the malefic anima. This is an exception to the rule that prevents stock NPCs from having or using Willpower.

• Passion

Like the Maenads of old, you can heighten emotions to a fever pitch, driving any fears, desires, desperations and urges of your target to the surface. Alternately, you can diminish those emotions, dragging the mind down into cold, rational emptiness.

System:  Spend 1 Blood, expend your standard action, and engage your target in an opposed challenge using the Dementation test pool. If you succeed, you choose either to heighten or dampen her emotions for the next hour.

If you choose to heighten your target’s emotions, then she experiences a rush of feeling – desperate desire, anxiety, joy, or worry – everything to extremes. She must spend 1 Willpower each time something startling or unsettling happens. If she does not spend this Willpower, she reacts with extreme emotion, either running away or lashing out at the source of her concern.

If you choose instead to dampen your target’s emotions, then the target feels a draining loss of emotional cognition; her mind slows and her reactions – both emotional and otherwise – become dull and tepid. She feels no emotional response to stimuli such as love, hate, or fear. She is simply and disconcertingly empty. A character with dampened emotions must spend 1 Willpower in order to start a combat or react with any strong conviction. The target is not required to spend Willpower in order to join an already existing combat or to defend herself.

You may end the effects of one application of Passion by applying the opposite effect. An individual whose emotions have been dampened is restored by using Passion to heighten her emotions, and vice-versa.

Exceptional Success:
For the next three turns, your target cannot spend Willpower to resist the consequences of this power.

Focus [Charisma]:
You can also apply Passion in the following ways: By either speaking to your target calmly or by detailing possible dangers, you can either end the effects of a fear-based power currently affecting that target or make the target more vulnerable to fear-based effects. Speak with your target for three full turns, spend 1 point of Blood, and make an opposed challenge. If successful, you either end the effects of powers like Dread Gaze or give your subject a -2 penalty to defence test pools to resist supernatural fear for the next hour.

•• Haunting

Nightmarish visions, flitting barely-seen images, surreal echoes, and misunderstood conversations haunt your victim, transforming the world around her into a dreamlike haze. Nothing seems quite right, and strange sensations crawl across the target’s skin. Her subconscious desires may surface, and her inner fears and regrets return to face her through dark, hallucinatory whispers from the past.

System: Spend 1 Blood, expend your standard action, and engage your target in an opposed challenge using the Dementation test pool. If you succeed, your target’s subconscious dredges up disturbing visions, sensations, and sounds that only she perceives. Your target suffers a -3 penalty to all attack test pools for the next three turns as she tries (and fails) to separate fantasy and reality. After three turns, the subject becomes more capable of distinguishing what is and is not a hallucination. For the remainder of an hour, the penalty is -1. Penalties from Haunting do not apply to defence test pools.

Using this power on an individual with a derangement gives her 1 Derangement trait. Multiple uses of Haunting do not stack.

Exceptional Success:
Your victim suffers a -3 penalty to her attack test pools for five turns, and afterward suffers a -1 penalty to all attack test pools for the rest of the night. In addition, using this power on an individual with a derangement gives her 2
 Derangement traits, instead of 1.

Focus [Charisma]:
While under the effects of Haunting, your target loses access to her Mental attribute focus. If she has more than one Mental focus, your target chooses which focus is temporarily removed.

••• Eyes of Chaos

There is wisdom to be found between the cracks and broken fragments of reality, and there are lessons to be learned by watching the universe as it slowly falls apart. With this power,´you can discern complex patterns, discover inconsistencies, and track the strange and ethereal connections of fate.

System: This power is always active. A character using Eyes of Chaos receives a +5 wild card bonus to any mundane uses of the Investigation skill or to any Academic skill tests focused on trying to break a code, determine a missing piece of information, or piece together clues. Additionally, when making these types of challenges, you can perform the test without physically interacting with your environment; a simple glance around the area (one standard action) is sufficient to perform a thorough search.

A character utilizing this power might spend a few moments scanning a room and be drawn immediately to the discovery of a pistol concealed in a shoe box under the bed, she might glance at a crossword puzzle and solve it in an instant, or she might count all the ceiling tiles in the room as she walked rapidly past them.

Focus [Manipulation]:
You can utilize Eyes of Chaos by expending a simple action, rather than expending a standard action.

•••• Voice of Madness

Your voice can carry the siren call of insanity and the whispered pandemonium of sheer madness. By speaking aloud in a resonant tone, you can summon forth the regrets, fears, pain, horror, and suffering of your target’s entire life and unlife, unleashing her id and giving her inner demons free rein.

System: To use Voice of Madness, you must gain your target’s attention and spend at least five turns (15 seconds) describing the derangement you wish to inflict. When you finish this description, spend 1 Blood and make an opposed challenge against your target. If you succeed, you inflict the derangement of your choice on your target for the rest of the evening and 1 Derangement trait. If the individual has pre-existing Derangement traits, this trait may cause an immediate psychotic break. For more information, see Chapter Five: Merits and Flaws, Derangement Traits, page 267.

For example, you might approach the Ventrue Primogen and say, “I saw two Brujah hovering around your car last night. What were they doing? Are you sure you can trust the Brujah?” If you succeed in the challenge thereafter, you could give your target the Phobia derangement, citing “Brujah” as the trigger.

An individual can only be affected by this power once per Dementation user. If the same character attempts to inflict a second derangement before the first expires, the older derangement is replaced by the newer one. If a second Dementation user successfully targets someone already under the effects of this power, both derangements apply.

Exceptional Success:
The derangement inflicted by Voice of Madness lasts for two games or one month, whichever is longer.

Focus [Manipulation]:
Rather than spending five turns talking to your target, you can inflict a derangement with but a single phrase and a single standard action. You might inflict the same derangement outlined above simply by passing your target and saying to her, “Are you sure you can trust the Brujah?” A character does not need to fully explain the derangement in roleplay in order to apply the effects of this power, but a player should be sure to explain the derangement out of character to the targeted player, so that she can properly portray the effect.

• Command

Superiority is inherent to the blood, to the very vitae that brings a vampire unlife. With a word or a gesture, you can exert your will upon an individual and force her to obey. A single word, even one embedded in a sentence, can become an imperative command. Some vampires use this power subtly, while others revel in publically forcing others to submit to the authority of their blood.

System: To Command an individual, expend a standard action and speak a simple one-word order (or give a brief gesture) to a target. If you are successful in an opposed challenge using the Dominate test pool, your character forces her target to obey her will. The Command must be immediate; the subject will spend her next turn (but only one turn) attempting to obey your order.

Such dictates must be clear and straightforward: run, agree, fall, yawn, jump, laugh, stop, go, scream, or follow are good examples. The target of a Command will attempt to take context into account. If you point at a door and Command your victim to “Leave!” she will attempt to leave via the door you indicated (as opposed to using a different door or jumping out of a window).

A Command may be part of a sentence in order to conceal the power’s use, such as by saying, “I’m afraid I must ask you to leave this house at once!”

If a Command is confusing or ambiguous, the subject may respond with less accuracy or perform her task poorly, as she struggles to understand what’s been asked of her. Command cannot rob your target of the ability to defend herself.

Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success while using Command, the target does not realize that she’s been Dominated. Mortals will simply rationalize away any strange behaviour. A supernatural creature will be momentarily confused, and will not realize she’s been forced to act against her will for a period of three turns after the Command ends. After this confusion passes, a supernatural victim may realize she has been Dominated, if the circumstances allow.

Focus [Intelligence]:
An individual who has been successfully given a Command must follow your order for three turns (instead of one).

•• Mesmerism

Through the use of this power, a vampire acquires a near spellbinding command of her mental facilities. A Mesmerism user can create a hypnotic suggestion within her target’s mind. Complex commands and subconscious desires can be implanted, controlling the victim in subtle but powerful ways.

This power implants a subliminal trigger in the target’s mind. This trigger will activate only under specified circumstances, and forces the target to perform certain pre-programmed actions when those conditions occur.

To implant a Mesmerism, you must gain your target’s focus and speak a simple set of instructions aloud. The Mesmerism user may dictate anything from simple directives (“hand me your car keys”) to complex ones (“take detailed notes at the Brujah clan meeting, and bring those notes to me afterwards”). You may indicate that the Mesmerism activity must occur immediately, or you may establish within the Mesmerism a specific stimulus that will trigger the target to perform these actions at a later point.

Mesmerism directions must be spoken aloud, and the target must understand your instructions.

Unlike a Command, a Mesmerism does not need to be an immediate action. The instructions can reside in a target’s mind, untriggered, for some time. However, once the dictates are triggered and the target has performed the actions (or after one hour has passed while attempting to complete your orders), the Mesmerism is complete and any lingering compulsion ends. An untriggered Mesmerism will remain for up to one month.

An individual can only have one active Mesmerism from a given Dominate user. If you attempt to implant a new suggestion in the mind of a victim currently under a previous Mesmerism from you, the new application of this power erases your earlier instruction. A victim may have multiple Mesmerisms lurking in her psyche at the same time, provided each Mesmerism was implanted by a different individual.

If two mesmerists implant conflicting orders in a target, the victim will follow the newer Mesmerism first. The victim will perform those tasks until completed (or for an hour). Once that Mesmerism has ended, the subject will attempt to fulfil the older Mesmerism. Note that the older Mesmerism’s duration begins at the point it was triggered, so the victim may have only a few minutes of duration left in such a situation.

Mesmerism cannot rob your target of the ability to defend herself. A character forced to count loudly to one million can still dodge, run away, or even attack, so long as she keeps counting. However, she probably could not effectively hide (or use her Obfuscate to vanish) while calling out numbers.

System: To implant a Mesmerism, you must first gain your target’s focus. Then, you must expend a standard action, speak the instructions of your Mesmerism, and make an opposed challenge against your target. If you are successful, the Mesmerism – exactly as you stated it – has been implanted. Note that, like Command, a Mesmerism will always break if the subject realizes that performing these actions will lead to direct harm.

Once the Mesmerism has been triggered (whether immediate or delayed), the target will attempt to carry out her instructions until the activity is reasonably complete or for one hour, whichever comes first. This subliminal order may lay dormant in the target’s mind for up to one month, after which the compulsion fades and the Mesmerism ends.

Mesmerisms cannot string together multiple unrelated actions. You cannot use Mesmerism to force another character to, “Tell me where your ghoul lives, and give me your car keys, then go punch that Brujah, and finally, sit in the corner for the rest of the hour.” You may imply more than one action in a single command, such as, “Show me where your ghoul lives.” In this case, the recipient will likely lead you to the location (which could require leaving the building, getting into a car, and driving there). In all cases, your Storyteller is the final arbiter of what is or is not appropriate for a Mesmerism.

Example: Tanya the Toreador has annoyed Vincent the Ventrue. He puts the following Mesmerism into her mind: “When you see a glass of red wine, pour it over the front of your dress.”

Tanya later sees Mallory the Malkavian drinking a glass of wine. Immediately, Vincent’s Mesmerism kicks in. Tanya picks up Mallory’s wine and begins to tip it towards her dress. However, Mallory sees what’s happening. He turns to Tanya and uses Mesmerism on her, saying, “Give me back my wine.” Mallory’s newer Mesmerism interrupts Vincent’s older one, and Tanya is forced to return Mallory’s glass of wine. After fulfilling Mallory’s Mesmerism, Vincent’s older Mesmerism re-exerts itself within Tanya’s mind. Tanya lunges for Mallory, attempting to spill the very confused Malkavian’s wine on her dress.

Exceptional Success:
When the target fulfils your Mesmerism (or when the duration of the power ends), your victim will not remember following your instructions. She will remember all actions she took of her own free will, but will not recall what she was forced to do by your Mesmerism. If the Mesmerism takes more than a few turns to fulfil, your target may notice strange holes in her memory.

Focus [Intelligence]:
Your Mesmerisms may remain dormant in your target’s mind for up to three months instead of one month, and the effects, once triggered, will last for up to two hours rather than one.

••• Forgetful Mind

Your skill with mental manipulation gives you the power to modify and shape the memories of other individuals. By holding your target’s attention and speaking to her clearly, you can place her in a hypnotic state. While she is somnambulant, you may ask questions, cause her to describe something she has experienced, or give her specific details with which to alter or overwrite her memory of an event.

It’s a relatively simple matter to rifle through a victim’s psyche and erase swaths of memory, but unless you offer something in its place, the deletion will leave a blank spot in the victim’s recollection. The Dominate user can instead create false memories, describing a plausible story for the victim’s subconscious to absorb.

The user of this power can tell the target to incorporate new information into (or remove details from) her original memory. The target will do so seamlessly, justifying the information within the context of her overall remembrance. Unless someone else points out critical paradoxes in the memory, the target will rationalize away any contradictions.

Forgetful Mind does not grant the user any telepathic ability to “see” an event in the target’s mind. The events are remembered from the subject’s point of view and are verbally described to the best of the subject’s ability. If the subject does not know a detail about the event, then she cannot describe that detail under Forgetful Mind.

System: To activate Forgetful Mind, expend a standard action and make an opposed challenge. If you are successful, your target enters a trance for a small amount of time while the user of this power offers details to alter, erase, or completely overwrite the target’s memory. If the target is threatened in any way, she will snap out of this trance, ending the application of Forgetful Mind. For this reason, it’s not possible to use Forgetful Mind in a combat situation.

A successful use of Forgetful Mind allows you to erase or alter up to 10 minutes of memory. A more substantial period of time may be altered (in 10-minute increments) with repeated application of this power.

A character can also use Forgetful Mind to detect false or missing memories and (under the correct circumstances) restore them. When you use Forgetful Mind on a target, you must log your action with the subject’s Storyteller. Include your character’s Dominate test pool and the number of Dominate powers possessed (including elder powers but not techniques) at the time you performed the Forgetful Mind.

Restoring lost or altered memories is difficult, and takes a great deal of patience and dedication.

If another character attempts to restore the subject’s altered memory, she must first tell the subject’s Storyteller how many Dominate powers she possesses (including elder powers but not techniques). If she has fewer powers than you, then she is incapable of overpowering your Dominate enough to even make an attempt to restore the original memory. If the Forgetful Mind user inserted memories carelessly, or the Storyteller wants to progress plot, she has the option to fast-track the wearing down of the mental walls to allow for a reversal of the altered memories.

If she has equal or more powers than you, she may make an opposed Mental challenge against the highest Dominate pool you currently have applied to that subject. If she is successful, all memories altered by that Dominate user are restored to the subject. This process requires 1 downtime action to be spent by both the subject and the individual restoring the memories.

A vampire cannot use Forgetful Mind to alter or restore her own memories.

Exceptional Success:
When you score an exceptional success, your character is considered to have 1 more dot of Dominate for the purpose of determining whether or not this application of Forgetful Mind can be undone by other characters in the future or for determining if you can undo alterations to your target’s memories.

Focus [Wits]:
You may alter up to one hour of the target’s memory with a single application of Forgetful Mind (rather than 10 minutes).

•••• Conditioning

It takes little effort to control an individual’s actions for a brief moment or to twist her memories of a few minutes’ time. You are capable of far more insidious feats. By taking your time and applying a more dedicated amount of effort, you can permanently alter a portion of your subject’s personality, adding habits or removing them. This takes a significant amount of exertion, but once accomplished, you will have reshaped your target into something more amenable to your purposes.

System: Through sustained exertion and focus, you can implant a semi-permanent Mesmerism (as per the above Dominate power) deep in your subject’s mind. Conditioning a target takes three hours of diligent and uninterrupted focus, during which time your subject must be conscious and aware. The target may be restrained, but she cannot be unconscious, drugged, or otherwise unaware. Once your character has completed this prerequisite, make an opposed challenge against the subject. If successful, you implant a Mesmerism that can be triggered repeatedly.

Mesmerisms implanted through Conditioning must have a clearly defined trigger. A Conditioned character acts normally, with no alterations of her standard behaviour, until such time as her Conditioning is triggered. Once activated, the target must fulfill the behaviours demanded by the Conditioning (or attempt to for one hour, whichever comes first). Just like Command or Mesmerism, a Conditioning compulsion will automatically break if the target realizes that performing these actions will lead to direct harm. When this happens, the current compulsion to act will cease, but the Conditioning itself will remain (and can be triggered again in the future, as per normal).

For example, you might Condition a target to drink mortal blood every time she hears the word “vagrant.” If your target hears the word, and there is a source of mortal blood nearby, she will always attempt to do so. The initial compulsion will end as soon as she finishes drinking, but could start again if someone else says the word. If the Conditioned individual is stranded in the middle of a desert, with no source of blood available when she hears the word, she will spend an hour looking for a source of mortal blood. Thereafter, the compulsion will fade (until the next time she hears the word).

A successful compulsion implanted with Conditioning is permanent until broken by the subject; it cannot be removed or overwritten. A mortal who goes one year without having her Conditioning triggered may make an opposed challenge (using the subject’s Mental attribute + Willpower versus the Dominator’s Mental attribute + Intimidation). If successful, the target breaks the Conditioning. If she fails, the target must wait another year before she can attempt to break the Conditioning a second time, and another year after that before she can try a third time.

Supernatural characters may attempt to break their Conditioning if they avoid having the compulsion triggered for three months. If the victim fails that opposed challenge, then she must wait another three months before making another attempt, and so forth.

A character’s Conditioning cannot be triggered more than once per hour. The compulsion placed by Conditioning does not count towards a character’s Mesmerism limit; a target may be the victim of your Mesmerism and Conditioning powers at the same time. However, even as you can only implant one Mesmerism at a time on your target, you can also only implant one Conditioning compulsion at a time. A subject may have multiple Conditioning compulsions, provided each one comes from a different user of Dominate.

Focus: [Intelligence]:
If you are Intelligence-focused, a mortal target must avoid having her Conditioning triggered for three years before making an attempt to break that Conditioning (instead of the standard one year). Supernatural creatures must go six months without having the Conditioning triggered before attempting to break it (instead of the standard three months).

••••• Possession

The strength of your will is such that you can Dominate another individual’s psyche, controlling her thoughts and actions, inhabiting her psyche, and completely taking over your target’s physical form. You cannot access the victim’s thoughts or memories while in this state; her mind is suppressed, as though deep in sleep, and she knows nothing of your activities. While you are in command of the subject’s body, you can take any physical action she is capable of performing.

System: To use Possession, you must use your standard action to stare into the eyes of your subject; this power will not work on blind subjects or subjects who cannot see your eyes. Make an opposed challenge against the person you intend to Possess. If successful, your consciousness is transferred into the target’s body, and her mind is rendered into a fugue-like state. Because your character’s mind is focused entirely on controlling the body she has inhabited, the vampire has no innate sense of anything occurring to her native physical form. The character’s original body falls into a torpid state and can neither defend itself nor act on its own (although your body does have access to any Fortitude you possess while your consciousness is absent). While in Possession, you always know the location of your real body, although you cannot perceive its surroundings.

Mortals and partially supernatural creatures, such as ghouls or kinfolk, can be targeted with Possession. Fully supernatural creatures, such as vampires and werewolves, cannot be targeted by Possession. Be sure to ask your Storyteller if you have a question about whether an individual is an appropriate target for this power.

Mortals have no disciplines and cannot spend Blood. However, if your character is possessing a ghoul, you may use the ghoul’s Blood pool, and can spend 1 Blood per turn (regardless of your character’s Generation). A ghoul can hold up to 5 points of vampiric Blood in her pool. You can spend this Blood to fuel any of the ghoul’s Physical powers. You cannot spend this Blood to affect your character’s native form in any manner.

A character cannot use any of her own disciplines while in Possession. Also, you cannot use any powers the subject possesses, except for Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence.

While in Possession, a character uses her own Mental attributes and focuses, Social attributes and focuses, skills, and backgrounds. If you possess a subject that has its own character sheet, use that subject’s Physical attribute (rather than your own) for all Physical challenges while in Possession. If you use Possession on a Stock NPC, the subject’s Physical attribute is equal to double that NPC’s rating. You cannot utilize the target’s attribute focuses, nor any powers that are not intrinsic to vampires or ghouls. Possession lasts until the next sunrise or until you spend a simple action for your character to return to her native body.

Possession ends immediately if the character travels more than 10 miles away from her native body, if the character’s native body takes 1 point of damage, or if the body she’s possessing takes damage.

Possessed bodies do not take damage from sunlight, but if the vampire’s native body is exposed to sunlight, it will take damage. However, a vampire with Beast traits still risks frenzy. For more information on frenzy, see Chapter Seven: Dramatic Systems, page 301.

Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success, your character’s mind can maintain control of the possessed form for up to three days without further challenges. Possession will end after the
third sunrise, instead of the first. Note that your Possession will still end if the character travels more than 10 miles away from her native body, if the character’s native body takes damage, or if the body she’s possessing takes damage.

Focus [Wits]:
You can use the first 2 dots of your Mental and Social in-clan disciplines while employing Possession, but you cannot use elder powers or techniques. If you are in Possession of a ghoul, you may spend up to 5 Blood to fuel these in-clan disciplines, at the rate of 1 Blood a turn, regardless of your character’s Generation. Vampires with this focus who have Dominate in-clan can activate Possession while in Possession, transferring directly from one subject body to another. Each new use of Possession requires a standard action, eye-to-eye contact, and a successful opposed challenge, as per the standard use of this power.

• Endurance

You are beyond pain or fatigue, ignoring such hardships. Your body simply does not feel such minor inconveniences.

System: You can easily ignore pain. Your character is immune to torture and doesn’t suffer wound penalties.

•• Mettle

Your body can take more damage than others, suffering only light injuries even under circumstances that should do serious harm.

System: Each time your character takes aggravated damage, you may convert 1 point of aggravated damage to normal damage.

••• Resilience

Wounds that would slow or maim other vampires mean nothing to you. You can shrug off such detrimental injuries.

System: Each time your character takes damage, you may ignore 1 point of normal damage. You can use this power in conjunction with other powers that convert aggravated wounds into normal wounds. You can use Mettle to downgrade a point of aggravated damage into normal damage, then you can use Resilience to ignore that point of normal damage.

•••• Resistance

You can endure horrific punishment, resisting even the most serious wounds and continue fighting. This is an impressive feat of endurance, clearly above and beyond mortal ability.

System: Each time your character takes aggravated damage, you may convert 1 point of that aggravated damage into normal damage. You can use this power in conjunction with other powers that convert wounds. This power stacks with Mettle, allowing you to convert 2 points of aggravated damage from each attack into normal damage. It further stacks with Resilience, allowing you to then ignore 1 of those points of normal damage.

••••• Aegis

Your body seems as hard as iron and as resistant to pain as steel itself. Only persistent and monumental force can truly cause you harm.

System: Each time your character takes damage, you may ignore 1 point of normal damage. You can combine this effect with Resilience in order to ignore 2 points of normal damage per attack. You can also use this power in conjunction with powers that turn aggravated wounds into normal wounds.

• The Missing Voice

A practiced Melpominee user can alter her voice beyond human measure, encompassing octaves both within and outside the normal vocal range. The practitioner can mimic other voices, create unusual sounds, and sing accomplished arias with ease.

System: Expend 1 Blood and use a simple action to modify your voice. With the Missing Voice, you may utilize any sound the human voice can produce (within any octave or vocal range, from the deepest basso to the highest soprano). You can also increase your volume beyond standard human range, resonating over other noises like a living megaphone. Further, if you have 3 or more dots of Performance: Singing, you can identically replicate any voice you have studied for at least five minutes, regardless of that individual’s sex or vocal tone.

Note that Missing Voice does not provide any fluency with foreign languages; you may duplicate a foreign accent, but cannot comprehend languages you do not already understand.

Focus [Appearance]:
Your Missing Voice is an exception to the rule that Melpominee cannot be captured by recordings or carried by electronic or mechanical means. Your character may use Missing Voice to speak in someone else’s voice over a telephone or to fool voice-activated security systems.

•• Phantom Speaker

With concentration, you can cause your voice to emit from a location other than your own. Many practitioners of Melpominee use Phantom Speaker to harmonize with themselves, achieving spectacular performances through the use of this power.

System: By spending 1 Blood and expending a simple action, you cause your voice to generate from thin air. Using this power allows you to make your voice emanate from any location within your line of sight or from any location with which you are familiar. When you use Phantom Speaker, you do not have to move your lips or otherwise show any signs of speaking. If you choose, you may allow one willing person to respond in kind; her voice will softly emanate just within your hearing. A character who has the Auspex power Heightened Senses and is within three steps of the location where a Phantom Speaker emanates will overhear a conversation held through Phantom Speaker.

You can have only one application of Phantom Speaker in operation at a time. However, you can carry on two conversations simultaneously, one through Phantom Speaker, and one spoken normally. You cannot use other powers or supernatural effects through Phantom Speaker, except for the Melpominee power Missing Voice. For the definition of a familiar character, see page 114.

Focus [Charisma]:
Rather than using Phantom Speaker on a target or location you can see, you can use it on any individual you are familiar with, regardless of range. Your voice emanates from just behind the target, allowing you to communicate with her. Further, if you wish, you may allow your target’s voice to echo back to you.

••• Madrigal

The heights and depths of your songs carry powerful emotions. With magnificent arias or oration, you raise others to the heights of passion; black melancholy flows from your melodies of despair.

System: To use Madrigal, you must spend 1 Blood and then sing for at least three turns. All those in hearing range of this power feel an intense emotion of your choice, related to the subject of your performance. This emotion is overwhelming, summoning a rush of memories, images of events that caused similar feelings in the individual’s past. Individuals affected by Madrigal receive a +2 bonus to their test pools to resist emotion-based powers originating from disciplines other than Melpominee, such as Entrancement, Dread Gaze, or Passion.

Using this power on an individual with a derangement gives her 1 Derangement trait. For more information on Derangements, see Chapter Five, Merits and Flaws, page 266.

The effects of Madrigal last for 10 minutes, plus an additional 10 minutes for every dot the user has of the Performance: Singing skill.

Focus [Appearance]:
For the duration of Madrigal, your targets receive a +3 bonus (rather than a +2) to their test pools to resist non- Melpominee emotion-based powers, such as Presence.

•••• Siren’s Beckoning

By beckoning to the turmoil and emotional wounds within a subject, you awaken insanity within an individual’s soul.The sound of your voice overwhelms a listener’s mind, as your song shatters her hold on reality.

System: To use Siren’s Beckoning, you must spend 1 Blood and use a standard action to sing. Choose a number of individuals within hearing range equal to your Performance: Singing skill. These individuals immediately enter a fugue-like state, stopping all other activity in order to listen to your performance. So long as you continue to spend your standard action singing each round, your listeners will remain utterly captivated by the song. If you use your simple action to walk, they will follow at a slow pace, unaware of events happening around them; they will not notice breaches of the Masquerade or other general events. However, if a beckoned individual is attacked, put in danger (you cannot lead them over a pit nor in front of a speeding car), or targeted by an offensive power, your Siren’s Beckoning will immediately break.

All those who wish to resist your Siren’s Beckoning must make an opposed challenge using their Social attribute + Willpower versus your Melpominee test pool.

Using this power on an individual with a derangement gives her 2 Derangement traits. If this causes the individual to experience a psychotic break, that break will not occur until after Siren’s Beckoning ends. For more information on Derangements, see Chapter Five, Merits and Flaws, page 266.

Focus [Charisma]:
Mortals do not count toward your maximum number of targets for Siren’s Beckoning.

• Fae Sight

Mytherceria opens your mind to another world: a world of dream and imagining. Your ability to view reality with the eyes of the fae shifts your perceptions, providing information that cannot be gained through normal observation and inspection.

System: This power is always active. You can read an object’s purpose and age at a glance, tell forgeries from originals, and correctly identify the materials used in an item’s creation. You can also perceive information about an item’s creator, including how many dots of the Craft skill she used, her basic creature type, and how long ago the item was fashioned. Lastly, you can discern any obscure meaning, symbology, historical or political references, and encoded information worked into the item’s artistry.

Further, you recognize creatures, individuals, powers, and enchantments of fae origin. While you cannot learn their capacity or extent, your Fae Sight allows you to discern that such effects are present.

Focus [Perception]:
If an object has hidden latches or compartments, you discover them. You can discern the code or pattern necessary to unlock and open a door or compartment by spending three full turns studying the lock. If the lock requires a key, and you expend three turns in study, you will thereafter recognize on sight whether or not a particular key will fit that lock.

•• Darkling Trickery

Like the faerie stories of old, you can plague a victim with minor adversity and fae pranks, making her life more difficult for a short period of time. While under the effects of this power, the target may misplace small items, become confused about direction, discover her shoes are tied together, or other small misfortunes — courtesy of the fae.

System: Spend 1 Blood, expend a standard action, and engage your target in an opposed challenge using the Mytherceria test pool. If you are successful, you cause your target to be plagued by annoyances and setbacks for the next hour, as the fae play pranks on her, causing no end of trouble. Out of combat, the victim’s car keys may disappear, her cell phone may run out of power, or she may stand up and find her shoe strings tied together. In combat, any time your victim spends a point of Willpower to use a combat manoeuvre, her attack will automatically fail. This power has no effect on attacks augmented by combat manoeuvre that were enacted without spending Willpower.

Exceptional Success:
This use of Darkling Trickery lasts for the rest of the night, rather than for an hour.

Focus [Perception]:
All of the target’s attacks that are augmented by combat manoeuvre automatically fail, even if the manoeuvre was enacted without spending Willpower.

••• Ay Befriend

In medieval times, it was common practice to declare peaceful intentions toward a visitor or newly met comrade by claiming she was someone “I shall befriend.” The faeries keep this custom and are well-disposed to those who remember the proper way to greet them, declaring forthrightly your friendship in the ancient way: “Prithee, piskies, Ay Befriend!”

Changelings and fae folk have their own interests and society, but they are willing to lend a hand — if properly compensated for such efforts. By using this power, you call upon the smallest of these creatures, promising a reasonable reward if they will aid you for a short while.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to summon a small troupe of piskies, a type of fae. Piskies are humanoid, but of small size and varied appearance, dressed in simple clothing made of leaves and other natural flora. These creatures are invisible to anyone except individuals with Fae Sight. Normally, the piskies will arrive over the course of the next five minutes, so long as they are capable of reaching your location. Piskies can fly, but have no magical ability to move through walls or solid objects.

So long as you pay the piskies up front with a measure of gold, gems, or other precious small objects, they will be relatively loyal, though mischievous. You can ask these piskies to perform 1 downtime action during the course of a game session, or in addition to your own downtime actions between game sessions.

If requested to perform a downtime action, such as bringing you an item, carrying a message, cleaning up an area, or discovering some useful information, during a game session the piskies will perform the task with lightning speed and complete it within the hour. If you utilize Ay Befriend between games, you gain a single untraceable, unwatchable downtime action. In either case, the piskies will not risk themselves or engage in combat.

You cannot utilize Ay Befriend more than once per calendar week, whether during or between game sessions.

Focus [Intelligence]:
You may use Ay Befriend once at game and also once as a downtime during the course of a calendar week. You cannot use this advantage to gain 2 actions at game, or 2 actions during a calendar week.

•••• Changeling Ward

The language of the fae is a tangled web, capable of snaring thoughts like a spider does a fly. Viewing such written wards disorients most minds, causing confusion and mild stupor at best: utter amnesia if the mind is particularly weak.

System: To inscribe a Changeling Ward, spend 1 Blood and expend three full turns tracing letters and symbols on a target object; you must have something to write with. You can draw these sigils onto a movable object, a door, or the floor of a room, but the area to be inscribed must be larger than six inches in diameter. Once drawn, the Changeling Ward is invisible to anyone who does not possess Fae Sight; to those who can see it, the ward appears as a softly glowing symbol written in silvery moonlight.

Mortals who touch the object or cross over a stationary ward automatically become confused for the next five minutes and will wander away from the area in the general direction from which they entered. Supernatural creatures must make a static Mental attribute + Willpower challenge against a difficulty equal to your Mytherceria test pool or suffer a similar effect. Further, individuals with Derangements gain 1 Derangement trait. If this causes the individual to experience a psychotic break, that break will not occur until after the effects of your Changeling Ward end. For more information on Derangements and Derangement traits, see Chapter Five: Merits and Flaws, page 266.

After a mortal emerges from the fugue of a Changeling Ward, she has no recollection of the time that has passed, nor any memory about why she came to this location (or touched the object) in the first place. She will justify her actions without any real need for logic. Within one day, she will have forgotten that she was ever there (or saw the object) at all.

After a supernatural creature emerges from her confused state, she has a faint understanding that time has passed, but no real comprehension of how long she was under the effect of the ward. She remembers her activities just before encountering the Changeling Ward, but such actions seem dream-like and distant. The target remembers nothing that occurred while she was under the effects of this power.

If an individual is attacked, put in danger, or targeted by an offensive power, the effects of Changeling Ward immediately end.

Once inscribed, a Changeling Ward will persist for a year and a day, or until the Mytherceria user removes it, or until the object is damaged by at least 1 point of damage. If a supernatural creature resists the effect of a Changeling Ward, she is immune to the effects of all other Changeling Wards created by the same character for the next hour.

A character is immune to the effects of her own Changeling Wards.

Focus [Perception]:
Supernatural creatures suffer the same after-effects as mortals and partially supernatural creatures. Further, if a creature emerges from the effects of your Changeling Ward before the normal duration ends, she becomes confused and suffers a -3 penalty to all non-defensive actions for the next three turns.

• Sense Vitality

Life permeates the world, cycling with the ebb and flow of inevitability. With this power, you can tap into that source, feeling the pulse of the universe and tangibly perceiving the vital energy of individuals nearby.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Sense Vitality. For the next hour, you gain the instinctive ability to perceive the health of any creature that comes within 10 steps of you. You automatically realize the following information:

• Whether the target is alive, dead, or undead
• The target’s current number of wounds and number of remaining health levels
• The location and severity of any injuries the target currently suffers
• Whether the target suffers from any diseases or other maladies, and if so, which ones
• Whether the target has any drugs or poisons in her system, and if so, which ones
• The disposition of all organs, bones, musculature, and other physical structures of the target’s body. You realize if any organs have been removed or shifted, and you can sense the signs of older, healed injuries or genetic anomalies.

Sense Vitality overcomes supernatural effects that obscure an individual’s health level, such as Misleading Wounds or similar powers.

Focus [Perception]:
Obeah focuses on defense and healing. By spending 1 Blood and using a simple action, you can also use Sense Vitality to receive a +5 bonus to any challenges using the Medicine skill or when you are attempting to diagnose a corpse’s cause of death.

•• Anesthetic Touch

You have a healer’s touch, and can cause pain to flee or fear to lessen in the heart of your patients. Any subject who voluntarily submits to your Anesthetic Touch can be rendered immune to pain, and any mortal creature affected by your power falls into an immediate healing sleep.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your standard action to target a willing subject within one step. For the next hour, the target feels no pain and suffers no wound penalties. If your target is mortal, you put her into a state of peaceful sleep, where she will feel no pain for the next 10 hours. Further, mortal creatures will heal 3 points of normal damage after resting a full eight hours under the effects of this power. Anesthetic Touch can only be used on willing targets.

Individuals under the effect of Anesthetic Touch are immune to the effects of Burning Touch, unless the character using Burning Touch also has the elder power Fiery Agony.

Focus [Wits]:
You may spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to use Anesthetic Touch on a willing target within your line of sight.

••• Corpore Sano

Your vitae is an alchemical substance, carrying healing properties like those said to be possessed by sacred figures of myth. By laying hands on the injuries of others, you can cause them to heal at an incredible rate.

System: Spend 1 Blood point and use your standard action to target a willing individual within one step. The target immediately heals 1 point of normal damage. Corpore Sano can only be used once per turn. You may use Corpore Sano to heal yourself.

Focus [Wits]:
In addition to the normal properties of Corpore Sano, you may also choose to spend 1 Blood in order to heal a point of aggravated damage.

•••• Shepherd’s Watch

Like a shepherd guarding her flock from wolves and other predators, those who seek your protection can find peace and shelter in your presence. An aura of gentle vigilance surrounds you, lending a sense of hope and calmness to those who remain close by.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to activate Shepherd’s Watch. Shepherd’s Watch protects you and all individuals you choose, including creatures and people, so long as they are within two steps of you. While this power is active, no one with hostile intent can come within five steps of you or those you choose to guard. If an individual standing within five steps chooses to attack or use a hostile power targeting you or those you are guarding, the attempt automatically fails. The attacker is immediately and automatically pushed five steps away from her target as though by a gentle, supernatural hand.

Shepherd’s Watch does not prevent individuals using ranged weapons or powers from attacking you or those you protect. If an individual protected by your Shepherd’s Watch attacks or targets someone with a hostile power (whether targeting an individual inside or outside of your aura), she immediately loses the protection of Shepherd’s Watch. Such a character cannot be protected by the power for the next hour.

Once Shepherd’s Watch is activated, and you have chosen the individuals you are protecting with this power, you cannot add other individuals to that protection unless you reactivate Shepherd’s Watch. There is no limit to the number of individuals you can protect with this power, so long as they remain within five steps of your physical form.

Every turn after the first, you must spend 1 point of Blood to keep Shepherd’s Watch active. If you stop spending Blood, or take any action other than speech or simple movement, this power immediately ends.

Focus [Wits]:
Characters protected by your Shepherd’s Watch also gain a + 3 bonus to Dodge- and Survival-based defense test pools.

Obfuscate affects all five senses. It can visibly change or conceal an individual’s physical appearance and also mask minor incongruent sounds, alter the user’s voice, disguise the individual’s odor, or even make a ratty denim jacket feel like rich leather, all to support an Obfuscate-based disguise.

Obfuscate and Animals

Animals can occasionally sense when a vampire who currently possesses any number of Beast traits is nearby, even if that vampire is hidden or altered by Obfuscate. This doesn’t allow the animal to pierce the vampire’s Obfuscate, but it will cause the animal to become noticeably nervous, skittish, and aggressive.

Obfuscate and Auspex

A vampire using Auspex can attempt to use her sharpened senses to pierce an individual’s Obfuscate. The Auspex user must test using her Mental attribute + Investigation versus the Obfuscate user’s Mental attribute + Willpower. The Obfuscate user may opt to use her Mental attribute + Stealth as a defensive test pool rather than her Mental attribute + Willpower. If the Auspex user is successful, she pierces the powers of Obfuscate.

Obfuscate and Machines

Obfuscate works by clouding the minds of observers and, therefore, has no effect on machines. An obfuscated character will still be picked up by a metal detector, can be caught on a stationary or automatic video camera, and will have her weight felt by elevator sensors. However, any individuals utilizing such machines may omit the Obfuscated character. A paparazzi taking pictures might pause between shots of a crowd, or an airport guard with a hand-held metal detector might hold it away from the Obfuscated individual without even noticing. An individual in an elevator would not bother to look at the sensors, so long as the elevator did not mechanically trigger an alarm.

Obfuscate does cloud the minds of those observing a location through the use of electronic equipment (remotely or otherwise), so long as they are watching live (or nearlive) recordings. An airport guard looking at a video monitor will not notice an invisible character caught on her security camera, even if there are a few seconds of natural lag or even a full minute’s delay, between her display and the actual events. However, if that same guard rewinds her recording to view something that happened 10 minutes or more in the past, she’ll see the image of the Obfuscated vampire as captured by the recording device.

• Conceal

Your Obfuscate power allows you to blur objects in your possession, causing them to be ignored even if you are being searched. Such items appear or disappear on your person as you wish, staying cloaked from view so long as they are not actively in use.

System: Expend a simple action to conceal a weapon or other object you possess; the item must be no longer than three feet. Objects hidden with Conceal remain invisible as long as they are physically on your person. Conceal cannot be used to hide living or undead beings (or parts thereof). Conceal cannot be used to hide negative space; it can hide a chair, but not a doorway.

If another individual is looking at an item when you Conceal it, the observer automatically sees through this use of Obfuscate. However, if the observer looks away for more than a few seconds, one turn in combat, she will lose track of the object and it will be concealed.

Conceal can be used to maintain the invisibility of up to three objects at once. You may end an object’s Conceal at any time. If you interact with a Concealed object, use it to attack someone, or otherwise draw attention to the object, it will become visible. If you place other characters in a position where they must logically acknowledge the object’s existence, the Conceal will fail and the object will become visible to all.

For example, no one will notice a shotgun hanging in a back-holster, but if you reach back and obviously draw that shotgun, it will appear. People might not notice you carrying a book, but if you are struggling under the weight of a handheld anvil, it will become visible to all.

Focus [Intelligence]
You can Conceal up to 10 objects at one time, so long as they remain on your person. You can Conceal objects up to six feet long, rather than three. You still cannot Conceal living or undead beings.

•• Unseen Presence

With concentration, you can shield yourself from notice, fogging the minds of anyone who might otherwise realize your presence in the room. Your powers of Obfuscate are such that you may use this power to stealthily spy on others – or escape a difficult situation – while remaining completely unseen.

System: Expend a standard action to become invisible, taking with you all inanimate items on your person. Unseen Presence cannot be used to make another character invisible, even if the character is unconscious or dead. While under the effects of Unseen Presence, small sounds, fragrances, or other minimal effects of your presence will be ignored by others. If you talk, touch someone, produce an outlandish odour, or take any action that requires a challenge, your Unseen Presence will immediately end.

If another individual is looking at you when you activate Unseen Presence, the observer automatically sees through this use of Obfuscate. You will be invisible to anyone who was not looking at you when you used Unseen Presence, and if an observer looks away for more than a few seconds, one turn in combat, she will automatically lose track of you. If you interact with the environment, speak with another character, or draw attention to yourself, your Obfuscate will break and you will become visible. If you place other characters in a position where they must logically acknowledge your existence, the Unseen Presence will fail, and you will become visible to all. No one will notice an individual casually standing in a room, even if they must walk around her, as long as they can do so easily. However, if that invisible vampire blocks the exit to a room when others wish to leave, her invisibility will fail.

Focus [Wits]
You can talk in a low voice or use your standard action to interact with an unattended object, without breaking your Unseen Presence. You might quietly tell your allies to “watch out” or confuse onlookers by opening a door without breaking Obfuscate. Your Unseen Presence will still break if you shout, interact with a character, interact with something in another character’s control, or take an action that requires a challenge.

••• Mask of a Thousand Faces

By shifting other’s perceptions and fogging their minds, you cause observers to see you differently. You may use this power to become a bland, indistinct individual, easily forgotten in a crowd, or you may choose to become a specific type of person, such as a policeman or a waitress.

With some study, you can even cause your physical form to reflect that of another individual you know, taking on her features, clothing, vocal sound, and other distinctive qualities. This power changes your clothing as well, altering it as you wish (within certain limits of believability). Note, however, that this power confers no ability to mystically know an individual’s physical quirks or habits, vocal occlusions, memories, or social graces; only the details of a person’s appearance are conferred.

System: Expend a simple action to wrap yourself in the veil of Obfuscate, changing all sensory aspects of your appearance: visual, as well as audible and olfactory. You may use Mask of a Thousand Faces to appear as a generic-looking and generally forgettable person, or to specifically mimic the appearance of someone you’ve studied.

Mask of a Thousand Faces can be used to mimic anything that generally matches your form. A vampire in human form could look like an old man, a child, or a middle-aged mother, but she cannot appear to be a horse. Similarly, a vampire who uses Shape of the Beast to transform into a wolf can use this power to appear as a large dog, but not as a man.

To believably mimic a specific individual’s appearance, you must have at least 2 dots of the Subterfuge skill, and you must study that individual from multiple angles, for at least five minutes learning her facial expressions, how she moves, and other distinctive qualities. You might be able to mimic someone’s face after studying a photograph, but your disguise will not fool people who have previously met your target, as you do not know enough to successfully replicate that person. To believably mimic another character’s voice, you must have at least 3 dots of the Subterfuge skill, and you must listen to her talk for at least five minutes as she uses a variety of words and phrases. Listening to a recording of that voice is not enough for a true replication; your disguised voice would not have the variety necessary to fool anyone who has ever spoken directly to your target.

Mask of a Thousand Faces can be used to change the appearance of your clothing and equipment in minor ways, so long as your equipment does not change significantly in size or shape. A dinner jacket could be made to appear as a windbreaker, or a ribbon around your neck could appear to be a fancy tie, but this power cannot make that dinner jacket look like a floor-length trenchcoat, nor could it make a pistol look like a pencil. Mask of a Thousand Faces cannot be used to make an object invisible or partially invisible. You might make a hoodie and jeans look like a suit and slacks, but you cannot reduce them to appear as if you were wearing a bikini. Mask of a Thousand Faces can only affect objects that you are holding or that are on your person.

Focus [Wits]
You can dramatically change the appearance of your wardrobe and equipment. You are capable of feats such as making a mobile phone look like a shotgun or causing a hoodie and jeans to appear as though you are wearing a ball gown.

•••• Vanish From the Mind’s Eye

Your control over the power of Obfuscate is so great that you and your items fade from plain sight, even when you are actively being observed.

System: If you activate Conceal or Unseen Presence while someone is watching, Vanish from the Mind’s Eye allows you to make an opposed challenge against any observers, using your Obfuscate test pool. If you succeed, your power takes hold despite their alertness, and you or the object you are targeting becomes invisible at the end of the everyman round. To use Vanish From the Mind’s Eye against multiple observers, you must test against each observer. If you spend a Willpower to retest, you gain a retest against each observer. If you succeed against some observers but not others, only those who fail the challenge will be unable to see you. Those who succeed can continue to see you (or the object you’re attempting to Conceal) as though you had not used Vanish From the Mind’s Eye. As with other Obfuscate powers, if an individual who has seen through your Obfuscate looks away for more than a few seconds, one turn in combat, she loses track of the item or individual covered by Obfuscate.

Once you’ve purchased Vanish From the Mind’s Eye, characters with Heightened Senses cannot pierce any of your Obfuscate powers unless they have the 5th dot of Auspex. Additionally, characters without 5 dots of Auspex do not automatically notice your presence, no matter how close you stand.

Vanish From the Mind’s Eye can be used every turn, even if you failed to vanish in a previous turn. This is an exception to the rule that prevents a character from immediately retrying a failed Mental challenge.

• Shadow Play

At your command, the shadows in an area fill with the energy of the Abyss, moving and shaping as you require. These shadows animate, move about, flicker, and even achieve a limited form of perverse sentience, reaching out to brush icy cold fingers against anything that comes too close.

System: This power grants the vampire control over natural shadows present in an area. Spend 1 Blood and expend a simple action to animate nearby patches of darkness for the next five minutes.

Your animated shadows are not truly intelligent, but they have a form of rudimentary cunning, which allows them to follow your simple instructions. Your shadows are semi-solid and capable of moving objects weighing up to one pound.

Animated shadows have one standard action each turn and can use that action to move up to three steps, to perform a simple action, or to attack. Your animated shadows always move and attack as a group.

If directed to attack, the shadows wrap themselves around a single target, attempting to draw out her breath. The shadows’ attack test pool is 8. Undead are not affected by this attack, but living individuals take 1 point of damage per successful attack, which cannot be reduced or negated, as they desperately gasp for breath. Your animated shadows are independent creatures, and directing them to attack does not require an action.

If you are affected by a Mental or Social power, your shadows are similarly affected. If you cannot break your target’s Majesty, your shadows are also unable to attack. These shadow-helpers do not normally take damage from Physical attacks, but are dispelled if exposed to bright light or to fire. Even a single point of fire damage, such as one from an incendiary bullet, is enough to send your shadow spawn back to the Abyss.

A character can only have one application of Shadow Play active at a time.

Focus [Appearance]
You can instruct your shadows to cling to your body, making you extremely intimidating to behold. While this power is active, your terrifying countenance makes you immune to the exceptional successes of Dominate and Presence.

•• Shroud of Night

By calling upon the eternal depths of the Abyss, you evoke a swath of thick, preternatural blackness, which absorbs all light and distorts sound. Those within it feel an aching chill, hear murmured weeping, and sense the soft pressure of an ocean’s waves rolling through their bodies and out into... nothingness.

System: Spend 1 Blood and expend a simple action to summon forth a cloud of viscous shadow, the utter essence of the Abyss. You can call this darkness into existence anywhere within your line of sight. The Shroud of Night has a six step diameter and obscures all light within it, thus creating an utterly unnatural-looking area of pitch darkness. Anyone trapped in your Shroud of Night is blinded, unless she has some preternatural method of seeing through the formless void. Individuals within the shroud must use the Blind Fighting combat manoeuvre to attack. Characters with powers such as Eyes of the Beast can see through a Shroud of Night, and characters with other sensory powers, such as Heightened Senses, can compensate for lost sight, allowing them to attack normally.

Within a shroud, most living beings, such as animals or people, suffer 1 point of normal damage on your initiative each turn, as the Abyss steals their breath and saps their will to live. This damage cannot be reduced or negated. Undead are immune to this effect, as are Stamina-focused living characters. You are immune to the effects of your own Shroud of Night; you see normally through the Shroud, and you are not disconcerted by its touch. After creating a Shroud of Night, you may use a simple action to move your Shroud three steps in any direction. Alternately, you can use a simple action and spend 1 point of Blood to increase your shroud’s radius by two steps, after it has been summoned into existence by the first use of this power.

Focus [Manipulation]
Your Shroud of Night manifests a much stronger conduit to the unnatural energies of the Abyss. Undead remain unaffected by the damaging effects of your shroud, but living creatures take 3 points of normal damage per turn, instead of the standard 1 point. Even living creatures who are Stamina-focused cannot so easily shrug off the effects; they take 2 points of damage each turn within your shroud. Additionally, all individuals within your shroud suffer a -2 penalty to attack test pools (Physical, Mental, and Social). Characters using supernatural powers to bypass the blinding effect of your shroud are not immune to this -2 penalty. Characters using the Blind Fighting combat manoeuvre do not suffer this -2 penalty.

••• Arms of the Abyss

As your mastery of Obtenebration grows, your ability to summon the Abyss becomes ever more frightening. You can call forth tentacles of Abyssal darkness, creatures bound to the shadows themselves. These servants strike and coil at your command, serving your every wish.

System: Spend 1 Blood and expend your simple action to cause dark tentacles to rise from shadows within your line of sight. These tentacles are a tangible manifestation of the primal sentience within the Abyssal void. When you activate this power, you create one Arm of the Abyss for each Obtenebration power you possess, including techniques, to a maximum of five. Arms of the Abyss cannot move from the spot in which they are summoned.

Each Arm of the Abyss acts independently of the rest, functioning as an entirely sentient creature. An Arm of the Abyss has one standard action each turn. It can use this action to attack any target within two steps. Arms of the Abyss have an attack test pool of 8, and a successful attack inflicts 1 point of normal damage. However, instead of inflicting damage, you may choose to have an Arm of the Abyss Grapple its target. In this manner, an Arm of the Abyss can use the Grapple combat manoeuvre without spending Willpower. In mass combat, Arms of the Abyss can provide the assist attacker tactic to a nearby ally. If this occurs, the Arms of the Abyss give that ally a +1 bonus to her attack test pool, similar to a Stock NPC.

Arms of the Abyss cannot provide the assist defender tactic. Arms of the Abyss have no mind and cannot be targeted by Mental and Social powers. However, if you are incapable of attacking a target, your arms are also incapable of taking hostile action. For example, if you cannot break your target’s Majesty, your Arms of the Abyss are also unable to attack.

An Arm of the Abyss has 4 health levels. Arms are immediately destroyed if exposed to sunlight.

Focus [Manipulation]
Your Arms of the Abyss have an attack test pool of 10. If you possess even 1 dot of Potence, your Arms of the Abyss inflict 2 points of normal damage, rather than 1. If you possess even 1 dot of Fortitude, your Arms of the Abyss have 6 health levels, instead of the normal 4.

•••• Black Metamorphosis

By wrapping the darkness of the Abyss around your body, you meld your corpse with the sentience of the ancient depths. Bands of darkness ripple across your pale flesh, and flailing tentacles manifest from your ribcage, transforming you into a creature of the Abyss.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your simple action to transform into a monstrous creature of shadow. The raw material of the void envelops you in undulating bands, and four tentacles (similar in appearance to Arms of the Abyss) rise from your ribcage. The additional limbs provided by Black Metamorphosis cannot attack independently, but add to your own actions. Once each turn, on your initiative, you can make a Brawl attack using the arms provided by Black Metamorphosis, without using an action. This attack can target anyone within five steps. Attacks made with Black Metamorphosis use your normal Brawl test pool and inflict your normal Brawl damage. Black Metamorphosis attacks may be modified by your Potence powers, including elder Potence and Potence-based techniques, but cannot be modified by any other discipline powers. Black Metamorphosis cannot be used to attack during Celerity rounds.

Attacks made by Black Metamorphosis can be modified by the Grapple combat maneuver, although you must still pay the normal cost to use that manoeuvre. Black Metamorphosis cannot be modified by any combat maneuvers other than Grapple.

Black Metamorphosis is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers. You may end this transformation at any time by expending a simple action. Black Metamorphosis’ transformation is close enough to human to allow you to use weapons.

Focus [Appearance]
While in Black Metamorphosis, you can sense your surroundings perfectly, even during the depths of night, or while within the unnatural darkness of other Obtenebration effects. You are immune to all of the effects of Shroud of Night, even the -2 penalty inflicted by Shroud of Night’s focus effect. Additionally, your terrifying countenance makes you immune to exceptional successes generated by Dominate and Presence powers.

•  Prowess

Your blows achieve remarkable concussion, smashing through protective gear and shattering mortal bones with a single strike.

System: Your character’s Brawl and Melee attacks are armour piercing. You ignore your opponents’ armour bonuses.

•• Might

Your strength is clearly supernatural. You attack with mighty force, overwhelming your enemies with incredible blows.

System: When you succeed making a Brawl or Melee attack, your character automatically inflicts 2 points of damage.

Normal Success: Your character inflicts 2 points of damage at this level of Potence.

Exceptional Success: Your character inflicts 3 points of damage.

•••  Vigour

With such monumental brawn, you can heft hundreds of pounds with ease, wielding enough power to crush metal support beams or knock over brick walls.

System: When making a Brawl or Melee attack, you gain a +5 bonus to determine whether or not the attack achieves an exceptional success.

•••• Intensity

This level of strength allows you to tow cars short distances, mangling iron and steel with ease. Your strikes deliver titanic damage to enemies unfortunate enough to stand in your way.

System: Any time you achieve an exceptional success with a Brawl or Melee attack, your character automatically inflicts 2 additional points of damage, rather than the standard 1 additional point she would normally inflict when she scores an exceptional success.

Normal Success: Your character inflicts 2 point of damage at this level of Potence.

Exceptional Success: Your character inflicts 4 points of damage, rather than the standard 3, when she scores an exceptional success.

••••• Puissance

The strength you can muster is monumental, levelling phenomenal amounts of force with each blow. Such power is beyond supernatural; it is the stuff of legend.

System: When you succeed making a Brawl or Melee attack, your character automatically inflicts 3 points of damage. This amount includes the extra damage granted by Might. Note that Intensity still adds an additional point of damage, but only when you achieve an exceptional success.

Normal Success: Your character inflicts 3 points of damage at this level of Potence.

Exceptional Success: Your character inflicts 5 points of damage, rather than 4 points. This amount reflects the bonus from Intensity.

• Awe

You get noticed, even in the busiest room. Your beauty and charisma draw the attention of others like moths to a flame. Even those who do not agree with your cause or your purposes will stop and listen, willing for a moment to give you the benefit of the doubt.

System: To activate Awe, spend 1 Blood point and expend a standard action. For the remainder of the scene, you seem larger than life, more impressive than usual, and everyone within conversational distance will pay attention to you and will feel a strong desire to be near you. Characters affected by Awe are not compelled to like, trust, or stop attacking you, but they must pay attention to you. A target affected by Awe is automatically considered to be focused on you, as per the Gaze and Focus rule on page 113. Characters may ignore all uses of Awe for one hour, even if they come from multiple individuals, by spending a point of Willpower.

Focus [Appearance]:
Characters who wish to overcome your Awe must spend 2 Willpower, rather than 1, to ignore your Awe for the next hour. No matter how many characters in the area have this focus, expending 2 Willpower will ignore all focused uses of Awe.

•• Dread Gaze

A vampire’s Beast is a terrifying thing, feral and predatory. Using Dread Gaze allows the Beast to surface, focusing its rage on another individual. A vampire’s bloodthirsty nature is apparent in her features as the Beast hisses or roars in dark, primal wrath. Those targeted by this fearsome power often quail before it, fleeing in terror from the fury of the Beast.

System: Expend a standard action as your character bares her fangs and hisses or roars at her target, and then make an opposed challenge against your target. If you are successful, she is overcome by fear. She will not willingly come within five steps of you for the next five minutes, and actively seeks to avoid your presence and your anger.

A character who has been affected by your Dread Gaze will not attack you unless she has no other option. If forced into a confined place with you, the victim may fight you in order to escape, but will move away and stop fighting at the earliest opportunity.

Exceptional Success:
For the rest of the evening, if you make any aggressive movement towards the individual who has been subjected to your successful Dread Gaze, this power will re-exert itself, and your victim will be forced to back away, suffering the effect of Dread Gaze for another five minutes.

Focus [Manipulation]:
You can expose the fury of your Beast without revealing your vampiric nature. Instead of bearing your fangs and hissing, you glare at your target. Your eyes seem bright and piercing, brows knitted and features writ in anger; your motions are predatory — but your visage is not a breach of the Masquerade. Observers will notice that you appear aggressive toward your opponent, but they will have no reason to think you are a vampire.

••• Entrancement

A gentle smile can sway the hardest heart. You are the highlight of the gathering, a star in a cloudy sky, the sole recipient of attention. Few others can match your beauty and poise, and those who are lucky enough to gain your attention will do anything to keep it.

System: To activate Entrancement, spend 1 Blood, expend a standard action and make an opposed challenge against your target. If successful, you bend your target’s emotions and capture her heart. She becomes immediately receptive to you, rationalizing any disdain or negative feelings she had for you before you used this power. While the target is not your slave and will not blindly obey your commands, the subject admires you greatly and is willing to work toward your goals, within reason.

Both during the effects and after this power fades, the subject will rationalize the effect of Entrancement. Those who already felt positively toward you will simply remember that you were particularly alluring; those who moderately disliked you will begrudgingly blame the brief change of heart on your incredible persuasive skills. Only an individual who actively reviled you and wished you harm will clearly see that her actions were manipulated. Others, watching the

Entranced individual, may see more clearly that she is under the sway of your emotional control — but it will be difficult to convince the Entranced individual that such is true. Entranced characters cannot bring themselves to harm you, physically or politically, and will generally be as nice to you as reasonably possible. Entrancement is not mind control, and characters you’ve Entranced are not obligated to follow your instructions to the letter. They will generally try to make you happy, and they will take your side in arguments or conflicts, so long as they are not put in danger by doing so. An Entranced character will not blood bind herself to you or risk her life to defend you, but she will lend assistance as long as the situation isn’t dangerous.

If you attack someone you’ve Entranced, this power’s effect ends immediately.

Exceptional Success:
If you achieve an exceptional success, the target of your Entrancement suffers a -3 penalty to resist or overcome your other Presence powers for the duration of this effect. This benefit applies to all powers of Presence, including elder powers and Presence-based techniques.

Focus [Appearance]:
When you use Entrancement successfully, the effects last for three hours instead of one.

•••• Summon

Your powers of persuasion are so strong that you can mystically compel others to come when you beckon, even if they are miles away. The mere memory of your beauty and inspiring personality haunts them, and they feel the soft, insistent call of your spirit summoning them to your side.

System: To Summon another individual, spend 1 point of Blood and expend a standard action. Make an opposed challenge against a familiar target. For more information on familiarity, see page 114.

Once you have begun a Summons, you cannot leave the area where you initiated the power, or the Summons will immediately end. If you succeed, the target of your Summons automatically realizes she has been affected by the use of a power, as well as the identity of the individual performing the Summons, and the location where she is to meet with you. If your target doesn’t trust you, she can spend a brief period of time, up to 10 minutes, taking precautions before answering your Summons.

A summoned target will come as quickly and directly as possible, but she also retains her survival instincts. The target will not walk off a cliff or enter a situation that she realizes may be an ambush.

If it is not possible for a character to present herself to you physically without entering a dangerous situation, the target must come as close as possible and contact you in some other way, such as via a phone call, forcing a human to deliver a note, or sending an animal messenger. If the target is not aware of an overt risk to her safety, she will respond to your Summon in person, even if you have sinister plans.

Summoned mortals will continue following your call across any distance, no matter how much time it takes to reach your side, so long as you remain on the premises where you initiated the Summon. They will eventually present themselves to you, even if they have to travel for days. Supernatural creatures travel as far as possible until they reach you or until the next sunrise, whichever comes first.

Exceptional Success:
The target of your Summons doesn’t know the power has been used, and, therefore, also cannot sense the identity of the individual summoning her. She will move to present
herself at your location without realizing why — or where she’s headed. Your Summon still ends if the target can’t approach you without walking into an obviously dangerous situation.

Focus [Manipulation]:
You can Summon your Retainers, ghouls, and individuals who are blood bound to you without expending Blood or a standard action. You can use this aspect of Summon even when you are staked or in torpor. This is an exception to the rule that prevents powers from being used while staked or in torpor.

• Eyes of the Beast

With but a moment of concentration, you can shift the composition of your eyes to more greatly resemble those of an animal. Your ability to see in darkness increases, but this refraction also gives your eyes an eerie, animalistic glow.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Eyes of the Beast. For the next hour, your eyes glow a soft, feral red. While this effect lasts, you can see perfectly even in pitch darkness. So long as your character is not physically blinded, you can fight in darkness without needing the Fighting Blind combat manoeuvre.

Focus [Perception]:
Your Eyes of the Beast are always active, and you do not need to spend Blood to activate this power. Unlike the standard activation of this power, your eyes do not glow unless you choose to make them glow. Causing your eyes to glow, or to stop glowing, requires the expenditure of a simple action.

•• Feral Claws

By activating this power, your fingernails lengthen and harden into sharp, powerful claws. These claws are supernatural and capable of rending flesh, stone, or even thin sheets of metal. You can retract these claws with a mere effort of will, returning your hands to their normal state.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Feral Claws. Your fingernails sharpen, harden, and lengthen into clearly visible, bestial claws. Slashing a foe with your Feral Claws inflicts aggravated damage. You may sheath Feral Claws at any time by spending a simple action. A character attacking with Feral Claws uses her Physical attribute + Brawl versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge.

If your claws break, you can regrow them by reactivating this power.

Focus [Wits]:
You can grow or sheath Feral Claws at any time without expending an action. Additionally, when you activate Feral Claws, your muscles subtly rearrange themselves to make slashing more efficient. When fighting with Feral Claws, you receive a +1 bonus to your Brawl attack test pools.

••• Earth Meld

Before the advent of rapid transportation and widespread civilization, the power to meld with the earth in order to sleep safely, hidden from the sun, was absolutely essential for vampires to survive. By using this power, a vampire can mystically meld with the soil at her feet, and remain hidden there until she wills herself to rise.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your simple action to sink into the ground. You must be touching the earth (clay, soil, or any other soft-consistency ground) in order to use Earth Meld. While joined with the earth, the vampire exists in a semisolid form and cannot take actions or use any powers. Earth Melded characters are semi-conscious, but are not aware of their surroundings. Melding with the earth shelters a character from the sunlight during the day, or from fire searing the ground overhead, and further makes the vampire immune to most forms of physical harm.

Significant disruption to the ground where a character is melded ends this power prematurely. If someone spends three standard actions causing such disruption, the vampire immediately ejects from the ground. An ejected vampire returns to full wakefulness immediately, showering dirt in a wide radius as she erupts violently from the soil. Using tools to disturb the ground can reduce the number of actions needed to disrupt an Earth Meld. For example, a character with a shovel might be able to eject a melded vampire with two standard actions, whereas a character with a pipe bomb could eject her with a single standard action.

Earth Meld allows a vampire to sink into dirt or substances with similar consistency, such as sand or gravel, but cannot be used to meld with (or pass through) concrete, rock, metal, plastic, wood, or any other ground covering. Earth Meld cannot be combined with transformative powers; melding with the earth returns a vampire to her native state.

Focus [Perception]:
While awake and melded with the earth, you can perceive your surroundings as though you were standing above the ground with which you are merged. If a melded character is asleep or in voluntary torpor, she will awaken as soon as someone begins to disturb the soil of her resting place, although waking up is not automatic and requires all normal tests and expenditures.

•••• Shape of the Beast

One of the most renowned abilities possessed by vampires, this power allows you to take the form of a wolf or bat, literally shifting your flesh and bone into a new state. Although such a beast is no more alive than the vampire, it is capable of flying, running, or using its animal senses just like a living member of its species.

System: Spend 1 Blood point and use a standard action to transform into either a bat (your flight form) or a wolf (your fight form). You may end your Shape of the Beast transformation at any time by expending a simple action.

While in your flight form, you gain a +3 bonus to Dodge-based defensive test pools and can fly at your normal movement speed. However, due to the bat’s small size, your Physical attribute is reduced to 3 for the purpose of Physical attacks. While in your fight form, you gain a +2 bonus to Brawlbased attack test pools, and your brawling attacks, biting or clawing, inflict aggravated damage.

Both of your animal forms convert and retain the significant physical qualities and notable appearance-related flaws of your humanoid shape, such as one eye, a shock of white hair, or any other distinctive features. Vampires on paths still seem monstrous when in animal form, and Nosferatu or other disfigured vampires make for ugly animals, indeed. Shape of the Beast is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.

Focus [Wits]:
When you purchase Shape of the Beast, you may choose to thematically alter your fight and flight forms, changing their appearance to something appropriate to your character’s background or Archetype. The creatures you choose must be predators or scavengers, meat-eaters; they cannot be insects or herbivores, and must be animals that your character could logically encounter in person (no extinct or imaginary animals). Once you select your character’s flight and fight forms, you cannot alter them thereafter.

Instead of a bat, you may transform into any small flying animal you wish. Examples include ravens, owls, or vultures. Instead of a wolf, you may transform into any similarly sized land or water-bound predator. Examples include lynxes, komodo lizards, foxes, leopards, hyenas, sharks, wolverines, or small bears. Your Storyteller is the final arbiter of whether a particular animal is an appropriate choice for Shape of the Beast.

All flight forms receive the same bonus and have the same detriments; you gain a +3 bonus to Dodge-based defensive test pools and can fly at your normal movement speed. However, due to your relatively small size, your Physical attribute is reduced to 3 for the purpose of Physical attacks.

When you choose your fight form, you may apply one of the following templates as appropriate for the animal you choose, instead of utilizing the standard bonuses and detriments of the wolf template. You may also apply one of these templates even if you choose to keep the visual appearance of a wolf; these templates simply make your particular wolf more unique.

• Huge: You transform into a large, lumbering animal, gaining 2 additional Healthy wound levels.
• Vicious: You receive an additional +1 bonus to Brawl-based attack test pools. This bonus stacks with the normal +2 bonus gained when in Shape of the Beast’s fight form (+3 total).
• Fast: If you expend both your simple and standard actions to move, you can move nine steps in a round instead of the standard six steps.
• Agile: You gain a +1 bonus to Dodge-based defensive test pools.
• Aquatic: You can swim at your normal movement speed, but your land speed is reduced to one step per action, or, at your Storyteller’s discretion, you may not move on land at all while in this form. While submerged, you receive a +2 bonus to Brawl-based attack test pools. This bonus stacks with the normal bonus from being in Shape of the Beast’s fight form (+4 total).

• Silence of Death

The first lesson is that of silence. Anonymity and surprise are two of the most powerful weapons in a vampire’s arsenal, helping an ambush provide a truly insurmountable advantage. With the use of this power, you can hide your approach, attack, and escape, smothering your victim’s desperate pleas for help or mercy.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use a simple action to create an area of absolute silence. The area affected by Silence of Death is a sphere surrounding your physical form. This sphere extends a maximum of three steps in every direction, though you may choose to make the sphere of effect smaller, if you wish. Once created, you can shrink the size of the sphere by spending a simple action, but you cannot extend it to exceed the three-step maximum.

Sounds originating within the sphere of your Silence of Death are completely silenced. Powers that rely on sound can be blocked by Silence of Death. This might mean such powers fail at origin, because the user is within the silence, or it might mean that these powers fail because the target of such a power is within the sound-dampening sphere. This includes effects such as the Melpominee power Death of the Drum and the Dominate powers Mesmerism or Command (though Dominate powers can be utilized without sound, and such applications succeed).

Note that some uses of blood magic, such as Thaumaturgy or Necromancy, require the caster to speak. However, those powers do not require their target be able to hear the words spoken. Thus, such powers are not hampered by Silence of Death, even if the user of those powers is within the globe. Silence of Death lasts for a maximum of 10 minutes, unless you end the power early by spending a simple action.

Focus [Wits]:
Your Silence of Death can extend up to five steps. Additionally, you can invoke Silence of Death on a static location rather than having the power’s barrier surround you. Once you have created a static Silence of Death, the barrier remains stationary, even if you placed the Silence of Death on an object which is then moved.

•• Scorpion’s Touch

Through meditation, the use of herbal concoctions, and natural soporifics, you can change the properties of your vitae. When you activate this power, your blood becomes a powerful poison that slows injured prey and robs them of their ability to fight.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your simple action to meditate upon the properties of your vitae, and then draw a sharpened blade across your skin, creating a shallow cut in order to coat the edge of the weapon with a layer of your own vitae. This weapon must be used quickly, before the blood dries and loses its supernatural properties. For the next three turns, anyone struck with this weapon is poisoned by your venomous blood.

Individuals struck by a weapon coated with Scorpion’s Touch suffer a -2 penalty to all Physical attack test pools. These penalties last for five minutes. Additional applications of Scorpion’s Touch do not add further penalties, but do extend the duration of the original penalties by an additional five minutes. For example, a character hit by three such attacks would suffer a -2 penalty to all Physical attack test pools for the next 15 minutes.

An individual successfully struck by a weapon poisoned with Scorpion’s Touch suffers these penalties even if the attack did not inflict damage after your opponent applies her defensive powers. The venom only needs to touch its target, not damage.

You are immune to your own Scorpion’s Touch, but other individuals wielding weapons coated with your venom risk being poisoned. If someone else uses a weapon coated by your Scorpion’s Touch, she receives this power’s penalties if she loses any test involved in the challenge. This occurs even if the individual wins the overall challenge. It is possible for both a weapon’s wielder and the target of that attack to be affected by your venom in the same action. If the wielder repeatedly loses tests in challenges, she suffers the same extended penalty durations as does someone who was struck multiple times.

You can poison a single sword-sized or smaller weapon with each expenditure of Scorpion’s Touch. This item could be a dagger, a sword, one crossbow bolt, one arrow, or something similar. Scorpion’s Touch is normally used with edged or sharpened weapons. If used on a non-edged weapon, you must spend a standard action, rather than a simple action, to tear open your flesh by some other means and coat the weapon with vitae. Scorpion’s Touch cannot be used to modify bullets or other firearms equipment, as the heat and speed of a firearm destroys the blood coating on any projectile fired. Scorpion’s Touch cannot be used with unarmed attacks.

Focus [Intelligence]:
Weapons coated by your Scorpion’s Touch remain toxic for five turns instead of three. Additionally, you may choose to thicken the ichor of your blood sufficiently so individuals other than yourself can wield it safely without risking being affected. Anyone poisoned by your Scorpion’s Touch suffers a -3 penalty to all Physical attack test pools.

••• Dagon’s Call

This vicious power allows a vampire to use a target’s blood against her, bursting blood vessels and causing organs to bleed internally. These ruptures are intensely painful, delivering swift internal agony to anyone affected by this power.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood, expend your standard action, and engage your target in an opposed challenge using the Quietus test pool. If you succeed, you cause your target’s internal organs to rupture and bleed.

A character successfully targeted by Dagon’s Call takes 2 points of normal damage in any turn during which she spends Blood. This damage occurs the moment the victim spends her first point of Blood in a given turn. After the first turn, you can spend your simple action on every subsequent turn in order to maintain this power’s effect, for up to five turns in total.

Damage caused by Dagon’s Call cannot be reduced or negated. Multiple uses of Dagon’s Call do not stack. A character affected by two uses of this power still only takes 2 points of normal damage per turn.

Exceptional Success:
Your target takes 3 normal damage, rather than 2, on any turn during which she spends Blood.

Focus [Wits]:
If your target has some of your blood on her person (knowingly or unknowingly), or if your target has ingested your blood within the last 24 hours, you do not need line of sight to use Dagon’s Call, so long as the target is within one mile. Individuals who have been affected by your Scorpion’s Touch or Baal’s Caress are considered to have your blood on them for the purpose of using Dagon’s Call.

•••• Baal’s Caress

By continuing her study into vitae transformation, this power’s user can alter the properties of a vampire’s blood even further, rendering it into an intensely vitrolic ichor. This ichor destroys any flesh it touches, whether living or undead.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your simple action to meditate upon the properties of your vitae, and draw a sharpened blade across your skin, creating a shallow cut in order to coat the edge of a weapon with a layer of your own vitae. This weapon must be used quickly, before the blood dries and loses its supernatural properties. For the next three turns, the weapon gains the Deadly trait, and anyone struck with this weapon takes aggravated damage from the weapon’s strike. Note that Baal’s Caress does not increase the damage done by a given weapon, but that weapon inflicts aggravated damage, rather than normal damage.

You are immune to your own Baal’s Caress, but other individuals wielding weapons coated with your ichor risk being injured. If someone else uses a weapon coated by your Baal’s Caress, she takes a point of aggravated damage if she loses any test involved in the challenge. This occurs even if the individual wins the overall challenge. It is possible for both a weapon’s wielder and the target of that attack to be affected by your ichor in the same action. If the wielder repeatedly loses tests in challenges, she will take multiple points of aggravated damage.

You can poison a single sword-sized or smaller weapon with each expenditure of Baal’s Caress. This item could be a dagger, a sword, one crossbow bolt, one arrow, or something similar. Baal’s Caress is normally used with edged or sharpened weapons. If used on a non-edged weapon, you must spend a standard action, rather than a simple action, to tear open your flesh by some other means and coat the weapon with vitae. Baal’s Caress cannot be used to modify bullets or other firearms equipment, as the heat and speed of a firearm destroys the blood coating on any projectile fired. Baal’s Caress cannot be used with unarmed attacks.

Focus [Intelligence]:
Weapons coated by your Baal’s Caress remain toxic for five turns instead of the standard three. Additionally, you may choose to thicken the ichor of your blood sufficiently so individuals other than yourself can wield it safely without risking injury.

• Eyes of the Serpent

Like the snake-charmers of old, your gaze has the power to soothe and hypnotize. When you use this power, your eyes turn shining gold, capturing the attention of those who meet your gaze. As long as you hold her attention, your subject remains completely immobilized.

System: Expend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Eyes of the Serpent. You must have your target’s attention (see Gaze and Focus, page 113) and engage your target in an opposed challenge using the Serpentis test pool. If you succeed, the target is paralysed so long as you hold her gaze with your own. If you break eye contact, utilize any other powers, or if the target is attacked, injured, or targeted by hostile powers, your hypnotic spell breaks.

Exceptional Success:
Your Eyes of the Serpent lasts for three rounds after you break eye contact, so long as your opponent is not attacked, injured, or targeted with an aggressive power.

Focus [Appearance]:
You can utilize other powers while holding a target paralysed with your Eyes of the Serpent. However, if your target is attacked or injured, this hypnotic spell breaks.

•• Tongue of the Asp

By activating this power, you gain several of the natural and mythical powers associated with serpents. You may speak with, control, and summon snakes. Some who are particularly blessed may even gain a natural advantage in spoken persuasion, much like the Serpent of old.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Tongue of the Asp for one hour. While this power is active, your tongue is forked and you may speak to snakes (or individuals in serpent form) with a sibilant whisper so quiet that the sound can go completely undetected by anyone who does not possess Heightened Senses or a similar power. While Tongue of the Asp is active, you can sense your surroundings perfectly even in the depths of night or in unnatural darkness such as that caused by Obtenebration. Normally, characters who cannot see while in combat must use the Fighting Blind combat manoeuvre. So long as your character’s Tongue of the Asp is active, you may fight without needing the Fighting Blind combat manoeuvre.

Further, by expending an additional Blood and a standard action, you can summon up to five local small serpents or two medium-sized serpents. These snakes take up to 10 minutes to appear, and must be able to naturally travel to your location. They have only animal intelligence, but are loyal to you and will attempt to do your bidding until dawn. Treat small serpents as 1-point Retainers, and medium serpents as 3-point Retainers.

Focus [Charisma]:
When using Tongue of the Asp, you also gain a +1 bonus to any tests based on the sound of your voice, including persuasion related skills and Presence powers such as Entrancement (assuming you speak to reinforce your use of the power).

••• Skin of the Adder

With but a moment of concentration, you cause your skin to erupt into slick, protective scales, and your limbs and muscles lengthen. While this power is active, you have a hideous, snakelike appearance, but gain significant defence against Physical attacks.

System: By spending 1 point of Blood and expending a standard action to invoke this power, you acquire defensive scales and become extremely flexible. While this power is active, you have a +2 bonus to Dodge-based defence test pools. Individuals using Skin of the Adder can also bite without first needing to Grapple their opponents.

Obviously, being seen by mortals while using Skin of the Adder is a breach of the Masquerade.

Skin of the Adder is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers. You can end this transformation at any time by expending a simple action. Skin of the Adder’s transformation is close enough to human to allow you to use weapons.

Focus [Charisma]:
Your bonus to Dodge-based test pools increases to +3 (instead of the standard +2). Additionally you receive a +1 bonus to Brawl test pools when attempting to bite your opponent.

•••• Form of the Cobra

Myth states that ancient priests of Egypt could command their staves to turn into snakes. You can perform an even greater metamorphosis, transforming yourself into a massive cobra, which retains the size and weight of your original form. This reptile shape grants a venomous bite and the ability to slip through small passages, while still allowing you to use any disciplines that do not require hands or speech.

System: Spend 1 Blood point and use a standard action to transform into a massive, human-sized cobra, approximately 15 feet long. You may end this transformation at any time by expending a simple action. A character in Form of the Cobra is extremely lithe, and cannot be grappled; attackers who attempt to Grapple you automatically fail. Further, you may bite your foes without the need to Grapple first, and your bites are venomous.

Individuals who are bitten by a vampire in Form of the Cobra must resist a virility 15 poison. Poison inflicted by this power damages living characters and destroys the blood of vampires. For more information on poison, see Drugs and Poison, page 286. Remember that all vampiric bites, including those by characters in Form of the Cobra, inflict aggravated damage.

Form of the Cobra is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.

Focus [Appearance]:
You can modify your Form of the Cobra, becoming as large as a massive python, or as small as a viper. Your length and mass may increase up to three times your natural body weight, or reduce to as small as one-tenth your normal size.

• Hourglass of the Mind

Time is a complex entity, moving like a river around a thousand tiny stones. The smallest alteration can cause tremendous shifts. To effectively use Temporis, the wielder’s mind must be capable of understanding these currents and eddies, and predicting their outcomes.

System: Hourglass of the Mind is always active. In addition to granting an extremely accurate time sense, allowing you to keep track of the exact time down to the millisecond, this level of Temporis also grants you a unique sensitivity to any disturbances in the flow of time. Within a one-mile radius, you automatically sense when time is being manipulated, whether through use of Temporis or other supernatural powers that alter time. Additionally, you automatically sense the use of powers that grant extra actions, such as Celerity, when they are used within 1,000 feet of you. Further, you can read an object’s age at a glance, and you can tell if Temporis has ever been used on that object by noting that its actual age does not match the amount of time that has passed since the object’s creation.

Also, by spending your standard action and making a successful opposed challenge, using the Temporis test pool, you discover whether or not a target possesses Celerity or Temporis; you then discern how many dots of either Celerity or Temporis the target possesses. If you use this power on a non-vampiric creature who possesses powers that can shape time or allow it to take multiple actions, you gain a rough understanding of that creature’s capabilities.

Focus [Stamina]:
In addition to knowing your target’s total dots of Temporis or Celerity, you also discern the specific powers she possesses, including techniques and elder powers.

•• Nick of Time

With this power, you can steal items from the corners of history. By creating a small anomaly in the natural flow of time, you reach into the past or present and grasp lost objects, discarded junk, and abandoned flotsam, forcibly pulling such items to you.

System: By spending 1 Blood and expending a simple action, you can utilize Nick of Time to draw a common object to you from some other point in time. These items are things that have been lost or misplaced, and will never be missed by their owners. The item is a common and nondescript example of its type; you may choose to draw forth a desert eagle or a pretty painting, but you cannot acquire the Sheriff’s gun or the Mona Lisa. The item must be small enough for a normal individual to easily hold in two hands and not of any particular value.

If you choose to draw forth a weapon, your Storyteller determines the weapon’s specific qualities. If the weapon is a gun, it has one full clip of ammunition. For more information on weapons and weapon qualities, see Chapter Thirteen: Influences and Equipment, page 515.

Focus [Stamina]:
If you use Nick of Time to pull forth a weapon or combat item, you may select the qualities for that item, rather than have your Storyteller choose them for you.

••• Split Second

With this power, you slow the effects of time around you, allowing you to move in a flicker and almost appear to be in two places at once. Although you cannot attack others while in such a state, you can move, draw weapons, or perform other small actions in the blink of an eye.

System: Once per turn, you can spend 1 Blood to gain an additional simple action, which cannot be interrupted. This additional action resolves on your initiative, and cannot be used to target other characters or items controlled by other characters; it also cannot be used to activate powers.

Focus [Stamina]:
You gain two additional simple actions with each use of Split Second, rather than one.

•••• Patience of the Norns

Your ability with Temporis has grown so powerful that you can actually remove inanimate objects from the flow of time, suspending them for a little while as the rest of the world moves on. You can halt a falling object midair, suspend an explosion long enough to escape its fire, or preserve a fragile artefact from decay.

System: Spend 1 Blood, expend a standard action, and target an inanimate object to activate Patience of the Norns. This object enters perfect stasis, even as time passes around it. When Patience of the Norns affects an object, all processes, whether mechanical, electrical, or chemical, stop functioning for the duration of the effect. Bullets hang motionless in mid-air, fires appear as no more than charred logs, and falling objects freeze in mid-tumble. This suspension lasts for one hour, unless Patience of the Norns is released prior to that duration.

An object frozen by Patience of the Norns cannot be moved or affected in any way. If anything substantial (more firm than a light breeze) touches a frozen object after it has been placed in suspension, the item affected by Patience of the Norns is released and re-enters time with the same properties and velocity it had when it was placed into stasis. Suspension of an object includes the suspension of all its energy and any chemical processes occurring within it. Thus, a suspended bullet has no kinetic energy in relation to the world around it, chemical reactions are held in stasis, and fires cease to emit heat, light, or smoke until such time as the power’s duration expires. At the end of this power’s duration, all processes, energies, and reactions resume activity as though no time had passed. Fires roar to life, chemical reactions run their course, and objects in motion continue on their original trajectories at their original speed.

Patience of the Norns cannot be used on an object larger than the vampire herself.

Focus [Stamina]:
You can slightly alter an object that has been suspended by Patience of the Norns. Whereas an item in a standard suspension cannot be moved or affected in any way, you can rotate the object, so that any kinetic energy is pointed in another direction, or you can move the object one step per standard action. You must physically touch the item in order to turn or move it. This contact does not break the suspension granted by Patience of the Norns.

• Hag’s Wrinkles

Perpetual rot makes the character’s flesh malleable. You can contract or expand your skin, sending it into wrinkled, rippling waves or pulling it taut over your undead flesh. You can even cause folds to form in your flesh, allowing you to store objects within the leathery ripples, like a kangaroo’s pouch.

System: The bodies of Thanatosis practitioners become rotted and malleable. By spending a standard action to tug or twist your skin, you can open folds and pouches in your flesh. These pouches are capable of storing items up to the size of a large handgun. Accessing items stored in these pouches requires a simple action.

Additionally, you can slightly alter your appearance by overtightening the skin around your face or by allowing it to hang wrinkled and loose. These changes may be enough to fool uninformed mortals, but they do not alter your appearance enough to fool someone who knows you.

Focus [Wits]:
The flaps and folds of your skin can impede weapons, slip-sliding over your musculature or deflecting blows that would otherwise harm you. You receive a +1 bonus to defensive test pools when targeted by Brawl or Melee attacks. Additionally, you receive a +5 bonus when attempting to escape from a Grapple

•• Putrefaction

With but a touch, you can inflict decay on your target. You cause putrescent, festering decay to spread from your point of contact.

System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your standard action to rot any organic, inanimate object you touch, to the point of uselessness. A single application of Putrefaction can destroy wood, cloth, plastic, and rubber, but harder items, such as metal, glass, or stone, require two applications of this power to putrefy. Objects larger than a standard door require more than one application of Putrefaction to destroy. This power has no effect on living or undead matter, but can be used to rot true corpses (dead bodies) into unrecognisability.

Focus [Wits]:
You may spend 1 Blood and use a standard action to destroy a wooden stake that is currently piercing your heart. This is an exception to the rule that prevents a character from spending Blood or taking actions while staked.

••• Ashes to Ashes

Under extreme circumstances, it is often best to allow an opponent a psychological victory in order to gain the element of surprise. The Samedi are masters of such deceit. With this power, you can collapse into a thick, sticky white powder that resembles a desiccated heap of ash.

System: By spending 1 point of Blood and using your standard action, you transform into a pile of ash. While in this form, you cannot spend Blood, move from your location, take actions, or use supernatural powers, but you are immune to Physical damage, fire, and sunlight. You also retain a limited awareness of everything within five steps.

The form granted by Ashes to Ashes does not confer complete invulnerability. The ashes have a certain resistance to being dispersed, but if you are scattered too widely, you can be killed. While using Ashes to Ashes, you have 10 points of Cohesion. If other individuals or factors of the environment, such as high winds or a blaze of fire, conspire to scatter your ashes, you may lose 1 to 3 points of Cohesion per turn, determined at the Storyteller’s discretion.

If you reform after losing Cohesion, you lose 1 point of Blood per point of Cohesion you suffered. If you run out of Blood in this manner, you take 1 point of aggravated damage per point of Cohesion lost. This damage cannot be reduced or negated. If your Cohesion reaches zero, you suffer Final Death.

This power makes you appear as though you are a normal pile of ash, but does not alter your aura. Someone looking at a character in Ashes to Ashes with Aura Perception will be able to tell that the pile of ash has a vampiric aura. Ashes to Ashes is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.

Focus [Wits]:
While in the form of Ashes to Ashes, you can spend 1 point of Blood to draw in nearby ash that has been scattered, gaining 1 point of Cohesion per turn. Additionally, you can spend 1 point of Blood per turn and move up to one step. This is an exception to the rule preventing you from spending Blood or moving while in ash form.

•••• Withering

By clutching a victim’s limb and activating this hideous power, you shrivel the limb and render it useless by infecting it with decay. A target suffering under the effects of this power finds herself in horrible pain, her limbs shrinking and bones snapping within your grasp.

System: Use a standard action to Grapple a target. If you are successful, spend 1 Blood to inflict Withering on the victim, as well as inflicting all standard effects of a Grapple. Thereafter, the target suffers a -1 penalty to her Physical attribute. This effect is not considered damage, and is not affected by powers or abilities that negate or lessen damage.

To use Withering on a target, you must first be successful using a Grapple combat manoeuvre against that target. If your target is already grappled, you can activate this power by spending 1 Blood and using your standard action. (For more information on grappling, see Chapter: Six: Core Rules, page 280). Withering can be used during Celerity rounds, so long as you pay the full cost for each use.

Penalties from repeated use of Withering on a single target accumulate, whether those penalties were applied by one practitioner of Thanatosis or multiple practitioners. If this penalty reaches -5, one of the victim’s limbs (chosen by the attacker) becomes useless. If the penalty reaches -10, the target must choose a second limb that becomes useless, and so on, until all of the target’s limbs are unusable.

If one or both of a character’s legs have been withered, she can only move one step per action by limping or crawling. If either of a character’s arms have been withered, she suffers a -5 penalty to Brawl and Melee attacks, unless the character is ambidextrous, in which case, she only suffers a -3 penalty. A character with a withered arm cannot use two-handed weapons. A character with two withered arms cannot make Physical attacks unless she is capable of biting without grappling, or if she has more than two other useable limbs, such as those granted by Black Metamorphosis or limbs created with Vicissitude.

Physical attribute penalties from Withering subside after 10 minutes, but a withered limb is not so easily restored. A mortal whose limb has been withered is permanently crippled. A supernatural creature’s withered limbs will recover after two games or one month, whichever is longer.

Focus [Intelligence]:
Your target’s limb withers when the penalties from Withering reach -3, instead of the standard threshold of -5. A second limb becomes useless when the penalties reach -6, and so forth. This effect functions even if some of the penalties were applied by other characters using Withering. For example, if another character inflicted -2 in penalties, and you inflict a third -1, you wither one of the target’s limbs.

• Sense Vitality

Life permeates the world, cycling with the ebb and flow of inevitability. With this power, you can tap into that source, feeling the pulse of the universe and tangibly perceiving the vital energy of individuals nearby.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Sense Vitality. For the next hour, you gain the instinctive ability to perceive the health of any creature that comes within 10 steps of you. You automatically realize the following information:

• Whether the target is alive, dead, or undead
• The target’s current number of wounds and number of remaining health levels
• The location and severity of any injuries she currently suffers
• Whether the target suffers from any diseases or other maladies, and if so, which ones
• Whether the target has any drugs or poisons in her system, and if so, which one
• The disposition of all organs, bones, musculature, and other physical structures of the body. You realize if any organs have been removed or shifted, and you can sense the signs of older, healed injuries or genetic anomalies.

Sense Vitality overcomes supernatural powers that obscure an individual’s health level, such as Misleading Wounds or similar powers.

Focus [Perception]:
Valeren focuses on offence and causing pain. Consequently, while Sense Vitality is active, you do not need to spend Willpower to use the combat manoeuvre Pierce the Heart.

•• Burning Touch

You have a warrior’s spirit, and can inflict agony on those you assault. Any target who falls victim to your Burning Touch is consumed by pain.

System: Use a standard action to Grapple a target. If you are successful, spend 1 Blood to inflict Burning Touch on a victim, as well as inflicting all the standard effects of the Grapple combat manoeuvre. Thereafter, the target suffers a -3 penalty to all actions until your next everyman initiative. If you are currently grappling your target, you can activate Burning Touch simply by spending 1 point of Blood and using a simple action.

Burning Touch inflicts pain on anyone who is touching you, but individuals who are not grappled can simply flinch away before suffering penalties. If another character is touching or grappling you when you spend 1 Blood to activate Burning Touch, that individual may choose either to let go or to suffer the effects of Burning Touch and receive its -3 penalty until your initiative during the next everyman round.

Powers that allow an individual to resist pain do not overcome the pain caused by Burning Touch, unless specifically noted in that power’s description.

Focus [Wits]:
Those who have felt your Burning Touch have its agony seared into their subconscious. The threat of torture from a Valeren wielder gives even the most stoic character a reason to reconsider her stubbornness. Anyone who has been affected by your Burning Touch suffers a -5 penalty to resist Intimidation-based interrogation challenges. This effect cannot be used to augment supernatural powers.

••• Mens Sana

Your vitae is an alchemical substance, carrying healing properties like those said to be possessed by sacred figures of myth. By centering your warrior’s chi and focusing your mind, you transmute the blood within your body, causing you to heal at an incredible rate.

System: Once per turn, you can spend 1 point of Blood to heal 1 point of normal damage. Blood spent for Mens Sana does not count towards the maximum amount of Blood a character can spend per turn. You can only perform this action on yourself; you cannot heal other individuals with Mens Sana.

Focus [Wits]:
You can use Mens Sana twice per turn, healing up to 2 points of damage for the cost of 2 Blood.

•••• Armour of Caine’s Fury

When this power is activated, the user is surrounded by a shining crimson halo. This phantom armour is formed from the vampire’s spiritual essence and protects her against most physical injuries.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Armour of Caine’s Fury. While this power is active, you gain a +3 bonus to all Dodge and Survival defence test pools. If at any point you use a standard action to do anything other than use a Melee attack, a Brawl attack, or move towards a character you intend to attack, Armour of Caine’s Fury ends immediately.

Armour of Caine’s Fury is not mundane armour, and attacks that normally pierce armour do not pierce or ignore the effects of this power.

Focus [Wits]:
While this power is active, you gain the benefits of a rage frenzy, without suffering any of the drawbacks. Further, you are immune to both fear and hunger frenzy. These effects do not stack with the benefits of a natural frenzy.

Breath of the Dragon
With this power, you shape your inner organs into an organic, supernatural furnace. Like the dragons of ancient tales, you roar a gout of flame upon your enemies, incinerating everything in a small radius.

System: Spend 2 Blood and expend your standard action to breathe fire on your opponents. Breath of the Dragon can target up to three characters standing within three steps of each other. All targets must be within six steps of you.

To attack with Breath of the Dragon, use your Physical attribute + Athletics versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge. If you succeed, this power inflicts 4 points of fire damage.

Fire causes aggravated damage to vampires. Breath of the Dragon can be used during Celerity rounds, but you must pay the cost for each attack.

When targeting multiple enemies with this power, you must make a separate opposed challenge against each of the defenders. Should you spend a point of Willpower to retest any of these opposed challenges, you also gain that retest for the remainder of the opposed challenges, without spending further Willpower. If you spend Willpower to retest after some challenges are resolved, you cannot go back to previous challenges you’ve lost and apply that Willpower retest retroactively.

Exceptional Success:
Breath of the Dragon does 5 points of fire damage to your targets, rather than 4.

Acid Blood
Those who master the powers of Vicissitude can transform their bodies beyond human capacity, shaping their own flesh and blood into a thing of supernatural beauty or cruel mockery. With this power, the vampire’s skill with Vicissitude has become so adept that her very blood can defend against those who would defile her.

System: Once you purchase this power, your character’s blood permanently becomes a potent acid. This condition does not harm your character, but will injure others who come into contact with her vitae.

Anyone who drinks your blood immediately takes 3 points of aggravated damage per point of Blood ingested. This damage cannot be reduced or negated. Anyone who attempts to diablerise you, even if you have no points of Blood left in your Blood pool, must make a challenge using her Physical attribute + Survival versus your Physical attribute + Occult. If the diablerist succeeds in this challenge, she takes 5 points of aggravated damage and successfully diablerises you. If the diablerist fails this challenge, she is immediately destroyed as your heart’s blood dissolves her from the inside out. You remain intact. Because anyone drinking your blood takes damage, Acid Blood can make it difficult (but not impossible) to Embrace new childer or maintain ghouls.

If a character with Acid Blood is using the Blood Form power, she can spend 1 Blood per turn to do 3 points of aggravated damage to anything or anyone touching her. This includes anyone she has grappled; the Grapple does not cause damage, but anyone you touch is continually burned by your Acid Blood. If multiple people are touching you when you activate this effect, a single use of this power will burn up to four individuals, causing each of them 3 aggravated damage. Note that characters who run out of Blood while in Blood Form immediately meet their Final Death.

Bulwark
By grasping another and holding her close, you can shelter her within the stone bulk of your embrace. In this manner, ancient Gargoyle slaves once protected their Tremere masters; today, this power is more often used against the warlocks rather than on their behalf.

System: To use Bulwark, you must first succeed in using the Grapple combat maneuver on your target. Remember that willing targets may relent, obviating the need to spend Willpower to perform a combat maneuver. Once you have established a Grapple, you can spend 1 Blood and use your simple action to activate Bulwark.

While within your embrace, your target is protected from all Physical attacks, and cannot physically attack others. Any Physical attacks directed at the individual protected by Bulwark target you instead. Protected individuals can be targeted by Mental and Social attacks that do not require touch.

A protected individual can utilize Mental and Social attacks herself, so long as those attacks do not require her to touch her opponent or utilize gestures. Bulwark ends if the target escapes your Grapple or if you let her go. Additionally, Bulwark ends if you have one or more points marked off in your Incapacitated wound track.

Furnace of Steel
Your capacity to twist stone and shape metal has reached a point where you can do so without using direct physical touch. With a gesture or a roar, you can cause guns to melt, car axles to bend, or any other metal in your presence to lose cohesion.

System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to target a single metal or stone object within your line of sight that is no larger than 10 cubic feet in size. The target object warps and permanently loses its integrity, as if exposed to extreme heat. Weapons melt and become useless when targeted by this power, and you can easily destroy vehicles and buildings. Even if the item is within someone else’s control, so long as you can see the item, you can target it with Furnace of Steel, without making a test.