Celerity (Discipline)

Not all vampires are slow, meticulous creatures. When needed, some vampires can move fast — really fast. Celerity allows Assamites, Brujah, and Toreadors to move with astonishing swiftness, becoming practically a blur. The Assamites use their speed in conjunction with stealth to strike quickly and viciously from the shadows before they are noticed. Brujah, on the other hand, simply like the edge that the power gives them against overwhelming odds. The Toreador are more inclined to use Celerity to provide an air of unnatural grace to live performances or for an extra push to complete a masterpiece on time, but they can be as quick to draw blood as any assassin or punk when angered.

Characters add their Celerity rating to their Dexterity-based dice pools, including their Initiative ratings. Add her Celerity rating to the number of yards or meters she moves in a turn.

Additionally, they may reflexively spend one point of blood to ignore difficulty penalties for multiple actions up to their Celerity dots for the turn. For example, a character with Celerity 3 makes three actions before suffering +1 difficulty for multiple actions. This does not mitigate the dice pool reduction, however. A number of these additional actions equal to half their Celerity (round up) may be attack actions.

Lastly, by spending one blood point, she may multiply her movement speed by 1 plus her Celerity dots. In combat, this lasts one turn. Otherwise, it lasts the scene.

## Elder Powers

Usually, elders progress in Celerity according to the existing progression – more dots mean more dice and potential actions a turn that are available, and levels 6 through 9 have those powers available at each level, as normal. Similar to other Disciplines at level 6 or higher, though, alternative powers exist. If the elder wants to purchase an alternative power instead of the typical progression, she can, but she forfeits the capacity an extra Dexterity die and potential for an extra action to gain the special power instead. She can go back later and purchase the “normal” dot of Celerity later, as desired.

Note that it isn’t possible to “skip” levels of progression for the normal Discipline – an elder with Celerity 7 that buys Projectile at level 6 needs to go back and buy the normal level 6 power before getting the access to his level 7 power that grants the capacity for up to seven Dexterity dice or actions in a turn.

### Sixth Dot

#### Momentum

A large part of impact comes from the force it moves with, but also with its speed. A master of Celerity can focus her speed all into one forceful instant, allowing her to briefly lift things no human should ever be able to, or to strike with deadly force.

**System:** Spend two blood points reflexively to activate Momentum. You may add your character’s Celerity dots as additional dice on any single Strength-based roll. In combat, this adds Knock Down (see p. 347) to any attack made with Momentum.

#### Precision

A master of Celerity with this manifestation can use her immense dexterity to conduct acts of fine manipulation with inhuman precision.

**System:** Spend a blood point to activate Precision. Add the character’s Celerity dots as automatic successes to a single roll requiring fine manipulation instead of adding dice to Dexterity as normal. This does not work only on rolls using the Dexterity Attribute, but Storyteller discretion is required to determine what Precision benefits.

#### Projectile

Despite the fact that a vampire with Celerity moves at incredible speeds, any bullets he fires or knives he throws while in this state don’t move any faster than they normally would. Scientifically minded Kindred have been baffled by the phenomenon for centuries, but more pragmatic ones have found a way to work around it. Projectile enables a vampire to take his preternatural speed and transfer it into something he has thrown, fired, or launched.

**System:** Projectile requires the expenditure of a blood point. In addition, the player must decide how many levels of his character’s Celerity he is putting into the speed of the launched object. Thus, a character with Celerity 6 in addition to Projectile could decide to put three dots’ worth of speed into a knife he is throwing, and use the other three dots as dice or potential extra actions as per normal. Each dot of Celerity infused into a thrown object becomes an automatic success to the attack’s damage roll, assuming the weapon or projectile actually hits.

### Seventh Dot

#### Flower of Death

In combat, speed kills. A proper application of Celerity in combat can turn even the meekest Cainite into a walking abattoir. How much more deadly, then, is a vampire with the ability to utilize his preternatural speed to the utmost in combat? Flower of Death allows a vampire to take his Celerity and apply it in full to each hand-to-hand or melee attack he makes.

**System:** Flower of Death costs four blood points, but the spectacular effect is well worth it. Once the power is in effect, the vampire’s bonus dice for Dexterity rolls get added to every dice pool for attack the character makes (even if the roll doesn’t use Dexterity) until the end of the scene. Further, even if the Kindred uses some of his Celerity dots for extra actions during the scene, these extra dice are still available. The effect is limited to hand-to-hand or melee weapon attacks — firearms, bows, and other ranged weapons are excluded — but does grant the attacker additional dice for damage rolls.

Flower of Death is not cumulative — it is impossible to “layer” uses of the power over one another to create astronomical dice pools.

### Quickness

A character with Quickness breaks normal limitations of speed even for her own Celerity.

System: Spend a blood point to activate Quickness on a turn where you have activated Celerity’s normal effect. Quickness offers one additional action beyond what the character receives for Celerity, as if her Celerity were one level higher. She can spend additional blood, cumulatively, for additional Celerity levels that last the turn (see the chart below). Each additional action causes the character a level of unsoakable lethal damage.

Quickness
 3
 6
 10
 15

### Eighth Dot

#### Physical Defiance

Your character’s speed has reached a point so un - natural that for brief moments, the fundamental laws of nature cease to affect her. She can move in any direction, in spite of obstructions, in spite of gravity, and in spite of logic. She can run upwards for brief bursts. She can walk through (or on) water. She can walk up walls.

**System:** Spend five blood points per turn in Physical Defiance. Your character can move through space in any direction up to her full speed (which can be enhanced as normal with Celerity through additional blood expenditure). Wood, stone, water, flesh, or metal will simply give way as she passes through, exploding into splinters and chunks. She suffers no harm from the things she moves through.

If she moves through another character, roll to attack with Dexterity + Athletics, adding Celerity as normal. The other character may attempt to dodge if eligible, but not block or parry. If successful, she fills the opponent’s health levels with lethal damage. Vampires must reflexively heal to avoid torpor. Mortals die instantly.

#### Time Out of Time

At this level, the vampire thinks a moment before everyone around her, and her reflexes carry her vast distances before others can blink. She can bolt out of the way even as a blade grazes her flesh. This makes her nigh-untouchable when she wishes to be.

**System:** Spend three blood points reflexively to activate this power. It may be activated even after an attack roll is made, but before damage is rolled. Once the power is activated, all action stops and your character can move her full movement speed before the other action resolves. This takes the place of a normal defensive maneuver. This almost certainly prevents the action from taking place, as the vampire appears to teleport out of the way.

#### Zephyr

Zephyr produces an effect vaguely similar to one of the legendary comic book-style uses of enhanced speed, allowing its practitioner to run so fast he can run across water. Particularly successful applications of Zephyr allow a vampire to go so far as to run up walls and, in at least one recorded instance, across a ceiling.

**System:** Zephyr requires the expenditure of one point of blood and one point of Willpower. Unfortunately, Zephyr requires such extremes of concentration that it cannot be combined with any form of attack, or indeed, with most any sort of action at all. If a character using Zephyr feels the need to do something else while moving at such tremendous speeds, a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) is required. Needless to say, botches at Zephyr speed can be spectacular in all the wrong ways. Most times, a vampire moving at such a rate of speed is barely visible, appearing more as a vampire-shaped blur than anything else. Observers must succeed on a Perception + Alertness roll (difficulty 7) to get a decent look at a Kindred zooming past in this fashion.