Path of Autumn (path)

The Autumn Path is one of the more obscure Mytherceria paths, rarely practiced by the more delicate among the bloodline, due to its rather sinister reputation. Though its precise origin is fuzzy, it is thought to originally be derived from a rudimentary Mytherceria path practiced by Maeghar, before Marconius’s rise to power.

Once the “true” Kiasyd rose to prominence, it took on new light as the lasombra bloodline twisted and revised the primitive path to fit a much darker vision. It gained a reputation for brutality, as many of its early practitioners and developers leaned heavily into their Lasombra roots, using the path to perfect the fear and torment espoused by Path of Night followers.

Path of Autumn was truly the first "dark" mythercerial study, and became the unholy love child of unseelie and lasombra. It draws upon all aspects of the twilight season, straddling playful trickery of summer and the ominous foreboding of winter and the Magisters. In modern nights, the practitioners have toned down the once dogmatic lasombra torment, masked by the innocuity of jump scares and rotting pumpkins.

#### {1} Arachne’s Silk:

Following in the theme of halloween spooks and frights, Arachne’s silk prays on the common fear of our least favorite eight-legged friends. More banal users of the path simply employ Arachne’s silk to terrify children with the odd web, while younger users tend to play spiderman with their silk slinging abilities. However, elder users of Arachne’s Silk are said to live in havens filled with hand spun webbing. Like bloated spiders they sit at the center of their nests, feeding on the wriggling, unfortunate kine that have wandered too near, to a hungry Kiasyd’s lair.

System:

To create a web, spend bp and roll dex+occult.

You may spend bp over multiple turns to increase the size and strength of the web, though you must roll a dex+occult check each turn you spend bp to grow your web. The web lasts for a number of turns equal to the suxx of the first activation roll. Temporary willpower may be spent, equal to the number of blood points spent, to make the web permanent. This willpower may be spent while the web is being spun.

The web has a strength score equal to half the blood points spent rounded up. The “silk” woven can be used to cover an area equal to 5ftx5ft for each bp spent (e.g. a 5x5 web per bp spent).

Each bp makes roughly 50 feet of silk (it can be stretched further, but will start losing tensile strength).

If the player so chooses, they can instead craft singular strands of this silk and weave it together into a thicker strand, or anchor the strand(s) to make trip wires, obstacles, etc. at ST discretion. The strands are counted as sticky enough to anchor on surfaces and hold weight, for the purposes of spiderman-like maneuvers.

In combat, the player can roll dex+athletics diff 8 to limit the opponent’s vision with a thrown web.

#### {2} Autumn Eyes:

The Kindred’s eyes blaze with the orange light of Samhain as the caster infuses the dark power of Autumn into her eyes, attuning their senses to decay and doom. Autumn Eyes allows the caster to see the flaws in the world around them. She can see the illness and infirmity in those around her, recognize the weaknesses and stress points of objects, or even recognize those marked by some great or impending doom.

System:

Perception+Occult diff 7 to activate and spend 1 bp

Upon successful activation, the kindred sees the world around them through Autumn eyes. Flaws and decay standing out and exacerbated through chimerical energies. The world appears similar to those with the death sight flaw, but with more nuance and hidden meaning. The secretly decaying roof across the street now appears covered in rot. The elderly neighbor with stage one skin cancer suddenly appears warped with growths and undulating veins. The kindred across from you suddenly appears its true age- a crumbling, molding, worm riddled corpse. The limping ventrue war hero suddenly appears covered in blood, knee blown open as if from a fresh shrapnel wound. Or perhaps the neighboring Kiasyd’s fae curse hangs over the subject like a malevolent veil.

Once activated, the power can then be used to scrutinize aspects of this decayed world, to a variety of effects (some examples below), but at a cost.

Because you are gazing through the orange eyes of Samhain, some social rolls may be at a +1 difficulty (due to everything around you being icky), perception rolls outside of this decayed reality are at a +2 difficulty and you are at a -2 difficulty to resist appearance based rolls.

In addition, the caster’s eyes always take on some unearthly characteristic when using this ability — her irises may become the orange of fresh-fallen leaves, or might glow white with ghostly limbal rings. The change can be spotted almost immediately by most (perception diff 4 at ST’s discretion) as unnatural or supernatural. The change also shines through obfuscate and similar disguises- meaning that even when masked or invisible, the caster’s eyes will glow with the autumn light of Samhain- which can be extremely unnerving if used while invisible- causing those around them to witness a pair of disembodied, glowing eyes.

These deficits last until the caster ends the power’s effects, pulling their mind from the autumn world.

Example Uses:

1.) Assess mortal’s health;

The kiasyd can roll Perception+medicine to determine what ails a target, by interpreting the warped autumnal view before them. The kindred can gain more insight into conditions and maladies for each success rolled (at ST discretion).

2.) Exacerbate the Old Wound;

Kiasyd can roll Perception+Medicine to search for a cainite’s (generally physical) weakness, and then exploit the information to their advantage. On a success, the kiasyd gains information about things such as old battle wounds, a dulled bite, poor eyesight, or similar issues- giving the Kiasyd an additional die of damage type for every suxx rolled (At the STs discretion. You can’t zap someone with magic and expect it to make their leg stump hurt more).

3.) Spotting the Kindred;

Upon activation, the caster may attempt to  see any kindred present as their true age. When the caster looks at a present Cainite, she may make a reflexive Perception + Occult roll at a base difficulty of 4, modified as usual by supernatural merits such as Baby Face (note: Blush of Life does not count towards this difficulty increase).  The diff may be lowered or raised (at ST discretion) depending on how old the cainite in question is (seeing as the caster is looking to determine the rot and decay of their very being, and extremely old or young cainites may make identification more or less difficult).

4.) Illuminate the Curse;

Probably the most sought after usage of this ability, Autumn Eyes can be used (albeit with great difficulty) to spot curses or dark stains hanging over individuals.

If the subject of Autumn Eyes is the subject of some curse, debilitating magic, or great impending doom (such as the Dark Fate Flaw), then this fact is revealed with three or more successes, along with the nature of the doom or supernatural malignance.

#### {3} Shivers and Goosebumps:

Some more sinister, mischievous kiasyd have learned to draw out a target’s fear and taunt them with it. Many wierdlings insist the ability is only for combative purposes, though, just as many secretly snicker as the pompous toreador harpy, or the so called brave brujah sheriff shriek in fear during elysium gatherings, after falling under the sway of this power.

The kiasyd draws out the victim’s fears, manifesting them in a minor illusion (or hallucination, depending on who you ask) that only the victim can see. This illusion confronts the victim with what they fear through a hallucination targeting one or two senses at most.  If the victim fears spiders, for example, she may feel webs brush across her face or thousands of tiny arachnids scuttling across her flesh. She may hear them skitter across the floor or the clicking of their horrid pincers.

As the name suggests, the ability is not designed to fully terrify a subject into rotschreck like frenzy. Instead, it is designed to unsettle or startle, to jar and unnerve, usually a prelude to the delicately woven symphony of a good scare.

System:

The kiasyd rolls manipulation + empathy (Difficulty equal to the victim’s courage) spending one bp as they draw forth illusions of the target’s greatest fear. The target must be within sight for the ability to work. On a successful activation, the target cowers or otherwise reacts to echoes of their greatest fears being manifested. The victim must succeed on a courage roll (Diff 7) to shake off her fears in order to act (NOTE: this does not end the effect, it merely allows the victim to act). Botching the courage roll results in a derangement, generally suited to the fear visiting the victim. The duration of the power is determined by the number of successes on the activation roll (See table). At ST discretion, high successes can allow the illusion to effect more than two of the senses, depending on the illusion and such.

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#### {4} The Great Spook

Sinister and brutal, The Great Spook is a power few kiasyd will admit to. It is often downplayed as a prank, a jest, a joke in the spirit of halloween! When unleashed on an unsuspecting kine, it does seem to be just that, a joke, a prank, a jest that the fragile mortal mind is too mundane to ‘get’.

But any cainite with half a brain can see the debilitating, sinnister effects of the Great Spook are far beyond those of a rather cruel practical joke…

In actuality, the sadistic kiasyd draws upon the target’s deepest fears, unleashing a whirlwind of magic, mental manipulation, and dark fae trickery to not only scare the piss out of their target, but to traumatize them for many nights to come.

Mortal spirits become frozen, minds clouded with terror or crippling anxiety, and egos set afire. More terrifying still, Kindred are just as vulnerable. Every heart remembers fear, even if it has not met it for years. Sometimes a healthy dose of the eeby deeby does the soul good.

System:

The player spends one point of Willpower and rolls Manipulation + Empathy (difficulty equal to the target's permanent Willpower or Courage, whichever is greater). The victim loses her next action as she reels from the vision with which she is confronted. All other actions for the remainder of the scene are performed at -1, and she loses one Willpower point. The victim is subject to a mild derangement (decided by the Storyteller) for a number of weeks equal to the successes rolled. If the victim already has a mild derangement, it becomes severe for the duration. With five or more successes, the victim falls unconscious and remains so until the end of the scene, unless they succeed on a willpower roll against a difficulty of the kiasyd’s Manipulation + Empathy. Upon waking, the target must roll Willpower (difficulty 6) else be subject to a severe derangement of the Storyteller's choosing for a number of nights equal to the success rolled.

Note:

Not all fears are simply boogiemen, zombies, or clowns. Some may find that a person’s greatest fear plays on Obsessive Compulsive tendencies, on the loss of a loved one, the loss of power, or a particularly scary Irish camarilla hound. Like the boggart in Harry Potter, The Great Spook focuses on what scares the target most, whether it’s as pedestrian as a mummy, or as unusual as Snape in a vulture hat.

#### {5} Feast of Fears (Aka Feast of the Clown):

When True Fae walked the earth, not all fed on the most positive of emotions. Like the dark creatures of legend and horror, some Kiasyd have learned to mimic these sinister fae through temporarily feeding from emotion as though it was blood. This experience gives a euphoric high slightly stronger than conventional feeding, but it is a dangerous practice if used too frequently. The vampire converts the pure emotional charge drawn from the victim's terror or ecstasy or rage into a mystical substitute for vitae.

Some younger Kiasyd have dubbed this ability “Feast of the Clown”, after the titular Pennywise’s iconic line from the 2017 movie It.

System:

The player spends a point of temporary Willpower. For the remainder of the night, as long as she has a subject in sight, the vampire may attempt to gain sustenance from any strong emotion that the victim might be currently experiencing (fear being the most common). She rolls Willpower (difficulty 8), where the number of successes achieved on the roll determines the number of points transmuted into the vampire's bloodpool. Each subsequent roll attempted on the same night increases the difficulty by 1, to a maximum of 10. Each point in this "fear pool" may be spent exactly like a blood point, though it may not exceed normal Generation limits and this extra source of power cannot be used to rise. Repeated uses on a target in a night can prompt derangements for a number of nights equal to the "blood points" drawn. If the character botches on the Willpower roll, she Frenzies or Rötschrecks as the emotion overwhelms her. At the conclusion of which, the character must roll Willpower (difficulty 6) or gain a derangement for a number of weeks equal to the degree of the botch.