Fortitude

Fortitude is a vampiric Discipline that enables its users to enhance their physical and mental resilience, allowing them to better withstand bodily damage and psychic attacks. Fortitude offers a passive increase in physical durability which increases with each level, as well as other powers that must be activated on command. .

## Lack of Survival Instinct

Sometimes, Cainite masters of Fortitude become convinced of their own indestructibility to the point that they disregard even mortal danger. The character is convinced of her own invincibility in combat. She receives a –2 difficulty on all Courage rolls but will not dodge, parry or block an incoming blow and is reluctant to leave combat. If sufficiently wounded, or if friends and allies quit the field, she may decide to withdraw. In order to do so, the player must make a Willpower roll. The difficulty is 9 if friends have quit the battle, 8 if at Wounded or worse with bashing damage, 7 if the damage is lethal and 6 if the damage is aggravated. In cases of mixed damage, use the lowest difficulty.

## Level 1-5

All vampires shrug off wounds that might kill mortals. But vampires with Fortitude become veritable juggernauts, unstoppable by anything but fire and sunlight. Every vampire manifests Fortitude differently. Some simply possess too solid flesh; nothing punctures their statuesque beauty. Others ignore the trauma: their bodies continue to move regardless of the harm caused. No matter how Fortitude manifests, it’s a frightening prospect to any mortal witness.

**System:** A character’s Fortitude rating adds to all her Stamina-based dice pools, including her soak rating for bashing and lethal damage. A vampire may use her Fortitude dice as a soak pool against aggravated wounds, which vampires typically have no recourse against. Once per turn, she may spend a blood point to automatically soak her Fortitude in damage, instead of adding it to her Stamina. This can be used to soak aggravated damage as well, but not damage from fire or sunlight.

## Level 6

### Curse the Laurel

An unusual application of Fortitude used mostly among the Ventrue, this power allows a Kindred who has been successfully staked to slowly restructure her very heart around the offending stake so that it ceases to paralyze the Kindred.

**System:** The player spends a Willpower point and rolls Stamina + Survival (difficulty 9). The number of successes determines how quickly the stake can be negated, according to the chart below. Each use of this power affects a single stake. On a failed roll, the player can spend another Willpower and roll again, but he cannot combine successes from multiple rolls. Only the roll with the most successes applies. On a botch, the vampire may not attempt to neutralize the stake again.

 2
 3

The power only removes the stake from the heart, not from the body. It will remain trapped in the vampire's dead flesh until removed, a process that causes two health levels of aggravated damage.

### Stand Against all Foes

 With this power, a vampire may plant her feet solidly on the ground and ensure that she cannot be moved by anything weaker than herself. Even being hit by the charge of a fully armored knight or being pounced upon by an enraged Lupine will not move or knock down the user. This power was first made well known by the Ventrue knight Johann Kriegsmeister, a warrior in the service of Lord Jürgen, who often found himself carried away from his coterie by the ebb and flow of battle. Now he stands firm, often acting as a bodyguard.

**System:** In order to use this power, the character must be on relatively stable ground — a solid plank floor, a tamped earth basement or even the forest floor is acceptable; a crumbling castle parapet or a soggy marsh is not. The player spends a blood point. Until the user decides to end this power, she is almost impossible to move by normal means. In any roll to avoid being moved or knocked down, the player gains a number of automatic successes equal to the character’s Fortitude rating.

### Personal Armor

Nobody likes to get hit, not even Cainites. The easiest way to ensure that one is not hit (or shot, or stabbed) repeatedly is to take the weapon with which one is assaulted away from one’s attacker and break it. That’s where Personal Armor comes in. This application of Fortitude, derived from one popular in the 12th century, causes anything that strikes a Kindred who employs Personal Armor to shatter on impact

**System:** With the expenditure of two blood points, a vampire can add preternatural hardness to his flesh. Every time an attack is made on the Kindred using Personal Armor (one which he fails to dodge), his player rolls Fortitude (difficulty 8). If the roll grants more successes than the attacker rolled, then the weapon used to make the attack shatters against the vampire’s flesh. (“Magical” weapons may be resistant to this effect, at the Storyteller’s discretion.) The vampire still takes normal damage if the attack is successful, even if the weapon shatters in the process, though this damage may be soaked. If the attack roll botches, any normal weapon automatically shatters. A hand-to-hand attack causes the attacker equal damage to that suffered by the defender when Personal Armor comes into play. If the attacker misses entirely, she still takes one level of bashing damage. The effects of this power last for the duration of the scene.

## Level 7

### Armor of Kings

This power allows a Cainite to become dangerous to enemies without even attacking them — her body has become so hard that anything striking it might break upon contact. With Armor of Kings, any attack on the character meets with disaster, as weapons are shattered and bones are broken. Interestingly, the name Armor of Kings comes from the Ventrue Baudouin Des Rôaux, who originally learned the power from the Saxon Gangrel Wymer. Wymer called the power Curse the Enemy, but rather than admitting to learning anything from a Gangrel, the Warlord changed the name to something more fitting.

**System:** Activating this power requires the expenditure of 2 blood points. It lasts for one scene. When an attack strikes the character, the player rolls Fortitude (difficulty 8). If she achieves more successes than the attacker rolled, the weapon shatters. Weapons made with magical powers (such as swords forged
with the Potence power Forge) and magically treated or masterfully forged (made by a weaponsmith with at least Crafts 4) weapons receive a resistance roll. Generally, a master-crafted weapon has a “soak” of 3, a weapon made with Master of the Forge has 5, and a magical weapon can have anything from 4–10, depending on the power of the magic. If the number of
successes on the weapon’s “soak” roll equals or exceeds the number of successes gained by the player using this
power, the weapon survives. A botched attack roll against a character with Armor of Kings activated automatically shatters the weapon. The character must still soak the damage, but all soak difficulties are at –1 difficulty against a shattered weapon. An attacker who makes an unarmed attack against a Cainite with Armor of Kings suffers lethal damage equal to the damage her player rolled, which can be soaked as normal. If an attacker suffers two or more health levels of damage in this fashion, it results in either a broken wrist (from a punch or claw attack), a broken ankle (from a kick) or a mouthful of shattered teeth (from a bite). The Storyteller can set any penalties she finds appropriate in such a case

### Shared Strength

It’s one thing to laugh off bullets, rather another to watch the ricochets mow down everyone around you. Many Kindred have wished, at one time or another, that they could lend their monstrous vitality to those around them. Those few vampires who have mastered Shared Strength can — if only for a little while. By smearing their blood across the skin of an ally, a vampire may confer a portion of their Fortitude to them. The more blood smeared, the greater the Fortitude power conferred.

**System:** Shared Strength duplicates a portion of a vampire’s Fortitude (one dot for every point of blood the vampire spends) to another being. Activating the power requires a Stamina + Survival roll (difficulty 8, increased to 9 if the target is not a normal mortal), and the expenditure of a point of Willpower. Furthermore, the vampire must mark his target by pressing a drop of his blood onto the target’s forehead. This stain remains visible as long as the power is in effect, the duration of which is determined by the initial roll.

   The target of this power need not be willing to accept the benefit to receive it, and the bestowing vampire can end the effect at any time for no cost. Particularly sadistic Kindred have come up with any number of ways in which a target’s “devil’s mark” and supernatural endurance can be used to land him in a great deal of trouble. A vampire can never bestow more levels of Fortitude than he himself possesses.

### Stay the Burning Doom

Fire and sunlight are the greatest banes of the Cainites, and even the power of the blood and the gift of Fortitude is not a sure defense against them. At least, not without Stay the Burning Doom, an ability said to have developed by the Ventrue Methuselah, Mithras, in his first few centuries as a Cainite.

**System:** Once acquired, several effects of this ability are always active. With it, a vampire may spend a point of blood to automatically soak their Fortitude rating in damage from fire or sunlight. Additionally, all difficulties to resist terror frenzy caused by fire or sunlight are reduced by two.

## Level 8

### Adamantine

Adamantine functions as a more potent version of Personal Armor. .

**System:** This power mimics the effects of Personal Armor, save that the vampire who uses it takes no damage from attacks that shatter on her skin.

### Armored Flesh

 At this phenomenal level of Fortitude, your character’s skin is like steel, and is just as durable. She can touch whitehot metals without suffering harm, and her hands and legs are as unto warhammers.

**System:** Spend two blood points to activate Armored Flesh for the scene. Outside of combat situations, your character suffers no damage from mundane temperatures, blades, or impacts. While a tongue of flame will still affect her, she can forge softened metals with her bare hands. Her unarmed attacks cause Strength + Fortitude in bashing damage. Lastly, she may block any bashing, lethal, or aggravated attack with her bare hands.

### Repair the Undead Flesh

Traditionally, sunlight, fire and the fangs of Lupines and other vampires are the banes of vampires. As the lesser effects of Fortitude protect against the infliction of such damage, a Cappadocian master of Fortitude long ago developed a way to repair the ravages of these attacks, possibly with the help of a healer Salubri. While that Cappadocian hasn’t been heard from in years, the only logical assumption is that she still exists — what could possibly destroy her?

**System:** This power is always in effect. It makes aggravated damage much easier to repair — the need for Willpower and rest is waived and the player need spend only 5 blood points per aggravated health level.

## Level 9

### Arm of Prometheus

Even with the protection afforded by the highest levels of Fortitude, some sources of damage cannot be resisted. With this power, a vampire may temporarily make one of her limbs immune to any and all sources of damage.

**System:** The player spends 3 blood points and designates one of her character’s arms or legs. The character spends a turn in concentration. For the next 10 minutes, the chosen limb is entirely indestructible. Fire, sunlight, the bite of a mighty Lupine, a wizard’s most powerful magics — nothing affects it (though any armor or clothing may still be damaged). Spending another 3 blood points when the time is up extends the duration of Indestructible Limb. The supernatural hardness of the limb also allows it to be used as a weapon — a punch with such a limb inflicts Strength +1 lethal damage, a kick inflicts Strength +2.

### Defy Heaven's Wrath

This Methuselah level ability was developed by Mithras himself, and is the reason why his bloodline are so steadfast against the scourge of fire. Through the use of this gift, the Lord of Light became able resist the touch of flame and the gaze of the sun, allowing

**System:** Once this ability is gained, it has several permanent effects.

The Methuselah is totally immune to any fear frenzy caused by fire or sunlight.

Any descendant of the Methuselah will inherit a -2 difficulty to resisting fear frenzy caused by fire or sunlight.

The Methuselah may instantly wake from daytime torpor with no roll required. They will suffer no dice penalty to daytime activity.

Any damage taken from fire is downgraded to lethal damage. With the expenditure of five blood points, damage from sunlight is also converted to Lethal for the duration of a single hour. For every additional five blood points spent, this duration can be extended.

Any Cainite who drinks directly from the veins of the Methuselah may temporarily receive the benefits of Defy Heaven's Wrath. For each blood point consumed, they gain all the benefits of the ability for one hour, for a maximum number of hours equal to the Methuselah's Fortitude rating.

### Wall of Immutability

With this titanic display of Fortitude, a vampire may expend blood to project a huge protective barrier around themselves, allowing attacks or attackers to be halted from several feet away by an invisible wall.