Obfuscate

### Description

Users are able to remove or alter the perceptions of themselves from the minds of others.

Obfuscate is a vampiric Discipline which enables its users to distort the minds of others in a manner that allows them to fool their senses, vanishing from sight or appearing as someone else.

## Level 1

### Cloak of Shadows

At this level, the vampire must rely on nearby shadows and cover to assist in hiding their presence. They step into an out-of-the-way, shadowed place and ease themselves from normal sight. The vampire remains unnoticed as long as they stay silent, still, under some degree of cover (such as a curtain, bush, door frame, lamppost, or alley), and out of direct lighting. The immortal’s concealment vanishes if they move, attack, or fall under direct light. Furthermore, the vampire’s deception cannot stand up to concentrated observation without fading.

**System:** No roll is required as long as the character fulfills the criteria described above. So long as he remains quiet and motionless, virtually no one but another Kindred with a high enough Auspex rating will see him.

## Level 2

### Unseen Presence

At this point, the Cainite can now move about unseen. Shadows cling to them, and kine and Cainite alike look away, their minds not allowing them to see the shadowy monster that lurks in their periphery. While the Discipline protects them from being seen or heard in casual progress, any direct interaction with the world shatters the illusion. Kine will step aside, unknowing, to let an Obfuscated Cainite pass them, but should the Cainite crush a bed of roses, kick a sleeping hound, or pull on a tapestry by passing too close to it, they are outed.

**System:** There is no roll necessary to conjure an Unseen Presence. Should a Cainite draw attention to themselves by sneak attack, blunder, or speech, accidental attention will call for a Wits + Stealth roll, difficulty from 5 to 9, based on the amount of noise or calamity the Cainite has caused. Willful attempts to violate the secrecy of Unseen Presence while still maintaining it may call for a high difficulty and multiple successes. For example, whispering to an enemy without giving away her location would require three or so successes at a difficulty of 7. Even when seen or unseen, a secondary use of this power allows a Cainite to conceal small items already on their person, or with a successful Manipulation + Subterfuge from 5 to 9, based on the amount of observation they can grasp and conceal an easily moved item.

## Level 3

### Mask of a Thousand Faces

At this point, the vampire can trick the minds of her victims to hide her face in plain sight. That is to say, she may stand face to face with her victim and not have their true visage revealed. By force of mind over mind, the vampire forces her victim to see a face not her own. This may be a newly imagined character nothing like the vampire at all or slight changes to the Cainite’s own features. She may appear taller, of another region or she might even appear as a man. This ability does not confer on the vampire any special talent for imitation or acting as the face she creates; that is on the vampire’s talents alone.

**System:** To create this guise, the player rolls Manipulation + Performance at a difficulty 7. To mimic the face of another, the vampire must have a good look at them. The Storyteller might raise the difficulty on the roll if the vampire has only briefly seen the person they wish to mimic, *or lower it if the vampire has assumed the intended visage routinely*. How successful the disguise is depends on the chart at the top of the page. Should a vampire wish to create a face much more appealing than her own, she must spend a point of blood for every dot of difference from her Appearance to that of the disguise. While fooling acquaintances may require only a look at the target and clever crafting of the mask, fooling someone intimately connected to the target is another matter. That requires actual familiarity with the target, and perhaps other rolls to keep the illusion going.

enough features so as to be hard to recognize (though she might be mistaken for a blood relative). A Nosfer-
 2 Successes
not be mistaken for her own blood relative even in strong lantern light. She can now change how others
 3 Successes
 4 Successes
gests. If it is a specific person, the illusion forces the victims to imagine the vampire is performing the correct
 5+ Successes
see her as anyone she wants, just by willing it so.

## Level 4

### Vanish from the Mind's Eye

The vampire now has so much control over what her victims can and cannot see that she can vanish from plain sight and other senses. Standing before her victims, she wills it so, and she simply vanishes.

This can have serious ripples on those who witness the event. Vampires startle when another of their kind simply vanishes from before their eyes. Humans will actually forget that the vampire was there to begin with.

Particularly weak-willed humans will panic and flee the area, though they may or may not recall the reason for their panic (at Storyteller discretion).

System: The player rolls her character’s Intelligence + Stealth against their victim’s Wits + Alertness. *Against an ordinary human without any dots of the Awareness Talent, this roll is made at Difficulty 3 for the vampire.* If there is more than one victim, use the highest pool to resist. If the player rolls one to three successes, the vampire fades but does not vanish, appearing ghost-like and translucent. With more than three successes, the vampire vanishes from her victim’s senses entirely. If the player achieves more successes than the victim, the victim forgets that the vampire was there to begin with, and tends to not reflect on any conflict in memory that might cause.

It is possible to interact with a ghosted vampire, though difficult. A player tracking such a vampire rolls Perception + Alertness at a difficulty of 8. On a successful roll, the character can interact normally with the ghostlike vampire, though they are likely to be disturbed by his ethereal presence. On a failure, the character loses two dice on any roll to interact with the ghostlike vampire, from attacking them to following them to seducing them. After witnessing a vampire vanish before their eyes, the player of any other character present must roll Wits + Courage. For humans, this is difficulty 9; for Cainites, difficulty 5. If the player succeeds, the character may act as expected in the situation. A failure on this roll means that the character is beside themselves and unable to act for two turns, unless that action is to flee.

## Level 5

### Cloak the Gathering

Now the vampire extends his lie to his companions, and fools his victims to see what he wants for a group instead of simply for himself. If a character under this cloak does something to expose himself, such as with Unseen Presence, that individual falls out of the ruse. If the vampire who created the cloak exposes himself, all members of the cloak are exposed.

**System:** For every dot of *Obfuscate +* Stealth the vampire has, she may add one additional person to her cloak. The cloak extends any single Obfuscate power the vampire already has to any character in the cloak. Large objects such as horses or houses may be added at the “cost” of an additional dot of *Obfuscate +* Stealth. All members of the cloak must behave under the limitations of the power extended to them, and will drop out of the cloak should they breach the power’s requirement. If the vampire creating the cloak fails to uphold the power’s requirements, the whole cloak falls.

## Level 6

### Conceal

The vampire may mask an inanimate object up to the size of a house (Obfuscate cannot be used to disguise inanimate objects without the use of this power). If the object is hidden, so are all of its contents. While Conceal is in effect, passersby walk around the concealed object as if it were still visible, but refuse to acknowledge that they are making any kind of detour.

### Mind Blank

A vampire with this power is able to shrug off telepathic contact, easily withstanding invasive probes of her mind.

### Soul Mask/Mask the Devil

Now, the vampire can hide not just her presence to the senses, but hide her soul from the sight beyond sight. Her aura becomes so plain and dull as to go unnoticed, taking on the generic appearance of the average aura around her. Even her soul blends with the crowd. Furthermore, this power disguises her Beast entirely. It simply is not there for anyone with the ability to detect it. For all purposes, the vampire is a run-of-the-mill human.

System: The vampire wills herself to become nothing, and her soul responds. Furthermore, because the Beast appears to be gone, any and all abilities, vampiric or otherwise, that might target the Beast such as the Animalism power Song of Serenity (see p. 192) fail, regardless of rolls.

## Level 7

### Cache

Most Obfuscate powers require the individual using them to be within a short distance of the subjects of the concealment. Cache extends this range considerably, allowing an elder with this power to leave people or objects safely hidden while he goes about his business elsewhere.

### Veil of Blissful Ignorance

 The Veil of Blissful Ignorance allows a vampire to Obfuscate an unwilling victim, removing him from the notice of others. Some vampires use this power to teach a humbling lesson to individuals who take the presence and aid of others for granted, while others utilize it to remove an essential member of a group in the midst of a crisis.

## Level 8

### Horrid Countenance

A power that appeals equally to the Nosferatu and Malkavian clans, Horrid Countenance veils the user in an illusion somewhat similar to Mask of a Thousand Faces (Obfuscate 3), yet with important differences. Instead of a human appearance, the character takes on the aspect of a nightmarish creature, invoking blind panic in those around him. Like all Obfuscate powers, this effect is mental, affecting the mind of the target rather than the actual senses; each person looking at the user of this power sees something different, dredged up from their deepest fears. The user has no idea what different people may see, unless she possesses sufficient Auspex to read thoughts (and chooses to look).

**System:** The player spends one Willpower point. Players of normal mortals must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8). If this is botched, the mortal dies of fright. If it fails, she collapses into a coma and awakens after an hour with a permanent derangement. With one or two successes, the victim cowers in abject fear; and with three or more successes she flees. Animals and animal ghouls flee automatically.

Ghouls are subject to the same rules as mortals, but with the effects reduced one step (so a failure indicates that she cowers). Three or more successes indicates only a strong fear, reducing all dice pools not involved with getting away from the nightmare by two.

Vampires must first check for Rötschreck at difficulty 9. If the check is successful, the vampire reduces all dice pools by two as above, until the player has gained five successes on an extended unmodified Courage roll (difficulty 7). If the Horrid Countenance attacks, the vampire must check for frenzy as if he were in mortal danger.

Lupines viewing the Horrid Countenance tend to fly into a homicidal frenzy (more so than normal when encountering Cainites), ignoring anything and anyone in order to get to the character. Those who are blessed by God sometimes ignore the effects of Horrid Countenance entirely.

### Old Friend

Many elder vampires have made reputations for omniscience with the secrets they learn through creative uses of this power. A variation of Mask of a Thousand Faces, Old Friend allows a vampire to probe a subject’s subconscious and take the semblance of the individual whom that victim trusts over anyone else. Someone using this power does not appear as someone who the victim is frightened of or awed by, but rather someone to whom the victim feels comfortable revealing intimate secrets. Old Friend doesn’t necessarily make its user appear as someone who is still among the living; a long- dead friend or relative is just as likely, and in such cases the subject remembers the encounter as a dream or a ghostly visitation.

## Level 9

### Create Name

Some call this power the ultimate development of method acting. Create Name allows a character to create a completely new identity; face, speech pattern, aura, even thought processes are constructed according to the vampire’s desired identity. The power can be used to impersonate an existing individual, or it can project the semblance of a completely fictional identity with perfect accuracy.

### Dread Mist

This power was developed by one of the Niktuku: Abraxes, the Lord of Mists. It is the source of his title, and his primary method of torturing the Nosferatu who he hunts. Through his dread mastery of Obfuscate, Abraxes unleashes a terrible storm grey fog, which muffles the senses, clouds the mind, and crushes the will, filling the mind with terrible visions.

**System:** The character spends four blood points to activate this power, followed by a roll of Manipulation + Intimidation, Difficulty 7. causing a psychic projection of dark mist to emanate from them. Each success allows them to cover 100 square meters of area with the mist. The mist can be directed in any direction that they choose, and can cover a wide, open area such as a town square, or seep through underground tunnels. Once the mist is summoned and projected, it remains in the location where it was summoned until it fades after a scene.

If the character wishes to maintain the mist beyond one scene, they must make a Willpower roll, difficulty 9. The difficulty of this roll is reduced by one for every individual immersed in the mist, to a minimum of 3.

Any characters who are immersed within the mist suffer from the following effects:

* All dice pools save for Virtues, Path, and Willpower are reduced by a number equal to the mist summoner's Obfuscate rating. If this reduces all of a character's dice pools so that they cannot take any action, they collapse to the ground, unable to do anything but lie there.
* All Perception rolls involving sight are at a +3 difficulty, and all rolls involving hearing are at a +1 difficulty.
* For the duration that characters remain in the mist, their effective Willpower score is reduced by the number of successes the mist summoner rolled when activating the power. This does not cause the subject to loose any Willpower points, but rather means that when the mist summoner attempts to employ powers with their Willpower as a difficulty, such as Dominate, they may do so at a lower difficulty.

In order to resist the powers of Dread Mist, a character must have a sufficient Auspex rating, and make a roll to overcome it. Elsewise, a character may roll Willpower, difficulty equal to the mist summoner's Obfuscate rating. Each success allows them to ignore the dice pool reductions inflicted by the mist for one turn.