Dragolescu

**Parent Clan**: Ventrue

**Disciplines**: Animalism, *Auspex*, *Dominate*, Resilience

## **Bloodline Weakness: World-Weary**

The Dragolescu takes the Jaded Condition on a normal Failure of the detachment roll. On a Dramatic Failure, he takes the Jaded Condition and one of the Bestial/Competitive/Wanton Conditions.

## **Bloodline Gift: Hunger for Essentia**

**Cost**: —

**Dice Pool**: Wits + Occult + Auspex

**Modifiers**: Texts on identifying ley lines or Wyrm Nests (+1 to +3), Researched history of area or ghost to be seen (+1 to +2), Did not feed that night (+1), Distracted by excess noise or light (-1 to -3).

This power allows the user to perceive ghosts and haunts by sensing the raw spiritual power they emit. The Kindred experiences this first as a sensation of hunger. This feeling is followed by the sight of a luminous apparition (in the case of ghosts) or a faint, yellow glow seemingly cast by the air of a space itself (in the case of haunts).

Activating this power can be an instant or extended action. If the user wishes to see a ghost more clearly or delineate the boundaries of a haunt, she may continue to roll to accumulate more successes. Seeing a ghost clearly requires a number of successes equal to that ghost’s current Essence score. Marking a haunt's boundaries require successes equal to the location's 1-5 rating if it were a Haven Merit multiplied by 5.

## **Devotions: Essentiaphagia**

### **Draw Ectoplasm**

*Auspex •• 1XP*

**Cost**: —

**Dice Pool**: Intelligence + Occult + Auspex vs. the subject’s Power + Resistance (for ghosts) or Resolve + Composure (for mediums)

**Action**: Contested; resistance is reflexive

**Modifiers**: Ghost is willing (+3), Medium is willing (+2), Ghost is within a few yards of anchor (-2)

This power allows the Kindred to draw Ectoplasm from a ghost or medium and consume it. While Ectoplasm can be used to increase a vampire’s blood pool slightly, it is better used to fuel later levels of Essentiaphagia.

**Success**: The vampire wins the contested roll. The subject oozes Ectoplasm, which the vampire can then collect and consume. One point of Ectoplasm is produced for each success rolled.
**Exceptional Success**: The vampire gains 1 Willpower in addition to any Essence gained.
Ghosts, including those being channeled by mediums, lose one Essence for every Ectoplasm they exude, though mediums do not suffer any adverse effects from the process.

A vampire can hold Ectoplasm in her undead body indefinitely. Kindred using the Auspex power notice a strangely sweet, moldy scent of decay around vampires holding Ectoplasm. A vampire can hold an amount of Ectoplasm in her body equal to her Stamina + Size. A vampire who consumes Ectoplasm has the following options:

* Two Ectoplasm translate to one Vitae. Once added to a Kindred’s reserves, Vitae from this source is no different than from that drawn from blood. Ectoplasm must be converted to Vitae at the moment it is consumed. Stored Ectoplasm cannot later be transmuted into Vitae.
* The character can transform three Ectoplasm into one point of Willpower. This power does not allow a character’s Willpower points to exceed her Willpower dots. Ectoplasm must be converted into Willpower at the moment it is consumed.
* The character can retain Ectoplasm in her undead body indefinitely. It can then be used to fuel other powers of Essentiaphagia. The player must keep track of her character’s stored Ectoplasm as she does Vitae or Willpower.

Off screen, a character may use +harvest/essence at a place with an Essence pool, in order to draw in Essence equal to their number of success. The command spends 1 Downtime.

### **Mnemophagia**

*Auspex •••• Dominate ••• 3XP*

**Cost**: 4 Ectoplasm plus 1 Willpower

**Dice Pool**: Resolve + Occult + Dominate – subject’s Resistance

**Action**: Contested

**Modifiers**: Ectoplasm came from the target ghost (+2), Anchors (-1 for each anchor), Power has been turned on ghost before (-1 to -5).

This vile power allows a vampire to steal knowledge and memories from a ghost. A Kindred can temporarily become an expert in various fields of knowledge in this manner, but the skill she accrues fades from memory quickly, often within moments. The damage inflicted upon the ghost “donors,” however, may be irreparable. A ghost subjected to this power certainly regards the vampire as a dire enemy from that point on.

For every success, the vampire gains one dot of a Skill. This Skill must be one that the ghost knew in life. The vampire can choose, in general terms, which memories she consumes, but has no way to know what specific knowledge these memories impart. In game terms, the Storyteller chooses what Skills gain temporary dots

Alternately, the vampire can opt to learn specific memories instead of Skills, sifting through the ghost’s memories and consuming images and information pertinent to a given topic. The vampire adds the ghost’s Power as a bonus to any Intelligence-based dice pools involving the recollection of memories or information the ghost might have known. Whatever information or Skills a vampire takes, it fades at the next sunrise.

The character must choose whether she seeks temporary Skill dots or the ghost’s Power when this power is first activated. Once a ghost has been subjected to this power, it cannot be subjected to it again until the next night. This power unravels a ghost’s mind, causing it permanent damage as memories fade and experiences are confused. A ghost stolen from in this way has its Power trait reduced by one.

### **Ghost Consumption**

*Auspex •••• Dominate ••••• 4XP*

**Cost**: 5 Ectoplasm and 1 Willpower

**Dice Pool**: Intelligence + Occult + Essentiaphagia vs. subject’s Power + Resistance

**Action**: Extended and contested; resistance is reflexive. The vampire needs a number of successes equal to the ghost’s permanent Corpus rating. The ghost needs a number of successes equal to the vampire’s Willpower.

**Modifiers**: Ghost being channeled through a medium (+2), Ectoplasm came from the target ghost (+2), Anchors (-1 for each for the vampire's roll and +1 for each for the ghost's attempt to escape)

Ghost Consumption allows a vampire to devour a ghost. Unlike Mnemophagia, in which part of the ghost is damaged so that the vampire may gain knowledge, the ghost actually survives the process of being “eaten” with Ghost Consumption. The vampire gains access to most of the ghost’s powers and all of its memories, but the ghost gains the vampire’s memories as well. As with Draw Ectoplasm and Mnemophagia, this power requires the vampire be able to see her target. In addition, the vampire must be close enough to “breathe the ghost in,” as Dragolescu once described it.

The power has the following effects:

* The vampire’s body temporarily becomes the ghost’s sole anchor. If the ghost escapes, its previous anchors regain their power.
* The vampire gains access to the ghost’s Skills and memories as though she had used the Mnemophagia power and achieved successes equal to her Intelligence + Dominate. These memories aren’t stolen from the ghost, however — merely “borrowed” — and the vampire can reallocate her temporary Skill points at any time. Doing so requires one hour of uninterrupted meditation, and allows the ghost an attempt to escape (see below).
* The vampire can use any of the ghost’s Numina except Clairvoyance, Ghost Speech and Possession. The dice pools and Essence expenditures for these powers do not change, though the vampire can spend Ectoplasm instead of forcing the ghost to spend Essence. The vampire has complete control of the effects of these stolen Numina.
* The vampire benefits from the ghost’s presence by becoming better aware of her surroundings — she has two sets of senses working for her now. Add the ghost’s Finesse score to the vampire’s Initiative. The vampire can use either her own Wits or the ghost’s Finesse in dice pools related to sensory awareness and perception.
* During its imprisonment, the ghost is aware of everything the vampire feels, thinks and remembers, and can talk to the vampire as much as it wishes (the vampire can shut out the voice, but loses the bonus to Initiative in any scene that she does so). The ghost retains this information if it escapes.
* If the vampire meets Final Death before the ghost escapes or is set free, the ghost is destroyed as well.
* The vampire can set the ghost free at any time.
* A Kindred using Auspex on a vampire with a ghost prisoner sees a milky-white glow beneath the character’s flesh.
* The ghost may attempt to escape in the following circumstances: whenever the vampire enters slumber for the day (which may never happen, depending upon which Coils the vampire knows), whenever the vampire rifles through the memories from the ghost to assign her temporary Skill dots and whenever the vampire uses another level of the Essentiaphagia bloodline devotion. Escape requires a contested roll of the ghost’s Power + Finesse versus the vampire’s Resolve + Occult + Dominate. The vampire’s resistance is reflexive.

If the ghost achieves an Exceptional Success on its escape roll, the ghost escapes, and tears the vampire’s mind and body asunder as it leaves. The ghost makes a reflexive Power roll, and the vampire suffers aggravated damage equal to the roll’s successes and loses a like number of Willpower points.

## **Merits**

### **Essentia Diffusion • to •••••**

**Cost**: Original Essence cost, plus 1 Vitae

**Dice Pool**: Presence + Occult. Resistance is variable.

**Action**: Instant

**Modifiers**: Area is a haunt (+3), Using Ectoplasm of ghost that knows the Numen (+2)

This power allows the Essentiaphagist to cause frightening, ghost-like effects in a given area. Kindred can use this power to simulate a haunted site, to frighten mortals away or even to attract ghosts to be fed upon.

In order to learn this power, the Kindred must feed upon ghosts that know the Numina that he wishes to use. For each dot in this Merit, the Kindred may select one Numina (from God Machine Chronicle p. 228-230) that is available at his disposal.

This power cannot be used to directly cause damage. The Numina of Blast, Drain, Essence Thief, Implant Mission, Mortal Mask, Resurrection, Regenerate, and Speed cannot be learned this way (because Vampires have native Disciplines that work to the same effect). Firestarter may be learned, but the Dragolescu will suffer the same damage and trigger to Frenzy as he would in the normal circumstance.