Disciplines

The Kindred wield strange powers — a vampire could sway men’s minds, vanish from plain sight, or manifest her victim’s worst nightmares. These powers come unbidden in the vampire’s blood, and call on not just his human mind but the Beast hidden just under the surface. The Beast walks unseen through the world of men and cows lesser animals. It slips the bonds of flesh and inspires awe and jealousy from other people.

#### Using Disciplines

Some Disciplines are a fundamental part of the vampire’s nature, available to her whenever she wants thanks to the power burning in her blood. These abilities may require her to expend Vitae; a few exceptional ones may also require her to spend a Willpower point. Others require her to demonstrate her mastery of the Discipline. The dice pool to activate a Discipline is made up of three traits, rather than two — an Attribute, a Skill, and the Discipline itself. The vampire uses her full mastery with the Discipline, no matter which ability she’s using — a vampire with Animalism 5 uses her full five dice for all Animalism powers, even if she’s just using Animalism 1. The corollary of that is that a vampire cannot use a Discipline power that’s greater than her Discipline dots — a vampire with Dominate 3 can’t access The Lying Mind or Possession, as they require more than three dots of Dominate.

Each Discipline calls on the Beast, whether using its talents overtly or expressing it through the blood inside. While the mechanical effect of a player failing her Discipline roll is that nothing happens, that’s not strictly true. Something happens.

The Beast won’t just accept the idea that tapping its power produces no results. Maybe the lights flicker, or the vampire’s flesh writhes on her bones for just a second. Maybe her victim sees a second, screaming face trying to escape the vampire’s head for just a second. Whatever it is, it’s not enough to properly freak her victim out — that’s the domain of the Nosferatu, through their Nightmare Discipline. It’s just something that reminds the vampire that she’s not human, she’s tapping something within herself that she doesn’t fully understand and cannot truly control. The Storyteller and player should work together to come up with a couple of potential minor signs that the vampire’s tried to use a Discipline, even though nothing particularly supernatural has happened.

#### Learning Disciplines

Many Kindred spontaneously manifest new Disciplines, as the Beast asserts itself in new and strange ways. The Blood makes strong connections between vampires, so most Kindred only display the Disciplines of their Clan. To learn another clan’s unique Discipline, the vampire must first track down another vampire who possesses the Discipline and drink at least one point of his Vitae — with all of the attendant consequences.

#### Supernatural Conflict

The Kindred don’t just face off against one another. The World of Darkness is a strange and horrible place. Werewolves stalk the night, hunting unseen prey. Patchwork men question what it really is to be human, and some people who die don’t stay dead. Many of these creatures have mysterious abilities of their own, and when they come into contact with vampires it’s only a matter of time before someone goes too far and their powers come into conflict.

This book focuses on vampires and the mortals who surround them. One of the Kindred is harder to browbeat than a human, and thus adds his Blood Potency to rolls to resist Dominate. A mortal doesn’t have the supernatural chops to resist a Nosferatu manifesting his worst nightmares, so only rolls his Composure against the effect.

The supernatural forces of the world can resist a vampire’s talents in much the same way as the Kindred themselves. When a Discipline calls for a contested roll, use the victim’s nearest equivalent to Blood Potency — a werewolf’s Primal Urge, or a Promethean’s Azoth. In return, the power of the Blood protects a vampire from the strange powers of these creatures. Where another supernatural power calls on that equivalent trait, a vampire can add her Blood Potency to her Resistance Attribute for contested rolls. Note that Blood Potency and related Traits do not add to the Resistance Attribute used in a resisted roll, just contested rolls.

#### Clash of Wills

Sometimes, two Disciplines clearly oppose one another. If the normal systems for the Disciplines fail to resolve this, such as when two vampires attempt to Dominate the same person, or Auspex is turned against a vampire hidden by Obfuscate, there is a Clash of Wills.

All characters using conflicting powers enter a contested roll-off, each using a pool of his Blood Potency plus his dots in the Discipline. Devotions use Blood Potency plus the highest rated Discipline among the prerequisites, while blood sorcery uses Blood Potency plus the character’s dots in Crúac or Theban Sorcery. Ties reroll until one player has accrued more success than all others. The effect invoked by that player’s character wins out and resolves as usual, while all others fail. Victory of one power in a clash does not mean the immediate cancellation of the others, save in cases where only one power can possibly endure (such as competing Domination).

Characters may spend Willpower to bolster the contested roll, but only if they are physically present and aware that powers are clashing. Certain powers, such as those with exceptionally long durations, are more enduring in a clash. Night-long effects add one die to the clash roll, weeklong effects add two, month-long three; and effects that would last a year or longer add four. Clash of Wills can apply to other supernatural creatures, as well. The traits involved depend on the creature and will be elaborated upon in later books.

Example: Two Mekhet, Piotr and Alan, have come into conflict. Alan is attempting to use The Spirit’s Touch (Auspex 3) to snoop around Piotr’s den. However, the den is disguised by Oubliette (Obfuscate 5), thus the two characters enter a Clash of Wills. Alan has four dots of Auspex and two dots of Blood Potency, so Alan’s player will roll six dice. Piotr has five dots of Obfuscate and three dots of Blood Potency, eight dice. Oubliette is a long-lasting power with a three-week duration, so Piotr’s player adds two dice, bringing the roll up to ten dice total. Neither character can spend Willpower on the roll because Alan isn’t certain anything supernatural is going on and Piotr isn’t present.Both players roll; Piotr’s player gets two successes, while Alan’s rolls an impressive four. Therefore, The Spirit’s Touch has won out and Alan becomes aware of the building’s true nature. To all other characters the location remains occluded.

== Disciplines List

### Animalism

A vampire’s Beast is not just a facet of her predatory nature, but a predator in and of itself — and it’s at the top of the food chain. A vampire can slip the leash of her Beast just a little to overpower weaker animals, forcing her will on them. Most Animalism powers affect predators and scavenging animals. In a city, the Kindred can call on feral cats and dogs, pigeons and crows, foxes, and more rats than anyone wants to think about. Rural vampires can summon bats, wolves, mountain lions, and even bears — any animal that feasts on the flesh of another.

Feral Whispers •

To those she would command, a vampire must first make herself understood. So it is with beasts as well as men. A vampire using Feral Whispers overpowers the animal’s instinctive reactions and forces it to understand. She can ask questions of a creature and it must respond as best it can, and with a further slight nudge, she can compel it to obey her. A canny vampire can use magpies and crows to spy on her victims from above, or command a gangster’s mastiffs to savage their owner.

The vampire talks to the animal, either using human words or, much more frequently, by making animal sounds of her own. She can command groups of animals, such as a flock of birds or a swarm of rats, as long as she is close enough that the animals can all hear her, and she can see all of them.

Cost: None

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Animal Ken + Animalism

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene, command can persist up to a night.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The animal misunderstands the vampire’s command, giving false information when the vampire asks, or obeying a twisted version of the vampire’s command.

Failure: The animals fear the Beast, fleeing from a superior predator.

Success: The vampire can communicate with an animal, asking it what it has perceived. Most animals can remember what has happened over the last night. Animals relate what they have encountered through the lens of their own perceptions — dogs answer in terms of smell and hearing, while birds relate what they could see. The vampire can also give the victim a simple command, equivalent to what the animal could do on its own, such as “attack him,” “follow her then return here,” “chew through these cables.” The command doesn’t normally persist for more than a night, but the vampire can add simple contingencies such as forcing the beast to go to ground if noticed, or to return once the command is complete.

Exceptional Success: The animal is exceptionally obedient to the vampire, improvising to follow the spirit of the Kindred’s command.

Raise the Familiar ••

True beasts cannot be Embraced. They have never had the necessary Humanity. With this power, though, the vampire can complete the process halfway. By feeding a drained animal some of her Vitae, a vampire can infuse it with a fragment of the Kindred’s twilight life. It looks as it did when it died, though if appropriate, it might gain retractable fangs like a vampire. But the fangs are a lie — its true tragedy is that it cannot transubstantiate blood into Vitae. If it was wounded in death, it retains signs of the injuries, but its body functions fully. A coyote crushed by an SUV has a tire track running across it but no crushed bones, and a crow with a busted wing has bone jutting out of the wound but can still fly.

It doesn’t act like a normal animal — it doesn’t hunt for food, nor is it spooked by loud noises. It sleeps throughout the day, but becomes active at night. A human observing such an animal might be able to tell something’s wrong, but only the most grievous wounds usually make them take the time to look.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Requirement: Feed 1 Vitae to the corpse (included in cost)

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: (Blood Potency \* animal’s Stamina) nights The vampire feeds one point of Vitae to the animal’s corpse.

The animal returns to a semblance of life for a number of nights equal to (Blood Potency \* animal’s Stamina). Once she has raised a beast, a vampire can feed it more Vitae; each point ensures the animal’s continued existence as though the vampire had just raised it. The raised creature gains a semblance of intelligence and a certain low cunning, enough to follow complex orders that most animals could not understand, and to interpret the spirit of commands rather than the letter. Treat the familiar as having one dot of Intelligence. Infused with Vitae, the familiar takes bashing damage from attacks like a vampire, and does not fall unconscious or bleed out. The animal does not decompose. The Vitae burning within the animal’s dead veins forges a sympathetic link between it and the vampire. The vampire can use Feral Whispers on her familiar at any time, over any distance, communicating silently or issuing commands at any range. Though she must still roll to see if her familiar interpreted her command, the animal does not resist.

Summon the Hunt •••

The vampire infuses some of her Vitae with the essence of her prey, making it irresistible to other predators and scavenging beasts. Wherever she spills her blood — on the ground, over an object, or even splashing it on another person — the animals she calls will try to consume it. Her blood only loses potency once the summoned animals destroy whatever she poured it over or once the sun rises, at which point the Vitae burns away as though it were never present. She can focus her Beast’s call on one kind of creature, for example summoning just birds or rats. Prey animals in the affected area rightly shy away, afraid of the power of a vampire’s Beast.

Cost: 2 Vitae

Requirement: Spill 1 Vitae upon the target (included in cost).

Dice Pool: Presence + Animal Ken + Animalism

Action: Instant

Duration: One night, or until the item marked with blood is destroyed.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The animals follow the Beast’s call, but lash out against the vampire in fear.

Failure: Animals within the Discipline’s range feel their normal fear of the Kindred and stay well away.

Success: The vampire chooses when spilling the Vitae whether to summon all predators and scavengers, or whether to restrict herself to one kind of animal. All animals that match her request within (successes) city blocks in the city, or (successes \* 100) yards (successes \* 90 meters) in the country respond to her call. Once they taste the spilled Vitae, the vampire can imprint a command as though she had used Feral Whispers on the animal. All animals receive the same command, but it persists even while the vampire slumbers; the animals follow her command for one night per success.

Exceptional Success: Animals that taste the vampire’s blood follow her command with single-minded zeal. They do not stop to eat or sleep, deriving sustenance from the taste of Vitae alone.

Feral Infection ••••

The vampire floods the area with her predatory aura, infecting everything around her with the ravings of her Beast. The scent of her blood inspires rage in animals, and can drive men mad, especially those who have recently touched her blood. Other Kindred witnessing the effects of Feral Infection recognize the Beast unchained, likening the victims’ actions to their own moments of frenzy. The vampire using this Discipline can exert a measure of control over her victims’ madness, focusing her own Beast against some victim she wants to crush, or a goal she wants to conquer.

Cost: 2 Vitae

Requirement: Spill 1 Vitae upon the ground (included in cost).

Dice Pool: Presence + Intimidation + Animalism

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The vampire loses hold of her Beast, and it smashes past her. She is provoked to frenzy, though with a –2 die modifier on the roll to resist.

Failure: Affected animals display odd behavior — chasing their tails, or attacking their own limbs — but nothing drives them into a rage.

Success: Any animal that can smell the vampire’s blood enters a state of feral rage. It lashes out, attacking the nearest victim without a thought for its own safety. Once the victim is unconscious or dead, the animal feeds on his flesh. If the vampire wishes, she can direct the mob of frenzied creatures towards a single target or goal. She can’t give complex instructions or a direct command, but can point out targets to attack or the direction to move in.

Humans and supernatural creatures must make a reflexive (Resolve + Composure – vampire’s successes) roll to resist the vampire’s predatory Aura. If the victim has touched or imbibed the vampire’s blood within the last night, they suffer a –3 die penalty. A failed roll puts the victim under the vampire’s command. Vampires and werewolves frenzy, their victims dictated by the Kindred who provoked them. Humans and other supernatural creatures fall into an atavistic state where they must attack the target, or move towards it if they can’t reach it. If the vampire does not set a command, her victims turn upon one another. A supernatural creature can spend a point of Willpower to ignore the vampire’s commands, though she remains frenzied.

Exceptional Success: Unleashing her Beast sates it temporarily. The vampire gains the Sated  Condition (p. 305).

Lord of the Land •••••

The vampire marks her territory with Vitae, in much the same way that animals use urine or feces. She must encircle her territory in a ring of Vitae, claiming it as her own — assuming she has driven off any prior residents. When encircling the territory, she must walk the whole border. Some Kindred open wounds on their hands and arms and walk at a stately pace, dripping a slow stream of thick blood behind them. Others run wild, smearing blood and bodily fluids on surfaces like a feral beast.

Once she has established her territory, the vampire is privy to everything that happens within it. She can command animals, summon or banish people, and provoke other vampires to leave her lair. Most vampires establish their territory in small places, like a brownstone or small public garden. A powerful vampire might claim a whole public park or castle, but he must make sure that nothing interrupts his claim — more than one vampire has discovered that his territory is already claimed by an angry pack of werewolves halfway through claiming it.

Cost: 3-9 Vitae and 1 Willpower

Requirement: The vampire must walk a circuit around his new territory while marking it with Vitae. Three Vitae is enough to secure a small house or garden, six can secure a city block, while nine is enough to claim a castle. She must make sure that the area contains no other vampires; many Kindred prefer to evict all supernatural denizens. While the Discipline will still function if her territory contains werewolves or other monsters, they will suffer the effects — and will deduce that the vampire is to blame.

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: One week per dot of Blood Potency, longer if the vampire remains in his territory.

The vampire marks her territory. It remains empowered for at least one week per dot of Blood Potency, though the effects of this Discipline only end when the vampire leaves her territory after the duration. Rumors speak of ancient vampires lying in torpor whose territories remain active to this day.

A vampire’s territory scares off most creatures. Animals and wild beasts won’t enter, and will fight to escape if forced inside, unless otherwise affected by the vampire’s powers. Humans and supernatural creatures, including other vampires, must succeed at a reflexive Composure + Blood Potency roll to enter — or to stay in the area once it is created. Unless they roll an exceptional success, the feeling of overwhelming dread inflicts a –3 die penalty on all actions. For Kindred, simply being in another vampire’s territory is provocation to frenzy, and rolls to resist suffer a –2 die penalty. If a vampire explicitly invites someone into his territory — or uses Feral Whispers or Summon the Hunt in the case of animals — they do not suffer these penalties. Ghoul animals are also exempt.

When the vampire is within her territory, she can feel when a person or animal crosses into her territory; if an invader is a vampire, she knows his general Blood Potency. She always has a rough idea of where everyone is within her domain, and only supernatural means such as Disciplines can cut through her awareness — triggering a Clash of Wills. As the undisputed master of her territory, a frenzying creature cannot attack the vampire, nor may they spend Willpower to resist her commands delivered through Feral Infection. Any commands given by Feral Whispers last indefinitely, or until the animal leaves the vampire’s territory. Finally, the vampire can snatch the senses of any animal she has raised with Raise the Familiar within her territory, and use that animal to deliver commands using Feral Whispers to other creatures.

Contact

It’s easier for a vampire to use Auspex on another person if he’s spent some time in intimate contact with her. The contact doesn’t need to be sexual, any period of platonic physical contact is enough. Digging a bullet out of someone’s side — or carefully severing her arm — reveals her secrets to Auspex. Intimate contact gives a +3 bonus to the vampire’s roll.

### Auspex

Auspex turns the Beast’s predatory instincts loose on secrets, finding points of weakness and hidden gems that the vampire can exploit to his advantage. Auspex is an internal Discipline, revealing information to the Kindred through visions that range from the direct to the hallucinatory. Other vampires have no way to know when someone is using Auspex to discover their secrets, and for that reason many Mekhet feel the stares and whispered barbs of other vampires who worry what secrets the clan of Shadows will uncover next.

Beast’s Hackles •

The Beast focuses on danger and weakness. A vampire who borrows her Beast’s senses can use that focus to know if someone is about to attack her, or to pinpoint the weakest person in the room. The Beast is sensitive to things that other people cannot normally perceive; using this Discipline can pierce Obfuscate (see “Clash of Wills,” p.125).

Cost: Varies, as the Discipline is slightly tiring; the first use in a scene is free, but subsequent uses in the same scene cost

1 Vitae each.

Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy + Auspex

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The player asks a question as though he had rolled a success; the Storyteller should either give false information, or present a warped version of the truth.

Failure: The vampire’s senses cloud; his Beast doesn’t see any immediate point of weakness.

Success: The player can ask one question of the Storyteller. The Storyteller’s answer should include the imagery conjured by the Beast to convey the answer. This level of Auspex can only answer immediate questions about danger or weakness; the sample questions below cover much of the information the Beast can provide.

Exceptional Success: The player can ask two questions.

Sample Questions

• Who here is the most likely to give me what I want? Blood throbbing through the victim’s jugular vein. The sound of jingling coins from the victim’s pocket.

• Who/what here is most likely to lapse into violence? The victim’s hands stained with blood. The smell of gunpowder wafting from the victim.

• Who here is most afraid? The smell of urine from the victim’s pants. A whimpering sound from the victim.

• Who/what here is most likely to hurt me? Blood drying on a car crusher. Waves of hot rage boiling off the victim.

• Who here is closest to frenzy? The victim’s face twists into a frenzied rictus. The taste of hot bile when facing the victim.

• Is a vampire here using Auspex 5? A pall of grey smoke hanging in the air. A feeling like someone walked over the vampire’s grave.

Uncanny Perception ••

The vampire focuses on a single victim, peeling back the layers of lies and misdirection to reveal the truth underneath. The Beast sniffs out the victim’s dark secrets, things that she doesn’t want anyone else to know. What the vampire does with that information is up to him.

Cost: Varies; the first use in a scene is free, but subsequent uses against the same target that scene cost 1 Vitae each.

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Auspex

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The player asks a question as though he had rolled a success; the Storyteller should give false or misleading information.

Failure: The Beast unveils no secrets. Does the victim really have nothing to hide?

Success: The player can ask the Storyteller one question per success. The Storyteller’s answer should include the imagery conjured by the Beast to convey the answer. This level of Auspex focuses on questions concerning the secrets and weaknesses of a single character.

Exceptional Success: The images give the vampire further insight into the questions asked.

Sample Questions

• What is this person’s mood? A flash of emotion on the victim’s face. A smell that the vampire associates with the emotion — the smell of fresh blood signifying rage, the sound of grinding stone signifying isolation.

• What is this person afraid of right now? Shock as lights suddenly shine on the victim. The sound of dogs barking.

• What is this person’s Vice/Dirge? The sound of conspiratorial whispers. The smell of drugs wafting off a junkie.

• What is one of this person’s psychological vulnerabilities? A sudden feeling of incredible depression. Shifting walls and colors as if in a hallucination.

• Is this person a diablerist? The smell of brimstone and clotted blood. Thick black blood dripping off the victim’s chin.

• Is this person being controlled by someone else? Marionette

strings leading from the victim’s limbs up to the ceiling. A whispered voice that tells the victim what to do as she acts.

• Is this person a supernatural creature — and if I have seen them before, what is she? The taste of torn flesh. The glowing halo of a mage’s nimbus.

• Who here does this person want to hurt most? A bloody dagger drops from the victim’s hand, pointing to the answer. The taste of bile when looking at the target of the victim’s ire.

The Spirit’s Touch •••

A vampire can turn his Beast’s senses on an object or place, uncovering secrets and destroying lies just as surely as if he had focused on a person. A vampire can only use this Discipline on a particular object once per scene.

Cost: None

Dice Pool: Wits + Occult + Auspex

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The player asks a question as though he had rolled a success; the Storyteller should give false or misleading information.

Failure: The object yields no secrets to the Kindred’s senses — this time.

Success: The player can ask the Storyteller one question per success about the place or object. The Beast conjures images to answer rather than just words. In addition to the sample questions below, the character can ask questions suggested for Auspex 1 and 2 if they would be relevant.

Exceptional Success: The vampire can fully appreciate the object or place, and gains a +1 die bonus when using/interacting with it for the rest of the scene.

Sample Questions

• Who last touched/owned this? A vision of the person holding the object. The sound of the victim’s voice, identifying herself.

• What is the strongest emotion associated with this object? A hot flash of rage. A sudden flash of serene clarity.

• What was the object being used for at the point of strongest emotion? A vision of the vampire using the object. Sounds and ghostly outlines of people walking through the room.

Lay Open the Mind ••••

The Mekhet focuses on bringing her thoughts in line with her victim. He begins to think like her, and soon hears her thoughts in his mind. By concentrating and gently changing his own thoughts, he can project ideas or memories into the victim’s mind. With a little practice, the vampire can communicate without words, or project full memories to overwhelm the victim’s senses. He can even stimulate memories by thinking of a time, place, or emotion that causes the victim to remember — even if the victim had blocked it out or had it removed by magic.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Socialize + Auspex vs. Resolve + Blood Potency

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The vampire aligns to the victim’s thoughts, but he cannot keep his thoughts separate from hers. He suffers the Confused  Condition (p. 302).

Failure: The victim’s thoughts remain outside of the vampire’s grasp.

Success: The vampire’s thoughts align with the victim’s mind, and remain connected for the rest of the scene. He hears her thoughts as though she were speaking them aloud. People don’t think in complete sentences, but the vampire can discern the victim’s precise mood and intention, and some snippets of her current motivation and considerations. He can also project thoughts, either speaking directly into the victim’s thoughts, or depositing a mental image or memory. By focusing, the vampire can drag up a full memory from the victim, including things that the victim has forgotten or that were suppressed by magic (though doing so takes a Clash of Wills). He experiences all of the memory in an instant, with all five senses. If he chooses to transmit that memory to the victim, he can inflict a Condition like Guilty , Inspired , or Shaken  as appropriate (p. 302 and p. 305). Uncovering further memories costs 1 Vitae per memory.

Exceptional Success: The vampire can retrieve as many deep memories as he has dots in Auspex before paying Vitae to uncover more.

Twilight Projection •••••

The vampire unshackles his mind, leaving his body and projecting his senses throughout the world. His astral form exists in a twilight state, with no real physical or spiritual substance to it, but still in the world and noticeable only by other vampires with Auspex. The vampire can move at incredible speeds, traveling to any point within the moon’s orbit — an area that some Kindred call the “lunar sphere.” While his senses and consciousness travel the world the vampire’s body appears to be a normal corpse, albeit one that does not decay.

Cost: 2 Vitae

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult + Auspex

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The character’s senses part from his body, but something sends his consciousness far away.

Failure: The vampire cannot slip the bounds of his dead flesh.

Success: The vampire’s senses part from his body, and can travel the world. Multiply the vampire’s Speed by his (Auspex + Blood Potency). The vampire is not bound by gravity, and can travel through physical obstacles and even into the ground.

He cannot interact with the physical world in any way when separate from his body. He can see and hear as well as he can normally, but cannot use Disciplines. The vampire’s body lies in a torpor-like state, and he is unaware of anything that happens to it — though if someone kills his body or drives him to torpor, his mind jumps back to his body. Apart from that, the vampire must move his astral form back to his body to awaken. Every sunrise that the vampire remains separate from his body he loses a dot of Blood Potency — and suffers Final Death if his Blood Potency reaches 0. He regains any lost dots upon returning to his body. He must still spend a point of Vitae at the beginning of each night. Some vampires speak of strange magic that can prevent a vampire from returning to his body, or of his body walking around unbidden, with yellow eyes the only sign that something might be wrong.

Exceptional Success: The vampire’s senses slip away easily, and he is left with a memory of where his body is. He can reflexively spend a point of Vitae to instantly return to his body — or to the edge of any mystic boundary that prevents him from returning.

### Celerity

Unleashing her Beast, a vampire can cross vast distances in the blink of an eye, catch a thrown punch before her attacker has even moved a muscle, or snatch a gun barrel away from a man’s temple before he can pull the trigger. Celerity makes a vampire so fast that it’s as if she never has to move at all.

Cost: None or 1 Vitae per active effect

Dice Pool: None

Action: None (for persistent effects) or Reflexive (for active effects)

Duration: Permanent (for persistent effects) or one turn (for active effects)

Like other physical Disciplines, Celerity has two kinds of effects: persistent and active. Persistent effects are always on, and have no cost. Active effects are reflexive and cost one Vitae per effect.

Persistent: Add the vampire’s dots in Celerity to her Defense, or to her Dodge roll when defending actively. If a Firearms attack denies her normal Defense, the attacker still takes a penalty on his attack equal to the vampire’s dots in Celerity. A character must still be aware of incoming attacks to defend against them. If she is restrained, slumbering, or otherwise unable to respond, Celerity offers no advantage.

Active: By spending Vitae Celerity allows for bursts of speed faster than the eye can perceive. For each point of Vitae spent choose one effect from the following list. A vampire may spend additional Vitae to invoke multiple effects simultaneously, but no effect of Celerity may be used more than once per turn.

• Immediately move to the head of the Initiative queue. This boost in Initiative lasts only one turn, after which all combatants return to acting in their rolled order. If multiple vampires attempt to jump ahead simultaneously they enter a Clash of Wills (p. 125), the winner acts first.

• Interrupt the action of another character with a brief action of her own. This could be an attack, making it possible to disable an opponent in mid-action. It may be movement, avoiding harm by shifting out of reach. Or it could be any other instant action, like activating a Discipline or dodging. However, the vampire is still limited to one instant action. She cannot use Celerity to make two attacks, or an attack followed by another instant action. Likewise she cannot move further in a single turn than her Speed would allow.

The decision to interrupt is made after another character’s action is declared, but before it actually occurs (before dice are rolled). Once interrupted, the other character must continue his declared action, if it’s still possible. If the action is no longer possible, he takes no action. Alternatively, that character’s player may declare his action a dramatic failure and take a Beat. Celerity cannot interrupt reflexive actions or actions of which the character was unaware. Finally, using Celerity in this way is exhausting; a vampire may only interrupt as many actions in a scene as she has dots in Celerity.

• Multiply her speed by her dots in Celerity plus one. Moving in this way is sudden, jarring, the vampire appears to shift from point to point without crossing the space in-between. She may use this to briefly avoid detection or launch surprise attacks.

### Dominate

The Beast demands obedience from lesser creatures. It slips into the Kindred’s voice, modulating his tone and his words to express absolute authority. It progresses from the simple barked commands of a drill sergeant to creating false memories of whatever the vampire desires — or letting her steal her victim’s body to walk in the sunlight once again.

Mesmerize •

All a vampire has to do is meet her victim’s eye to catch him in her thrall. Her control isn’t obvious; she just asks him to do something and her victim acquiesces. He could unlock a door, pass her a gun — or forget ever meeting her. Some cruel vampires mesmerize passers-by just to take the rap for their crimes.

Cost: None

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Expression + Dominate vs. Resolve + Blood Potency

Action: Instant

Eye Contact

Dominate requires a vampire make eye contact with her victims in order to issue commands. That contact is one-way — the victim needs to see the vampire’s eyes, but not vice versa. This contact is possible through simple barriers like sunglasses (even mirrored) or tinted windows, but does not work when looking at a video feed rather than the vampire herself.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The victim sees through the vampire’s attempt to control his mind; emboldened, he gains the Steadfast  Condition (p. 306).

Failure: The vampire’s victim proves stronger-willed than she’d thought.

Success: The vampire holds her victim’s gaze for just a second, but it’s enough to inflict the Mesmerized  Condition (p. 305).

Exceptional Success: The vampire’s control flows over the victim’s brain like water. They want to do whatever the vampire says. The vampire can issue a command in the same action as mesmerizing the victim.

Once she has inflicted the Mesmerized  Condition, the vampire can command the victim as an instant action. Her commands can’t be longer than three or four words, and she has to be direct — her control doesn’t extend to issuing vague commands. “Follow me,” “Shoot your husband,” and “Repeat after me…” are all suitable commands, while “Forget,” “Submit,” and “Do my bidding” have too much room for interpretation. She can even mess with the victim’s memory, making one statement about the current scene that victim will remember as truth. While she can still only use simple and unambiguous commands, she can pack a lot of changes into four words: “You killed that man” and “I was not here” combine to frame the victim for murder.

Iron Edict ••

Once she’s got a hotline into her victim’s mind, the vampire can take some time to play with his thoughts and memories. While it takes more of her power to relay complex commands, she goes from jerking her victim’s strings to controlling him like a puppeteer, making his every movement dance to her tune.

Cost: 1 Vitae; none if victim is in Vinculum with the vampire

Dice Pool: None

Requirement: The vampire must have inflicted the Mesmerized  Condition on the victim

Action: Instant

The vampire can issue a longer command to a Mesmerized victim. This edict can be up to three sentences long, and can include a successive series of actions. The command takes two turns per sentence to convey. As with Mesmerize, the vampire’s control doesn’t extend to commands that rely on the victim’s interpretation. The victim takes the Dominated  Condition (p. 302) and will follow the vampire’s commands as soon as she finishes speaking them. He continues to follow the order until he has completed his task, or the sun rises. Many Kindred use Iron Edict to issue a simple command, such as “Obey my direct instructions when I give them to you,” which effectively gives them control over the minion until the sun comes up — though it doesn’t extend the duration of the Mesmerized Condition.

Entombed Command •••

The vampire has enough control over her meat-puppet to implant a subconscious trigger, a specific set of conditions that will turn him into her slave when he encounters them. She can force her victim into a suggestible state when he points a gun at her, make him transfer all of his money into her account when he hears Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, or only allow him to remember his son when he smells lilacs.

Cost: None; other Dominate powers may cost Vitae.

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Subterfuge + Dominate – victim’s Resolve

Requirement: The vampire must have inflicted the Mesmerized  Condition on the victim

Action: Instant

Duration: One week per success, or one month per success (see below).

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The vampire’s attempt to set up a trigger backfires. The victim loses his Mesmerized  Condition. For the next week, when he encounters one trigger that the vampire attempted to set he instead gains the Steadfast  Condition (p. 306).

Failure: The attempt to set triggers in the victim’s mind doesn’t take. Is he fighting back, or is there another reason?

Success: The vampire can implant a number of subconscious triggers equal to the number of successes rolled to trigger specific effects of other Dominate powers. She must pay any Vitae cost for these powers as normal. These triggers remain in place for one week per success, or one month per success if the victim is in any stage of Vinculum towards the vampire. During that time, the effects of the trigger emerge each time the victim encounters the stimulus.

Exceptional Success: The vampire’s commands slip into the victim’s subconscious with ease. Reduce the Vitae cost by one when implanting Iron Edict and The Lying Mind.

Each trigger is a specific event or sensory stimulus that causes the linked effect to emerge. The vampire must pay any Vitae cost for other Dominate powers, but only need do so once to attach that power to any number of triggers. Using Iron Edict in conjunction with Entombed Command to force a man to show up at a nightclub when he argues with his wife, and making him fill a USB stick with sensitive information from his workplace all costs only one point of Vitae. Describing both the trigger and its specific effect on the victim takes about two turns per trigger.

Other Dominate abilities work as follows when channeled through Entombed Command:

• Mesmerize: The victim gains the Mesmerized  Condition when he encounters the trigger. If the vampire isn’t present to capitalize on his state, the effects soon fade.

• Iron Edict: When the victim encounters the trigger, he immediately gains a Dominated  Condition relating to the imprinted command. As he is entirely under the vampire’s sway when Dominated, he does not encounter other triggers until he resolves the Condition.

• The Lying Mind: The trigger serves as a switch for memory alteration. Encountering it once causes a memory to emerge (or to vanish), while encountering it again reverses the change.

The Lying Mind ••••

A mistress of Dominate can dance through her victim’s memories, sculpting them to her whims. He might not remember his family — or she might force him to remember the tragic death of a son who never existed. She can subtly alter his memories, replacing his wife’s face with her own, or moving his memory of a vacation from Paris to London. Beyond necessary generalities, this does not allow the vampire to read the original memories.

Cost: 2 Vitae

Dice Pool: None

Requirement: The vampire must have inflicted the Mesmerized  Condition on the victim; the victim must consume or be anointed by 1 Vitae (included in cost).

Action: Instant

Duration: Permanent

While he remains Mesmerized, the vampire can spin her victim’s memories like cotton candy, stretching far back into childhood. She must either feed him some of her Vitae or drip it onto his forehead. She can create memories of events from nothing, erase memories of an event or person, or change the people, events, and location of existing memories to serve her purpose. As part of this alteration, she inflicts a persistent Condition on the victim. If she deletes a broad swath of memories, the victim receives the Amnesia  Condition (p. 301), otherwise he takes the False Memories Condition (p. 303).

The vampire has to speak with her victim, describing the changes she wants to make to his memories. Crude alterations — deleting a swathe of his past, or replacing his wife’s face with the vampire’s in all his memories — take about a minute to describe, but more detailed changes can take quite a bit longer. When changing memories or creating new ones, the vampire can create the factual content of the memory, but the victim’s thoughts and feelings remain out of her control.

She can create an environment that makes him predisposed to certain reactions, but she can’t force him to love a son she’s just invented. The vampire’s changes are permanent, unless she used Entombed Command to only reveal them on a trigger.

Possession •••••

Controlling a victim’s memories and actions is one thing, but for some vampires the truest expression of control comes from suppressing the victim’s will entirely, taking complete control of his body. The vampire moves her mind into the victim, using his body instead of her own.

Cost: 1 Vitae and 1 Willpower

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Intimidation + Dominate – victim’s Resolve

Requirement: The vampire must have inflicted the Mesmerized  Condition on the victim.

Action: Reflexive

Duration: 1 night per success

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The victim’s mind will not be bound to the vampire’s control. He immediately resolves the Mesmerized  Condition and regains a point of Willpower.

Failure: The vampire cannot take total control of her victim just yet.

Success: The vampire takes over her victim’s body for one night per success. While in this new body, she uses her victim’s Physical Attributes and Skills in place of her own, and gains any Physical or Combat Merits that the victim possessed. She can stay awake during the day by spending a point of Willpower at dawn and takes no damage from sunlight — if she does not spend Willpower, she returns to her body. Each night, she must spend a point of Vitae as normal. She cannot use Disciplines or Blood Sorcery when possessing someone else, nor can she access any supernatural powers her victim may possess, but she otherwise controls his body totally.

If she attempts to kill herself the victim may roll Resolve + Blood Potency as a reflexive action, on a success he evicts the vampire from his consciousness. Possessing a victim removes the Mesmerized  and Dominated  Conditions, and the vampire is not subject to any triggers set on the victim by Entombed Command while she remains in control. Once she leaves the victim’s body, those triggers affect him as normal. While she commands the victim’s body, the vampire’s own form lies in a torpor-like state awaiting her return; if she remains in the victim’s body for so long that her body slips into torpor, she immediately snaps back into her body.

Exceptional Success: The vampire slips into the victim’s body with ease, and leaves her jaunt in another body with renewed purpose. Upon leaving the victim’s body, she regains a point of Willpower.

### Majesty

Majesty draws on the Beast’s animal magnetism to amplify a vampire’s force of personality, making people like him and want to make him happy even though normally they wouldn’t give a shit about him. They like him and want to be around him just because it makes them feel good. Using Majesty isn’t like leaning forward and slipping a command behind a human’s eyes, it’s arranging the world so that people will kill — or die — for his attention.

Awe •

Awe shines a spotlight on the vampire even in a crowded room. He’s the most important person around and people want to be around him. Awe creates an aura of power, a sense that the vampire’s important, like a billionaire playboy or a movie star. He could be wearing tattered clothes, with open wounds and his face caked in shit but people still think he’s cooler than them, and they want to be around him.

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

When he wills it, all eyes fall on the vampire and nobody cares what he’s doing. For the rest of the scene, he suffers no penalties to Social rolls from his actions or appearance — even if he’s just beaten another man to death or waved a gun in a crowded nightclub. Given a chance, he can talk his way out of minor criminal offenses and almost any social faux pas.

As the center of attention, he adds his Majesty dots to any Presence rolls when talking to people around him. This bonus only applies when talking to people normally, not to other uses of Majesty. Anyone paying attention to him also subtracts his Majesty dots from any Wits + Composure rolls to notice anything other than the vampire. With a word, he can summon anyone in the room to his side — not by any mystical compulsion, but by making her aware that he wants her to approach. Another vampire can fortify herself against Awe with her predatory aura (see Lashing Out, p. 92). If she succeeds, she is unaffected by Awe.

Confidant ••

The vampire doesn’t have to shout to be heard, and in a crowd that he’s already Awed, sometimes speaking quietly is the best way to get attention. With little more than a soft voice and a knowing look, the vampire brings someone new into the fold and becomes her trusted confidant.

Cost: None

Requirement: The vampire must use Awe on the victim.

Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy + Majesty vs. Resolve + Blood Potency

Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The vampire slips up, letting some of what he wants the victim to feel leak back into himself. He’s affected by the Swooning  Condition (p. 306) for the victim.

Failure: The victim doesn’t feel that she’s worthy of joining the vampire’s inner circle just yet.

Success: The vampire successfully charms his victim. She gains the Charmed  Condition (p. 301).

Exceptional Success: It’s incredibly hard to resist the force of the vampire’s personality. The victim’s Charmed  Condition lasts for nights, rather than hours.

Green Eyes •••

To a victim of this level of Majesty, the vampire’s attention feels so good that it’s addictive. His inner circle craves his attention like a crackhead craves a rock or a writer needs coffee. That craving first becomes desperation and then jealousy as other people attract the vampire’s gaze, if only for a minute.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Requirement: The vampire must have inflicted the Charmed  or Enthralled  Condition on the target.

Dice Pool: None

Action: Reflexive

Duration: Scene

His victim is now thoroughly obsessed with the vampire, and he can play with her feelings and desires like they were a cheap harmonica. With Green Eyes, he can shift the emotional state of anyone he’s Charmed, sending them into a violent rage (or even a frenzy, in the case of some supernatural creatures) or making them so depressed that they feel hollow without him. Each shift costs him a point of Vitae, but he can instill the same emotion in any number of victims at once.

The vampire can ask one of his Charmed minions to do something in such a way that they feel an obsessive need to accomplish it. He could ask them to kill someone, to give him money, or to perform debased and degrading acts for his amusement. A Charmed victim will do whatever he wants within reason — if the request would lead to the victim taking lethal damage or hitting a breaking point, the victim will save her own skin. She resolves the Charmed  Condition immediately.

An Enthralled victim is far more dangerous — she won’t commit suicide for the vampire, but anything else is fair game. If his victim would hit a breaking point, she doesn’t notice (and doesn’t roll for experiencing the breaking point) until the Enthralled  Condition expires.

Loyalty ••••

Among his inner circle, the vampire praises some more than others, bringing them even closer to him. With a few words he can inflame their love for him. Beyond jealousy and obsession comes complete loyalty. A victim will do absolutely anything for him — and just thinking about crossing the vampire is traumatic. She ignores her other friends and her family. Her vampire is all that matters.

Cost: 2 Vitae

Requirement: The vampire must have inflicted the Charmed  Condition on the target.

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy + Majesty vs. Resolve + Blood Potency

Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: Something sets the victim on edge, some discordant note forces her to rethink her affection for the vampire. She immediately resolves the Charmed  Condition.

Failure: Though the victim remains devoted to the vampire, her loyalty does not flare into fanaticism.

Success: The vampire inspires burning loyalty in the victim. She’d do anything for him, giving up her blood or organs — or taking a bullet for him. The victim gains the Enthralled  Condition.

Exceptional Success: The Enthralled  Condition lasts for one week per dot of Blood Potency.
Idol •••••

More than just a celebrity, a vampire who can play with people’s desires becomes a king or a star, the kind of person who wouldn’t ever be so crass as to demand people’s loyalty. People around him give it willingly, pledging to do whatever he wants if he’ll only notice them, look at them, or smile in their direction.

Cost: 2 Vitae and 1 Willpower

Dice Pool: None

Action: Reflexive

Duration: Scene

Idol enhances Awe’s aura of superiority to divine (or blasphemous) levels. The vampire can wait until she’s established Awe and then enhance it, or pay the price to immediately establish her superiority over everyone else in the room. Anyone affected by the vampire’s Awe must make a reflexive roll of Resolve + Blood Potency minus the vampire’s Majesty dots in order to take an action that could harm or embarrass the vampire in any way. Unless they succeed, they can’t so much as crack a joke at his expense. If the vampire has inflicted the Charmed  Condition on anyone in his presence, she must make a reflexive Resolve + Blood Potency – Majesty dots roll when the vampire activates Idol. If she fails, she acquires the Enthralled  Condition for the remainder of the scene. People who the vampire has already Enthralled cannot spend Willpower to act against him.

### Nightmare

The Beast doesn’t need fear. Fear is rational, understandable — a reaction to a presented stimulus. Any idiot can make people fear him. Nightmare indulges the Beast’s desire to cause abject terror. It starts slowly at first: Just for a second, you see a human face in the path of a circular saw. Your keyboard feels unaccountably warm and fleshy, but when you look down it’s fine. Walking down the street the shadows fall at the wrong angles. You bump into someone, an old friend from your childhood, and all you can do is run and scream. You fall into the arms of your wife, shaking and sobbing, but she’s holding you too tight and she smells wrong. Your daughter comes up behind you and sinks her teeth into your thigh. You scream in pain and bolt out of the door. Looking back, you see your daughter’s face. Only then does the real terror begin.

Dread Presence •

Everyone around the vampire feels the world go slightly wrong as she exudes a deeply unsettling aura. Even if they barely notice her, they feel a wave of fear and uncertainty. The world seems colder, everything’s just that bit more distant. People feel like someone’s watching them even when they’re otherwise alone, and for just a second they see horrible truths manifest in the world around them.

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

The vampire exudes an aura of fear for the rest of the scene that gives her a number of benefits. She adds her Nightmare dots to all mundane Intimidate rolls. People around her subconsciously register her as the cause of their fear, and they shy away from her. Her victims can act against her but their hearts aren’t in it — they can’t spend Willpower to bolster their actions, though they can still use it defensively. A vampire can lash out against this aura of fear with his predatory aura (see Lashing Out, p. 92). If he succeeds, he isn’t affected by Dread Presence.

As a reflexive action, the vampire can conjure brief illusions. One person’s food looks rotten and maggot-ridden, another raises his steak-knife but sees a murder victim’s head on his plate. A woman reaches for a doorknob but when she pulls her hand back it’s covered in blood. These \*illusions can only affect two senses each, and must be small — no larger than a small dog, and no louder than a shout. They only last for a turn or two at most, but they’re always unsettling. The vampire chooses who can see each illusion, and she can only project one at a time. Though equal parts frightening and disgusting, the illusions cannot themselves cause any harm or significant pain.

Face of the Beast ••

All it takes is a glance, and the vampire can magnify one of his victim’s fears to truly horrifying levels. If she knows what sort of things her victim fears, she can choose to enhance that fear specifically; otherwise she inspires an unguided terror that flares up in the victim’s heart without her knowing precisely what he’s afraid of. Whatever the case, the victim flees immediately.

Cost: 1 Vitae

136 Vampire: the Requiem

Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy + Nightmare vs. Composure + Blood Potency

Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: Something goes wrong. Though the victim sees visions of his fear made manifest, he stares them down. He regains a point of Willpower.

Failure: The victim’s fear troubles him, but he doesn’t flee.

Success: The victim gains the Frightened  Condition (p. 303). If the vampire activates Dread Presence, she can designate herself as the source of the victim’s fear.

Exceptional Success: The vampire gains a vision of precisely what the victim is so afraid of. While this has no mechanical advantage, it gives her something else to exploit.

The Grand Delusion •••

Touching her victim’s mind, the vampire sparks a delusion that only she fully understands. What she makes him believe doesn’t match up with the world as he knows it, and that discrepancy sparks a gut-wrenching fear in her victim.

Cost: 2 Vitae

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy + Nightmare vs. Composure + Blood Potency

Action: Contested, resistance is reflexive

Duration: 1 night

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: While the victim doesn’t believe what the vampire wanted him to, she does. The vampire gains the Delusional  Condition (p. 302) for the rest of the scene, her false belief being whatever she wanted the victim to believe — if she wanted Daniel to believe his friends all hated him, her delusion would be “Daniel’s friends all hate him,” not “my friends all hate me.”

Failure: The delusion sparks behind the victim’s eyes, but then gutters and dies.

Success: All it takes is a few words, and the victim suffers the Delusional  Condition (p. 302). The vampire defines his exact beliefs, but can’t control his reaction to these beliefs, nor can she inspire a delusion that would make the victim homicidal or self-destructive. She can force someone to believe that his friends hate him, but not that he must attack them. The delusion lasts for a night; if the vampire activates Dread Presence, it instead lasts for a number of nights equal to the vampire’s Blood Potency.

Exceptional Success: The vampire sparks intense delusions in the victim. The delusion lasts for three nights; if the vampire activates Dread Presence, count her Blood Potency as two higher than it is.

Waking Nightmare ••••

Having altered her victims’ beliefs and stoked their fears, the vampire can now spark disturbing hallucinations of a kind that all vampires suffer in torpor. These awful visions adhere to nightmarish logic, even the most apparently innocent vision turning sinister when the victim has time to focus on it.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: Presence + Empathy + Nightmare vs. highest Composure + Blood Potency in group

Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive

Duration: Scene

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The vampire starts to hallucinate,

perceiving something that only she can see that terrifies her. She must immediately roll to resist frenzy.

Failure: The victims do not hallucinate, or it does not particularly affect them.

Success: The vampire inflicts a single hallucination — a change or addition to what is currently present in the scene — on her victims. The hallucination lasts for a scene.

Exceptional Success: The victims suffer the vampire’s version of reality for a full night.

This terrible hallucination manifests to all senses, though it generally can’t change more than a single person, object, or feature of the location. She could invert the colors in a building, create a shambling monster that stalks her victims, or give herself a nightmarish appearance. The Storyteller should work with the player to determine how big a change the vampire can make. Once created, the Nosferatu can control how the vision reacts while it remains in her presence; once she has separated from her victims, her creation takes on a life of its own. The hallucination takes no effort to maintain, and will run its course even if the vampire meets Final Death. Unleashing the fears of the Beast gives the hallucination the taint of nightmares, even if the Nosferatu doesn’t intend anything overtly horrifying. A doll’s eyes follow the victims around the room, that nice man has too wide a smile and it doesn’t touch his eyes, the gentle stream reflects the light wrong and something strange is swimming in it. Nightmare cannot create a pleasant image, though no matter how awful the hallucinations can’t cause actual harm or inflict significant pain. Alone, Waking Nightmare only affects one person. Used with Dread Presence, it can affect any number of people in the vampire’s presence — though they all suffer the same hallucination, and while they are together their perceptions remain roughly consistent.

Mortal Terror •••••

The Nosferatu can summon horrific visions from the depths of a victim’s soul. She twists everything around her victim to present one of his worst fears made flesh. Her victim can’t sleep, his hair turns white from terror, and in some cases his heart stops dead. She can’t conjure pure fear out of nothing — her victim must already be afraid. Some Kindred implant a delusion, or summon an illusory terror to make the victim afraid.

Cost: 1 Vitae and 1 Willpower

Dice Pool: Presence + Intimidation + Nightmare – victim’s Composure

Condition: The vampire needs to have inflicted the Frightened  or Delusional  Conditions on her victim.

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The victim faces his fears down and doesn’t back away. He gains a +3 bonus to resist Nightmare for the next week.

Failure: The victim’s heart skips a beat and he starts sweating badly, but he doesn’t falter.

Success: The fear reaction tears through the victim; he suffers one point of lethal damage per success. If he survives, he bears a permanent mark of coming through his fear — a nervous twitch, or a sudden streak of white in his hair — and takes the Broken  Condition (p. 301). If the vampire activates Dread Presence, the victim also loses one point of Composure per success; these lost dots heal at the same rate as lethal damage.

Exceptional Success: The vampire can taste and savor the victim’s fear. If her victim dies, she regains a point of Willpower.

### Obfuscate

The Beast is a hidden killer. It lurks just below the surface, unnoticed by its prey until it’s too late. Just another man in the street, no different from anyone else. Just another woman passing by. Why can’t you remember what they looked like? One of them turns, and you can’t quite see his face, but he’s walking towards you. Another second and he’s grabbed you. His teeth sink into your neck and all you can think is “why won’t anyone do anything? Why won’t they help me?” Obfuscate is the reason you’ll never be sure that you’re alone again.

Mixed Signals

Obfuscate tricks the victim’s mind directly, removing traces of the vampire from the sensory information reaching her brain, rather than fooling her senses directly. Obfuscate affects smell and taste as much as sight or hearing — potentially useful if you’ve angered a pack of werewolves, or a vampire with sharp Kindred senses.

Face in the Crowd •

The vampire can turn his predatory aura inwards, walking through crowds of people who pay him no heed. As long as he doesn’t do anything to obviously draw attention to himself, nobody notices him. He’s just one more person on the street, part of the city’s nightlife. People don’t shy away from him because of what he’s wearing or what he looks like. He’s just as much a fixture of the city as the rats and the graffiti.

Cost: None

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

For the rest of the scene, people’s eyes just slide off the vampire. People can tell that someone’s there, but they don’t remember who he is or what he looks like; he’s just “some guy,” average height and build, average hair, average clothes. Unless the vampire’s doing something to draw people’s attention — pulling a gun, or screaming at people — or he’s in a place where someone doesn’t expect anyone else to be, everyone around him ignores him. They don’t care what he’s carrying; he could walk down the street with an assault rifle strapped across his back or a body slung over his shoulder, and as long as he doesn’t use it to draw attention, nobody particularly cares or remembers. If the vampire is violent towards someone — if he punches someone or starts feeding in a crowded subway station — his victim will automatically notice. If he’s doing something that would draw attention, including but not limited to being violent, everyone around him must make a reflexive Wits + Composure roll to notice the commotion, penalized by the vampire’s Obfuscate dots. The vampire’s predatory aura seemingly disappears, so that other vampires can’t sense it.

Touch of Shadow ••

With just a touch, the vampire can extend the muted attentions of Face in the Crowd to an object or animal, rather than himself. His subject fades out — if he masks a desk, people subconsciously register that it’s there and won’t bump in to it, but they can’t recognize what’s right in front of them unless the vampire forces them to interact with it. Even a forensic team would only remember seeing a desk if they examined photos of the scene after the fact.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Requirement: The vampire must touch the object he wants to hide; in the case of an unwilling victim, the vampire must roll to touch his opponent (see p. 177). The animal or object cannot have Size greater than the vampire’s own (but see Suggested Modifiers).

Dice Pool: Wits + Larceny + Obfuscate

Action: Reflexive

Duration: Scene

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: Something draws people’s attention to whatever the vampire wanted to hide. It’s the first thing they notice when they come onto the scene, and they want to find out more about it.

Failure: The object or creature doesn’t fade into the background.

Success: For the rest of the scene, people’s eyes slide off the object. The vampire can affect an inanimate object or animal with the same effects as Face in the Crowd — people subconsciously register that the subject is present, but they’re not actively aware of it. If an observer is forced to deal with something affected by Touch of Shadow — being thrown into an occulted table or door, or bitten by an occulted dog — that observer can then recognize the subject’s existence. Since people have a hard time noticing occluded objects, the vampire can hide behind an object affected by Touch of Shadow to remain unnoticed. In order to notice the occluded object, observers must succeed at a reflexive Wits + Composure penalized by the vampire’s Obfuscate dots. A living creature affected by Touch of Shadow can see anything else that the vampire has Obfuscated without a roll.

Exceptional Success: The victim of this power doesn’t stand out to any observer, even if they’re looking at photographs or video featuring him when the power was active.

Suggested Modifiers

–1 Increase the maximum affected Size by 1

–2 Increase the maximum affected Size by 2

–3 Increase the maximum affected Size by 3

Cloak of Night •••

With but a thought, the vampire slips from both sight and mind. He doesn’t just fade into the background, he vanishes entirely. He leaves no scent and makes no sound, though his passing leaves incidental signs, like drifting smoke or creaking floorboards. He can pass this part of this effect on to others, even stealing people from the world with Touch of Shadow.

Cost:1 Vitae

Dice Pool: None

Action: None

Used with Cloak of Night, Touch of Shadow can now affect other people. The normal rules for piercing Touch of Shadow apply. Some vampires steal their victims from the world, feeding upon them as the mass of humanity walks on by. The vampire can also spend a point of Vitae when activating Face in the Crowd to vanish completely. Rather than being overlooked or “just an average person,” the vampire disappears from the perception of everyone around him.

If the vampire attacks someone or cries out, Cloak of Night continues to obscure him, adding Obfuscate to the surprise roll. Only the struck victim can perceive the vampire. If another vampire manages to perceive him, through Auspex, attack, or any other means, she can sense his predatory aura and lash out. If she wins the predatory aura contest, Cloak of Night shatters, as does any other use of Obfuscate the vampire made.

The vampire can be tracked by indirect clues, as mentioned above. Tracking is an extended action, with the observer rolling Wits + Resolve - Obfuscate. A vampire observer can apply the Blood Potency bonus from Kindred senses. Each roll takes one turn, and the observer must roll more successes than the vampire’s Wits + Stealth + Obfuscate. Teamwork may be applied.
The Familiar Stranger ••••

Rather than removing himself from the perceptions of other people, the vampire can instead adjust how they see him. He can either appear as a subjective face, a “frail old woman,” or a “young lothario,” or as a specific person, like “Tom’s friend Jason.” People perceive the vampire as though he were who they’d expect to see based on his chosen disguise — everyone has a different idea of what a frail old woman looks like, after all.

Cost: 2 Vitae

Dice Pool: none

Action: None

When using Face in the Crowd or affecting a person with Touch of Shadow, the vampire can spend the Vitae required to activate this power. She can specify a particular image that she wants to project, either a subjective category or a specific person. If she takes on the form of a specific person, everyone sees and hears what they would expect were that person present. He needs to know that the person exists, and he can’t use his description to influence people’s reactions — “the woman Tom will fall in love with,” or “a man Jennifer finds trustworthy” both fail, as they rely on influencing the victim’s thoughts and emotions about the person being imitated.

A vampire can also use The Familiar Stranger on objects through Touch of Shadow. He can redefine how people see the object. The illusory object must be roughly the same size as the original object, and will pass most forms of mundane inspection — though an illusory gun won’t fire, and an illusory knife won’t cut. Simply discovering that the illusion won’t function isn’t enough to break it, however — that only happens at the end of the scene.
Oubliette •••••

The vampire creates a realm of his own, hiding a place from mundane senses and scrambling the perceptions of everyone within. He can turn an alleyway into a maze that nobody can escape from, or make a humble brownstone appear to be a stately manor house. He must mark the area’s boundary and exits with his Vitae, impregnating the stones and soil with his blood and bending the location to his will. Once he has spread his blood, he slumbers there for one full day before awakening as the master of his abode.

Cost: 3-9 Vitae and 1 Willpower

Requirement: The vampire must spread Vitae around the area he wishes to claim, marking the gateways, exits, and landmarks. Three Vitae is enough to secure an apartment or small house, six can Obfuscate a brownstone or alleyway, and nine is enough to hide a mansion or similarly large building.

After spreading blood, he must slumber for a full day in the location. He can spread the bloodletting process over several nights, but he must spend every day asleep in the location until his work is complete. The Oubliette absorbs the blood that he spills, making it invisible to Kindred senses.

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: 1 week per dot of Blood Potency

Once he has established an Oubliette, the vampire can use Touch of Shadow, Cloak of Night, and The Familiar Stranger at any distance, on anyone or anything within his haven. He can affect multiple different people or objects with a single activation of the power — making the exits vanish with Cloak of Night, or using The Familiar Stranger to make his ghouls look like people his victims want to see. Using Touch of Shadow in the Oubliette requires only one roll, and Cloak of Night and The Familiar Stranger do not cost extra Vitae.

The vampire can affect individual aspects of the area separately, making rifles look like snakes or making a single door disappear, or he can make more sweeping changes with just one use of The Familiar Stranger — making his run-down brownstone into a manor house with all the appropriate trappings, while the vampire himself becomes a venerable old gentleman.

Someone interacting with elements of an Oubliette can see their true natures, but only for a few seconds. Since the Oubliette can cover a large area, and can change in the blink of an eye, most people shrug off minor changes as just a trick of the light. A vampire’s Oubliette lasts for one week per dot of Blood Potency, though she can reinforce the effect before it ends.

### Protean

Every vampire is one bad day away from giving in to the Beast. Some keep the creature leashed within, holding it back and only letting it out to prey on the weak. Others indulge their Beasts, reveling in the descent from an undead thing yearning for its grave to a force of savage power. A vampire who attains the pinnacle of Protean becomes a formless creature, nothing more than smoke and hunger.

Unmarked Grave •

With a silent command, the earth itself yawns open to embrace the vampire. She merges with the ground, becoming immune to almost any harm. She can remain there indefinitely, waiting in a cocoon of soil until the time is right for her to emerge. She does not have to find stone or mud, she can just as easily slip into concrete — as long as she has servants willing to feed her while she rests.

Cost: Varies; 0 for soil or earth, otherwise Vitae equal to the Durability of the material.

Requirement: The vampire’s hiding place must be at least the same Size as her.

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: Indefinite

The vampire sinks bodily into the earth, for as long as she desires. Once interred, she’s mostly insensible to the outside world, though she can remain conscious if she so wishes. She has a sense of the ground above her — she’s well aware if someone tries to concrete over her hiding place. Her Kindred senses continue to function, and she remains capable of sensing the predatory aura even though her safe haven means another vampire’s predatory aura can’t force her into a fight-or-flight reaction. Should someone spill blood or Vitae upon the ground, she can absorb it. The ground dilutes Vitae enough that it can’t result in a blood bond, but to a Vitae-addicted vampire just the taste might be enough to drive her out of the ground, thirsty for more.

The only way to harm the vampire is to damage or destroy the ground she resides in; she takes one point of bashing damage for each point of Structure that her haven loses. When she takes her first point of lethal damage she emerges from the ground, unable to hold herself in.

Predatory Aspect ••

All the vampire has to do is give in just a little bit, and her Beast can slip out through her flesh, warping her body into a monstrous form. While every Gangrel’s Beast is different, its manifestation usually takes inspiration from a predatory or scavenging animal of some form. Some twist their bodies to run on all fours like a wolf, while others take on the rough skin and strange senses of a shark.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: None

Action: Reflexive

Duration: Scene

By spending a point of Vitae, the vampire can manifest a small host of bestial traits. When she first learns Predatory Aspect, she picks three adaptations from the list below. From then on, she can manifest any or all of these changes for the rest of the scene by spending a point of Vitae.

If none of these adaptations make sense for the character, the player and Storyteller should work together to create new ones, using these as guidelines.

• Aquatic: Growing webbed hands or slick scales, the vampire can swim at the same Speed she can run on land.

• Claws: Sharp claws grow from the vampire’s fingers. They are 1L mundane weapons that use Brawl to attack.

• Extra Sense: The Kindred grows extra sensory organs, giving her tremor sense, echolocation, or some other sense that allows her to “see” without using her eyes. Using this sense, she has a 360-degree field of vision. (This must be something an animal can imitate, it can not be used to have the Unseen Sense merit)

• Feral Senses: Taking on a hawk’s eyes or a dog’s sense of smell allows the vampire to hear heartbeats and see or smell blood as though her Blood Potency were two dots higher.

• Patagia: By growing a flap of leathery skin between her arms and torso, the vampire can glide — as long as she falls at least ten yards (ten meters), she can travel thirty yards (thirty meters) horizontally, and she takes no damage from the fall.

• Prehensile Tail: The vampire grows a long, prehensile tail. She can use it to grab things as though it were an extra arm, though it doesn’t have a hand and can’t be used for fine-motor tasks like unlocking a door or firing a gun.

• Quadripedal: Longer arms and shorter legs allow a vampire to run on all fours like a cheetah or wolf. When running on all fours, add +4 to her Speed and double all jump distances.

• Wall Crawling: The vampire grows hundreds of tiny insect legs, claws on his feet, or barbed hairs on his body that allow him to move freely across walls and ceilings without an Athletics roll.

A character can change her adaptations by spending a day in her Unmarked Grave and spending one point of Vitae for each adaptation she wants to replace. When she changes adaptation, the player should work to maintain the theme of a specific predatory creature — though she may pick a different predator to copy when the vampire’s adaptations change.
Beast’s Skin •••

The Beast can warp a vampire’s flesh, taking the form of an animal that she has consumed. Her body warps and shifts, growing extra muscle or folding in on itself until she fully resembles an animal she has consumed. The Beast will not give her the form of prey — her new skin must resonate with her predatory nature in some way.

Cost: 2 Vitae

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: Indefinite

Her flesh ripples and warps as the vampire takes on the form of an animal. She must have consumed the beast — killing it by feeding from it. She can only take on the form of predatory animals, carrion-eaters, plague-carrying beasts, and parasites between Size 1 and 7. A vampire can keep a number of forms ready equal to her dots in Protean; to add or replace one she must consume the appropriate beast then slumber for a full day and night in her Unmarked Grave.

In animal form, she takes on the beast’s Physical Attributes and Skills, and its Size, Speed, and Health. She can move and sense and attack in any way that the animal can — a shark can swim and bite and sense blood, while a rat can scurry and bite, and a crow can fly. She may be unable to use some Physical Merits at the Storyteller’s discretion. She can remain in her animal form indefinitely, but she still feels the need for blood burning within her, and sunlight still harms her. While in animal form, the vampire can use her Disciplines as normal.
Unnatural Aspect ••••

With her Beast boiling in her blood, the pathetic shell of the vampire’s human or animal form cannot contain it. Her flesh warps, twisting and cracking under the pressure. She manifests truly horrific changes — though they may be inspired by the animal kingdom, these features come from the Beast itself, rather than the pale shadows that walk the world.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: None

Action: None

Duration: Scene

When manifesting her Predatory Aspect, the vampire can spend an extra point of Vitae to produce a fourth feature, this one being her Beast made manifest. She can assume an adaptation from the following list; if none of these are suitable the player and Storyteller should work together to create an appropriate feature.

• Barbed Hands: Pushing out tiny barbs on her hands and arms, the vampire can grab her opponents with incredible ferocity. Add her Protean dots to all grappling dice pools. When choosing the Damage move in a grapple, the vampire deals lethal damage. These barbs enable very gory feeding in the middle of a fight, tearing the victim’s skin as she bites him.

• Hooked Hands: The vampire’s hands grow great hooked claws and other unnatural appendages that allow him to dig through soil and rock at up to half his Speed.

• Horrid Talons: By growing giant fangs or serrated talons, the vampire can deal horrific damage to anyone who gets in her way. These weapons give a +2 lethal weapon modifier on all Brawl attacks, and armor piercing 2. The damage is lethal even to vampires.

• Rubbery Flesh: Warping her flesh into a rubbery substance and her bones into flexible cartilage, the vampire can stretch, condense, and contort her body in impossible ways. She can fit through almost any gap more than an inch (two centimeters) across. If the contortion requires a roll — such as squeezing through a drain cover while someone’s shooting at her — add the vampire’s Protean dots to her dice pool.

• Wings: The vampire grows great wings of sharp bone and pale leathery skin. The vampire can fly at up to her full running Speed.

The vampire can replace her chosen Unnatural Aspect by sleeping for a full day and night in her Unmarked Grave and spending two points of Vitae.
Primeval Miasma •••••

The Beast bursts out from the vampire’s body, dissolving it into a cloud of hungry smoke. Occasionally, her victims can see flashes of yellow within the smoke, like the gleaming of eyes. Nothing short of an airtight room can bar her passage, and nothing physical can harm her.

Cost: 3 Vitae

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Taking on a smoke form gives the vampire a number of advantages. She can condense herself down to her human Size, or expand into a cloud of up to (Protean + Blood Potency) yards (meters) in diameter. She can move through pretty much anything that isn’t actively airtight, and floats at half her normal Speed. She can perceive inside the cloud of smoke as clearly as if she were looking with her human senses, but the world outside her form is blurred and muted. Her Kindred senses continue to function as normal.

In her smoke form, the vampire is immune to all harm that doesn’t come from fire, sunlight, or other banes that deal damage. If her smoke form is ever fully exposed to sunlight, she returns to her human form. Nothing else can force her back into her human form — as long as she avoids sunlight she can slumber in her Miasma form. It has all the same benefits as her Unmarked Grave, allowing the vampire to shift her adaptations and animal forms.

Other beings pass right through the smoke. If a victim has any open wounds, the vampire can feed from them just by having them enter her Miasma — the blood boils out of his wounds, evaporating in a flash of grey and yellow smoke. If she needs to feed and can’t find someone who is already bleeding, the vampire can instead force herself into the victim’s lungs with strands of semi-tangible smoke, stealing her life-force along with her breath (grapple and “bite” using her normal Physical Attributes).

### Resilience

The Kindred are walking corpses, free of the frailties of a mortal form. Their bodies are capable of great endurance, but Resilience harnesses the Beast to take that endurance beyond “great” and into “impossible.” With Resilience a vampire could continue to act even when his body has been reduced to little more than bone and tendon.

Cost: None or 1 Vitae per effect

Dice Pool: None

Action: None (for persistent effects) or Reflexive (for active effects)

Duration: Permanent (for persistent effects) or one turn (for active effects)

Like other physical Disciplines, Resilience has two kinds of effects: persistent and active. Persistent effects are always on, and have no cost. Active effects are Reflexive, and cost one Vitae per effect.

Persistent: Add the vampire’s dots in Resilience to his Stamina. This may raise a character’s Stamina above the normal limits imposed by his Blood Potency. Whenever he is dealt aggravated damage, for each dot of Resilience he possesses, downgrade one point of aggravated damage to lethal. This applies to damage from fire and all acquired banes, but not sunlight. Resilience offers no reprieve from the sun’s blazing eye.

Active: By spending Vitae a vampire can dismiss grievous wounds, even those from banes. For each point of Vitae spent, choose one effect from the following list. A vampire may spend additional Vitae to invoke multiple effects simultaneously, but no effect of Resilience may be used more than once per turn.

• Subtract his Resilience dots plus one from all non-bane sources of damage. Mechanically this is similar to armor, but does nothing to reduce the visual and superficial signs of injury. Removed damage appears to be dealt, but resisted wounds do not inhibit the vampire physically in any way, though in a social context they likely create some difficulties. All superficial wounds may be healed completely for one Vitae whenever he next slumbers. If an injury specifically removes a limb, an eye, or so on, the vampire does suffer logical impairments from the injuries. This method of reducing damage does make it more difficult to stake a vampire.

• Subtract his Resilience dots from all damage from fire or other acquired banes. Sunlight still remains beyond the power of Resilience to defend against. All superficial signs of damage remain: Even if a vampire lost no Health while dashing through an inferno, he still emerges a burnt corpse. In this case, however, the visible damage is only as severe as it would be for a mortal who’d suffered the same level of harm.

### Vigor

While all Kindred possess the power to bolster their might in short bursts, Vigor allows some vampires to kick like a freight train or rend steel with their bare hands. The Beast tunes every bone, tendon and muscle fiber to its highest performance , allowing the night’s most fearsome predator to strut through the jungle of his choosing without fear of lesser, weaker creatures.

Cost: None or 1 Vitae per active effect

Dice Pool: None

Action: None (for persistent effects) or Reflexive (for active effects)

Duration: Permanent (for persistent effects) or one turn (for active effects)

Like other physical Disciplines, Vigor has two kinds of effects: persistent and active. Persistent effects are always on, and have no cost. Active effects are Reflexive, and cost one Vitae per effect.

Persistent: Add the vampire’s dots in Vigor to her Strength. This can raise her Strength above the normal limits imposed by her Blood Potency. Additionally, the vampire may make a Strength + Athletics roll to jump. The yards (meters) jumped are equal to (successes) \* (Vigor dots + 1).

Active: By spending Vitae a vampire can energize her dead muscles, giving her a brief but substantial burst of strength. For each point of Vitae spent choose one effect from the following list. A vampire may spend additional Vitae to invoke multiple effects simultaneously, but no effect of Vigor may be used more than once per turn.

• Add her dots in Vigor as a weapon bonus to all Athletics, Brawl, and Weaponry attacks made this turn. This puts enormous strain on weapons, especially those not intended for heavy hitting. Improvised weapons take one point of damage for every dot of Vigor over that tool’s durability whenever they are used in this manner.

• Lift and hurl objects normally far too unwieldy to use as weapons, such as boulders, cars, and other people. Any object she can lift, with Size no greater than her Strength, can be used as an improvised melee or throwing weapon. Improvised weapons have a weapon bonus equal to the lower of their Size or Durability.

Objects with Size greater than 5 deal lethal damage to mortals, while those with Size 10 or more deal lethal even to vampires.