Powers Beyond Understanding: Advanced Disciplines

Most of the outrageous and terrifying vampire myths in the World of Darkness can be traced to uses of the vampiric powers known as Disciplines. Seemingly magical in their manifestation, Disciplines are a means by which vampires can manipulate vitae and the world around them to produce spectacular and often terrifying effects beyond the capabilities of mere mortals.

However, even among the unliving there is a hierarchy of power. Age and strength of blood limit most vampires to the first five levels of the Disciplines (and lineage makes some of those relatively weak abilities harder to learn than others). It is only with power and, more importantly, with proximity to Caine's generation, that the secrets of the higher level Disciplines (levels 6 through 9) are unlocked.

Below are the higher level Discipline powers for the powers normally associated with the Kindred of the Camarilla. Some Disciplines feature multiple powers at various levels; in such cases a vampire with enough experience to learn one of the choices simply picks one. If the character later decides she wants to pick up the other option as well, she can go back and spend the experience to do so.

It should be noted that the powers listed below could easily be abused and used to stomp a chronicle into a bloody pulp. These powers are, for lack of a better word, powerful , and should be used with discretion and caution. It should take a great deal of hard work and effort (and by "a great deal," we mean the in-play equivalent of decades or centuries) to master these hideously potent tricks; Level Five Discipline powers wreak quite enough havoc already. Storytellers should think long and hard about allowing high-level Disciplines into their games (even if the characters are of an appropriate generation to learn them) before giving the go-ahead, and they should always remember that use of powers like Species Speech mark the wielder as being ancient, powerful � and possibly worth diablerizing.

Roll Your Own

The powers presented below are the most common high-level variations of the vampiric Disciplines, but are by no means the only ones. Once a vampire has sufficient skill and power to learn powers of Level Six and above, she also gains a sufficient understanding of her Discipline's essential nature to allow her to create her own powers. That does not mean that a seventh-generation vampire can suddenly start spewing forth random manifestations of Obfuscate, but rather that she has the ability to craft a new Level Six power and purchase it with experience instead of one of the more common options.

Any new power that a character creates should be cleared with the Storyteller before it ever sees the light of play. Power level, game balance and appropriateness within the bounds of the campaign should be the criteria by which the proposed power should be judged. A Storyteller should feel free to veto a proposed power at any time in the best interests of the game. Just because a character has the potential to create a new power doesn't mean that she can actually do it.

Note: Some Disciplines have more options listed below than others. The disparity does not mean that some are more versatile than others. Rather, it means that there are more commonly known applications of certain Disciplines than there are of others.

For Example

Halfdan Forkbeard, an English Brujah, manages, by dint of perseverance and taking the prize on several blood hunts, to achieve Seventh Generation. Having a huge backlog of experience, he decides that he immediately wants to purchase a Level Six Presence power. However, scanning down the list of choices, Halfdan's player decides he doesn't like any of the available options. Instead, he decides to cook up his own variation of Presence 6, one that he calls Blind Obedience and that in essence turns everyone in a half-mile radius of the character into a screaming groupie. The player writes up a treatment of the power, including duration, cost, effects and so on, and presents it to his Storyteller, who feels that as written it's a trifle overpowered. He suggests that Halfdan instead learn Paralyzing Stare and continue to work on "refining" Blind Obedience, which he'll be glad to take another look at in a few months. Halfdan's player grumbles, but follows the suggestion and immediately gets to work trying to create a less powerful, more appropriate version of the power.

For Example

Ariadne, a sixth-generation Gangrel archon, has finally scraped together enough experience to acquire an Animalism 6 power, and is presented with option of choosing from among Animal Succulence, Shared Soul and Species Speech. As Ariadne's modus operandi involves moving around a lot, meaning that feeding opportunities can sometimes get scarce, Ariadne's player decides that she needs to take Animal Succulence to maximize the chances her character does get. She marks off the experience, adds the dots and moves on.

A few months of gameplay later, Ariadne has once again managed to rack up an impressive amount of experience. She has enough to purchase a seventh-level power, but decides that Species Speech would give her more options when she ventures into cities (all those rats to put to work, you know). So the Gangrel's player marks off the experience necessary to pick up another sixth-level Discipline instead of a seventh-level one and writes Species Speech down on the character sheet. Ariadne now has two Level Six Discipline powers, plus a little bit of experience left over.

High Level Disciplines

Discipline Level	Cost (Clan Discipline)	Cost (Non-Clan Discipline)
6	30	42
7	35	49
8	40	56
9	45	63

Level 10 Disciplines are only available to vampires of the Third Generation, an exalted state which players' characters are unlikely ever to attain.

Animalism

Most vampires find the blood of animals flat, tasteless and lacking in nutritional value. Some Gangrel and Nosferatu, however, have refined their understanding of the spirits of such "lesser prey" to the point that they are able to draw much more sustenance from beasts than normal Kindred can. This power does not allow an elder to subsist solely on the blood of animals, but it does allow him to go for extended periods of time without taking vitae from humans or other Kindred.

System: No roll is needed; once learned, this power is always in effect. Animal Succulence allows a character to count each blood point drawn from an animal as two in her blood pool. This does not increase the size of the vampire's blood pool, just the nutritional value of animal blood.

Animal Succulence does not allow a character to completely ignore his craving for the blood of "higher" prey; in fact, it heightens his desire for "real food." Every three times (rounded down) the character drinks from an animal, a cumulative +1 difficulty is applied to the next Self-Control roll the player makes when the character is confronted with the possibility of dining on human or Kindred blood.

Animal Succulence does not increase the blood point value of other supernatural creatures (Gangrel, mages, pookas, werecreatures) who have taken animal forms.

This power allows a character to probe the mind of any one animal within reach. Shared Soul can be very disconcerting to both parties involved, as each participant is completely immersed in the thoughts and emotions of the other. With enough effort or time, each participant can gain a complete understanding of the other's mind. Shared Soul is most often used to extract an animal's memories of a specific event, but some Gangrel use this power as a tool in the search for enlightenment, feeling they come to a better understanding of their own Beasts through rapport with true beasts. Too close of a bond, however, can leave the two souls entangled after the sharing ends, causing the vampire to adopt mannerisms, behavior patterns or even ethics (or lack thereof) similar to those of the animal.

For Example

Malenkov the Gangrel has fed happily from the herd of deer that forages around his haven 10 times. Venturing into the city for an appointment in Elysium, he comes across the scene of a gun battle and spots a puddle of spilled human blood on the ground. Malenkov's Self-Control roll to keep from diving in and gorging on the blood is made at +3 difficulty. His player rolls well, and Malenkov is sufficiently self-possessed to move on, but next time he might not be so lucky.

System: The character touches the intended subject creature, and the player rolls Perception + Animal Ken (difficulty 6). The player spends a Willpower point for every turn past the first that contact is maintained. Locating a specific memory takes six turns, minus one turn for every success on the roll. A complete bond takes 10 turns, minus one turn for every success on the roll. A botch on this roll may, at the Storyteller's discretion, send the vampire into a frenzy or give the character a derangement related to the behavior patterns of the animal (extreme cowardice if the vampire contacted the soul of a mouse, bloodlust if the subject was a rabid dog, and so forth).

The basic power Sweet Whispers (Animalism 1) allows a character to communicate with only one animal at a time. With Species Speech, a character can enter into psychic communion with all creatures of a certain species that are present. Species Speech is most often used after an application of The Beckoning (Animalism 2), which draws a crowd of likely subjects.

System: The player rolls Manipulation + Animal Ken (difficulty 7) to establish contact with the targeted group of animals. Once the character establishes contact, the player makes a second roll to issue commands. There is no practical upper limit on the number of animals that can be commanded with this power, although all of the intended subjects must be in the vampire's immediate vicinity. Only one species of animal can be commanded at a time; thus, if a character is standing in the middle of the reptile house at the zoo, she could command all of the Komodo dragons, all of the boa constrictors or all of the skinks, but she could not simultaneously give orders to every reptile or snake present. Species Speech functions much like Sweet Whispers in all other respects.

(Note: Players who get too wrapped up in the species difference between northern diamondback rattlesnakes and southeastern diamondback rattlesnakes need to relax and let the point go. At Storyteller discretion, the expenditure of a additional Willpower point allows the character's commands to extend to members of a similar species to the one initially commanded.)

Masters of Animalism have a much greater understanding of both beasts in general and the Beast in particular. Those who have developed this power can master their own Beasts to a degree impossible for lesser Kindred to attain. Conquer the Beast allows the vampire both to control her frenzies and also to enter them at will. Some elders say that the development of this power is one of the first steps on the road to Golconda.

System: The character can enter frenzy at will. The player rolls Willpower (difficulty 7). Success sends the character into a controlled frenzy. He can choose his targets at will, but gains limited Dominate and wound penalty resistance and R�tschreck immunity as per the normal frenzy rules. A botch on the roll sends the vampire into an uncontrolled frenzy which Conquer the Beast may not be used to end.

The player may also roll Willpower (difficulty 9) to enable the character to control an involuntary frenzy. In this case, a Willpower point must be spent for every turn that the vampire remains in frenzy. The player may make Self-Control rolls as normal to end a frenzy, but if the vampire runs out of Willpower points before the frenzy ends, he drops into an uncontrolled frenzy again. A botch on the Willpower roll raises the difficulty of the vampire's Self-Control rolls by two and renders Conquer the Beast unusable for the remainder of the night.

Some Kindred are so attuned to the Beast that they can unleash it in another individual at will. Vampires who have developed this power are able to send adversaries into frenzy with a finger's touch and the resultant, momentary contact with the victim's Beast. The physical contact allows the vampire's own Beast to reach out and awaken that of the victim, enraging it by threatening its spiritual territory.

System: The character touches the target. The player spends a Willpower point and rolls Manipulation + Empathy (difficulty 7). The victim makes a Self-Control roll (difficulty 5 + the number of successes); failure results in an immediate frenzy, with standard rules applying. A botch causes the character to unleash his own Beast and frenzy instead. This power may be used on those individuals who are normally incapable of frenzy, sending ordinary humans into murderous rages worthy of the bloodthirstiest Brujah berserker.

The self-destructive nature of Cainites can be turned against them by an elder who possesses this formidable power. With a glance, the vampire can awaken the Beasts of her enemies, causing physical injury and excruciating agony as the victim's own violent impulses manifest in physical form to tear him apart from within. A target of this power erupts into a fountain of blood and gore as claw and bite wounds from an invisible source spontaneously tear his flesh asunder.

System: The character makes eye contact with the intended victim. The player spends three blood points and rolls Manipulation + Intimidation (difficulty of the victim's Self-Control + 4). Each success inflicts one health level of lethal damage, which can be soaked normally. A botch inflicts one health level of lethal damage on the character for each "1" rolled. This damage can also be soaked normally.

Auspex

By using Clairvoyance, a vampire can perceive distant events without using Psychic Projection. By concentrating on a familiar person, place or object, a character can observe the subject's immediate vicinity while staying aware of her own surroundings.

System: The player rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty 6) and describes the target she's trying to look in on. If the roll is successful, the character can then perceive the events and environment surrounding the desired target for one turn per success. Other Auspex powers may be used on the scene being viewed; these are rolled normally. Clairvoyance does split the vampire's perceptions between what she is viewing at a distance and what is taking place around her. As a result, while using this power, a character is at +3 difficulty on all rolls relating to actions that affect her physical surroundings.

Some people are capable of finishing their friends' sentences. Elder vampires with Prediction sometimes begin their friends' sentences. Prediction is a constant low-level telepathic scan of the minds of everyone the character is in proximity to. While this power does not give the vampire the details of his neighbors' conscious thoughts, it does provide a wealth of cues as to the subjects' moods, suppressed reflexes and attitudes toward the topic of conversation.

System: Whenever the character is in conversation and either participant in the discussion makes a Social roll, the player may pre-empt the roll to spend a blood point and make a Perception + Empathy roll (difficulty of the target's Manipulation + Subterfuge). Each success is an additional die that can be applied to the player's Social roll or subtracted from the dice pool of the Social roll being made against the character.

Telepathy (Auspex 4) allows a character to pick up only the surface thoughts of other individuals, and to speak to one at a time. With Telepathic Communication, a character can form a link between his mind and that of other subjects, allowing them to converse in words, concepts and sensory images at the speed of thought. Vampires with this level of Auspex can act as "switchboard operators," creating a telepathic web that allows all participants to share thoughts with some or all other members of the network as they choose.

System: The player rolls Charisma + Empathy (difficulty of the target's current Willpower) to establish contact, although a willing subject may allow the vampire access and thus obviate the need for a roll. The maximum range at which a subject may be contacted and the maximum number of individuals who may be linked simultaneously with this power depends on the Auspex rating of the vampire who initiates contact.

The power of Aura Perception (Auspex 2) allows a vampire to take a brief glimpse at the soul of a subject. This power takes Aura Perception several steps forward, allowing a vampire who has mastered Auspex 2 to probe the inner workings of a subject's mind and soul. Knowledge acquired in this fashion can be used in many ways, and a vampire who has developed this power is undoubtedly familiar with all of them.

System: The player rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty of the subject's permanent Willpower). The degree of success determines the information gained.

This power was developed by a Toreador elder who made a fearsome reputation through her fencing prowess, acting as a hired champion in dozens of Ventrue duels. Mirror Reflex is similar to Prediction in that it is in essence a low-level telepathic scan of an opponent, but this power taps into physical (rather than social) reflexes, allowing the character to anticipate an enemy's moves in personal combat.

System: The player spends a blood point and rolls Perception + the combat skill the opponent is using (difficulty of the subject's Manipulation + combat skill in use). Each success is an additional die that can be applied to the character's dice pools during the next turn of combat for any actions taken against the scanned opponent. The use of Mirror Reflex does take one combat action, and the power has a maximum range in yards equal to the character's Willpower rating.

Psychic Assault is nothing less than a direct mind-to-mind attack which uses the sheer force of an elder's will to overpower his target. Victims of Psychic Assault show little outward sign of the attack, save for nosebleeds and expressions of intense agony; all injuries by means of this psychic pressure inflicted are internal. A medical examination of a mortal victim of a Psychic Assault invariably shows the cause of death to be a heart attack or aneurysm, while vampires killed with this power decay to dust instantly, regardless of age.

System: The character must touch or make eye contact with his target. The player spends three blood points (and a Willpower point, if assaulting a vampire or other supernatural being) and rolls Manipulation + Intimidation in an contested roll against the victim's permanent Willpower. The result depends on the number of net successes the attacker rolls.

Any result that causes the victim to lose his last temporary Willpower point also renders him unconscious for the rest of the night.

Possibly the source of many Malkavians' conviction that their sire is alive and well on the astral plane, this power allows a Methuselah's spirit to leave his body while in torpor. While seemingly asleep, the vampire is able to project astrally, think and perceive events normally.

System: No roll is needed. This power is considered to be active whenever the vampire's body is in torpor, and astral travels are handled as per the rules for Psychic Projection (Auspex 5). The vampire may not be able to awaken physically at will, however � waking from torpor is handled per the normal rules for such an action (see p. 216, Vampire: The Masquerade ).

A vampire with this power whose silver cord is severed in astral combat loses all Willpower points, as per the rules for astral combat under Psychic Projection (Vampire: The Masquerade, pp. 152), but is not killed. Instead, he loses the use of this Auspex power and half of his permanent Willpower points. Both the Auspex 9 power and the Willpower must be bought back with experience points. The vampire's soul slowly returns to his body over the course of a year and a day, during which time he may not be awakened from torpor by any means.

Celerity

Few Kindred can even conceive of any use for Celerity other than that of speeding up one's actions so that one might pop off a few more TEC-9 rounds in combat. While that approach is all well and good, there are other potential applications of the power available to ancient, learned or clever vampires.

Under normal circumstances, advanced mastery of Celerity means that the normal progression of powers predominates. Unless the character makes a special effort to learn an alternate power or to create one, each additional level of the power from 6 to 9 means that once the Discipline is activated, the vampire simply receives another additional action per turn.

If, however, the vampire chooses to take an alternate power, she forfeits that normal progression (which can later be made up through experience) and takes the new manifestation of Celerity instead. She does not gain the extra action in addition to the special power; it's an either/or situation.

Note: Yes, there are fewer alternate Celerity powers listed than there are for any other Discipline (save Potence and Fortitude). No, this is not an oversight � there has been less impetus for practitioners of these three Disciplines to develop variations than there has been on masters of, say, Auspex.

Despite the fact that a vampire with Celerity moves at incredible speeds, by some quirk of metaphysics any bullets he fires or knives he throws while in this state don't move any faster than they normally would. Scientifically minded Kindred have been baffled by the phenomenon for centuries, but more pragmatic ones have found a way to work around it. Projectile enables a vampire to take his preternatural speed and transfer it into something he has thrown, fired or launched.

System: Projectile requires the expenditure of a blood point. In addition, the player must decide how many levels of his character's Celerity he is putting into the speed of the launched object. Thus, a character with Celerity 6 in addition to Projectile could decide to put three dots' worth of speed into a knife he is throwing, and use the other three dots as extra actions as per normal. Each dot of Celerity infused into a thrown object becomes an automatic success on the attack's damage roll, assuming the knife/hatchet/spear/bullet actually hits.

For Example

Dominic Atter, a seventh-generation Toreador with a taste for trouble, scrapes together enough experience to increase his Celerity expertise to Level Six. However, he decides he wants the alternate Level Six power, Projectile, instead. After spending the experience to pick up Projectile, Dominic is now in a position (once he activates his Celerity) to take five extra actions per turn, or to use his preternatural speed to hurl knives, shurikens or whatever else comes to hand with deadly velocity.

In combat, as in all things, speed kills. A proper application of Celerity in combat can turn even the meekest Cainite into a walking abattoir. How much more deadly, then, is a vampire with the ability to utilize his preternatural speed to the utmost in combat? The answer to that question is "Rather a lot." Flower of Death allows a vampire to take his Celerity and apply it in full to each hand-to-hand or melee attack he makes.

System: Flower of Death costs four blood points, but the spectacular effect is well worth it. Once the power is in effect, a number of dice equal to the vampire's normal Celerity rating gets added to every dice pool for attack the character makes until the end of the scene. The effect is limited to hand-to-hand or melee weapon attacks � firearms, bows and whatnot are excluded � and does not grant the attacker additional dice for damage rolls.

Flower of Death is not cumulative � it is impossible to "layer" uses of the power over one another to create astronomical dice pools.

Zephyr produces an effect vaguely similar to one of the legendary comic book-style uses of enhanced speed, allowing its practitioner to run so fast he can run across water (he's moving so fast he doesn't have time to sink). Particularly successful applications of Zephyr allow a vampire to go so far as to run up walls and, in at least one recorded instance, across a ceiling, though the latter is more of a parlor trick than anything else.

System: Zephyr requires the expenditure of a point each of blood and Willpower. Unfortunately, Zephyr requires such extremes of concentration that it cannot be combined with any form of attack, or indeed, with most any sort of action at all. If a character using Zephyr feels the need to do something else while moving at such tremendous speeds, a Willpower roll (difficulty 8) is required. Needless to say, botches at Zephyr speed can be spectacular in all the wrong ways.

Most times, a vampire moving at such a rate of speed is barely visible, appearing more as a vampire-shaped blur than anything else. Observers must succeed on a Perception + Alertness roll (difficulty 7) to get even a decent look at a Kindred zooming past in this fashion.

Dominate

Any vampire with Dominate 6 or higher may employ Dominate upon a character with the Merit Iron Will , "burning through" the defender's barriers. An Iron Willed character may spend a Willpower point to raise the difficulty of a Dominate attempt by +2 if the attacker has Dominate 6, or by +1 if he has Dominate 7. Iron Will provides no benefit whatsoever against the commands of a character with Dominate 8 or higher.

Not content with merely commanding their subjects, some elders apply this power to ensure obedience from recalcitrant victims. Chain the Psyche is a Dominate technique that inflicts incapacitating pain on a target who attempts to break the vampire's commands.

System: The player spends a blood point when her character applies Dominate to a subject. Any attempt that the subject makes to go against the vampire's implanted commands or to recover stolen memories causes intense pain. When such an attempt is made, the Storyteller rolls the character's Manipulation + Intimidation (difficulty of the subject's Stamina + Empathy). Each success equals one turn that the victim is unable to act, as she is wracked with agony. Each application of Chain the Psyche crushes a number of resistance attempts equal to the character's Manipulation rating, after which the effect fades.

With this power in effect, the elder's Dominate is so strong that other vampires find it almost impossible to break with their own commands. Despite the name, Loyalty instills no special feelings in the victim - the vampire's commands are simply implanted far more deeply than normal.

System: Any other vampire attempting to employ Dominate on a subject who has been Dominated by a vampire with Loyalty must spend an additional Willpower point and make all rolls to do so at +3 difficulty.

While most Kindred must employ Dominate through eye contact, some powerful elders may command loyalty with the lightest brush of a hand.

System: The character can employ all Dominate powers through touch instead of eye contact (although eye contact still works). Skin contact is necessary - simply touching the target's clothing or something she is holding will not suffice. The touch does not have to be maintained for the full time it takes to issue a Dominate command, though repeated attempts to Dominate a single target require the character to touch the subject again.

A truly skilled elder may command small crowds through the use of this power. By manipulating the strongest minds within a given group, a gathering may be directed to the vampire's will.

System: The player declares that he is using this power before rolling for the use of another Dominate power. The difficulty of the roll is that which would be required to Dominate the most resistant member of the target group - if he cannot be Dominated, no one in his immediate vicinity can. For every success past that needed to inflict the desired result on the first target, the player may choose one additional target to receive the same effect in its entirety. The vampire needs to make eye contact only with the initial target.

For Example

Domingo is of the Fourth Generation. He wants to command his immediate progeny and their childer to protect the city under which he will soon enter torpor. Domingo's player rolls for the use of this power against a difficulty of 6 (4 + the two generations to whom the command goes out). He succeeds, and members of his brood begins manipulating mortal affairs to ensure the prosperity of Domingo's new home. Several of them take up the reins of power, becoming princes of nearby cities, and all believe that they are acting independently - whimsy or fate made them choose to settle where they did.

Several centuries later, Domingo awakens (in a much larger city, by this point). He soon learns that a close friend of his was destroyed by the Tremere while he slumbered. Overcome with rage, he orders every descendant of his to make the destruction of Clan Tremere an immediate priority, down to those neonates of the 14th Generation. This command spans 10 generations, fifth down to 14th, and thus the difficulty is 14 (4 + 10 generations), or difficulty 10 with five successes. Amazingly, the player rolls five 10s, and hundreds of vampires across the globe slowly begin harboring grudges against the Tremere. Maybe this explains why no one likes the Warlocks�.

Note: The above is an example for demonstration purposes only. It is not a mandate to create fourth-generation characters.

Despite its name, this power may be employed on vampires as well as mortals, and it has left more than one unfortunate victim writhing in agony - or unable to do even that. A vampire who has developed this power is able to override her victim's body as easily as his mind in order to cut off his senses or even stop his heart. It is rumored that this power once came more easily to the Kindred, but modern medicine has made the bodies and spirits of mortals more resistant to such manipulations.

System: The player rolls Manipulation + Medicine (difficulty of the target's Willpower + 2; a difficulty over 10 means that this power cannot affect the target at all). The effect lasts for one turn per success. The player must choose what function of the target's body is being cut off before rolling. She may affect any of the body's involuntary functions; breathing, circulation, perspiration, sight and hearing are all viable targets. While Still the Mortal Flesh is in effect, a vampire can either stop any one of those functions entirely or cause them to fluctuate erratically.

The exact effects of any given bodily function being shut off are left to the Storyteller. Most mortals panic if suddenly struck blind, but only the shutdown of the heart will kill a target instantly. Vampires are unaffected by loss of heartbeat or breathing, but may be rendered deaf and blind as easily as mortals.

This refinement of Obedience (though the character need not have learned Obedience first) allows the use of Dominate on any subject that the vampire is familiar with, at any time, over any distance. If the elder knows where his target is, he may issue commands as if he were standing face-to-face with his intended victim.

System: The player spends a Willpower point and rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty equal to the subject's Wits + Stealth) to establish contact. If this roll succeeds, Dominate may be used as if the character had established eye contact with the target. A second Willpower point must be spent in order for a vampire to use this power on another vampire or other supernatural being.

The power structures of Methuselahs extend across continents and centuries. This power is a powerful tool by which such ancients wield control over their descendants, even far outside their geographic spheres of influence. Speak Through the Blood allows an elder to issue commands to every vampire whose lineage returns to her - even if the two have never met. Thus, entire broods act to further the goals of sleeping ancients whose existences they are completely unaware of. The vampires affected by this power rarely act directly to pursue the command they were given, but over 10 or so years, their priorities slowly shift until the fulfillment of the Methuselah's command is among their long-term goals. Speak Through the Blood, because it takes effect so slowly, is rarely recognized as an outside influence, and its victims rationalize their behavior as "growing and changing," or something to that effect.

System: The player spends a permanent Willpower point and rolls Manipulation + Leadership. The difficulty of this roll is equal to four plus the number of generations to which the command is to be passed. Unless the character is aware of the location and present agenda of every descendant of his - a highly unlikely event - he may only issue general commands, such as "work for the greater glory of Clan Malkavian" or "destroy all those who seek to extinguish the light of knowledge." Speak Through the Blood can be used by a vampire in torpor. Commands issued through this power last for one decade per success on the roll. Difficulties over 10 require one additional success for each point past 10, making it that much more difficult to issue long-lasting commands stretching down to the ends of one's lineage.

A vampire who has reached Golconda is not affected by this power, and is completely unaware that it has been used. Her childer, however, are affected normally unless they are also enlightened. Ghouls of the victims of this power are also affected, but to a lesser extent than vampires.

Fortitude

Vampires have inhuman stamina by mortal standards, capable as they are of withstanding being repeatedly shot, stabbed, crushed, staked and otherwise brutalized without showing much wear. Then there are those Kindred whose powers of endurance cause even other vampires to marvel - or fear. A vampire with sufficient mastery of Fortitude is nigh-indestructible, able to withstand sunlight, flame and other perils that would quickly reduce a mere neonate to ash.

Kindred advance in Fortitude the same way they advance in Celerity, having the option to increase their basic mastery of the Discipline or to take an alternate power such as one of those detailed below.

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

System: With the expenditure of two blood points, a vampire can add preternatural hardness to his flesh. Every time an attack is made on the Kindred using Personal Armor (one which he does not dodge), his player rolls Fortitude (difficulty 8). If the roll grants more successes than the attacker rolled, then the weapon used to make the attack shatters against the vampire's flesh. (Fetishes, klaives, "magical" swords and so on may be resistant to this effect, at Storyteller discretion.) The vampire still takes normal damage if the attack is successful, even if the weapon shatters in the process; this damage may still be soaked. If the attack roll botches, any normal weapon automatically shatters.

A hand-to-hand attack causes the attacker equal damage to that suffered by the defender when Personal Armor comes into play. On a miss, the attacker takes one level of bashing damage.

It's one thing to laugh off bullets, rather another to watch the ricochets mow down everyone around you. Many Kindred have wished, at one time or another, that they could lend their monstrous vitality to those around them. Those few vampires who have mastered Shared Strength can - if only for a little while.

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

The target of this power need not be willing to accept the benefit to receive it. Particularly sadistic Kindred have come up with any number of ways in which a target's "devil's mark" and supernatural endurance can be used to land him in a great deal of trouble.

A vampire can never bestow more levels of Fortitude than he himself possesses on another.

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

Obfuscate

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

System: In order to activate this power, a character must be within 30 feet of the object to be concealed and the item must hold some personal significance. The Conceal power functions as Unseen Presence (Obfuscate 2) for purposes of detection, as well as the duration and durability of the disguise.

Conceal can be used on a vehicle in which the character is traveling. In this instance, traffic patterns seem to flow around the vehicle, and accidents are actually less likely as other drivers subconsciously maneuver away from the concealed auto. A police radar gun still registers a speeding car masked in this fashion, but the officer behind the gun is disinclined to make a traffic stop of the phantom blip. Using Conceal on aircraft is problematic, as the power's range generally doesn't extend far enough to cover air traffic controllers and the like.

For Example

Amelia has earned enough experience points to purchase Obfuscate 6, and chooses Soul Mask as her new power. As the character has no Auspex, she has never seen an actual aura and thus cannot duplicate one. As a result, her use of Soul Mask displays no aura at all. After some time, however, Amelia learns the second level of Auspex from a seemingly friendly Malkavian, and the player also socks away enough experience to purchase a second Level Six Obfuscate power. Now aware of how useful a misleading aura can be, she picks Soul Mask again, this time choosing to display the pure white aura of an innocent mortal child. Amelia can now choose to display her true aura, her "innocent" aura or no aura at all.

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

System: Any attempt to read or probe the character's mind first requires a successful Perception + Empathy roll (difficulty of the character's Wits + Stealth). Even if a potential intruder does succeed, his dice pool for the attempt itself is then limited to the number of successes he scored on the initial roll.

In addition to concealing her form, a vampire who has developed Soul Mask is able to conceal her aura. She may display whatever combination of colors and shades she wishes, or may appear to have no aura whatsoever. This power is of particular use to those of elder generation who have reached such heights of power through diablerie.

System: The use of this power allows the projection of only one aura (or lack thereof) - the vampire chooses the precise colors to be displayed when she first develops Soul Mask. If the character has no experience with the use of Aura Perception (Auspex 2), she may not choose an alternate aura, as she has no idea what one would look like, though she can still choose to display no aura whatsoever. Soul Mask can be bought multiple times, if desired, in order to give a vampire multiple alternate auras from which to choose.

Unless the player states otherwise, Soul Mask is always in effect. If the character has bought Soul Mask two or more times, her "default" aura displayed is the first one she learned.

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

System: A character must be within the normal required distance to initiate an Obfuscate power. Once this is done, the player spends a Willpower point, which activates Cache on top of the already functioning use of the Discipline. The concealment will now remain in effect as long as the vampire is within a distance equal to his Wits + Stealth in miles from the object or person he wishes to conceal. The enhanced concealment fades at the next sunrise, or breaks, as always, if the Obfuscate subject reveals himself.

This power's development is attributed to the Malkavians, but many Nosferatu have also found it to be highly useful. The Veil of Blissful Ignorance allows a vampire to Obfuscate an unwilling victim, removing him from the notice of others. Some Nosferatu use this power to teach a humbling lesson to individuals who take the presence and aid of others for granted, while others utilize it to remove an essential member of a group in the midst of a crisis.

System: The character must touch the victim to activate this power. The player spends a blood point and rolls Wits + Stealth (difficulty of the victim's Appearance + 3). If the roll is a success, the victim is subject to the effects of Vanish From the Mind's Eye for a length of time determined by the number of successes the player rolls.

The victim of Veil of Blissful Ignorance does not necessarily know that he is under the effect of this power. He is only aware that everyone around him has suddenly begun acting as if he were not there. The victim cannot break this effect, even with violence; if he attacks someone, the target ascribes the act to the visible individual nearest to him. More than one fatal brawl has been incited by this side-effect. The Veil persists even if the vampire who activated it leaves the area.

Curiously enough, Veil of Blissful Ignorance can never be used on anyone who is ready and willing to accept its effects.

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

System: The player rolls Manipulation + Acting (difficulty equal to the victim's Perception + Alertness, maximum 10). The more successes, the more convincing the impersonation. Each success also adds one die to all rolls involving the use of the Secondary Talent: Interrogation against the victim. This power only affects one victim at a time; other observers see the vampire as she truly is, unless she also establishes a Mask of a Thousand Faces in addition to using Old Friend.

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

System: A vampire working with Create Name must spend three hours a night in relatively uninterrupted quiet to establish a new personality by means of this power. The player makes an extended roll of Intelligence + Acting (difficulty 8), one roll per night. A total of 20 successes are necessary to construct a new identity, while a botch removes five successes from the vampire's total. Once a new identity has been successfully created, however, the character can step into it at any time without any sort of roll. Any outside observer without Auspex 9 or the equivalent sees the artificial identity. The character's face, aura, Nature, Demeanor, even thoughts and Psychological Merits and Flaws all appear to be those selected and crafted by the character.

For Example

Damon the Malkavian decides that he wants to play doctor, and creates for himself the identity of Dr. Fein, the noted cardiologist. When discussing matters medical with a gang of Brujah who don't know a coronary thrombosis from a cheeseburger, Damon's act is flawless. However, when a Tremere vivisectionist sidles up to the doctor for a little shop talk, with each sentence of technobabble that pours from Damon's mouth it becomes that much more likely that the Tremere is going to figure out something's up. The Storyteller decides to roll Perception + Alertness on behalf of the Tremere once for every three minutes of conversation, and on the third try, the Warlock's suspicions crystallize. Suddenly, the discussion has the potential to get ugly very quickly.

The only way to pierce this disguise, other than Auspex 9, is to notice any discrepancies between the assumed identity and the Abilities it by all rights ought to possess. A character with no dots in Medicine should have a hard time pulling off a created identity as a neurosurgeon, for example. The Storyteller should make a secret roll of Perception + Alertness (difficulty 9) for each character who should catch a slip made by the impostor.

Potence

While flesh and blood have their limits, undead sinews and vitae have a bit more latitude when it comes to feats of strength. Vampires who are close to Caine in descent are sometimes capable of strength-based maneuvers that awe even other vampires. A product of blood and will as much as of muscle and bone, mastery of Potence gives a vampire the ability to do far more than just lift progressively heavier objects - if the vampire himself is willing to learn an alternate way.

Advanced Potence powers can be purchased in the same fashion as advanced Celerity or Fortitude powers. A character can choose to learn an alternate power instead of advancing along the Discipline's normal progression, and can later go back and re-purchase what he's missed.

A vampire with extensive knowledge of Potence can squeeze very, very hard. As a matter of fact, she can squeeze (or press, or push) so hard that she can leave an imprint of her fingers or hand in any hard surface up to and including solid steel. A use of Imprint can simply serve as a threat, or it can be used, for example, to dig handholds into sheer surfaces for purposes of climbing.

System: Imprint requires a point of blood to activate. The power remains active for the duration of a scene. The depth of the imprint the vampire creates with Imprint is up to the Storyteller - decisions should take into account how much force the vampire can bring to bear, the toughness of the material and its thickness. If the object the vampire grasps is thin enough, at Storyteller option the vampire might simply be able to push through it (in the case of a wall) or tear it off (in the case of a spear or pipe).

According to some pundits, Potence is merely the art of hitting something very, very hard. But what do you do when your target is too far away to hit directly? The answer is, if you're sufficiently talented with the Discipline, to employ Earthshock. On its simplest level, Earthshock is the ability to hit the ground at point A, and subsequently have the force of the blow emerge from the ground at point B, some distance away.

System: The use of Earthshock requires the expenditure of two blood points, as well as a normal Dexterity + Brawl roll. The vampire punches (or stamps on, depending on personal style) the ground, and, if the attack is a success, the force of the blow emerges from the ground as a geyser of rock, stone and whatnot directly underneath the target. The attack can be dodged at a +2 difficulty, as it's a great deal more difficult to time a move away from an underground pulse than it is to duck a punch.

The range on Earthshock is 10 feet for every level of Potence the vampire has, up to the limits of visibility. A failure on the attack roll means that the strike goes errant and is liable to explode anywhere within range; a botch means that the vampire pulverizes the ground beneath him and may well dig himself into a hole in the process.

It is a truism that "the great ones always make it look easy." In the case of Flick, that saying stops being a truism and becomes literal truth. With this power, a master of Potence can make the slightest gesture - a wave, a snap of the fingers, the toss of a ball - and have it unleash the full, devastating impact of a dead-on strike. The attack can come without warning, limiting the target's ability to dodge or anticipate, and thus making Flick one of the most feared applications of Potence known.

System: Flick costs a point of blood, and mandates a Dexterity + Brawl roll (difficulty 6). It also requires that the vampire make some sort of gesture directing the blow. What the gesture is remains up to the player - anything from a snap of the fingers to a blown kiss has worked in the past.

Flick's range is equal to the limit of the Kindred's perception, and the blow struck does damage equal to a normal punch (including all bonuses).

Presence

Presence Overrides

Any vampire with Presence 6 or higher may employ Presence upon a character with the Merit Blase (see Clanbook: Toreador, p. 40), but at a +2 difficulty. Presence 7 reduces this to +1 difficulty, and Presence 8 or higher allows the character to apply Presence to Blase victims as if they did not possess the Merit at all.

The blood bond is one of the most powerful tools in an elder's inventory. However, more and more childer are aware of how to avoid being bound, so alternatives are needed. The Presence power called Love is one such alternative, as it simulates the effects of the bond without any of the messy side effects. While neither as sure a method of control as a true blood bond, nor as long-lasting, Love is still an extremely potent means of command.

System: The player rolls Charisma + Acting (difficulty equal to the target's Willpower). Success on the roll indicates that the victim feels as attached to the character as if he were blood bound to her. Each success also reduces the victim's dice pool by one die for any Social rolls to be made against the character. A botch makes the target immune to all of the character's Presence powers for the rest of the night. This power lasts for one scene and can be applied to the same victim over multiple scenes in the same night.

Some elders have honed their mastery of Dread Gaze (Presence 2) to such a degree that they are said to be able to slay with but a look. Paralyzing Glance is not quite as effective as all that, but its impact isn't anything to sneeze at, either. The power's name is something of a misnomer, as victims of this power are not precisely paralyzed in a physical sense, but rather frozen with sheer terror.

System: The character must make eye contact with her intended victim. The player then rolls Manipulation + Intimidation (difficulty equal to the target's Willpower). Success renders the victim so terrified that he falls into a whimpering catatonic state, unable to take any actions except curling into a fetal position and gibbering incoherently. The condition lasts for a length of time determined by the number of successes rolled. If the victim's life is directly threatened (by assault, impending sunrise, etc.), the poor wretch may attempt to break out of his paralysis with a Courage roll (difficulty of the character's Intimidation + 3). One success ends the paralysis. A botch sends the victim into a continuous state of R�tschreck for the rest of the night.

A vampire possessing this power can shorten tempers and bring old grudges and irritations to the boiling point with a minimum of effort. Spark of Rage causes disagreements and fights, and can even send other vampires into frenzy.

System: The player rolls Manipulation + Subterfuge (difficulty 8). The number of individuals affected is determined by how many successes are rolled. If this power is used in a crowd, those affected are the people in closest proximity to the character. A vampire affected by this power must spend a Willpower point or roll Self-Control (difficulty equal to the character's Manipulation + Subterfuge); failure sends the target into a frenzy. A botch sends the character into immediate frenzy.

Any elder knows that Kindred are the most difficult beings in existence to force to work together. Peaceful coexistence is not a common tenet of vampiric society. With that in mind, this power can be used to nudge those affected by it into a fragile spirit of camaraderie. Some cynical (or realistic) Ventrue claim that their clan's mastery of this Presence effect is the sole reason that anything is ever accomplished in Camarilla conclaves. Ventrue who voice this opinion too loudly also tend to have numerous chances to test just how effective Cooperation is.

System: To invoke Cooperation, the player rolls Charisma + Leadership (difficulty 8). The number of individuals affected is determined by how many successes the player rolls. Cooperation lasts for the remainder of the scene in which it is invoked, though particularly strong users of Presence may create longer-lasting feelings of non-aggression (at Storyteller discretion) by spending Willpower. While this power is in affect, all those under its influence are more favorably disposed toward one another and are more willing to extend trust or make cooperative plans.

For the most part, players should simply roleplay Cooperation's effects, but there are some concrete ramifications to the power's use. Self-Control difficulties to resist frenzy in response to insults from within the target group are decreased by three. The game effects of appropriate Intolerance Flaws are removed, and Hatred Flaws are treated as if they were Intolerances.

Any individual can normally resist the powers of Presence for a brief time through an effort of will. Some elder Toreador and Ventrue have developed such force of personality that their powers of Presence cannot be resisted without truly heroic efforts.

System: This power is always in effect once it has been learned. A mortal may not spend Willpower to resist the character's Presence (For purposes of this power, the definition of "mortal" does not include supernaturally active humans such as ghouls, hedge magicians or those who possess True Faith). A supernatural being must roll Willpower (difficulty of the character's Willpower + 2; difficulties over 10 mean that the roll cannot even be attempted) the first time he attempts to spend a Willpower point to overcome the character's Presence. He may then spend a maximum number of Willpower points for the rest of the scene equal to the number of successes he rolled. A botch doubles the character's Presence dice pools against the hapless victim for the remainder of the night.

A Methuselah who has developed her Presence to this terrifying degree can control the emotional climate of the entire region around her, up to the size of a large city. This power is always in effect on a low level, attuning those who dwell in the area to the Methuselah's mood, but it can also be used to project a specific emotion into the minds of every being in the area. Pulse of the City affects residents much more strongly than tourists, and also has a significant impact on those individuals who might be elsewhere at the time but who still have strong ties to the affected city.

System: The player spends a Willpower point and rolls Charisma + Area Knowledge (difficulty 10, and the Area Knowledge used must apply to the city or region in which the power is being used). The number of successes indicates how long mortal residents are affected by the particular emotion that the character broadcasts; visitors with no ties to the area and supernatural beings are affected for a duration one success step lower. The character can choose to terminate this effect at any time before it expires.

Protean

An Earth Melded character with this power is no longer confined to the resting place she selected the night before. She can pass through the ground as if it were water, "swimming" through the earth itself. Some elders use this as a means of unobstructed and unobtrusive travel, while others find it a highly effective means of maneuvering in combat.

System: This power is in effect whenever a character is Earth Melded, with no additional roll or expenditure necessary. While in the ground, a vampire can propel herself at half of her normal walking speed. She cannot see, but gains a supernatural awareness of her underground surroundings out to a range of 50 yards. Water, rock, tree roots and cement all effectively block her progress; she can only move through earth and substances of similar consistency, such as sand or fine gravel. If two or more vampires attempt to interact underground, only direct physical contact is possible. All damage dice pools in this case are halved, and dodge and parry attempts are at -2 difficulty. If an underground chase takes place, it is resolved with an extended contested Strength + Athletics roll (see p. 194 of Vampire: The Masquerade).

Tales have long spoken of the combat prowess of Gangrel elders and of their inhuman resilience. Poorly informed individuals believe the stories of swords shattering and bullets flattening against immortal skin to be exaggerated reports of the effects of Fortitude. Those with more reliable information know that such tales result from encounters with Gangrel who have developed Flesh of Marble. The skin of an elder with Flesh of Marble becomes in essence a sort of flexible stone, although it appears no different than normal skin and muscle. Indeed, flesh transformed thus even feels normal to a casual touch.

System: The player spends three blood points to activate Flesh of Marble, which goes into effect instantly. The effects of the power then last for the remainder of the scene. While the power is functioning, the damage dice pools of all physical attacks made against the character are halved (round down). That includes assaults made with fists, claws, swords, firearms and explosions, but not fire, sunlight or magic (unless the magical effect in question is a direct physical attack, such as a rock hurled by means of Movement of the Mind). Additionally, while this power is in effect, a character can attempt to parry melee attacks with his bare hands as if he were holding some form of weapon.

The Gangrel are of two opinions regarding this power. Those who are politically active, or who associate extensively with mortals, view it as both necessary and acceptable. Those Kindred who embrace their more feral sides, however, see it as a disgusting defiance of the very nature of vampirism. The schism comes because the power allows the elder who possesses it to temporarily return his appearance to what it was before the Embrace, removing the bestial features he has accumulated over the centuries. Restore the Mortal Visage has only been displayed by Gangrel; several Nosferatu elders have attempted to develop it, and it is whispered that they met spontaneous, grotesque Final Deaths when they attempted to take their mortal forms.

System: The player spends three blood points and a Willpower point and rolls Willpower (difficulty 8). Success restores the character's appearance to what it was just before he was first Embraced, erasing all animalistic features gained from frenzies. The power also affects the character's Social Attributes, returning them to their original values (assuming those were higher than the character's current ratings). A botched Willpower roll earns the character another animal feature. Restore the Mortal Visage lasts for the remainder of the scene once activated.

Users of this power are often mistaken for Tzimisce employing the Vicissitude power Horrid Form. The base effect is similar, although no Gangrel who possesses this power takes such a suggestion lightly. A vampire employing this power shifts into a huge, monstrous form, gaining half her height again and tripling her weight. Her overall shape flows into an unholy amalgamation of her own form and that of the animal she feels the closest kinship to (wolves, rats and great cats are the most common manifestations, though ravens, serpents, bats and stranger beasts have been reported). The vampire's new shape does bear some vague resemblance to the war-forms of the werecreatures, but the difference quickly becomes apparent.

System: The player spends three blood points, the expenditure of which triggers the change. The character's transformation takes three turns (the player may spend additional blood points to reduce this time at a cost of one point per turn of reduction). Once transformed, the character remains in this form until sunrise or until she shifts back voluntarily.

The precise Traits of this form are determined when the character first learns this power, as is the animal whose appearance the character takes on. The vampire's new form adds a total of seven dots added to the character's Physical Attributes. At least one dot must go into each Physical Attribute, meaning that no more than five can go into any one (so a character could have +5 Strength, +1 Dexterity, and +1 Stamina, but not +2 Strength and +5 Dexterity). These bonuses are always the same once they are selected; a different allocation requires that the character buy this power a second time and thus purchase another alternate form. Additionally, the character inflicts Strength + two dice of aggravated damage with both bite and claw attacks when in monstrous form. She also gains an extra Hurt health level, and doubles her normal running speed. Finally, the character's perceptions are also heightened. She is assumed to have both the Auspex power Heightened Senses and the Protean power Eyes of the Beast after transformation, with all of the benefits and drawbacks of each.

This form does carry two drawbacks. The first is a lack of communication ability. The character's Social Attributes all drop to 1, or to 0 if they already were 1 (except when making Intimidation rolls) when the transformation occurs. The second problem that a character in this form encounters is the suddenly heightened power of her Beast. All difficulties of rolls to resist frenzy are increased by two for the duration of the power's effect, and the player may not spend Willpower points on such rolls.

This powerful variation on Mist Form (Protean 5) allows a Gangrel to take a shape with most of the advantages of the lesser power but fewer of the disadvantages. A vampire who assumes Spectral Form retains his normal appearance, but becomes completely insubstantial. He walks through walls and bullets with equal ease, and can pass through the floor on which he stands if he chooses to. Although his lungs are no longer solid, the vampire can still speak, a fact in which some elders of the Daughters of Cacophony bloodline have expressed great interest.

System: The player spends three blood points. The transformation takes one turn to complete, and lasts for the rest of the night unless the character decides to reverse it. When the power takes hold, the character becomes completely insubstantial, but remains fully visible. Henceforth, he is unaffected by any physical attacks, and he doubles his dice pool to soak damage from fire and sunlight. The vampire may even ignore gravity if he chooses to do so, rising and sinking through solid objects if he does not wish to stand on them (although he may move no faster than his normal walking speed while "flying" in this manner). While in this form, the character may also use any Disciplines that do not require physical contact or a physical body. On the down side, while in Spectral Form a vampire can physically manipulate his environment only through the use of Movement of the Mind.

Camarilla records indicate that a disproportionately small number of Gangrel elders were killed by mortals and anarchs during the Inquisition and the Anarch Revolt. This power is one of the primary reasons for the survival of these Kindred. Until recently, the clan practiced a less powerful version of Purify the Impaled Breast, one which only allowed very limited movement. In recent nights, knowledge of a long-lost, stronger version of the power has been disseminated through the clan. An elder Gangrel with this Protean power can expel foreign objects from her body with great force, even excising stakes that transfix her heart.

System: The player spends three blood points and rolls Willpower (difficulty 6, or 8 if the vampire is paralyzed by an object impaling her heart). One success is sufficient to remove all foreign objects and substances from the character's body. Dirt, bullets, even stakes through the heart are instantly and violently removed. The larger the object, the farther away it is hurled by this power. Objects expelled thus are considered to have an attack dice pool of three for any bystanders, and to have a dice pool of one to four (depending on size) for damage.

If the character wishes to leave an object in his body (such as a prosthetic limb) or partially in (expelling a stake from his heart but leaving it sticking out of his breastbone as a ruse), the player must spend a Willpower point when this power is activated.

This power has no outwardly visible effects whatsoever. Indeed, its very existence is unknown outside those dozen or so Gangrel Methuselahs who have developed it. The internal effects of this razor-sharp honing of Protean, however, are in some ways more dramatic than any external manifestation. A vampire with this power can heighten the efficiency of his undead body's internal workings to levels undreamed of by lesser Kindred, withstanding inconceivable amounts of injury and moving with blinding speed and shattering strength.

System: The player spends four blood points to activate this power and an additional two blood points for every turn past the first that Inward Focus is maintained. There are three effects of this power. First, the character gains a number of extra actions during each turn equal to his unmodified (by alternate forms or blood point expenditure) Dexterity score. Second, the damage of his physical attacks is increased by three dice per dice pool. Finally, all damage inflicted on the character is halved and rounded down after the soak roll is made (so an attack that inflicts five health levels after soak is reduced to two health levels).

This power may be used in conjunction with other Protean powers that modify the character's combat abilities, such as Shape of the Beast's Wrath (above). It may also be used in conjunction with Celerity, Fortitude and Potence, turning a Gangrel who has mastered this power into a truly terrifying opponent.

Thaumaturgy

The following thaumaturgical paths are practiced primarily by Camarilla Tremere thaumaturges. They may be available to other thaumaturgical practitioners, such as Tremere antitribu or Assamites, at the Storyteller's discretion, but are highly uncommon and may be imperfectly taught (+1 difficulty to all uses of the path). All of the following paths use the basic system described in Vampire: The Masquerade: the player spends a blood point and rolls Willpower (difficulty of the power's level + 3). A failure indicates that the blood magic does not work. A botch indicates that the character loses a permanent Willpower point.

Path of Elemental Mastery

This path allows a thaumaturge limited control over and communion with inanimate objects. Mistakenly believed by many to be related to the four basic elements (earth, air, fire and water), this path is actually closer to an amalgamation of Spirit Thaumaturgy and the Path of Conjuring. Elemental Mastery can only be used to affect the unliving - a vampire could not cause a tree to walk by using Animate the Unmoving, for instance. Thaumaturges who seek mastery over living things generally study Biothaumaturgical Experimentation (see Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand) or the Green Path (below).

The vampire can draw upon the strength and resilience of the earth, or of the objects around him, to increase his physical prowess without the need for large amounts of blood.

System: The player allocates a total of three temporary bonus dots between the character's Strength and Stamina. The number of successes on the roll to activate the power are the number of turns these dots remain. The player may spend a Willpower point to increase this duration by one turn. This power cannot be "stacked" - one application must expire before the next can be made.

A vampire may speak, albeit in limited fashion, with the spirit of any inanimate object. The conversation may not be incredibly interesting, as most rocks and chairs have limited concern for what occurs around them, but the vampire can get at least a general impression of what the subject has "experienced." Note that events which are significant to a vampire may not be the same events that interest a lawn jockey.

System: The number of successes dictates the amount and relevance of the information that the character receives. One success may yield a boulder's memory of a forest fire, while three may indicate that it remembers a shadowy figure running past, and five will cause the rock to relate a precise description of a local Gangrel.

Objects affected by this power move as the vampire using it dictates. An object cannot take an action that would be completely inconceivable for something with its form - for instance, a door could not leap from its hinges and carry someone across a street. However, seemingly solid objects can become flexible within reason: Barstools can run with their legs, guns can twist out of their owners' hands or fire while holstered, and statues can move like normal humans.

System: This power requires the expenditure of a Willpower point with less than four successes on the roll. Each use of this power animates one object; the thaumaturge may simultaneously control a number of animate objects equal to his Intelligence rating. Objects animated by this power stay animated as long as they are within the caster's line of sight or up to an hour.

The vampire can take the shape of any inanimate object of a mass roughly equal to her own. A desk, a statue or a bicycle would be feasible, but a house or a pen would be beyond this power's capacity.

System: The number of successes determines how completely the character takes the shape she wishes to counterfeit. At least three successes are required for the character to use her senses or Disciplines while in her altered form. This power lasts for the remainder of the night, although the character may return to her normal form at will.

A vampire may summon one of the traditional spirits of the elements: a salamander (fire), a sylph (air), a gnome (earth) or an undine (water). Some Tremere claim to have contacted elemental spirits of glass, electricity, blood and even atomic energy, but such reports remain unconfirmed (even as their authors are summoned to Vienna for questioning). The thaumaturge may choose what type of elemental he wishes to summon and command.

System: The character must be near some quantity of the classical element corresponding to the spirit he wishes to invoke. The spirit invoked may or may not actually follow the caster's instructions once summoned, but generally will at least pay rough attention to what it's being told to do. The number of successes gained determines the power level of the elemental.

The elemental has three dots in all Physical and Mental Attributes. One dot may be added to one of the elemental's Physical Attributes for each success gained by the caster on the initial roll. The Storyteller should determine the elemental's Abilities, attacks and damage, and any special powers it has related to its element.

Once the elemental has been summoned, the thaumaturge must exert control over it. The more powerful the elemental, the more difficult a task this is. The player rolls Manipulation + Occult (difficulty of the number of successes scored on the casting roll + 4, and the player may substitute Spirit Lore for Occult if he so desires).

The Green Path

The Green Path deals with the manipulation of plant matter of all sorts. Anything more complex than an algae bloom can theoretically be controlled through the appropriate application of this path. Ferns, roses, dandelions and even ancient redwoods are all equally valid targets for this path's powers, and living and dead plant matter are equally affected. While not as immediately impressive as some other more widely practiced paths, the Green Path (sometimes disparagingly referred to as "Botanical Mastery") is as subtle and powerful as the natural world which it affects.

The origins of the Green Path are thought to lie with the Order of the Naturists (see Clanbook: Tremere), a druidic sect within Clan Tremere. Most practitioners of the path are members of the order, and those who are not were more than likely mentored by one. According to those who are familiar with Tremere history, the Green Path is a blood magic-based derivation of some magickal workings formerly practiced by House Diedne, an order of mortal mages destroyed by the Tremere during the Dark Ages.

With but a touch, a vampire can commune with the spirit of a plant. Conversations held in this manner are often cryptic but rewarding - the wisdom and experience of the spirits of some trees surpasses that of the oracles of legend. Crabgrass, on the other hand, rarely has much insight to offer, but might reveal the face of the last person who trod upon it.

System: The number of successes rolled determines the amount of information that can be gained from the contact. Depending on the precise information that the vampire seeks, the Storyteller might require the player to roll Intelligence + Occult or Intelligence + Intuition in order to interpret the results of the communication.

This power allows a thaumaturge to accelerate a plant's growth, causing roses to bloom in a matter of minutes or trees to shoot up from saplings overnight. Alternately, she can speed a plant's death and decay, withering grass and crumbling wooden stakes with but a touch.

System: The character touches the target plant. The player rolls normally, and the number of successes determines the amount of growth or decay. One success gives the plant a brief growth spurt or simulates the effects of harsh weather, while three noticeably enlarge or wither it. With five successes, a full-grown plant springs from a seed or crumbles to dust in a few minutes, and a tree sprouts fruit or begins decaying almost instantaneously. If this power is used in combat, three successes are needed to render a wooden weapon completely useless. Two successes suffice to weaken it, while five cause it to disintegrate in the wielder's hand.

The thaumaturge can animate a mass of vegetation up to his own size, using it for utilitarian or combat purposes with equal ease. Leaves can walk along a desktop, ivy can act as a scribe, and jungle creepers can strangle opponents. Intruders should beware of Tremere workshops that harbor potted rowan saplings.

System: Any total amount of vegetation with a mass less than or equal to the character's own may be animated through this power. The plants stay active for one turn per success scored on the roll, and are under the complete control of the character. If used for combat purposes, the plants have Strength and Dexterity ratings equal to half the character's current Willpower (rounded down) and Brawl ratings one lower than that of the character.

Dance of Vines cannot make plants uproot themselves and go stomping about. Even the most energetic vegetation is incapable of pulling out of the soil and walking under the effect of this power. However, 150 pounds of kudzu can cover a considerable area all by itself...

This power weaves a temporary shelter out of a sufficient amount of plant matter. In addition to providing physical protection from the elements (and even sunlight), the Verdant Haven also establishes a mystical barrier which is nigh-impassable to anyone the caster wishes to exclude. A Verdant Haven appears as a six-foot-tall hemisphere of interlocked branches, leaves and vines with no discernible opening, and even to the casual observer it appears to be an unnatural construction. Verdant Havens are rumored to have supernatural healing properties, but no Kindred have reported experiencing such benefits from a stay in one.

System: A character must be standing in a heavily vegetated area to use this power. The Verdant Haven springs up around the character over the course of three turns. Once the haven is established, anyone wishing to enter the haven without the caster's permission must achieve more than the caster's original number of successes on a single roll of Wits + Survival (difficulty equal to the caster's Willpower). The haven lasts until the next sunset, or until the caster dispels or leaves it. If the caster scored four or more successes, the haven is impenetrable to sunlight unless physically breached.

Entire trees can be animated by a master of the Green Path. Ancient oaks can be temporarily given the gift of movement, pulling their roots from the soil and shaking the ground with their steps. While not as versatile as elementals or other summoned spirits, trees brought to ponderous life via this power display awesome strength and resilience.

System: The character touches the tree to be animated. The player spends a blood point and rolls normally. If the roll succeeds, the player must spend a blood point for every success. The tree stays animated for one turn per success rolled; once this time expires, the tree puts its roots down wherever it stands and cannot be animated again until the next night. While animated, the tree follows the character's verbal commands to the best of its ability. An animated tree has Strength and Stamina equal to the caster's Thaumaturgy rating, Dexterity 2 and a Brawl rating equal to the caster's own. It is immune to bashing damage, and all non-aggravated lethal damage dice pools are halved due to its size.

Once the animating energy leaves a tree, it puts down roots immediately, regardless of what it is currently standing on. A tree re-establishing itself in the soil can punch through concrete and asphalt to find nourishing dirt and water underneath, meaning that it is entirely possible for a particularly sluggish sycamore to set up shop in the middle of a road without any warning. Abuses or misuses of this power can very easily lead to breaches of the Masquerade, and the thaumaturge who leaves a row of maples across a major traffic artery is unlikely to have the opportunity to make the same mistake twice.

Path of Neptune's might

Vampires are rarely associated with the ocean in most mythologies, and most Kindred have nothing to do with water in large quantities simply because they have no reason to do so. Nevertheless, Neptune's Might has enjoyed a small, but devoted, following for centuries among Camarilla thaumaturges. This path is based primarily around the manipulation of standing water, although some of its more disturbing effects depart from this principle.

Once a character reaches the third level of Neptune's Might, the player may choose to specialize in either fresh water or salt water. Such specialization lowers all Neptune's Might difficulties by one when dealing with the chosen medium but raises them by one when dealing with the opposite. Blood is considered neither fresh nor salty for this purpose, and difficulties in manipulating it are unaffected.

The thaumaturge may peer into a body of water and view events that have transpired on, in or around it from the water's perspective. Some older practitioners of this art claim that the vampire communes with the spirits of the waters when using this power; younger Kindred scoff at such claims.

System: The number of successes rolled determines how far into the past the character can look.

The Storyteller may require a Perception + Occult roll for the character to discern very small details in the transmitted images. This power can only be used on standing water; lakes and puddles qualify, but oceans, rivers, sewers and wineglasses do not.

The thaumaturge can command a sufficiently large quantity of water to animate itself and imprison a subject. This power requires a significant amount of fluid to be fully effective, although even a few gallons can be used to shape chains of animated water. Mortals subjected to this power's effects can drown if the thaumaturge is not careful (or if she so desires it), and even vampires can be crushed by extreme pressure thus brought to bear.

System: The number of successes scored on the roll is the number of successes the victim must score on a Strength roll (difficulty 8; Potence adds to successes) to break free. A subject may be held in only one prison at a time, although the thaumaturge is free to invoke multiple uses of this power upon separate victims and may dissolve her own prisons at will.

If a sufficient quantity of water (at least a bathtub's worth) is not present, the difficulty of the Willpower roll to activate this power is raised by one.

The thaumaturge has now attained enough power over water that she can transmute other liquids to this basic element. The most commonly seen use of this power is as an assault; with but a touch, the victim's blood transforms to water, weakening vampires and killing mortals in moments.

System: The character must touch her intended victim. The player rolls normally. Each success converts one of the victim's blood points to water. One success kills a mortal within minutes. Vampires who lose blood points to this power also suffer dice pool penalties as if they had received an equivalent number of health levels of injury. The water left in the target's system by this attack evaporates out at a rate of one blood point's worth per hour, but the lost blood does not return.

At the Storyteller's discretion, other liquids may be turned to water with this power (the difficulty for such an action is reduced by one unless the substance is particularly dangerous or magical in nature). The character must still touch the substance or its container to use this power.

Tales of vampires' inability to cross running water may have derived from garbled accounts of this power in action. The thaumaturge can animate water to an even greater degree than is possible with the use of Prison of Water, commanding it to rise up to form a barrier impassable to almost any being.

System: The character touches the surface of a standing body of water; the player spends three Willpower points and the normal required blood point and rolls normally. Successes are applied to both width and height of the wall; each success "buys" 10 feet in one dimension. The wall may be placed anywhere within the character's line of sight, and must be formed in a straight line. The wall lasts until the next sunrise. It cannot be climbed, though it can be flown over. To pass through the barrier, any supernatural being (including beings trying to pass the wall on other levels of existence) must score at least three successes on a single Willpower roll (difficulty 9).

At this level of mastery, the thaumaturge can directly attack living and unliving targets by removing the water from their bodies. Victims killed by this power leave behind hideous mummified corpses. This power can also be used for less aggressive purposes, such as drying out wet clothes - or evaporating puddles to keep other practitioners of this path from using them.

System: This power can be used on any target in the character's line of sight. The player rolls normally; the victim resists with a roll of Stamina + Fortitude (difficulty 9). Each success gained by the thaumaturge translates into one health level of lethal damage inflicted on the victim. This injury cannot be soaked (the resistance roll replaces soak for this attack) but can be healed normally. Vampires lose blood points instead of health levels, though if a vampire has no blood points this attack inflicts health level loss as it would against a mortal. The victim of this attack must also roll Courage (difficulty of the number of successes scored by the thaumaturge + 3) to be able to act on the turn following the attack; failure means he is overcome with agony and can do nothing.

The Path of Corruption

The origins of this path are hotly debated among those who are familiar with its intricacies. One theory holds that its secrets were taught to the Tremere by demons and that use of it brings the practitioner dangerously close to the infernal powers. A second opinion has been advanced that the Path of Corruption is a holdover from the days when Clan Tremere was still mortal. The third primary theory, and the most disturbing to the Tremere, is that the path originated with the Followers of Set, and that knowledge of its workings was sold to the Tremere for an unspecified price. This last rumor is, of course, vehemently denied by the Tremere, which automatically makes it the favorite topic of discussion when the matter comes up.

The Path of Corruption is primarily a mentally and spiritually oriented path centered on influencing the psyches of other individuals. It can be used neither to issue commands like Dominate nor to change emotions of the moment like Presence. Rather, it produces a gradual and subtle twisting of the subject's actions, morals and thought processes. This path deals intimately with deception and dark desires, and those who work through it must understand the hidden places of the heart. Accordingly, no character may have a higher rating in the Path of Corruption than he has in Subterfuge.

The thaumaturge can interrupt a subject's thought processes, forcing the victim to reverse his current course of action. An archon may be caused to execute a prisoner she was about to exonerate and release; a mortal lover might switch from gentle and caring to sadistic and demanding in the middle of an encounter. The results of Contradict are never precisely known to the thaumaturge in advance, but they always take the form of a more negative action than the subject had originally intended to perform.

System: This power may be used on any subject within the character's line of sight. The player rolls as per normal. The target rolls Perception + Subterfuge (difficulty of the number of successes scored by the thaumaturge + 2). Two successes allow the subject to realize that she is being influenced by some outside source. Three successes let her pinpoint the source of the effect. Four successes give her a moment of hesitation, neither performing her original action nor its inverse, while five allow her to carry through with the original action.

The Storyteller dictates what the subject's precise reaction to this power is. Contradict cannot be used in combat or to affect other actions (Storyteller's discretion) that are mainly physical and reflexive.

This power follows the same principle as does Contradict, the release of a subject's dark, self-destructive side. However, Subvert's effects are longer-lasting than the momentary flare of Contradiction. Under the influence of this power, victims act on their own suppressed temptations, pursuing agendas that their morals or self-control would forbid them to follow under normal circumstances.

System: This power requires the character to make eye contact with the intended victim. The player rolls normally. The target resists with a roll of Perception + Subterfuge (difficulty of the target's Manipulation + Subterfuge). If the thaumaturge scores more successes, the victim becomes inclined to follow a repressed, shameful desire for the length of time described below.

The Storyteller determines the precise desire or agenda that the victim follows. It should be in keeping with the Psychological Flaws that she possesses or with the negative aspects of her Nature (for example, a Loner desiring isolation to such an extent that she becomes violent if forced to attend a social function). The subject should not become fixated on following this new agenda at all times, but should occasionally be forced to spend a Willpower point if the opportunity to succumb arises and she wishes to resist the impulse.

"Divide and conquer" is a maxim that is well-understood by the Tremere, and Dissociate is a powerful tool with which to divide the clan's enemies. This power is used to break the social ties of interpersonal relationships. Even the most passionate affair or the oldest friendship can be cooled through use of Dissociate, and weaker personal ties can be destroyed altogether.

System: The character must touch the target. The player rolls normally. The target resists with a Willpower roll (difficulty of the thaumaturge's Manipulation + Empathy). The victim loses three dice from all Social rolls for a period of time determined by the number of successes gained by the thaumaturge.

This penalty applies to all rolls that rely on Social Attributes, even those required for the use of Disciplines. If this power is used on a character who has participated in the Sabbat Vaulderie or a similar ritual, that character's Vinculum ratings are reduced by three for the duration of Dissociate's effect.

Dissociate's primary effect falls under roleplaying rather than game mechanics. Victims of this power should be played as withdrawn, suspicious and emotionally distant. The Storyteller should feel free to require a Willpower point expenditure for a player who does not follow these guidelines.

This power is a much stronger and more potentially damaging form of Subvert. Addiction creates just that in the victim. By simply exposing the target to a particular sensation, substance or action, the thaumaturge creates a powerful psychological dependence. Many Tremere ensure that their victims become addicted to substances or thrills that only the Warlocks can provide, thus creating both a source of income and potential blackmail material.

System: The subject must encounter or be exposed to the sensation, substance or action to which the character wants to addict him. The thaumaturge then touches his target. The player rolls normally; the victim resists with a Self-Control roll (difficulty equal to the number of successes scored by the thaumaturge + 3). Failure gives the subject an instant addiction to the object desired by the character.

An addicted character must get his fix at least once a night. Every night that he goes without satisfying his desire imposes a cumulative penalty of one die on all of his dice pools (reduced to a minimum of one die). The victim must roll Self-Control (difficulty 8) every time he is confronted with the object of his addiction and wishes to keep from indulging. Addiction lasts for a number of weeks equal to the thaumaturge's Manipulation score.

An individual may try to break the effects of Addiction. This requires an extended Self-Control roll (difficulty of the thaumaturge's Manipulation + Subterfuge), with one roll made per night. The addict must accumulate a number of successes equal to three times the number of successes scored by the thaumaturge. The victim may not indulge in his addiction over the time needed to accumulate these successes. If he does so, all accumulated successes are lost and he must begin anew on the next night. Note that the Self-Control dice pool is reduced every night that the victim goes without feeding his addiction.

Many former pawns of Clan Tremere claim to have felt a strange sensation similar to depression when not in the presence of their masters. This is usually attributed to the blood bond, but is often the result of the thaumaturge's mastery of Dependence. The final power of the Path of Corruption enables the vampire to tie her victim's soul to her own, engendering feelings of lethargy and helplessness when the victim is not in her presence or acting to further her desires.

System: The character engages the target in conversation. The player rolls normally. The victim rolls Self-Control (difficulty of the number of successes scored by the thaumaturge + 3). Failure means that the victim's psyche has been subtly bonded to that of the thaumaturge for one night per success rolled by the thaumaturge.

A bonded victim is no less likely to attack his controller, and feels no particular positive emotions toward her. However, he is psychologically addicted to her presence, and suffers a one-die penalty to all rolls when he is not around her or performing tasks for her. Additionally, he is much less resistant to her commands, and his dice pools are halved when he attempts to resist her Dominate, Presence or Social rolls. Finally, he is unable to regain Willpower when he is not in the thaumaturge's presence.

The Path of Technomancy

The newest path to be accepted by the Tremere hierarchy as part of the clan's official body of knowledge, the Path of Technomancy is a relatively recent innovation. It was developed in the latter half of the 20th century, and has not yet spread far beyond the North American Pontifices. The path focuses on the control of electronic devices, from wristwatches to computers, and its proponents maintain that it is a prime example of the versatility of Thaumaturgy with regards to a changing world. More conservative Tremere, however, state that mixing Tremere magic with mortal science borders on treason or even blasphemy, and some European Regents have gone so far as to declare knowledge of Technomancy grounds for expulsion from their chantries. The Inner Council did approve the introduction of the path into the clan's grimoires, but has yet to voice any opinion on the conservative opposition to Technomancy.

Mortals are constantly developing new innovations, and any vampire who would work Technomancy must be able to understand that upon which he practices his magic. The most basic power of this path allows the Tremere to project his perceptions into a device, granting him a temporary understanding of its purpose, the principles of its functioning and its means of operation. This does not grant permanent knowledge, only a momentary flash of insight which fades within minutes.

System: A character must touch the device in order to apply this power. The number of successes rolled determines how well the character understands this particular piece of equipment. One success allows a basic knowledge (on/off and simple functions), while three successes grant competence in operating the device, and five successes show the character the full range of the device's potential. The knowledge lasts for a number of minutes equal to the character's Intelligence.

This power can also be used to understand a non-physical technological innovation - in other words, a new piece of computer software - at +2 difficulty. The character must touch the computer on which the software is installed - simply holding the CD-ROM is not enough.

It is usually easier to destroy than to create, and sensitive electronics are no exception to this rule. Burnout is used to cause a device's power supply, either internal or external, to surge, damaging or destroying the target. Burnout cannot be used to directly injure another individual, although the sudden destruction of a pacemaker or a car's fuel injection control chip can create a definite health hazard.

System: A character can use this power at a range of up to 10 times her Willpower in yards, although a +1 difficulty is applied if she is not touching the target item. The number of successes determines the extent of the damage.

Large enough systems, such as mainframe computers or passenger aircraft, impose a +2 to +4 difficulty (at Storyteller discretion) to affect with this power. Additionally, some systems, such as military and banking computers, may be hardened against power surges and spikes, and thus possess one to five dice (Storyteller discretion again) to roll to resist this power. Each success on this roll (difficulty 6) takes away one success from the Thaumaturgy roll.

Burnout may be used to destroy electronic data storage, in which case three successes destroy all information on the target item and five erase it beyond any hope of non-magical recovery.

Electronic security is a paramount concern of governments and corporations alike. Those Tremere who are techno-savvy enough to understand the issues at stake have become quite enamored of this power, which allows the thaumaturge to scramble a device's controls mystically, making it inaccessible to anyone but him. Encrypt/Decrypt also works on electronic media; a videotape under the influence of this power displays just snow and static if played back without the owner's approval.

System: The character touches the device or data container which he wishes to encrypt. The player rolls normally. The number of successes scored is applied as a difficulty modifier for anyone who attempts to use the protected equipment or access the scrambled information without the assistance of the character. The thaumaturge can dispel the effect at any time by touching the target item; this countermanding costs a point of Willpower.

This power may also be used to counter another thaumaturge's use of Encrypt/Decrypt. The player rolls at +1 difficulty; each success negates one of the "owner's."

The effects of Encrypt/Decrypt last for a number of weeks equal to the character's permanent Willpower rating.

With this power, a skilled thaumaturge can bypass the need for physical contact to operate a device. This is not a form of telekinesis; the vampire does not manipulate the item's controls, but rather touches it directly with the power of his mind.

System: This power may be used on any electronic device within the character's line of sight. The number of successes rolled are the maximum number of dice from any relevant Ability that the character may use while remotely controlling the device. For instance, if Fritz has Computer 5 and scores three successes when using Remote Access on an automated teller machine, he can only apply three dots of his Computer rating to any rolls that he makes through any use the power. Remote Access lasts for a number of turns equal to the number of successes rolled, and can only be used on one item at a time.

If an item is destroyed while under the effects of Remote Access, the character takes five dice of bashing damage due to the shock of having his perceptions rudely shunted back into his own body.

A progressive derivation of Remote Access, Telecommute allows a thaumaturge to project her consciousness into the global telecommunication network, sending her mind through satellite uplinks and ISDN lines and fiber-optic phone cables at the speed of light. While immersed in the network, she can use any other Technomancy power on the devices with which she makes contact.

System: The character touches any form of communications device: a cellular telephone, network card-equipped computer, fax machine or anything else that is connected directly or indirectly to the global network. The player rolls normally and spends a Willpower point. Telecommute lasts for five minutes per success rolled, and may be extended by 10 minutes with the expenditure of another Willpower point. The number of successes indicates the maximum range that the character can project her consciousness away from her body.

While in the network, the character can apply any other Path of Technomancy power to any device or data with which she comes in contact. A loss of connection, usually through the shutdown or destruction of a part of the network through which the character's connection runs, hurls her consciousness back to her body and inflicts eight dice of bashing damage.

A character traveling through the Net by means of this power can use her Path of Technomancy powers at normal difficulty. Using any other abilities or powers while engaged thus is done at a +2 difficulty. Furthermore, there are other denizens of the Net who may not take kindly to Tremere intrusion, and who may well take steps to remove the riffraff from their electronic doorsteps.

Path of Spirit Manipulation

Not to be confused with, or perhaps derived from the ancient Path of Spirit Thaumaturgy (see Dark Ages Companion, p. 107), Spirit Manipulation is a relatively recent innovation of the Tremere. Created to replace the rituals practiced by the clan in the days when it was a band of mortal wizards, Spirit Manipulation is the art of forcing spirits into actions and situations that would normally be anathema to them. Spirit Manipulation simulates many effects that can be created by Lupine and shamanic mages, but does so by forcing the spirits involved into a grotesque mockery of their normal behaviors. Any botch with Spirit Manipulation not only inflicts the normal loss of Willpower involved with thaumaturgical mishaps but also turns the full force of the spirit's wrath against the offending vampire.

The vampire can perceive the spirit world, either by gazing deeply into it or by seeing the presence of nearby spirits as a hazy overlay on the material world. This power does not allow the thaumaturge to see into the realms of the dead or into the realms of the fae.

System: One success on the roll is needed for the thaumaturge to perceive spirits, while two allow him to view the spirit realm. With less than four successes, the thaumaturge is at +2 difficulty to all actions performed while using this power due to the distraction of divided perceptions. Hermetic Sight lasts for the duration of the scene or until the thaumaturge deactivates it.

The languages of the spirit world are infinitely varied and mainly incomprehensible to mortal (or immortal) minds. Astral Cant does not teach the thaumaturge the tongues of the spirits, but it does allow him to understand them as they speak to him and to reply in their own languages - in effect, a universal translator for the spirit world. Imprecise use of this power can be disastrous, particularly when a thaumaturge is bargaining with a powerful spirit. The use of this power is not always necessary; many spirits speak human tongues but choose to feign ignorance when dealing with vampires.

This is perhaps the most dangerous power in the Spirit Manipulation arsenal, for the consequences if a thaumaturge fails can be most unpleasant. Voice of Command allows a vampire to issue orders to a spirit, compelling it to heed her bidding whether or not it desires to do so.

System: The player makes the normal Willpower roll; the target spirit resists with Willpower (difficulty of the thaumaturge's Manipulation + Occult or Manipulation + Lore: Spirits). The degree of success the thaumaturge attains determines the complexity and severity of the command that she can issue.

Crafty Storytellers should note that spirits compelled by this power are fully aware that they are being forced into these actions, and may well seek revenge on their erstwhile masters at a later time.

Thaumaturges who issue commands above and beyond what their spirit servants are compelled to perform may find themselves ignored or mocked. Even worse, a spirit in such a situation may "agree" to follow orders without following through, leaving the thaumaturge in a situation of potentially fatal embarassment.

This power allows a thaumaturge to bind a spirit into a physical object. This can be done to imprison the target, but is more often performed to create a fetish, an artifact that allows a user to channel a portion of the spirit's power through it to affect the physical world. Fetishes created by this power are often recalcitrant and fail at inopportune moments, as the spirits within are most displeased with their situation and will take any opportunity to escape or thwart their captors.

System: The number of successes rolled determines the power level of the fetish to be created. A fetish is activated by rolling the user's Willpower (difficulty of the fetish's power level + 3). A botch on this roll destroys the physical component of the fetish and frees the spirit that was trapped within.

For more complete guidelines to fetish powers, refer to pages 273-275 of Werewolf: The Apocalypse. The Storyteller is always the final authority in determining the powers and mechanics of a fetish created through use of this power.

The thaumaturge can now fully interact with the spirit world. While using this power, he exists on both planes of existence at once. He is able to pick up objects in the physical world and place them in the spirit world and vice versa. Beings and landscape features in both realms are solid to him, and he can engage in any manner of interaction. He can even use Thaumaturgy and other Disciplines in either world. This is not without its dangers, however: One misstep and the vampire can find himself trapped in the spirit realm with no way to return home. Several incautious thaumaturges have starved into torpor while trapped on the other side of the barrier that separates the physical and spirit realms.

System: The number of successes dictates how long the vampire can interact with the spirit world.

Duality can only be used while the character is in the physical world. Note that while Duality is in effect the character is also susceptible to attacks from both realms. Additionally, the player must roll Perception + Occult (difficulty 8) when this power is activated; a roll with less than three successes indicates that all rolls made while this power is active are at +2 difficulty due to the distraction of the character's dual perceptions. The character is still considered to be in the physical world for purposes of basic physics and common sense - for instance, his feet rest on the ground in the physical world, not the ground in the spirit world, and he could thus walk across a spiritual chasm if a physical parking lot overlaid the same space.

A botch on the roll to activate this power tears the vampire out of the physical world and traps him in the spirit realm. The way back the physical realm, if there is one, is left to the Storyteller's discretion, and may constitute an entire adventure in and of itself.

Thaumaturgical Countermagic

This is less of a path than it is a separate Discipline, as the power to resist Thaumaturgy can be taught independently of Thaumaturgy, even to those Kindred who are incapable of mastering even the simplest ritual. However, the techniques of Thaumaturgical Countermagic are not officially taught outside Clan Tremere, for obvious reasons. Any non-Tremere who displays the ability to resist Thaumaturgy quickly becomes the subject of potentially fatal scrutiny from the entirety of Clan Tremere.

System: Thaumaturgical Countermagic is treated as a separate Discipline. It cannot be taken as a character's primary path, and a rating in it does not allow the character to perform rituals. The use of Thaumaturgical Countermagic is treated as a free action in combat and does not require a split dice pool. To oppose a Thaumaturgy power or ritual, a character must have a Thaumaturgical Countermagic rating equal to or greater than the rating of that power or ritual (which means that rituals of Level Six or greater cannot ever be countered with this power). The player spends a blood point and rolls the number of dice indicated by the character's Thaumaturgical Countermagic rating (difficulty equal to the difficulty of the power in use). Each success cancels one of the opposing thaumaturge's successes.

Thaumaturgical Countermagic can only be used against Tremere Thaumaturgy at full effectiveness. It works with halved dice pools against non-Tremere blood magic and mortal "hedge wizardry," and is completely ineffective against non-vampiric magics and powers.

Thaumaturgical Countermagic can be learned by characters who are unable to learn Thaumaturgy (e.g. those with the Merit Magic Resistance). Any non-Tremere character with a rating in this power automatically gains the Flaw Clan Enmity (Tremere), receiving no freebie points for it. This power cannot be taken during character creation and cannot be spontaneously developed. It costs the same as any other non-clan Discipline to learn.

For Example

Jaeger is a Tremere archon with Thaumaturgical Countermagic 5. He is facing Nadine, an infernalist with Lure of Flames 5. Nadine attempts to use her Lure of Flames to hurl a fireball at Jaeger and rolls two successes against a difficulty of 8. Jaeger rolls 10 dice of countermagic against a difficulty of 8, the same difficulty against which Nadine rolled, and scores three successes, completely neutralizing the attack.

Jaeger's partner Nathaniel has Thaumaturgical Countermagic 4. If Nadine had attacked Nathaniel, he would have been completely unable to counter the fireball, as his Thaumaturgical Countermagic rating is lower than that of the power being used against him. Likewise, if Nadine used her Movement of the Mind 4 to hurl a stake at Nathaniel, he would have been unable to oppose it because he cannot yet counter spells that target things that he is not touching.

Path of Weather Control

Command over the weather has long been a staple power of wizards both mortal and immortal, and this path is said by many to predate the Tremere by millennia. The proliferation of usage of this path outside the clan tends to confirm this theory; Weather Control is quite common outside the Tremere, and even outside the Camarilla. Lower levels of this path allow subtle manipulations, while higher stages of mastery allow a vampire to call up raging storms. The area affected by this power is usually rather small, no more than three or four miles in diameter, and the changes the power wreaks are not always immediate.

System: The number of successes rolled indicates how long it takes the weather magic to take effect. One success indicates an entire day may pass before the weather changes to the thaumaturge's liking, while a roll with five successes brings an almost instant effect.

The difficulty of the Willpower roll necessary to invoke this power may change depending on the current local weather conditions and the weather the character is attempting to create. The Storyteller should impose a bonus (-1 or -2 difficulty) for relatively minor shifts, such as clearing away a light drizzle or calling lightning when a severe thunderstorm is already raging. Conversely, a penalty (+1 or +2 difficulty) should be applied when the desired change is at odds with the current conditions, such as summoning the same light drizzle in the middle of the Sahara Desert or calling down lightning from a cloudless sky.

Playing Indoors

Weather Control is not the sort of power that lends itself well to indoor application. While certain of the path's uses (changes of temperature, high winds and possibly even fog) do make a certain amount of sense in interior settings, others (precipitation of any sort, lightning) don't. The difficulty for all rolls to use Weather Control indoors is at +2, and the Storyteller should free to disallow any proposed uses that don't make sense.

If the character tries to strike a specific target with lightning, the player must roll Perception + Occult (difficulty 6 if the target is standing in open terrain, 8 if he is under shelter, or 10 if he is inside but near a window) in addition to the base roll to use Thaumaturgy. Otherwise the bolt goes astray, with the relative degree of failure of the roll determining where exactly the lightning strikes.

Effects of the power default to the maximum area available unless the thaumaturge states that he's attempting to affect a smaller area. At Storyteller discretion, an additional Willpower roll (difficulty 6) may be required to keep the change in the weather under control.

Individual power descriptions are not provided for this path, as the general principle is fairly consistent. Instead, the strongest weather phenomenon possible at each level is listed.

Fog: Vision is slightly impaired and sounds are muffled; a +1 difficulty is imposed on all Perception rolls that involve sight and hearing, and the effective ranges of all ranged attacks are halved.

Light breeze: A +1 difficulty is imposed on all Perception rolls that involve smell.

Minor temperature change: It is possible to raise or lower the local temperature by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

Rain or snow: Precipitation has the same effect as Fog, but Perception rolls are impaired to a much greater extent; the difficulty modifier for all such rolls rises to +2. In addition, the difficulty on all Drive rolls increases by two.

High Winds: The wind speed rises to around 30 miles per hour, with gusts of up to twice that. Ranged attacks are much more difficult: +1 to firearm attacks, +2 to thrown weapons and archery. In addition, during fierce gusts, Dexterity rolls (difficulty 6) may be required to keep characters from being knocked over by the winds. Needless to say, when gale-force winds are in effect, papers go flying, objects get picked up by the winds and hurled with abandon, and other suitably cinematic effects are likely.

Moderate temperature change: The local temperature can be raised or lowered by up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Lightning Strike: This attack inflicts 10 dice of lethal damage. Body armor does not add to the target's dice pool to soak this attack.

Thaumaturgy Rituals

Level One Rituals

This ancient ritual is said to have been one of the first developed by the Tremere and a primary reason for the lack of cohesive opposition to their expansion. Bind the Accusing Tongue lays a compulsion upon the subject that prevents him from speaking ill of the caster, allowing the thaumaturge to commit literally unspeakable acts without fear of reprisal.

System: The caster must have a picture or other image or effigy of the ritual's target, a lock of the target's hair and a black silken cord. The caster winds the cord around the hair and image while intoning the ritual's vocal component. Once the ritual is complete, the target must score more successes on a Willpower roll (difficulty of the caster's Thaumaturgy rating + 3) than the caster scored in order to say anything negative about the thaumaturge. The ritual lasts until the target succeeds at this roll or the silk cord is unwound, at which point the image and the lock of hair crumble to dust.

This ritual enchants a container to fill itself with blood from any living or unliving being who holds it, replacing the volume of blood taken with an equal amount previously held inside the container. When the ritual is enacted, the vessel (which must be between the size of a small cup and a gallon jug) is sealed full of the caster's blood and inscribed with the Hermetic sigil which empowers the ritual. Whenever an individual touches the container with his bare skin, he feels a slight chill against his flesh but no further discomfort. The container continues to exchange the blood it contains until it is opened. The two most common uses of this ritual are to covertly create a blood bond and to obtain a sample of a subject's blood for ritual or experimental purposes.

System: This ritual takes three hours to enact (reduced by 15 minutes for each success on the casting roll) and requires one blood point (although not necessarily the caster's blood), which is sealed inside the container. The ritual only switches blood between itself and a subject if it is touched bare-handed - even thin cotton gloves keep it from activating.

Individuals with at least four dots in Occult or three in Expert Knowledge: Mage Lore recognize the Hermetic sigil with two successes on an Intelligence + the appropriate Knowledge roll (difficulty 8).

This ritual enables the thaumaturge to mystically locate all members of his herd. While intoning the ritual's vocal component, he spins in a slow circle with a glass object of some sort held to each of his eyes. At the end of the ritual, he has a subliminal sense of the direction and distance to each of his regular vessels.

System: This ritual gives the character the location relative to him of every member of his herd. If he does not have the Herd Background, Incantation of the Shepherd locates the closest three mortals from whom the thaumaturge has fed at least three times each. This ritual has a maximum range of 10 miles times the character's Herd Background, or five miles if he has no points in that Background.

The caster cleanses her body of all foreign material with this ritual. To perform it, she meditates on bare earth or stone while surrounded by a circle of 13 sharp stones. Over the course of the ritual, the caster is slowly purged of all physical impurities: dirt, alcohol, drugs, poison, bullets lodged in the flesh and tattoo ink are all equally affected, slowly rising to the surface of the caster's skin and flaking away as a gritty gray film that settles within the circle. Any jewelry, makeup or clothes that the caster is wearing are also dissolved.

System: The player spends one blood point before rolling. Purity of Flesh removes all physical items from the caster's body, but does not remove enchantments, mind control or diseases of the blood.

Level Two Rituals

A thaumaturge casts this ritual on a blood sample from another vampire. Blood Walk is used to trace the subject's Kindred lineage and the blood bonds in which the subject is involved.

System: This ritual requires three hours to cast, reduced by 15 minutes for each success on the roll. It requires one blood point from the subject. Each success allows the caster to "see back" one generation, giving the caster both the True Name of the ancestor and an image of his face. The caster also learns the generation and clan or bloodline from which the subject is descended. With three successes, the caster also learns the identities of all parties with whom the subject shares a blood bond, either as regnant or thrall.

Developed during Clan Tremere's troubled inception, Burning Blade allows a thaumaturge to temporarily enchant a melee weapon to inflict unhealable wounds on supernatural creatures. While this ritual is in effect, the weapon flickers with an unholy greenish flame.

System: This ritual can only be cast on melee weapons. The caster must cut the palm of her weapon hand during the ritual - with the weapon if it is edged, otherwise with a sharp stone. This inflicts a single health level of lethal damage which cannot be soaked but may be healed normally. The player spends three blood points which are absorbed by the weapon. Once the ritual is cast, the weapon inflicts aggravated damage on all supernatural creatures for the next few successful attacks, one per success rolled. Multiple castings of Burning Blade cannot be "stacked" for longer durations. Furthermore, the wielder of the weapon cannot choose to do normal damage and "save up" aggravated strikes - each successful attack uses one aggravated strike until there are none left, at which point the weapon reverts to inflicting normal damage.

This ritual renders its subject translucent, her form appearing dark and smoky and the sounds of her footsteps muffled. While it does not create true invisibility, the Mask of Shadows makes the subject much less likely to be detected by sight or hearing.

System: This ritual may be simultaneously cast on a number of subjects equal to the thaumaturge's Occult rating; each individual past the first adds five minutes to the base casting time. Individuals under the Mask of Shadows can only be detected if the observer succeeds in a Perception + Awareness roll (difficulty of the caster's Wits + Occult) or if the observer possesses a power (such as Auspex) sufficient to penetrate Level Three Obfuscate. The Mask of Shadows lasts a number of hours equal to the number of successes rolled when it is cast or until the caster voluntarily lowers it.

This ritual is enacted in a manner similar to that of Ward versus Ghouls (see Vampire: The Masquerade, p. 184), but creates a circle centered on the caster into which a ghoul cannot pass without being burned. The circle can be made as large and as permanent as the caster desires, as long as she is willing to pay the necessary price. Many Tremere chantries and havens are protected by this and other Warding Circle rituals.

System: The ritual requires three blood points of mortal blood. The caster determines the size of the warding circle when it is cast; the default radius is 10 feet, and every 10-foot increase raises the difficulty by one, to a maximum of 9 (one additional success is required for every 10-foot increase past the number necessary to raise the difficulty to 9). The player spends one blood point for every 10 feet of radius and rolls. The ritual takes the normal casting time if it is to be temporary (lasting for the rest of the night) or one night if it is to be permanent (lasting a year and a day).

Once the warding circle is established, any ghoul who attempts to cross its boundary feels a tingle on his skin and a slight breeze on his face - a successful Intelligence + Occult roll (difficulty 8) identifies this as a warding circle. If the ghoul attempts to press on, he must roll more successes on a Willpower roll (difficulty of the caster's Thaumaturgy rating + 3) than the caster rolled when establishing the ward. Failure indicates that the ward blocks his passage and inflicts three dice of bashing damage on him, and his next roll to attempt to enter the circle is at +1 difficulty. If the ghoul leaves the circle and attempts to enter it again, he must repeat the roll. Attempts to leave the circle are not blocked.

The Tremere have access to several other Warding Circle rituals: Warding Circle versus Lupines (Level Three), Warding Circle versus Kindred (Level Four), and Warding Circles versus Spirits, Ghosts, and Demons (Level Five). Each Warding Circle ritual must be learned separately. The material components required for each warding circle are the same as those needed for the corresponding ward, but in larger amounts. The effects against the targeted beings are the same as for Warding Circle versus Ghouls.

Level Three Rituals

This defensive ritual inflicts painful burns on anyone who deliberately touches the subject's skin. It requires the subject to swallow a small glowing ember, which does put off some thaumaturges with low pain thresholds. Some vain Tremere use this ritual purely for its subsidiary effect of darkening the subject's skin to a healthy sun-bronzed hue.

System: Flesh of Fiery Touch takes two hours to cast (reduced by 10 minutes per success). It requires a small piece of wood, coal or other common fuel source, which ignites and is swallowed at the end of the ritual. The subject who swallows the red-hot ember receives a single aggravated health level of damage (difficulty 6 to soak with Fortitude). Until the next sunset, anyone who touches the subject's flesh receives a burn that inflicts a single aggravated health level of damage (again, difficulty 6 to soak with Fortitude). The victim must voluntarily touch the subject; this damage is not inflicted if the victim is touched or accidentally comes in contact with the subject.

This ritual darkens the subject's skin to that which would be obtained by long-term exposure to the sun in a mortal. The tone is slightly unnatural and metallic, and is evidently artificial to any observer who succeeds in a Perception + Medicine roll (difficulty 8).

Tremere often need laboratory assistants whom they can trust implicitly. As Tremere often trust no one whom they know and no one whom they do not, this ritual allows the intrepid thaumaturge to conjure a temporary servant. To cast the ritual, the vampire slices open his arm and bleeds into a specially prepared earthen bowl. The ritual sucks in and animates whatever random unimportant items the wizard happens to have lying around his workshop - glass beakers, dissection tools, pencils, crumpled papers, semiprecious stones - and binds the materials together into a small humanoid form animated by the power of the ritual and the blood. Oddly enough, this ritual almost never takes in any tool that the thaumaturge finds himself needing during the assistant's lifespan, nor does it take the physical components of any other ritual nor any living thing. The servant has no personality to speak of at first, but gradually adopts the mannerisms and thought processes that the thaumaturge desires in an ideal servant. Sanguine Assistants are temporary creations, but some Tremere become fond of their tiny accomplices and create the same one whenever the need arises.

System: The player spends five blood points and rolls. The servant created by the ritual stands a foot high and appears as a roughly humanoid shape composed of whatever the ritual sucked in for its own use. It lasts for one night per success rolled. At the end of the last night, the assistant crawls into the bowl used for its creation and falls apart. The assistant can be re-animated through another application of this ritual; if the thaumaturge so desires, it re-forms from the same materials with the same memories and personality.

A Sanguine Assistant has Strength and Stamina of 1 and Dexterity and Mental Attributes equal to those of the caster. It begins with no Social Attributes to speak of, but gains one dot per night in Charisma and Manipulation until its ratings are equal to those of the caster. It has all of the caster's Abilities at one dot lower than his own. A Sanguine Assistant is a naturally timid creature and flees if attacked, having only four health levels, though it will try to defend its master's life at the cost of its own. It has no Disciplines of its own, but has a full understanding of all of its master's Thaumaturgical knowledge and can instruct others if so commanded. A Sanguine Assistant is impervious to any mind-controlling Disciplines or magic, so completely is it bound to its creator's will.

This ritual turns an ordinary stake of rowan wood into a particularly vicious weapon. When the stake penetrates a vampire's body, the tip breaks off and begins working its way through the victim's flesh to his heart. The trip may take several minutes or several nights, depending on where the stake struck. The stake eludes attempts to dig it out, burrowing farther into the victim's body to escape surgery. The only Kindred who are immune to this internal attack are those who have had their hearts removed by Setites.

System: The ritual takes five hours to enact, minus 30 minutes per success. The stake must be carved of rowan wood, coated with three blood points of the caster's blood, and blackened in an oak-wood fire. When the ritual is complete, the stake is enchanted to act as described above.

An attack with a Shaft of Belated Quiescence is performed as with a normal stake: a Dexterity + Melee roll (difficulty 6, modified as per the normal combat rules, as the attack does not need to specifically target the heart - the stake takes care of that) with a lethal damage rating of Strength + 1. If at least one health level of damage is inflicted after the target rolls to soak, the tip of the stake breaks off and begins burrowing. If not, the stake may be used to make subsequent attacks until it strikes deep enough to activate.

Once the tip of the stake is in the victim's body, the Storyteller begins an extended roll of the caster's Thaumaturgy rating (difficulty 9), rolling once per hour of game time. Successes on this roll are added to the successes scored in the initial attack. This represents the tip's progress toward the victim's heart. A botch indicates that the tip has struck a bone and all accumulated successes are lost (including those from the initial attack roll). When the shaft accumulates a total of 15 successes, it reaches the victim's heart. This paralyzes Kindred and is instantly fatal to mortals and ghouls.

Attempts to surgically remove the tip of the shaft can be made with an extended Dexterity + Medicine roll (difficulty 7), rolled once per hour. The surgeon must accumulate a number of successes equal to those currently held by the shaft in order to remove the tip. Once surgery begins, however, the shaft begins actively evading the surgeon's probes, and its rolls are made once every 30 minutes for the duration of the surgery attempt. Each individual surgery roll that scores less than three successes inflicts an additional unsoakable level of lethal damage on the patient.

Shaft of Belated Quiescence may be performed on other wooden impaling weapons, such as spears, arrows, practice swords and pool cues, provided that they are made of rowan wood. It may not, however, create a Bullet of Belated Quiescence - wooden bullets are not large enough to absorb the full amount of blood required for the ritual.

This wards an object in a manner identical to that of the Level Two ritual Ward Versus Ghouls (see Vampire: The Masquerade ), except that it affects werewolves. Other versions of this ritual are rumored to have been created to affect different species of werecreatures.

System: Ward versus Lupines behaves exactly as does Ward versus Ghouls, but it affects werewolves rather than ghouls. It does not affect Nuwisha, Bastet or any Changing Breed other than Garou. The ritual requires a handful of silver dust rather than a blood point.

Level Four Rituals

A vampire under the effect of this ritual experiences the transformation suggested by the ritual's name: his heart is completely transmuted to solid rock, rendering him virtually impervious to staking. The subsidiary effects of the transformation, however, seem to follow the Hermetic laws of sympathetic magic: the vampire's emotional capacity becomes almost nonexistent, and his ability to relate to others suffers as well.

System: This ritual requires nine hours (reduced by one hour for every success). It can only be cast on oneself. The caster lies naked on a flat stone surface and places a bare candle over his heart. The candle burns down to nothing over the course of the ritual, causing one aggravated health level of damage (difficulty 5 to soak with Fortitude). At the end of the ritual, the caster's heart hardens to stone. The benefits of this are that the caster gains a number of additional dice equal to twice his Thaumaturgy rating to soak any attack that aims for his heart and is completely impervious to the effects of a Shaft of Belated Quiescence (see above), and the difficulty to use all Presence powers on him is increased by three due to his emotional isolation. The drawbacks are as follows: the caster's Conscience and Empathy scores drop to 1 (or to 0 if they already were at 1) and all dice pools for Social rolls except those involving Intimidation are halved (including those required to use Disciplines). All Merits that the character has pertaining to positive social interaction (e.g. Animal Magnetism or Sanctity) are neutralized. Heart of Stone lasts as long as the caster wishes it to.

Another ritual designed to enchant a stake, Splinter Servant is a progressive development of Shaft of Belated Quiescence. The two rituals are mutually exclusive, which is fortunate for many, because a Splinter Servant of Belated Quiescence would be a truly terrifying weapon. A Splinter Servant consists of a stake carved from a tree which has nourished itself on the dead, bound in wax-sealed nightshade twine. When the binding is torn off, the Splinter Servant leaps to life, animating itself and attacking whomever the wielder commands - or the wielder, if she is too slow in assigning a target. The servant splits itself into a roughly humanoid form and begins single-mindedly trying to impale the target's heart. Its exertions tear it apart within a few minutes, but if it pierces its victim's heart before it destroys itself, it is remarkably difficult to remove, as pieces tend to remain behind if the main portion is indelicately yanked out.

System: The ritual requires 12 hours to cast, minus one per success, and the servant must be created as described above. When the binding is torn off, the character who holds it must point the servant at its target and verbally command it to attack during the same turn. If this command is not given, the servant attacks the closest living or unliving being, usually the unfortunate individual who currently carries it.

A Splinter Servant always aims for the heart. It has an attack dice pool of the caster's Wits + Occult, a damage dice pool of the caster's Thaumaturgy rating, and a maximum movement rate of 30 yards per turn. Note that these values are those of the thaumaturge who created the servant, not the individual who activates it. A servant cannot fly, but can leap its full movement rating every turn. Every action it takes is to attack or move toward its target; it cannot dodge or split its dice pool to perform multiple attacks. The servant makes normal stake attacks that aim for the heart (difficulty 9), and its success is judged as per the rules for a normal staking (see Vampire: The Masquerade, page 214). A Splinter Servant has three health levels, and attacks directed against it are made at +3 difficulty due to its small size and spastic movement patterns.

A Splinter Servant has an effective life of five combat turns per success rolled in its creation. If it has not impaled its victim by the last round of its life, the servant collapses into a pile of ordinary, inanimate splinters. Three successes on a Dexterity roll (difficulty 8) are required to remove a Splinter Servant from a victim's heart without leaving behind shards of the stake.

This warding ritual functions exactly as do Ward versus Ghouls and Ward versus Lupines, but it inflicts injury upon Cainites. It does not harm kuei-jin (see Kindred of the East), although Tremere researchers are promising their elders a Ward versus Cathayans ritual "any night now."

System: Ward versus Kindred behaves exactly as does Ward versus Ghouls, but it affects vampires rather than ghouls. The ritual requires a blood point of the caster's own blood and does not affect the caster. As noted above, this ward does not harm kuei-jin , and there is currently no "Ward versus Cathayans" in existence.

Level Five Rituals

This ritual is the first taught to most Tremere once they have attained mastery of their first path. Create Talisman allows the thaumaturge to enchant a personal magical item (the fabled wizard's staff) to act as an amplifier for her will and thaumaturgical might. A Tremere's talisman is a great source of personal pride, and any insult directed against a talisman is an insult at the thaumaturge herself. Many talismans are laden with additional rituals (such as every ward known to the thaumaturge). The physical appearance of a talisman varies, but it must be a rigid object close to a yard long. Swords and walking sticks are the most common talismans, but some innovative or eccentric Tremere have enchanted violins, shotguns, pool cues and classroom pointers.

System: This ritual requires six hours per night for one complete cycle of the moon, beginning and ending on the new moon. Over this time, the thaumaturge carefully prepares her talisman, carving it with Hermetic runes that signify her True Name and the sum total of her thaumaturgical knowledge. The player spends one blood point per night and makes an extended roll of Intelligence + Occult (difficulty 8), one roll per week. If a night's work is missed or if the four rolls do not accumulate at least 20 net successes, the talisman is ruined and the process must be begun again.

A completed talisman gives the thaumaturge several advantages. When the character is holding the talisman, the difficulty of all magic or magick that targets her is increased by one. The player receives two extra dice when rolling for uses of the character's primary path and one extra die when rolling for the character's ritual castings. If the talisman is used as a weapon, it gives the player an additional die to roll to hit. If the thaumaturge is separated from her talisman, a successful Perception + Occult roll (difficulty 7) gives her its location.

If a talisman is in the possession of another individual, it gives that individual three additional dice to roll when using any form of magic or magick against the talisman's owner. At the Storyteller's discretion, rituals that target the thaumaturge and use her talisman as a physical component may have greatly increased effects.

A thaumaturge may only have one talisman at a time. Ownership of a talisman may not be transferred - each individual must create her own.

One of the few rituals available to the Tremere that allows a form of teleportation, Escape to a True Friend allows the caster to travel to the person whose friendship and trust she most values. The ritual has a physical component of a yard-wide circle charred into the bare ground or floor. The caster may step into the circle at any time and speak the True Name of her friend. She is instantly transported to that individual, wherever he may be at the moment. She does not appear directly in front of him, but materializes in a location within a few minutes' walk that is out of sight of any observer. The circle may be reused indefinitely, as long as it is unmarred.

System: This ritual takes six hours a night for six nights to cast, reduced by one night for every two successes. Each night requires the sacrifice of three of the caster's own blood points, which are poured into the circle. Once the circle is complete, the transport may be attempted at any time. The caster may take one other individual with her when she travels, or a maximum amount of "cargo" equal to her own weight.

Attuning Wards

Some Tremere have servants or allies whom they wish to make exempt from the damage and subsequent avoidance compulsion inflicted by the various "Ward versus" and "Warding Circle versus" rituals (Ward versus Ghouls, Lupines, Kindred, Spirits, Ghosts, and Demons). This technique is taught to all Tremere who are taught any of these rituals. It requires either the presence of each individual who is to be exempt from the ward or a point of their blood when the ward is cast. The difficulty of the roll to cast the ward is raised by one (to a maximum of 9). The thaumaturge may exempt a maximum number of individuals equal to his Thaumaturgy rating from each ward he casts.

The caster of a warding circle can also temporarily enchant a specific being to pass through a warding circle cast by that thaumaturge. This requires five minutes, one point of the subject's blood and an Intelligence + Occult roll (difficulty 8). If this succeeds, the subject is exempt from the warding circle for one night per success.

This warding ritual functions exactly as do Ward versus Ghouls, Ward versus Lupines and Ward versus Kindred, but it inflicts injury upon spirits. Several other versions of this ward exist, each geared toward a particular type of non-physical being.

System: Ward versus Spirits behaves exactly as does Ward versus Ghouls, but it affects spirits (including those summoned or given physical form by Thaumaturgy Paths such as Elemental Mastery). The material component for Ward versus Spirits is a handful of pure sea salt.

The other versions of this ward, also Level Five rituals, are Ward versus Ghosts and Ward versus Demons. Each of these three Level Five wards affects its respective target on both the physical and spiritual planes. Ward versus Ghosts requires a handful of powdered marble from a tombstone, while Ward versus Demons requires a vial of holy water.

Visceratika

The exclusive possession of the Gargoyle bloodline, Visceratika is an extension of the Gargoyles' natural affinity for stone, earth and things made thereof. Certain Visceratika powers also closely resemble some aspects of Protean and, to a lesser extent, Vicissitude. Tremere in a position to know insist that this is pure coincidence, but the few among the Gargoyles who retain scholarly aspirations maintain that the Gangrel and Tzimisce blood used to create the bloodline still maintains a certain hold over its members.

Clan Tremere recently released a report stating that, contrary to popular belief, the appearance and wings of the Gargoyles are results of the Gargoyle Embrace or creation process, not side effects of Visceratika as was previously believed. The implication is that other Kindred can learn Visceratika and retain human appearance. The Gargoyles, however, are understandably unwilling to share one of their primary survival tools, and few other Kindred are willing to risk it in any case.

This basic power has saved countless Gargoyles from committing breaches of the Masquerade - and has allowed just as many to ambush unsuspecting intruders. When Skin of the Chameleon is in effect, the Gargoyle's skin takes on the color and texture of the surrounding environment. This coloration changes reflexively as long as the Gargoyle maintains a walking pace or slower speed. More rapid movement causes the Gargoyle's appearance to blur, negating the camouflaging effect. If this power is used while the Gargoyle is in flight, his skin becomes a reasonable facsimile of the night sky (though it will not shift to mimic nearby skyscrapers or star patterns, and a black silhouette against a brightly lit skyline is likely to be noticed).

System: The player spends one blood point. For the rest of the scene, the Gargoyle's Stealth dice pool is increased by five dice. This power is subject to the limitations described above; any ground movement faster than a walk negates this power's effect, as does flight (at the Storyteller's discretion).

The backbone of the Gargoyles' strength as guardians of havens and chantries, this power allows the user to maintain vigilance over part or all of an enclosed structure. The Gargoyle gains an innate sense of where all beings are located within the structure, even those who are hidden by Obfuscate or other supernatural concealment.

System: The player spends a Willpower point to activate this power, which remains in effect as long as the Gargoyle is within or in contact with the target structure, or until the next sunset. Scry the Hearthstone may be used on anything up to the size of a large castle, including a cave complex, a theatre, a parking garage or a mansion. The character gains an innate sense of the location and approximate size and physical condition of all living (or unliving) beings within the structure. To pinpoint a specific individual's location with this power, the player must succeed in a Perception + Alertness roll (difficulty 6). If the subject is attempting to hide, he may oppose this roll with a roll of Wits + Stealth (difficulty 6).

Scry the Hearthstone may be used to detect the presence of characters who are under the concealment of Obfuscate or similar powers. In this case, the Gargoyle only knows that there is someone present - she cannot actually see the individual in question. To determine the Gargoyle's ability to detect Obfuscated characters, compare the relative levels of the Gargoyle's Visceratika minus one and the intruder's Obfuscate as per the rules for Auspex in Vampire: The Masquerade .

Similar to the Protean power of Earth Meld, Bond with the Mountain allows a Gargoyle to seek shelter within stone (or building materials that are stonelike, such as cement). The merge produced by this power is not as complete as that made by Earth Meld, however. A faint outline of the Gargoyle's shape can be seen by the sharp-eyed observer.

System: The player spends two blood points, and the merge, which may only be performed upon bare rock or a similar substance, takes four turns to complete. This power functions in a fashion similar to the Protean 3 power of Earth Meld. However, the Gargoyle does not sink fully into the substance with which he merges, and his outline can be detected within the stone with a successful Perception + Alertness (difficulty 9) roll. A Gargoyle attacked while Bonded with the Mountain has triple his normal soak dice pool against all forms of attack. However, if he sustains three lethal health levels of damage from a single attack, he is forced out of his bond and suffers disorientation similar to that experienced by an Earth Melded character whose slumber is interrupted.

This power, combined with the unnatural resilience granted by Fortitude, is the source of the Gargoyles' ability to withstand assaults that would tear lesser Kindred to shreds. An individual who has reached this level of Visceratika finds her skin to have become immeasurably tougher than it once was, and gains a higher pain threshold. She also acquires a limited amount of immunity to fire (though she is no less terrified of it).

System: This power is automatic and requires no roll; it is always in effect. A vampire with Armor of Terra has one extra soak die for all aggravated and lethal attacks and two for all bashing attacks, reduces all wound penalties by one, and halves the damage dice pool of any fire-based source of injury. However, the difficulty of all touch-based Perception rolls is increased by two due to the desensitization of the character's skin.

A Gargoyle who has attained this level of Visceratika is no longer confined to the location in which he Bonded with the Mountain (above). He may now travel through stone and concrete as if they were no denser than a thick liquid. Gargoyle guardians use this power to devastating effect when intercepting intruders, while more subtle individuals find it to be a highly effective method of gaining access to "secure" areas. This power is of more limited use in this age of girder construction than it was when buildings were made of solid stone, but it still sees nightly use.

System: Once the character has used Bond with the Mountain, the player spends two more blood points to activate Flow Within the Mountain for the duration of the scene. The Gargoyle can move within stone and cement under the same rules used for a character under the effect of the Protean 6 power of Earth Control, with the exception of the medium through which the character can "swim."

The character can also use this power to walk through a stone wall and emerge on the other side without first using Bond with the Mountain. In this case, the player spends one blood point and rolls Strength (difficulty 8, Potence adds successes normally). The Gargoyle may flow through a maximum thickness in feet equal to the number of successes rolled. If the wall or barrier is thicker than this, the character is trapped within it until he is chiseled out or uses Flow Within the Mountain to escape.

The Gargoyles' ability to fly is one of their more noticeable traits. Although Gargoyles do gain enormous strength via Potence, and they do sprout wings as a result of being Embraced or converted, their enhanced body density (some Gargoyles have been recorded as weighing over 800 pounds) makes natural flight an impossible proposition - they don't have enough thrust-to-weight ratio to do more than glide like a brick with a couple of sheet-metal wings taped on. The more biology-minded among the Kindred have been wondering about this for some time.

The truth of the matter is that Gargoyles shouldn't be able to fly. Their ability to perform aerial maneuvers is unnatural (even for the Kindred) and is a direct result of Tremere experimentation. The initial thaumaturgical process that created the Gargoyles incorporated a highly refined variant of Movement of the Mind as a fundamental component of the subjects' magical makeup, making one application of this one thaumaturgical path second nature to them. This instinctive magical ability has been passed along through their blood for centuries. The Tremere scholar who gave the Gargoyles their flight capability in this manner was destroyed in the Gargoyle Revolt, and it's unknown whether anyone else knew what he did. Thus, the secret of Gargoyle flight is most likely lost forever.

For characters with more natural airborne forms, such as Gangrel in bat-form, Flight is a specialty of the Athletics Talent, or at Storyteller discretion can be listed as a Secondary Ability instead. Gargoyles, however, use a unique Discipline called Flight that is only available to them. All Gargoyles start with one dot in Flight in addition to their initial three Discipline dots; further levels of Flight must be bought like any other clan Discipline. As the character's Flight rating increases, so does her maximum speed.

The character cannot fly per se, but can soar like a vulture or a hang-glider - as long as he's not trying to carry anything. Maximum speed equals the prevailing winds, or 15 miles per hour in calm air.

The character can make running takeoffs and can carry a maximum payload of 20 pounds. Maximum speed equals 30 miles per hour.

The character can perform a straight vertical ascent if unencumbered, or can make longer takeoff runs carrying up to 50 pounds. Maximum speed equals 45 miles per hour.

The character can carry up to 100 pounds aloft, though vertical takeoff is impossible with more than 50 pounds of baggage. Maximum speed equals 60 miles per hour.

The character can lift up to 200 pounds, which should be sufficient for most player characters - or prey. Maximum speed of 75 miles per hour.

Every dot in Flight past the fifth adds an additional 100 pounds and 20 miles per hour to the Gargoyle's maximums. Celerity cannot be used to enhance flight speed. Although Flight did originate as a modification of Movement of the Mind, it is not considered Thaumaturgy; Gargoyles with high Flight ratings may have slightly effervescent auras, but they certainly can't perform rituals using Flight. Remember - only Gargoyles can learn this Discipline, and they're not aware that it's a Discipline at all. To the character, her wings and her ability to fly are just part and parcel of her existence as a Gargoyle.

Players who want to know what their characters are capable of doing to devastate opponents from the skies are directed to page 82 of the Book of Storyteller Secrets for Vampire: The Dark Ages.

Combination Disciplines

Creating Combination Disciplines

Just as characters should be able to work up their own high-level Discipline powers, there are cases where it may be appropriate for them to create their own high-level combination Discipline powers. Moments like this are best treated like moments when a player asks to create his own Discipline powers, but with even more caution. Combination powers are very potent, and an incorrectly designed one can unbalance a game immediately. It is suggested that if a player wants to come up with his own combination power, that power should never involve more than two Disciplines. Furthermore, the player should have to spend extensive time roleplaying his research or being tutored in this new art by a Storyteller character who happens to possess the knowledge the character wants - new ground is being broken here, and that should never be easy. Finally, the experience spent for the new power should be removed immediately, not at the end of the training/research period. In any event, the Storyteller should feel free to reject any proposed combination Discipline powers for any reason whatsoever.

Some elder Kindred have advanced their mastery of the basic physical Disciplines - Celerity, Fortitude and Potence - to such a degree that they have developed powers inconceivable to vampires of lesser ability and strength of blood. The following powers are available to those characters who have developed the listed Disciplines to the required degree. These powers cannot be developed spontaneously - they must be taught.

Elemental Stoicism

Although no vampire can resist the sun's light indefinitely, those elders who have mastered the powers of Fortitude to this advanced degree can stave off death for a few crucial moments. Elemental Stoicism also offers some degree of protection against fire.

Cost: 40 experience points, once the prerequisite levels of Fortitude and Obfuscate have been reached.

System: This power is involuntary and cannot be turned off. Every hour that the character is exposed to fire or sunlight, the player must spend one blood point. All damage inflicted on the vampire by fire or sunlight during that hour is changed from aggravated to nonaggravated lethal damage and may be soaked as such. This blood point use does not count against the character's maximum expenditure per turn. A character whose blood pool is emptied by this power falls into torpor immediately and begins taking damage normally if she is still in contact with the damage source. This power does not protect the vampire's clothing or belongings against such damage - she may be able to walk through a burning building, but she'll most likely walk out of it wearing nothing but ashes.

Martyr's Resilience

Reputedly pioneered by the Salubri bloodline, this power has been demonstrated by members of several other clans as well. Martyr's Resilience allows the vampire to choose to absorb injuries inflicted upon anyone whose blood he has tasted. This power is not necessarily used for selfless means - several Ventrue in London command small criminal armies of ghouls who seem to possess a disturbing degree of immunity to bullets.

Cost: 35 experience points, once the prerequisite levels of Fortitude and Auspex have been reached.

System: The vampire must have ingested at least one blood point of the subject's blood within the past year to employ this power, and must be within eyesight of the subject when the injury is inflicted. The player spends a blood point to activate this power, and the action must be declared before the initial victim rolls to soak the damage. As a result, a number of health levels of damage equal to the character's Stamina are transferred from the initial target of the attack to the character. This damage is considered to have been inflicted directly on the character and is soaked normally. Any damage in excess of the character's Stamina is inflicted on the initial recipient of the damage, who soaks it normally as well.

The use of this power is completely voluntary - a character cannot be forced to use it, even through Dominate or other powers of that sort.

Unassailable Parry

According to the Sabbat, one of the primary advantages that younger Kindred have in battling their elders is modern technology - firearms, to be precise. Many overconfident elders have fallen to packs of diablerists with automatic weapons. Some few ancients, however, have honed their reflexes and hand-eye coordination to an edge fine enough to stop a bullet, or at least to deflect one.

Cost: 42 experience points, once the prerequisite levels of Auspex and Celerity have been reached.

System: This power allows a character to parry projectiles. The player spends one blood point and rolls Dexterity + Athletics (difficulty and number of successes required are shown below) to parry or catch a thrown weapon, arrow or bullet. Only solid physical projectiles may be deflected in this manner - Unassailable Parry has no effect on a stream of liquid from a fire hose, for instance.

If the player scores less than three successes on any roll to parry or catch a bullet, the character still takes the gun's base damage. Any missile hurled with Projectile is considered a bullet for the purposes of deflecting or catching it with Unassailable Parry.