By Benjamin van d'Grift
One of the disciplines of the Detrius bloodline.
Everyone, everything has an avatar. Mortals, Garou, Kindred, Wraiths, Faeries (geh!) and all the Evil Nasties From Beyond. Existence is inherently magickal, but I'm waxing philosophical. (and it's getting shinier) *wax wax*
A vampire's avatar is composed of the avatars of others. When the vampire drains even the smallest quantity of blood from anyone or thing, mortal or immortal, a bit of the creature's avatar is picked up. Maybe a bit, maybe a lot. The life essence is what the Vampire feeds on. This is because in Becoming, a Vampire loses its own avatar. A body cannot live without an Avatar. So when the mortal soon to be vampire loses all of his blood, he is devoid of said avatar and is dead. Then, the vampire creator gives the corpse a portion of her own avatar (composed of the avatars of others) and it once again has an avatar, and is alive again. Vampires feed off of avatars. The easiest way (and possibly the only way) to get to a living creatire's avatar is the blood. Therefore, Vampire live off of blood. So, vampires have avatars. Their avatars are composed of the avatars of everything they have ever fed off of. Thus, in the Umbra, Vampires are recognizable by the whirlwind shroud of spirits that surround them, the avatars of their victims. The Areal discipline is the manipulation of that spirit cloud.
Which leads to quintessence... A vampire can absorb quintessence like any other being, and does. It is stored in the cloud of avatar around her. They are veritable sinks of quintessence, due to the avatar cloud. The blood they have represents this quintessence. If a vampire has 5 blood points, she has 5 points of quintessence. They spend this as mages do (for a vampire's avatar is most certainly awake) but on their disciplines. Can Vampires generate paradox? YES!
So, the bottom line: A vampire needs an avatar to survive. The quest of unlife is to gather an avatar, to become mortal again. (Areal 10: The Integration) Quintessence is used in this quest and is stored in the spirit cloud around the vampire. Vampire quintessence is gained by drinking blood.
Those seeking to learn this discipline must seek out those who already know it, for it originated with a Malkavian named Seer, in Boston. The Kindred community thought that it was her particular derangement, but when she turned up one day mortal again. . .
System: The Kindred can see into the Umbra as if she were standing on the other side of the gauntlet. She is not, however, actually in the Umbra. With the expenditure of a willpower point, she can suppress this sight for one scene. This power is always on. A creative ST will take advantage of the fact that the Kindred using this power is constantly seeing the spirit cloud surrounding her.
System: With the expenditure of a blood point, the Vampire's spirit cloud becomes the equivalent of a Spirit with Rage equivalent to the vampire's Willpower (current) + Areal, and Gnosis equal Intelligence + Areal. The 'Bite' does not do aggravated damage, and does not affect creatures whose physical bodies are not in the Umbra.
System: With the expenditure of a willpower point, the Kindred can make her Spirit Cloud visible and audible. This causes the viewers (in the Physical Realm) to make a fear check, the difficulty of which is equal to the users Manipulation + Intimidation + Areal. If they make the check, they may remain, but are at a penalty to all their dice pools equal to the user's Areal score. (e.g. Areal 4 causes a -4 to all dice pools)
System: The Kindred must make a Manipulation + Empathy roll, difficulty equal to 12 - Humanity to convince the Spirit Cloud to pull her into the Umbra. She will remain there, invisible to the physical world, until she leaves the Umbra (same roll).
System: The Kindred must spent a blood point (To manifest the spirit), and use a willpower point (to reconcile the loss of avatar) and make a Manipulation + (empathy/intimidation) roll, difficulty equal to the victim's humanity to convince the spirit to haunt the individual. The victim must make a courage check when first seeing the Haunt or pick up a Derangement. The receiver of the torment must make a intelligence + Spirit Lore roll (diff 8) to realize exactly what happened. The victim receives the Haunted flaw (3) permanently.
System: The kindred must make a manipulation + empathy roll, difficulty the target's humanity, to convince the Spirit Cloud to pull the target in. Once in, a target must find her own way out of the Umbra.
System: The user must make an Areal roll, difficulty 4 + Gauntlet strength for that area. (See Mage: The Ascension) This creates a gate to the Near Umbra that is permanent. ST note: This will make the Technocracy very upset.
System: This is not an instantaneous thing. The Kindred must choose the spirit to use. This requires an Areal roll, difficulty 10. The number of success x 10 is the spirit's Power. (see W:tA) Then the user must make a Manipulation + intimidation roll, difficulty is the Spirit's Willpower + Power/10. (Base spirit willpower in the Cloud is 2, plus one for each time the the Kindred has committed Diablerie). This convinces the spirit to remain on that spot. Once this is done, The kindred can empower the spirit by using Blood. One blood point raises the spirit's power by 1. Determine the spirit's stats as the ST sees fit.
System: The Kindred expends a point of willpower to send her tormentors away, and dies. If your players ever get this, roleplay it.
System: The Kindred using this power must expend all of her blood and willpower coalescing the spirits, and 'rewiring' the spiritual energy. No player will ever attain this! The ritual takes a number of hours equal to the number of years on unlife and cannot be interrupted, else the Kindred dies the final death as per Areal 9. At the end of this time, the newly made Avatar (fully awakened) enters the kindred, who becomes a mortal.