Elphame

By Stacey Lawless, for the Sluagh bloodline.

This Discipline reflects the enigmatic faerie nature of its practitioners. It is centered around old dreams, forgotten pathways and lost possibilities. Until recently the individual powers did not have names; they were given the following monikers by a Sluagh who loved books.

* Pale Kings And Princes: Sluagh stand at the crossroads between Faerie and Kindred and can never feel at home in either world. Moreover, many are haunted by the memories of their mortal lives. Pale Kings And Princes lets the Sluagh temporarily enter one of these worlds-fae, vampire, or sometimes even mortal-to a greater degree by focusing those aspects of her being which correspond to that world.

It is easiest for a Sluagh to become "more vampiric" since that is basically what she is. Any use of this power to be "vampiric" automatically succeeds. The "vampiric" Sluagh gains no particular advantages; however, any faerie marks she might have become less obvious, and she gets a -1 modifier to the difficulty of any attempts to pass herself off as a member of another clan. Unfortunately, she also gains a +1 modifier to all frenzy difficulties.

To become more "fae", the Sluagh must spend a blood point for every hour she wishes to be "faerie". The "fae" Sluagh gets a +1 to her Charisma and -1 to all difficulties when dealing with Faerie things. However, any faerie marks she possesses become pronounced (i.e., violet eyes become downright purple, and slightly slanted as well) and being around iron will unsettle her badly.

A Sluagh can only be "more human" if she has a Humanity rating of five or better. A Sluagh following one of the Paths of Enlightenment cannot become "human" as she has forsaken that side of herself. To become "human" the Sluagh must make a Humanity roll with a difficulty of eight, with each success allowing her to be "human" for an hour. While in the "human" state the Sluagh gains the Baby Face and Eat Food merits (*Vampire Player's Guide*) but cannot use any Disciplines beside Pale Kings And Princes. Burning blood for any reason will negate the "human" state, regardless of how many hours the Sluagh had remaining to her.

** A Midsummer Night's Dream: This power works a bit like a blend of Chimerstry and Obfuscate. It allows the Sluagh to disguise one object as another of roughly the same size and shape. There are a few limitations on this, however. A Midsummer Night's Dream does not allow the Sluagh to choose what the new appearance will be. Rather, the Sluagh must designate one person whom the power will affect. This single person will perceive the disguised object as being exactly what they *want* it to be, and will behave accordingly. It should be noted, though, that the actual appearance of the object does not change for anyone but the target of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the Sluagh himself will have no idea what the target thinks she is looking at unless she indicates it somehow.

To use this power the Sluagh must make a Wits + Subterfuge roll with the difficulty being the target's Willpower. The number of successes he gets indicates the amount of time the target is affected by the illusion,

1 success	5 minutes
2 successes	1 hour
3 successes	1 day
4 successes	1 month
5 successes	1 year

while a botch means that the target is not fooled at all.

*** Twa Corbies: As time goes on, the Faerie things vanish from the world, never to be seen again. Twa Corbies lets the Sluagh turn this to her advantage, at least temporarily. By using this power, the Sluagh can make certain that a person or thing disappears and is never found. The disappearance will be noticed, but all traces of the whereabouts of the missing thing will ultimately lead nowhere. In fact, a searcher could look straight at the missing thing and never see it while it was shrouded by Twa Corbies. His mind would simply refuse to see it, and substitute some other image instead.

To use this power on an object, the Sluagh must smear a point of her own blood on it and make a Manipulation + Subterfuge roll. The target number can vary wildly, depending on what the object is and how hard people will search for it. Somebody's wallet might be a six, while the Toreador clanhead's favorite Vermeer could well be a 10.

Hiding people is a little trickier. The Sluagh must get the person to ingest the point of blood--something most Kindred will be loath to do-- and when she makes the Manipulation + Subterfuge roll, if the person is being hidden against his will his Willpower + 3 will be the target number; and if he goes out of his way to draw attention to himself, Twa Corbies will be negated. If the person is willing to be hidden the target number is 7, as it is assumed that they will actively participate in the hiding away.

In any case, the number of successes the Sluagh gets on the roll determines how long the object or person remains hidden,

1 success	24 hours
2 successes	1 week
3 successes	1 month
4 successes	1 year
5 successes	1 decade

while a botch indicates that anybody searching for the hidden thing will have an unusually easy time finding it.

**** The Once And Future King: Named perhaps a bit optimistically, this power expands upon Pale Kings And Princes and allows the Sluagh to become very fae indeed. She gains +2 to her Charisma, the Eat Food Merit, the Inoffensive to Animals Merit, and subtracts 2 from all difficulties dealing with faerie things. In addition, she subtracts 1 from all difficulties in using Animalism, Presence, Obfuscate, Chimerstry, and Elphame. Her aura becomes a bright swirl of changing colors, while any faerie marks she has are greatly exaggerated. Her appearance in general will not be very human, though her actual Appearance rating will not change. In this state even touching iron will bring about a wound, though this will not be aggravated (injuries caused by iron weapons are still aggravated), and the Sluagh will be unable to enter any area guarded by iron (a horseshoe over the door, for example). The Sluagh must spend a point of blood for every hour she wishes to use The Once And Future King.

***** The Old Straight Track: This power allows the Sluagh to locate and tap into ley lines, the rivers of fae, magical energy that still crisscross the earth here and there. Locating a ley line requires a Perception + Occult roll; the Sluagh can just home in on the ley, but the more successes he gets on the roll, the closer the ley line is.

Once a ley line is found, the Sluagh can use its energies to replenish his own, either mental or physical. He must roll Stamina + Occult, difficulty 8; at his discretion the successes thus gained may be used to heal aggravated wounds (1 wound level per success) or replenish Willpower (again, on a point per success basis). A ley line may only be tapped in this way once per night, as doing so drains it of power.

The Sluagh have a few other uses for leys as well. Mages and shapeshifters, especially Lupines, tend to congregate around the places where ley lines intersect and by following the leys, several Goblins have used this power to good effect, both to contact and to spy upon the other creatures. Further, it is rumored that some of the Sluagh know strange, secret rites and rituals that draw upon the power in the leys to enchant items and open gates to mysterious places.

It should be pointed out that if a Sluagh taps a ley line's power for his own use, the resulting drain may well be noticed by the inhabitants of the caern or chantry "downstream", particularly if the Sluagh drains the ley regularly. Mages and Lupines all tend to be very protective of their resources, and more than one Goblin has met an untimely end by angering these powerful guardians.

****** Man And His Symbols: Similar to A Midsummer Night's Dream, this power allows the Sluagh to make a thing seem like something other than what it actually is. As in A Midsummer Night's Dream, the power only affects one person; however, the Sluagh using Man And His Symbols can choose what the thing will look like to that person. The power causes the victim to believe the illusion affects all his senses; this even extends to auras, and the Goblins who know this power of Elphame routinely use it to hide their true feelings from Auspicers.

To use this power the Sluagh must make a Wits + Subterfuge roll with the difficulty being the target's Willpower. The number of successes he gets indicates the amount of time the target is affected by the illusion.

1 success	5 minutes
2 successes	1 hour
3 successes	1 day
4 successes	1 month
5 successes	1 year

while a botch means that the target is not fooled at all.

******* Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune: This power allows the Sluagh to use elf-shot to inflict madness and injury upon her enemies. She must be able to see her victim, and makes a Dexterity + Occult roll with a difficulty of 9. If she botches, she takes a permanent Derangement. If she succeeds, though, her victim takes eight levels of (non-aggravated) damage. To avoid instant death, the victim must make a Willpower roll with a target of 7; each success reduces the damage inflicted by one level. If the victim botches he take no damage at all, but instead takes a permanent Derangement.

The Sluagh need not gesture in any way to use this power, and it leaves no mark on the victim. To the observer it simply seems that the victim suffered a stroke...even if they were Kindred. The attack causes little pain, and wounds inflicted by the Arrows Of Outrageous Fortune take the form of a lingering paralysis. In creatures capable of regeneration the paralysis generally lasts seven days per wound level, but in mortals it can be permanent. This power can only be used once on any given target. If the victim survives the elf-shot, they will be immune to it for the rest of their existence.

Levels eight through ten: There is only one Sluagh of the fifth generation; she is the founder of the bloodline, Yevaud, the Cailleach Bhuer. She is not the typical fifth-generation Kindred, if such creatures can be called typical. Rather, she is a vampirized Faerie, and as such has many strange and unique powers. Her true form is that of a wizened hag with grey skin, black eyes, and stone talons, but she can appear to be anything she wants. Yevaud is said to possess incredible powers of illusion, as well as strange powers of weather- and plant-control, and the ability to tell the truth from a lie just by hearing it. She is not limited to a paltry handful of vampiric powers.