By Ian Turner
With a successful Static Mental Challenge, the user can make a Minor or Complex Illusion capable of movement. He must concentrate on maintaining the motion for as long as it is to occur or it will simply freeze in place and become static again. The illusion may be moved as fast as the user can run, but may not leave the user's presence. The user cannot animate another persons' illusions with this power.
This power allows the user to expend a Mental Trait to maintain a static Minor or Complex Illusion until it is touched by sunlight or intentionally dissolved by the user. The user may not affect another person's illusions with this ability. If the illusion to be made permanent is to display motion as well (an illusory fire, for example), the user must expend a Willpower Trait as well, although neither expenditure is permanent.
The user may throw her voice anywhere within the general area and alter the sound of it to sound like any sound with which she is familiar, up to the volume of a scream. She can create sounds not normally possible via the human voice with ease, although to fool someone familiar with a certain voice or sound with this power she must succeed in a Mental Challenge.
The user can sing a song of madness, engaging a single target in her presence in a Social Challenge and expending a Willpower Trait. If the challenge succeeds the target gains a random new Derangement for the night. The singer may choose to make the Willpower Trait expenditure permanent to make the Derangement permanent. This effect cannot be transmitted effectively and must be `live.' The user cannot record it or transmit it in anyway, not even through Tourett's Voice or the Missing Voice.
With a successful Static Mental Challenge the necromancer can gaze into the eyes of the deceased and see the last 10 minutes of that persons' life. When used against a Kindred, an active Mental Challenge is made and the user views the manner of that vampire's Embrace.
With a successful Mental Challenge and the expenditure of a Willpower Trait, the necromancer can force a spirit to inhabit a certain area indefinitely, obeying his will. Such spirits are usually assigned to guard libraries, havens or vaults, but some necromancers bind them into areas they simply want to `curse' or to become or remain deserted. The spirit has a number of minor powers, including; Unseen Presence, Dread Gaze, Manipulate, Minor Illusion and Mind Tricks. The ST may have access to more specific Wraith rules for Live-Action play. All spirits are immune to non-Aggravated damage and appear ghostly pale and translucent. They use their abilities as the necromancer commands. Note: This will all change once the Oblivion rules for Live-Action Wraith are available (in November 96?).
This power animates a zombie identically to the use of Animate Corpse by a Mummy character. The only changes are that the necromancer must expend a Mental Trait to animate the Zombie and must feed it a Blood Trait each night that he wishes it to be active. If not fed it lapses into torpor until fed again. Note that it continues decaying when not fed, so unless preserved somehow, zombies cannot easily be horded for later.
By expending a Mental Trait and successfully touching a person (which may require a successful Physical Challenge if the target is unwilling to be touched) the user can paralyze the target for 5 minutes as per the effects of violating Neutral Guard. As with Neutral Guard, the paralysis ends instantly if the user attempts to harm the victim.
This power acts identically as the basic Bardo Discipline, Restore Humanitas.
At the cost of one Blood Trait, the user may strip another individual of a single Physical Trait for the rest of the night. This power requires a firm touch from the user's blood-soaked hand to be effective, so a Physical Challenge will often be required to activate the power, and the Trait bid is in addition to the one canceled in the case of a lost Physical Challenge! If the situation is such that the target cannot resist (she is totally surprised or helpless, for example) only the Blood Trait need be spent, no Challenge or Test is required and no Physical Trait need be bid by either side. Note that the victim may not recover either Trait lost to this attack through the use of Willpower. The user may choose to expend a Willpower Trait to make the loss of either Physical Trait permanent (it would cost two Willpower Traits to permanently negate both Traits lost). The user cannot use this power more than once per night on any one person.
This power acts exactly as Weakness, above, except that it allows the user to make an immediate follow-up attack after a successful attack. This can continue as long as the successive attacks are successful. This is resolved as any other `follow-up attack' such as that allowed by certain levels of Potence, it does not require additional actions and is assumed to be happening in an instant. Upon reaching zero Physical Traits from this power or Weakness, above, the target is treated as Incapacitated. After the initial 10 minutes, the target may get up and act normally, except that he may not initiate or resist any Physical Challenge for the rest of the night. The user may choose to expend Willpower Traits to make Physical Trait losses permanent, on a one-for-one basis. The user does not have to make all (or any) traits lost by a single attack permanent. This power may not be used on the same person more than once in an evening, although it can be used upon someone whom the user has previously used Weakness upon or upon someone who has been affected by other users of Quietus.
By expending two Blood Traits, the user can spit blood at another person. This blood will inflict 2 Aggravated Wounds at a range of up to 10'. The attack requires a successful Physical Challenge to hit the target, unless that target is incapable of physically avoiding the attack.
With the power the user may choose to enter a nearly invulnerable form of Torpor at will. While in this state, the user is unaware of his surroundings and can only be awakened by the taste of blood. Note that this does not have to be Kindred blood, or even human blood, as this is not a normal form of torpor. The primary advantage to this state is that the user becomes immune to any force short of fire or sunlight (which will damage or destroy him normally without awakening him). Obviously, this power is difficult to use reliably as the user must have some means of getting blood at the time he wishes to awaken. Retainers are typically used for this, although devices that deliver blood into the sleepers mouth after a certain amount of time are an option.
With the expenditure of a Physical Trait and a Blood Trait the user may conjure up a large venomous serpent, which usually crawls forth from his mouth or an open wound on his body. The effect lasts a single scene, or until the snake is killed in combat (at which point it reverts to an oily ash) and the snake obeys the user's will, attacking others if he so commands. The serpents' Traits are Quick, Wiry, Tough and Cunning and its bite causes a single wound to a mortal bitten and forces the mortal to make a series of Simple Tests. If he loses one he takes another wound, if he ties he takes no damage but must Test again, and when he succeeds the poison has run its course. An unlucky mortal may be dead by then. A regenerative creature such as a Lupine can regenerate this damage normally and a Ghoul can spend blood to heal the damage. A Kindred bitten by this serpent loses a single Blood trait to the venom and must make Tests as above to avoid losing additional Traits, but resists the venom on a win or a tie. The serpent must make a Physical Challenge to bite and is assumed to be `out of venom' after losing its three Physical Traits. The snake has the Derangement: Avoids well-lit areas, is one bid down if it must act in such an area. Note that the Setite may choose to create the serpent from a wooden stick or large bone at no extra cost. In this cast the bone or stick used is destroyed in the change.
At the cost of one Blood Trait, the user can manipulate his skin, altering his appearance radically for once scene. With careful contortions, which would take about 5 minutes and a Simple Test, the user can actually alter his appearance enough to temporarily negate the Samedi weakness and appear as a normal (albeit ugly) person. The user may also hide small items, such as the ever-popular guns, knives or bombs, in folds of flesh, rendering them unnoticeable to a physical search (but not a metal detector or similar scanner). The appearance alteration could never be used to duplicate anyone other than a Nosferatu or another Samedi.
By expending a Blood Trait and succeeding a Physical Challenge against another person, the user may tear that person's skin off of her body inflicting 2 Wounds in the process. Mortals will almost always die of shock and blood loss within the hour. Kindred will be able to regrow the skin by spending Blood Traits to heal the wound. Healing only a single one of the Wounds (or not healing either) will result in the Kindred having the Nosferatu / Samedi weakness until the wounds are healed. The Skin Stealer may choose to spend a single Physical Trait to slip into the skin within 10 minutes of the assault (after which the skin `dies' and is no longer useful) gaining the victim's appearance for the remainder of the evening (after which the skin dies anyway). This will not allow a Huge Samedi to slip into the skin of a Child, but will work on any reasonably similar individuals as the user's body will contort to suit the new skin for the rest of the night.
This ability confers automatic direction sense underground (treat the character as if he had Sewer Lore, even in unfamiliar areas) and allows him to create stable tunnels and passageways over long periods of time. In a nights time the user could single-handedly create a 20' section of tunnel thanks to his supernatural affinity with the surrounding earth.
Once this power is attained, the user can invoke the effects of the following Thaumaturgical abilities; Hand of Flame, Manipulate, Fog or Cause Sleep. No access to higher levels of Thaumaturgy or to rituals is allowed by this ability. In fact, the user will still have to learn those abilities normally if he studies one of the relevant Paths of Thaumaturgy. Note: This will probably change once Dreaming rules for Live-Action Changeling are out, but I really only included this stuff to be complete; no one I know has played a Changeling, let alone a Kiasyd.
The user must expend a Social Trait and make a successful Static Social Challenge over the course of 30 minutes to activate this power, but once successfully completed the user regains a Willpower Trait. This power may be used multiple times in one night if the user wishes to spend the appropriate amount of time out-of-game and has adequate Social Traits to expend.
With a successful Static Social Challenge and the expenditure of a Blood Trait the user may summon a Spirit Animal for one scene. This animal will function as a living animal of the appropriate type (the Narrator will determine what sort of Animal Spirit arrives, although in the case of smaller beasts, such as bats or rats, a swarm may appear) and will obey the will of the summoner. Only one Summoning can be in effect at a time, although the user can Summon a new Spirit the instant the old one `dies.' The Spirit dissolves into mist once Incapacitated.
With this power the user may peer into the Spirit World, seeing, hearing and even conversing with all within. While viewing the Spirit World, the user cannot see or hear what is transpiring around him in the material world and can easily be surprised.
Aura of Decay
With the expenditure of a single Blood Trait the user can cause any device or item to be affected by the powers of entropy, breaking down and becoming useless almost immediately. The item to be affected must be within touch range (although it need not be actually touched or even visible) although the use of this power is obvious. How fast the item decays into uselessness is a function of its' durability and complexity. A soft substance such as a wooden stake, will decay almost immediately, as will a complex system such as a computer or car engine, whereas a simple and durable thing such as a steel bulkhead will take the full night to finish decaying to the point where a person could smash through the rusted remnants.
At this stage the user can actually feed from the spiritual energies of Wraiths (called Corpus, and roughly analogous to Health for material creatures) as if from mortal vitae. Any Kindred with this power may choose to have certain members of his Herd be Wraiths, which would allow him to feed safe from the intervention of other Kindred. This power also allows the Kindred's blood to cause Blood Bonds in Wraiths and his Kiss to cause ecstasy in Wraiths as it does in Kindred and kine. If a Wraith drinks a full Blood Trait from a Kindred, it gains Potence just like any other sort of Ghoul.
The Dark Touch
With the expenditure of a Blood Trait, the user may direct the damaging forces of entropy at a living (or undead; Kindred or Wraith) target, requiring a Challenge of the user's Mental Traits versus the victim's Physical Traits. If the challenge is successful, the victim suffers two Wounds, although the damage is not Aggravated.
To activate this power the user must expend a Willpower Trait and can then slide into the Spirit World. In this realm, he can directly interact with Wraiths and other spirits. Treat this power as the Garou ability to slip into the Umbra in most respects. He can peer into the material realm as desired, seeing, hearing and even conversing with those within the material world, at the cost of being oblivious to his surroundings in the spirit world. If he so chooses, he may even manifest a ghostly presence in the material world to facilitate communication.
A Kindred with this power is always aware of the exact time and any passage thereof, natural or not. He can sense any sort of time-manipulations within his presence, whether that of a mage, another user of Temporis, or any other sort of time effect, including the decaying effects of Nihilistics and the personal use of Celerity by any in the vicinity. He can bid a Mental Trait to negate the effects of Surprise on himself.
Ramble On
By winning a Mental Challenge, the user can force a single victim to repeat his last action, for good or ill. This will allow anyone in the area to attempt a Fair Escape as long as they are willing to expend a Mental Trait to take advantage of the situation. Anyone with Alacrity will not need to expend a Mental Trait or a Blood Trait.
With a successful Mental Challenge and the expenditure of Blood Trait the user can cause another to move so slowly that anyone may force him into a re-test as if they had Swiftness, and anyone who has Swiftness or higher can add another re-test to their series.
Cowalker
For a single Blood Trait, the user can move himself through the time-stream allowing for a Fair Escape or Surprise Attack, even in the midst of combat. No challenge is required.
With a successful Mental Challenge and the expenditure of a Willpower Trait the user may age or youthen any item or person 10 years. To affect an item requires only a Simple Test and one or more Blood Traits can be substituted for the Willpower Trait, with each Blood Trait expended aging or youthening the item by 10 years. No Blood Traits are lost if the Simple Test is failed. Kindred are unaffected, but mortals can be seriously harmed by the use of this power. Ghouls may be seriously harmed by the use of this power, especially the older ones who have been sustained far beyond their mortal life spans. After only a months worth of aging the Ghoul will cease to be a Ghoul and will then age to death with great speed. The Storyteller will have to determine the power's effects on inanimate objects.
With a successful Mental Challenge the user can learn one Derangement, Beast Trait, Path Trait, Negative Trait or other dark secret (patricide, diabolist, infernalist, Sabbat, etc) at the Storyteller's discretion, although the biggest secret should be learned first. If successful, the user can then make a re-test to learn the next biggest secret and so on, until he fails a test, at which point he can no longer use Sense the Sin on that person for the rest of the night.
Fear of the Void Below
With a successful Mental Challenge the user can cause one victim to fly into a Terror Frenzy by speaking of the victim's innermost fears. He must have used Sense the Sin successfully upon the victim at some point previous to this power's use and he may choose to bid any one of the victim's secrets learned in lieu of one of his own Mental Traits.
The user can hurl fire as per the Flame Bolt ability from the Thaumaturgical Path of Flames, except that this attack inflicts 1 or 2 Aggravated Wounds and requires 1 or 2 Blood Traits of the user. The user may also choose to use this ability to shield himself from fire, expending 1 Physical Trait per Wound prevented. This power does not protect vs. sunlight, concussive explosion or any other form of damage, only that from heat and fire. In the event that a normal Wound is being treated as Aggravated (such as incendiary bullets or exploding gasoline) because of fire, the user may expend a single Physical trait to reduce any number of Wounds from a single effect to non-Aggravated Wounds.
Psychomachia
With this power the user may choose to activate another person's Derangement, Beast Trait or Path Trait with a successful Mental Challenge, so long as he has used Sense the Sin upon that target previously. In this regard it is much like the basic Animalism Discipline Beast Within, but the user need not actually bid any of his own Mental Traits as he can instead bid the user's Derangement, Beast Trait or Path Trait against him. In addition the target cannot use Willpower to negate or forestall any Frenzy brought on by this power's use.
At the cost of 1 Willpower Trait, the user may curse someone to lose all Traits in a category; Physical, Social or Mental. A Challenge versus the category to be targeted must be won, and the effects last for a single evening per Trait lost, with one Trait of that category being recovered per night. Willpower may not be used to hasten this process.
Summon the Herald of Hell
With this hour long ritual, a Willpower expenditure and a human (or better) sacrifice, the user may summon up a powerful demon to serve him for the remainder of the night. The Storyteller should create the demon using Apocalypse and Masquerade rules as a Crinos-form Baali Abomination with the maximum amount of Age for extra goodies...
Any `related' Blood Brother's with this ability may expend their own Blood Traits to heal any of their brothers wounds, although Aggravated ones will still cost extra. Any Brother with this power may `requisition' a Blood trait from any Brother who does not have this power with a successful Simple Physical Test. The Blood Brothers can only use these abilities on Brothers who are present at the time.
The Sharing
Once this level is reached, a Blood Brother can spend his Blood to activate another Brother's Celerity or Potence (or other Disciplines). He can even simply transfer the Blood Trait to another Brother intact, allowing the recipient to use it as he sees fit or retain it for later. As with the previous power, the Brothers must be nearby to use these powers.
Each Brother to use Coordination must expend a Blood Trait and then all who contributed receive 1 `Ghost Trait' to use per Brother contributing (not counting that individual, simply put each contributing Brother receives bonus traits equal to the number of contributing Brothers -1). These `Ghost Traits' can be used as Physical, Social or Mental Traits, as the individual recipient desires, and are always the first ones used in the scene. While under the effects of Coordination, the Brothers are immune to Surprise from any source that any one of the Brothers could have detected. Note that the potential abundance of `Ghost Traits' can be used to resist Domination, Presence, etc in addition to being used as Physical Traits in combat. While under the effects of Coordination, the Brothers do not need to speak as they are linked telepathically, and any other Telepath in the area may test to eavesdrop on their communications as per the Telepathy power. Note that only one Blood Brother need actually have this power, and that one (or more if they so desire) must expend a Willpower Trait to form the link. If that one is Incapacitated, all the Brothers linked to him are stunned and can be Surprised or subjected to Fair Escape unless another Brother (or Brothers) had Coordination and also spent a Willpower Trait to form the link.
Concentrate Generation
A Brother with this power can increase his Generation by one per Brother willing to contribute one level of his own Generation. This power lasts for once scene, requires the using Brother to expend a Willpower Trait and requires that the donating Brothers be physically present, as with all Sanguinus powers. Any Brother dropped below 13th Generation gains the Flaw Thin-Blooded until his Generation is returned to him. If the borrowing Brother is slain before the end of the scene, each donating Brother must expend a Willpower Trait or permanently lose the donated Generation.
The Blood Brother with this power can physically merge with his Brothers, becoming an enormous mass of fleshy destruction for the rest of the scene. Each Brother to join, as well as the user, must expend one Willpower Trait and one Blood Trait to merge. The composite creature has the highest Discipline levels, number of Traits, Generation, etc of the joined Brothers. It gains the benefits superior to Coordination and Concentrate Generation (the entire creature is equal to the highest Generation +1 per other Brother and has the best number of Traits in each category from the joining Brothers +1 per other Brother per category!) and has a Blood Pool equal to the remaining Blood Traits of all the Brothers combined (up to what its new Generation can contain, excess Blood Traits are lost in the merger) and +1 Health level per joining Brother over the best in the group (which is only over 4 if one had Mettle or the Huge size Merit). Its combined Disciplines are not enhanced, although with the creature's huge amounts of Traits, they will be easier to use and more likely to succeed.
This power allows the user to become intimately familiar with his surroundings, usually a single room. He becomes aware of any hidden items (secret panels, wall safes, etc) or people in the area (although a Mental Challenge is required to spot one that is Obfuscated, hidden in shadows via Obtenebration or concealed by another supernatural means, such as Skin of the Chameleon below). This power does not reveal past occurrences, only the present structure and inhabitants of the area. It can be used outside to search for an Earth Meld-ed Kindred. This does not require a Mental Challenge.
Skin of the Chameleon
With this power the user can blend into his surroundings to hide from searchers. If he tries to move stealthily while using this power, any in the area is allowed a Mental Challenge to spot him, while those with Auspex do so automatically. Those with Investigation can attempt a re-test if they fail and a user with Stealth can force a re-test if he is spotted. This power affects machines and animals normally, as the user can become completely motionless and even develops the surface texture and scent of the background that he is emulating.
This power acts as Earth Meld, but allows the user to meld with any stone surface large enough to accommodate him in all dimensions. He will remain visible as a bas-relief of sorts on the surface of the stone, although clever users will only Bond with surfaces that will not be seen or that already have appropriate bas-reliefs so as to avoid messy questions. This power costs one Blood Trait to use.
Flight
With the development of this level of Visceratika, the user's vestigial wings increase to nearly the size of the user and become able to carry the user at more than twice his normal ground move (cut in-game travel times by four if the situation allows the user to fly). Note that both the wings and their use can be quite Masquerade-wrecking...
This power allows the user a re-test to avoid staking or piercing attacks (such as bullets or sword thrusts) as well as fire damage for 1 Blood Trait per attack to be so foiled. The user cannot ward against more than one attack at a time, so if attacked by several foes he must choose carefully which attacks to ward against.
With the expenditure of a Physical Trait and a Static Physical Challenge, the user may reduce damage from a Kinetic attack (bullet, fist, sword, car, falling, etc.) by 1 Wound level.
Redirection
With the expenditure of a Physical Trait and a Static Physical Challenge, the user can cause a ranged attack to miss him. By expending a Blood Trait also and then making a Physical Challenge to hit (Firearms allows him to use Mental Traits instead) to send the attack back to its sender. This power affects thrown objects and other physical projectiles (including molotov cocktails and napalm spewed by a flamethrower), even if they are hurled telekinetically or magically, but will not avert a Force Bolt or Flame Bolt as they have no physical basis.
With the expenditure of a Blood Trait the user can attempt to add the damage done by any physical attack upon him (even if he avoided it through a successful Physical Challenge or special Discipline) to his own Melee or Brawl counter-attack. This must be an immediate use, if moves or takes any other action other than an attack, the extra damage is lost. The damage is not treated as Aggravated, regardless of its' source unless his counter-attack is Aggravated (such as Wolf's Claws). Only a Simple Test is required after the counter-attack hits to add the additional damage to the strike, if the Simple Test is failed, the excess damage is lost and only the normal damage for the attack is scored.
Discharge
With this power the user can add damage to a physical attack, whether Brawl, Melee or Firearm. The user must simply expend a Blood Trait as he makes the Physical Challenge (before he knows whether or not he has won) and the attack, if successful, inflicts an extra Wound level. If the attack is Aggravated (Wolf's Claws, for example) the extra damage will be Aggravated also.
The user can expend a Willpower Trait to add a Wound level for the scene. Multiple Willpower Traits can be expended for extra Health levels, but no more than 3 extra Health levels can be maintained through the use of this power at one time.
With this power the user can appear as a corpse to even the most thorough scrutiny. Unless he does something obvious, like moves or speaks, even a forensic exam will fail to determine that he is anything but a normal corpse. Note that this power will not protect the user from supernatural means of detection or the traditional weaknesses of vampire-kind.
Blight
This power requires a touch, the expenditure of a Blood Trait and a successful Mental Challenge to use, aging the victim to decrepitude in an instant. This renders a subject, mortal or Kindred, 2 bids down on all challenges for the rest of the night.
This power allows the user to expend a Willpower Trait to awaken a torporous Kindred with a touch and can even be used on oneself. If the Kindred went into torpor from lack of blood, he will awaken for but a moment and will immediately try to feed and so allow himself to remain awake indefinitely. When used on another a Simple Mental Test is required for success.
Death's Whisper
For 1 Blood Trait the user effectively becomes a normal corpse for as long as he desires. He must set the time in advance as he will be unable to move or even perceive his surroundings for the duration of the power. During that time he will be immune to sunlight and Faith, being affected by forces only as much as a normal human corpse would be.
This power requires a touch, the expenditure of a Willpower Trait and a successful Physical Challenge to inflict immediate torpor on any Kindred target and death upon a mortal one. A mortal will drop to Incapacitated immediately and die within the night from a plague-like illness.
Vigor Mortis
This power animates a zombie identically to the use of Animate Corpse by a Mummy character. The only changes are that the necromancer must expend a Mental Trait to animate the Zombie and must feed it a Blood Trait each night that he wishes it to be active. If not fed it lapses into torpor until fed again. Note that it continues decaying when not fed, so unless preserved somehow, zombies cannot easily be horded for later. This power is identical to the advanced Necromancy discipline Zombie.