By James B. Agle (agles@k2.kirtland.cc.mi.us) for the Lepers bloodline.
System: The Leper rolls Perception + Medicine, against a difficulty that varies depending on how subtle the disease is, Storyteller's discretion. The Common Cold would be a diff. 4, while a Progenitor virus with an incubation time of ten years would require a 10. The number of successes rolled indicates the amount of information learned. One success just lets the Leper know what the illness is, and so on. In case of multiple diseases, the Leper only makes one roll, and the Storyteller applies that roll against everything in the subject. For example: I roll an eight. The storyteller decides that that will detect the still-dormant cancer (diff. 7), and the infection in the old stab wound (diff 6), but not the slowly developing arthritis (diff. 9) in my subject, a fifty-five year old policeman harassing me.
If the Leper wishes, he may make Willpower roll to empower the illness(es) he finds. The difficulty is the same as his first roll, and each success will subtract one from the victim's Stamina, only for resistance tests made against that (those) affliction(s). For example, I decide that cop is really getting on my nerves, so I roll to amplify his ills. On my seven dice, my best is three sixes. The cancer remains dormant, but odds are good that in the next few days that infection will become very serious indeed. Use common sense with this power. For most cases, if the roll reduces the victim's Stamina to zero or lower, it means that the disease will run rampant, the victim's body completely unable to counter it. For a common cold, that would be bad, but hardly fatal. For the aforementioned infection, it could lead to blood toxicity and eventual death.
System: The victim must be touched, skin-to-skin is preferred, but not necessary. The Leper rolls Manipulation + Medicine against the victim's Stamina + Athletics (The logic being that the more active the victim, the more resistant to disease.). The victim suffers one of the above effects (or any other you can make up) for each success, for a number of days equal to the number of successes. A botch indicates that the victim is immune to the user's Pestilence for the remainder of the story. For each success, subtract one dot from Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina. If any of these are reduced to zero, then the victim is bedridden until he recovers. Recovery will be slow, with the victim regaining one dot in each attribute per day. If he chooses to remain active, that is, not resting in bed, he loses one die from his dice pool for any action for each success scored against him, recovering one die per day. One blood point must be burnt as the victim is touched.
System: A relatively straightforward power for dealing with mortals, and this includes Garou and Mages. However, Vampiric bodies are extremely resistant to change, so if you use this power to induce a case of male pattern balding in that Toreador you hate so much, don't expect it to last too long. Perhaps two nights per success (use the system for Touch of Sickness, above, except that now that the third rank is achieved, the kindred may choose what disease he inflicts, even if he's only using the Touch of Sickness.) The cost for using Touch of Death is two blood points, which must be burnt while touching the victim. If you cannot burn more than one blood point per turn, then you must maintain contact for more than one turn.
System: This power has a range of fifteen feet. The Leper rolls his Manipulation + Medicine vs. the victim's Stamina + 3 (vampires may add Fortitude to this), with a maximum diff. of 10. For every success scored, the victim takes two levels of non-aggravated damage, then the various bacteria, spores, germs, etc. have burned themselves out. The effect is extremely painful, even if no damage is taken, and the victim will know where the attack came from.
System: No roll is necessary beyond the initial roll needed to infect the victim. Again, use common sense in deciding how certain afflictions are spread. Yes, this is a supernatural effect, so if you wished you could spread colon cancer by sexual contact, but this is a dangerous power. Many Lepers have died because vengeful princes have resented losing valuable retainers to diseases that were traced back to the source. For each blood point spent, the disease will be contagious for one generation. For example, I spend three additional blood points as I infect Phil. Phil will infect Sam, who will infect, Jill, who will infect Sally, but when Sally meets Frank, he's safe. It's no longer contagious.
System: The Leper and his victim engage in an opposed Willpower test. This is an unfair test from the start, as the victim is already infected as per Touch of Sickness rules (and therefore and a dice penalty to his Willpower). They each roll vs. a target number of six. Each success scored by the Leper is one day (24 hours) he may usurp control of the victim's body, and each success scored by the victim nulls one of the Leper's successes. Should the Leper score no successes at all, the victim is immune to his Pestilence for the remainder of the story, and he might as well abandon the body, unless he just wants to hide for a time. He will take one level of non-soakable damage each day he stays while not in control of the body, as the immune system does its best to purge the Leper. Should he botch, he is unable to leave the body until the host purges him. He is trapped for one day per success scored on the initial infection roll (as per Touch of Sickness) and will suffer two wounds for each day, non-soakable. Should he be taken below Incapacitated in this way, the victim's immune system has destroyed the Leper utterly. If the victim was also a kindred, then the Leper has just been diablerized. The wounds are non-aggravated, so upon leaving the victim they may be healed normally.
One of this power's benefits is that the Leper does not lose the customary one point of blood per day of sleep while possessing the victim unless said victim is also kindred. The leper does not have access to the victim's mind or memories, only the body. This means that he could take over a werewolf and change shape, but he could not use the Spheres of a possessed mage. During the Possession, the host body will show signs of illness, say, a bad cold. The Leper is used to it, however, and suffers no dice penalties as a result.
At the end of the possession's duration, the victim finally manages to purge the Leper, usually by vomiting him forth. The Leper will reform automatically, naked, and the victim is forever immune to this power. This power will Never let the Leper possess the same person twice in this manner.
At any time the Leper may choose to abandon his victim's body. The victim will still be immune to this power in the future, no matter how short the possession.
For example, Gideon infects a local politician with a common cold. Using Plague, he ensures that everyone the politician meets in the next few days will catch the cold, and those they meet, and so on. He sits back in his haven, and feels the disease spread, like a spiderweb, throughout the city. Outside the radius of his sense, he can still Dominate them, but he can't pick and choose which ones to command. When he feels he has a large enough army, he sends out the mental call, most likely using level 5 Dominate, Possession, and the army of sniffling, coughing, zombies march against his enemies.
System: Use Perception + Alertness to "sense" those infected. The better the roll, the clearer the sense of how many there are and where they are. Closer is easier. Two people infected in the next room would be difficulty two, while one child infected seventy miles away would need a ten. Otherwise, use the standard rules for Dominate. The Leper may choose to command the entire horde or just one person, or any range in between. Not very fair of him, since they're probably bedridden with illness or suffering dice penalties, depending on how badly they were infected. This power can effect one hundred people per dot of Willpower the Leper posesses.