unliving hive
■ Amalgam: Obfuscate 2
Most often seen amongst the Nosferatu, this unnerving power allows the user to extend their animal influence to swarms of insects such as flies or roaches. Certain vampires even go so far as to adopt swarms as famuli, giving them a permanent home within the folds and orifices of their malformed flesh.
■ Cost: No additional cost
■ System: This power extends all powers previously restricted to vertebrates to insect swarms, treating a swarm as a single creature. The vampire can bind the swarm as a famulus, and some even give it the ability to nest inside the cavities of their body. This hides the swarm from sight while allowing it to nurse the minute amounts of Blood needed to sustain it indefinitely. While nested, the swarm is undetectable by anything less than X-rays. Swarms do little damage in combat. They have Health 5 and a pool of 8 dice to resist attacks. Swarms take Superficial damage from Brawl; flame and insecticide cause Aggravated damage. Vampires can use swarms for spying, as distractions (resulting in a two-dice penalty on any roll for a single swarmed individual), or to intimidate mortals (add between one and three dice to Intimidation pools, depending on the type of insect and the victim’s phobias). Players and Storytellers can doubtlessly come up with even more creative uses of this power.
■ Duration: Passive
subsume the spirit
The vampire can completely transfer its mind into the body of an animal. They can control the animal and use its senses freely, even during the day should they manage to stay awake. While doing this, the vampire’s body lies immobile as if in torpor.
■ Cost: One Rouse Check. Free if used on famulus.
■ Dice Pools: Manipulation + Animalism
■ System: Make a Manipulation + Animalism test; Difficulty 4. On a win, the vampire can inhabit the animal’s body for one scene. On a critical win, the vampire can inhabit the animal indefinitely. Extending this possession into the daylight hours requires the vampire to stay awake (p. 219 seeing the sun requires a test for fear frenzy though the sunlight does not damage the animal being ridden. The user remains oblivious to their original body, but harm to it pulls them out of the trance and releases the animal. Death of the possessed animal also ends the trance, and the vampire takes a point of Aggravated Willpower damage from the shock.
■ Duration: A scene / indefinitely (see above)
feral whispers
The vampire can commune with the beasts of the wild and the city. Feral Whispers allows two-way communication with animals. A cat might not be interested in debating Matisse’s use of color but happily discusses the lack of prey around the brownstone building across the street. Depending on the vampire’s skill, they can even persuade animals to perform services; like humans, animals seldom agree
to things that go against their nature or endanger them. Vampires can also use Feral Whispers to summon a chosen type of animal (see Animalism limitations above) but the animals must be present to answer. Nothing prevents a vampire trying to summon an orca in Central Park, but success seems unlikely. Summoned animals listen to the summoner, but scatter or attack if endangered.
■ Dice Pools: Manipulation + Animalism, Charisma + Animalism
■ Cost: One Rouse Check per type of animal chosen for the scene. Allows one summoning and unlimited communication. Free when used on famulus.
■ System: Simple communication requires no dice pool test. Persuading an animal to perform a service requires a Manipulation + Animalism roll; the Difficulty depends on the task required. Having a bird keep an eye out for anyone entering the park at night is Difficulty 3, while ordering any animal to defend a place with their lives is Difficulty 6. Summoning animals uses a Charisma + Animalism roll; Difficulty depends on the scarcity of the animals summoned. The number of animals summoned depend on the margin on the test; a critical win summons most, if not all, animals of the type in the area.
■ Duration: One Scene
quell the beast
By locking eyes with a target, the vampire cows their inner Beast into temporary slumber. Mortals affected thus become apathetic, unable to take any actions other than to stay alive, while vampires’ bestial urges temporarily abate, for better or worse.
■ Cost: One Rouse Check
■ Dice Pools: Charisma + Animalism vs Stamina + Resolve
■ System: Roll Charisma + Animalism vs Stamina + Resolve.
A win against a mortal target incapacitates them for that scene, instilling severe lethargy. They act only to preserve themselves, not against the user or anyone else. A win against a vampire prevents the target from performing Blood Surges. While their Beast is quelled, vampires do not score messy criticals. Against vampires, this power lasts a turn plus a number of turns equal to the win margin on the contest. A critical win against a vampire target also ends their frenzy.
■ Duration: One scene, or a number of turns equal to the test margin plus one.
unseen passage
With this power, the vampire can now move around while staying hidden. The user is functionally invisible, per the usual Obfuscate limitations.
■ Cost: One Rouse Check
■ System: As long as the user emits no overpowering odors and no sound louder than
a whisper, this power automatically works. Only if the observer has their attention drawn to the user can they make a detection roll.
Sense the Unseen (Auspex 1) can also detect the hidden vampire, as per the general Obfuscate rules.
Note that the user cannot use this power to disappear while being actively observed; it automatically fails in such a case.
■ Duration: One scene or until detection.
ghost in the machine
The user can now transmit the effects of Obfuscate through electronic media, allowing the vampire to appear invisible or masked when viewed live on screen. If an ob- server views the image later, as in a photograph or recording, the effect lessens: the image seems slightly blurred, making identification hard. In addition, automated surveillance has a tendency to glitch in the presence of the vampire, lessening their chance of being caught by automated systems.
■ Cost: No additional cost
■ System: No additional roll is required when being viewed on a live feed. Treat observers as present with the vampire, with regard to the Discipline. The observer adds +3 to their Difficulty on tests to identify the user on film, video, in photographs, or the like taken during active Obfuscation. The user also gains three additional dice to pools they use when trying to circumvent automated electronic surveillance and countermeasures.
■ Duration: As power used
mask of a thousand faces
Instead of disappearing, the vampire using this power can make themselves appear as a nondescript stranger, someone expected to be present in the area. Unlike other Obfuscate powers, this allows the user to interact and communicate with those they might run into. They arouse little suspicion as long as their presence is at all plausible (meaning that it will not fool people who do not expect anyone or would be hostile against anyone they didn’t know). The power also does not provide any personal identification or other ways of misleading an identity check.
■ Cost: One Rouse Check
■ System: No test is required.
Anyone viewing the vampire sees a forgettable face of the same gender and approximate build and height as the user. Clothes take on the same kind of blandness, depending on the environment. At an office the user might appear as a nightwatchman, while they may seem to wear overalls at an assembly plant. Sense the Unseen (Auspex 1) can pierce the power as usual.
■ Duration: One scene