Custom Combination Discipline / Technique

The Gangrel can conceal ordinary ghouled and otherwise mystically-linked animals on their person in the form of tattoos, untouched by time or biological need until they are awoken and released, which removes the tattoo.

System: Spending 1 Willpower prepares your flesh for a single turn, allowing your ghouled, blood-bound, or other mystically-connected animal companions to assume the form of a tattoo in their vague likeness on your skin, or to tear free and resume their normal form. These animals can be no larger than the Gangrel themselves, nor can they be a fully supernatural, animal-like creature such as a Bygone. The Gangrel can contain a number of such animals in tattooed form equal to their permanent Willpower, though the animal must be a willing guest in the Gangrel's flesh and as with Animalism 1, a swarm of small creatures such as insects or bats could count as a single animal.

While in tattooed form the animals are in a sort of timeless, suspended animation, requiring no sustenance to maintain themselves, though they remain subconsciously aware of the Gangrel's desires and intentions. During any turn in which at least one animal tears itself free from the Gangrel's flesh, the character suffers a single level of unsoakable lethal damage that cannot be reduced or negated, even with Fortitude.

If an animal's tattoo is destroyed through sufficient damage or some other effect, the animal is instantly destroyed as well. This transforms the tattoo into a permanent scar that can never be physically healed or removed, even by powers such as Vicissitude, Biothaumaturgy, and the like. Specifically attacking a tattoo requires both intention a successful physical challenge, followed by two Simple Tests. If either Simple Test is successful, the tattoo is hit, and accumulating two lethal damage will destroy it.

Should the Gangrel die, any animals currently in tattooed form tear their way free moments later and flee to the four corners.