Custom Combination Discipline / Technique

The vampires of the Path of Cathari seek to be the darkness to counter the light.  They are the test of virtue with sin.  Members of the path seek to corrupt others and bring them low.  However, some people are simply too stubborn to corrupt.  As a result vampires who follow this path created this combination discipline to influence the very nature of a person and force them to confront the darkness.

System:  To use this combination discipline the character must engage their target in a contested Social Challenge retested with Empathy. If the user succeeds they may spend 1 permanent Social trait to permanently change the targets Nature to one of their choosing.

This combination discipline only works if the character is on Path of Cathari.

By mastering both the powers of Auspex and Dur-An-Ki the vampire may analyze the aura of another to learn the secrets they may hold.  An ashipu skilled in this art can learn what covenants the target has made and with whom upon the ladder of heaven.  Such information may be of value to the ashipu later.

System:  When using the Auspex power Aura Perception you may now also ask the question “What are your covenants?”; which the player must answer.  They must detail what those covenants are and to whom. If the target of this power have no Dur-An-Ki; they may answer “none”.

Requirements:
- Thaumaturgy: Path of Blood - Blood Rage
- Thaumaturgy: Lure of Flames - Hand of Flame
- Protean: Wolves Claws

Exp Cost: 10

Through the development of Blood Rage, stirring vitae beyond the normal reaches of Vampiric blood, Hand of Flames summoning forth fire at the Thaumaturge’s hand, and the raw primal power of Wolves Claws, the raw rage of the caster is summoned forth and channeled into the caster’s fingertips. 

When the user of this power activates Wolves Claws, they may spend another blood and activate the Crimson Claws of Rage.  Their Wolves Claws glow bright fiery red and elongate another two inches.

When activated, the user gains the physical traits: Sharp and Ferocious, and inflicts an extra aggravated wound from the burning claws.  They also gain the weapon trait Incendiary.

Requires at least 6 Willpower

Legends are quickly spreading among the Sabbat that members of the Daughter of the Dark Father will not die in battle.  The stories claim they have seen a Daughter be brought low to Final Death and keep fighting.  This has started to give the daughters the reputation of being truly blessed by caine to fight on.  In truth, this combination discipline is something of a variation and new discovery of the Halo of Steel power.  The faith and sheer willpower of the Daughter allows them to fight on against their enemy no matter the cost.

System:  The character with this power must spend 1 blood and 1 permanent willpower trait to activate it.  Once they do, they must name one enemy she is facing battle (one individual, not one enemy army).  When they name their enemy, the character will suffer no wound penalties from and source and will not reach final death, until her chosen foe is dead.  Once the target’s chosen foe is dead, this power ends (or if the combat scene ends), at that time all effects of damage and or final death take effect.  If the character suffered final death during the combat and this power ends, the character dies. The Storyteller also retains the right to decide something has happened to the PC that is so destructive in a scene they do not survive it.  This should be a truly epic event that brings them low, but it is possible.

Through hard knocks, careful cultivation of the Beast’s instincts, and simple meanness, a vampire can learn to fight as if his pack were at his back, even should he find himself alone and outnumbered. His eyes dart from opponent to opponent, and he snaps like a cornered rat at anything that comes too close. This is essentially a supernatural heightening of an instinct common to all animals, weaponized through the power of the blood.

Activating this ability costs one willpower trait, and its effects last for the remainder of the current scene. While this power is active, at the end of any turn in which no ally of the character took any combat action (such as when the only other characters in the scene are enemy combatants, ie. the character with this power is fighting alone), the character recovers one lost physical attribute trait (if applicable) and may take an additional action which must be used to make a brawling or melee attack. The additional action takes place after all other sources of “extra actions” (such as Celerity) have been resolved. Activating this power does not activate any of the character’s other Celerity powers, though normal Celerity may be invoked separately while this power is in use.

This state of heightened aggression is extremely taxing to a character’s Beast, more so even than frenzy. In the next scene following any use of this power, the character suffers the effects of having “lost” his Beast (as per Drawing Out the Beast), save that he will recover automatically at the end of that scene. Additionally, though a character using this power is not in frenzy, and can still frenzy normally while it is active, it is a similar enough state that any effect that would prevent or forcibly end the character’s frenzy (such as Quell the Beast) will end or prevent its use as if it were.

As should be readily apparent, only a character with a Beast can learn or use this ability. Ghouls, dhampirs, and revenants, possessed as they are of weakened or fragmentary Beasts, cannot learn this power, nor can it be duplicated by any effect that does not also make a character susceptible to frenzy.

This combination power taps into the darkness of the Beast as expressed by the Nosferatu clan, and as such can only be learned by Nosferatu characters.