Vampire/Devotions

Custom devotions not linked to a specific Bloodline go here! For Devotions specific to Bloodlines, see the page for that Bloodline!

Carthian Devotions

The below Devotions are exclusive to the Carthian Movement due to status requirements on prerequisites or on the Devotions themselves.

Links In The Chain

Prerequisites: Protean 3, Breaking the Chains
Cost: Varies, see below.

Breaking the chains is all well and good, but reforging them into a protective chain which prevents the Carthians from being bound again later prevents the singular collapse into obsession of a Perversion while distributing the obsessive attention of a bond to a larger number of persons. This polysanguinuity tends to either work beautifully or explode into incredible flaming gouts of drama with little in between.

All parties joining in the mutual bond must possess this devotion. All parties must activate the Devotion and activate it willingly, and all must be members in good standing of the Carthian Movement at the time of its invocation. After invoking the Devotion, all parties to the mutual bond exchange blood. If they are not already any steps bound to each other, they must repeat the process on subsequent nights until one party reaches their third drink. Once any party to the devotion reaches their third drink, a mutual blood bond is created which affects all parties equally, breaking any previous bonds as a traditional one-way blood bond would.

If the parties to the multi-part mutual bond wish to later revise the bond and add another party, or release one another, all parties to the bond must spend a Willpower dot. When the dots are spent, the bond breaks immediately as if the other parties had died. They must then repeat Links in the Chain to create a new multiparty bond.

Links in the Chain cannot break blood bonds formed by Links in the Chain except as specified above.

This Devotion costs 2 Experiences to learn.

Universal Devotions

The below Devotions have no Status prerequisites.

Man, Too, Is An Animal

Prerequisite: Protean 3
Cost: 2 Vitae

For many, Beast's Skin limits itself to transformation into predatory animals such as an owl, cat, or crow. Those who learn this Devotion understand that humans are one of the world's most successful predators: persistence hunters who continue to pursue their prey until it drops from exhaustion, they are no less animals by dint of being human. The Beast pushes back against all changes, wanting to have its own way, however.

Utilizing Man, Too, Is An Animal allows the Vampire to change literally everything about her appearance, save one 'tell' which is selected when the Devotion is learned. This may be eye color, hair color, a scar, a birthmark -- whatever it is, the Kindred cannot change it with this Discipline, though she could use a different power, or hair dye or makeup, to hide that tell.

Every aspect of the body is customizable, however, the results must remain reasonably within human norms as far as size and mass. A vampire cannot use this Devotion to make herself two feet (or twenty feet) tall, but if she wants to give herself purple skin and a tail, she can do that. This Devotion does not change anything about the vampire's sheet, and if she adds things like wings or a tail, they are not functional -- she cannot flap those wings or grasp things with the tail.

The Devotion physically changes the body; this is not an illusion or a trick. Copying another individual requires a Disguise roll, however, and if used to attempt to assume an extant person's identity, those attempts are separate from the Devotion use. The Devotion does not grant the ability to copy someone's verbal mannerisms, for example, or knowledge of their life.

As with all changes to the undead body, the effects of this Devotion revert every day during sleep, however, a Kindred who spends a willpower point before slumber after invoking this Devotion may enjoy the transformation for a full week (as opposed to the standard single day that spending a willpower to preserve changes usually requires). Alternatively, a vampire may choose to spend a willpower dot and make all changes permanent. Many transgender vampires learn this Devotion and use it precisely once; others make frequent use of it to alter their bodies to their whim.

Man, Too, Is An Animal cannot negate or nullify the Nosferatu Curse.

This Devotion costs 2 Experiences to learn.

Swimming with the Fishes

Prerequisite: Auspex 2, Majesty 3
Cost: 1 Vitae Roll: Manipulation + Socialize + Majesty - Highest NPC Composure Action: Reflexive

Once a vampire has traveled the world extensively, it is possible to put manners into their proper contexts. The manners of Vienna are not the manners of Paris, are not the manners of Milan, are not the manners of New York and so on. Manners differ by class. Sometimes within class. It’s contextual. There is no rudeness but in the intending of it.

The inverse of this is that once you’ve learned how to mirror another's cultural contexts, you know how to convey surety and easy familiarity. You can disarm merely with posture, word choice, accent, extent or lack of eye contact. Whatever is expected, that the vampire does, and the sheep pulls its own wool over its eyes.

For each success rolled at activation the vampire enjoys one of the following benefits among the kine:

• Automatically improve your impression level with a target by one step after a round of conversation. This can be repeated each round.
• Achieve an Exceptional Success on 3 successes on a mundane social roll or social maneuver
• Grant the 8-again quality to a mundane social roll or maneuver
• Open an additional door when you open a door using a mundane action or ability. You may assign multiple successes to open additional doors.

While this power is active, a Vampire will see the fish for the shark it is, as will all those with power stats or supernatural merits, but that doesn’t mean the effort isn't without benefit.

So long as the power is used to emulate the other’s etiquette contexts to meet them where they are — in genuine good faith, that is to say — Spina vampires enjoy a bonus equal to his Socialize skill rating to all rolls to resist powers intended to cow him, addle his mind, frighten him, or otherwise treat him in an unkind and unmannerly fashion. This explicitly stacks with the Cost of Discourtesy.

This Devotion costs 3 experiences to learn.