SHADOW REFUGE (DARKNESS •••)
Dice Pool: Dexterity + Stealth
Cost: 1 Legend
The Scion can hide within any shadow into which
his body fits. He need only position himself within
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the three-dimensional area of the shadow as his player
succeeds on the activation roll and spends the point
of Legend. If he does so, mundane attempts to find
him—even those aided by electronic equipment—fail
automatically. Supernatural attempts aided by Epic
Perception or an Arete in Awareness (or both) proceed
as normal, contesting the searcher’s (Perception +
Awareness) against the Scion’s activation roll.
The Scion can hide within the shadow as long as it
remains large enough. He can move with it as it moves,
but doing so might require a new (Dexterity + Stealth)
roll depending on the circumstances.
••••• Shadow Form
A master of Obtenebration can literally become a
shadow. In this form, a character can slide across walls,
through a crack under a door or through a window without
breaking the glass. No physical force can harm her
because she isn’t solid. She looks just like a shadow of
herself (and can use Shadow Play separately to make
herself even harder to recognize). The character can
also “peel” herself off the floor, wall or ceiling to assume
a three-dimensional form of semi-transparent
darkness, but doing so demands great concentration.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Wits + Subterfuge + Obtenebration
Action: : Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character does not become a
shadow of herself, but rather “roots” her shadow self to
some object in her vicinity, becoming its “shadow” until
the scene ends or until a Willpower point is spent as a
reflexive action to free herself. Shadow Play can still
be used in “trapped” shadow form.
Failure: The character is unable to transubstantiate
herself into shadow, but another attempt may be made
in a subsequent turn if another Vitae is spent.
Success: The character becomes a shadow-like form,
with all of the benefits and only some of the drawbacks.
Exceptional Success: As per a standard success, plus
a three-dimensional form can be assumed with a Willpower
cost.
The character becomes a two-dimensional shadow,
can move at normal or running Speed, and can defy
gravity, but must always move across a surface such as
the ground, a wall or a ceiling. She can pass through
any object which a shadow could be cast through, such
as a window, a paper wall or a mesh screen. She cannot
exist as a free-standing, two-dimensional shadow.
The character is a shadow-like ephemeral form, existing
in the material world but intangible. This state
is not unlike that of a ghost anchored to the physical
world (a state called “Twilight”) — in fact, a character
in Twilight can interact normally only with other creatures
in Twilight. She cannot speak or affect anything
physically. Punches, bullets, mundane fire and other
material attacks cannot harm the shadow-like form of
the vampire any more than they could damage a normal
shadow. Sunlight, however, remains deadly.
If an exceptional success is rolled when the power is
activated, the character can choose to become a freestanding,
three-dimensional figure of darkness with
visible eyes (whether they appear as flesh, as pinpricks
of light or as holes in the shadow is up to the character),
but doing so requires significant concentration.
(One Willpower point must be spent as a reflexive action;
it does not confer a +3 bonus to any roll.) In this
form, the character can speak normally into the material
world and make use of her other Obtenebration
powers. She is still considered an ephemeral form in
the state of Twilight, however, and cannot otherwise
interact with material things. A vampire in either kind
of Shadow Form cannot use any other Disciplines
against material targets. She can, however, use Disciplines
against ephemeral targets, such as another vampire
in Shadow Form or against a ghost or spirit.
Surrounding a character in Shadow Form with light,
so that no shadows can exist, forces the vampire to resume
corporeal form.
Mock Mind
(Auspex ••••, Dominate •••)
Since the Melissadae’s re-awakening, they have taken
care to hide themselves, and their hives. Some Melissidae
have learned how to create a false “mask” personality,
which they can bestow upon their diligent drones.
Cost: 2 Vitae
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Dominate
Action: Instant
Successful activation of this power enables the Melissid
to imbue a drone with an entirely fake but wholly
convincing personality, constructed from lingering
fragments of identity subsumed by the hive-mind.
Dramatic failure causes the personality created to
take hold of the drone so strongly that, on the moment
of its fi rst activation, the personality becomes
the drone’s real personality. If this happens, the
drone, believing himself always to have been this
new person, won’t actually know what’s happened
to him and cannot be returned to the hive-mind. A
drone to whom this happens can be very dangerous.
He might realize that huge chunks of his history are
missing and begin to investigate. More likely, he suffers
a psychotic episode and becomes an immediate
and signifi cant liability.
This false personality can, once installed, be activated
or de-activated with a telepathic cue from
the drone’s queen or from another Melissid with
this power attached to the hive (such as one of
the queen’s childer). When activated, the drone’s
Social and Mental Attributes and Skills return to
the levels they held before his induction into the
hive-mind.
The mask personality fools mortals, but has no
aura; attempts at telepathic scanning using Auspex
or similar powers fi nd that beneath the surface, there
is literally nothing.
