Dominate
"His eyes met mine, and I swear I heard a voice whispering to me. The next thing I knew, officer, I was here."
There are many legends describing a vampire's ability to put people under her spell by staring deeply into another person's eyes. Practitioners of Dominate utilize their strength of will, channeling the force of their personality. With a modest exertion, such a creature can bend minds, implant suggestions, and even control another person's actions. With a piercing gaze and a forceful word, Dominate can cause the strongest mortal mind to crumble and push even other vampires to submit.
To use this discipline, the vampire must first capture her victim's attention. The Dominate user then issues verbal orders or communicates through simple, obvious hand gestures. The target can't comply if she can't understand the vampire's commands. Typically, this requires a common language or common physical symbols, such as a pointed finger to indicate a person should "Leave".
Dominate cannot be used to force a target to do something directly self-destructive. Commands such as "shoot yourself in the foot" will automatically fail. However, the Dominate user can issue orders that are not automatically harmful, but might lead to a dangerous situation. A character could Dominate someone to shoot at a group of police officers. This action would almost certainly lead to trouble and possibly get the target harmed, but it is not directly self-destructive.
It is possible for an order issued with Dominate to be initially non-harmful and then become directly harmful later. If this happens, the Dominate breaks just before its implanted orders become directly harmful. If a character forced her target to "walk straight ahead until I say stop", the target would be forced to move forward. However, she would stop before stepping in front of a bus or walking off a cliff. This power grants the target no supernatural ability to sense when something is dangerous. Therefore, if the victim did not know there was a cliff ahead and could not sense it, the victim would continue walking forward until she realized the danger which may very well be too late.
Unless specifically stated, Dominate doesn't impart any special ability to complete extraordinary commands. If a target is ordered to do something that she cannot accomplish, the target will make an effort to obey the command, but may not succeed. If you use Dominate to give the order to "sleep", your target would lie down and try. But, as most people can't simply will themselves to sleep in an instant, it's unlikely the target would truly be able to obey.
Gaze and Focus: To use Dominate on a target, that individual must have her gaze or her attention focused on the Dominate user.
Dominate Test Pool: The Dominate wielder uses her Mental attribute + Intimidation versus the target's Mental attribute + Willpower.
• Command
Superiority is inherent to the blood, to the very vitae that brings a vampire unlife. With a word or a gesture, you can exert your will upon an individual and force her to obey. A single word, even one embedded in a sentence, can become an imperative command. Some vampires use this power subtly, while others revel in publicly forcing others to submit to the authority of their blood.
System: To Command an individual, expend a standard action and speak a simple one-word order (or give a brief gesture) to a target. If you are successful in an opposed challenge using the Dominate test pool, your character forces her target to obey her will. The Command must be immediate; the subject will spend her next turn (but only one turn) attempting to obey your order.
Such dictates must be clear and straightforward: run, agree, fall, yawn, jump, laugh, stop, go, scream, or follow are good examples. The target of a Command will attempt to take context into account. If you point at a door and Command your victim to "Leave!" she will attempt to leave via the door you indicated (as opposed to using a different door or jumping out of a window). A Command may be part of a sentence in order to conceal the power's use, such as by saying, "I'm afraid I must ask you to leave this house at once!"
If a Command is confusing or ambiguous, the subject may respond with less accuracy or perform her task poorly, as she struggles to understand what's been asked of her. Command cannot rob your target of the ability to defend herself.
Exceptional Success: If you achieve an exceptional success while using Command, the target does not realize that she's been Dominated. Mortals will simply rationalize away any strange behavior. A supernatural creature will be momentarily confused, and will not realize she's been forced to act against her will for a period of three turns after the Command ends. After this confusion passes, a supernatural victim may realize she has been Dominated, if the circumstances allow.
Focus [Intelligence]: An individual who has been successfully given a Command must follow your order for three turns (instead of one).
•• Mesmerism
Through the use of this power, a vampire acquires a near spellbinding command of her mental facilities. A Mesmerism user can create a hypnotic suggestion within her target's mind. Complex commands and subconscious desires can be implanted, controlling the victim in subtle but powerful ways.
This power implants a subliminal trigger in the target's mind. This trigger will activate only under specified circumstances, and forces the target to perform certain pre-programmed actions when those conditions occur.
To implant a Mesmerism, you must gain your target's focus and speak a simple set of instructions aloud. The Mesmerism user may dictate anything from simple directives (hand me your car keys) to complex ones (take detailed notes at the Brujah clan meeting, and bring those notes to me afterwards). You may indicate that the Mesmerism activity must occur immediately, or you may establish within the Mesmerism a specific stimulus that will trigger the target to perform these actions at a later point.
Mesmerism directions must be spoken aloud, and the target must understand your instructions.
Unlike a Command, a Mesmerism does not need to be an immediate action. The instructions can reside in a target's mind, untriggered, for some time. However, once the dictates are triggered and the target has performed the actions (or after one hour has passed while attempting to complete your orders), the Mesmerism is complete and any lingering compulsion ends. An untriggered Mesmerism will remain for up to one month.
An individual can only have one active Mesmerism from a given Dominate user. If you attempt to implant a new suggestion in the mind of a victim currently under a previous Mesmerism from you, the new application of this power erases your earlier instruction. A victim may have multiple Mesmerisms lurking in her psyche at the same time, provided each Mesmerism was implanted by a different individual.
If two mesmerists implant conflicting orders in a target, the victim will follow the newer Mesmerism first. The victim will perform those tasks until completed (or for an hour). Once that Mesmerism has ended, the subject will attempt to fulfill the older Mesmerism. Note that the older Mesmerism's duration begins at the point it was triggered, so the victim may have only a few minutes of duration left in such a situation.
Mesmerism cannot rob your target of the ability to defend herself. A character forced to count loudly to one million can still dodge, run away, or even attack, so long as she keeps counting. However, she probably could not effectively hide (or use her Obfuscate to vanish) while calling out numbers.
System: To implant a Mesmerism, you must first gain your target's focus. Then, you must expend a standard action, speak the instructions of your Mesmerism, and make an opposed challenge against your target. If you are successful, the Mesmerism exactly as you stated it has been implanted. Note that, like Command, a Mesmerism will always break if the subject realizes that performing these actions will lead to direct harm.
Once the Mesmerism has been triggered (whether immediate or delayed), the target will attempt to carry out her instructions until the activity is reasonably complete or for one hour, whichever comes first. This subliminal order may lay dormant in the target's mind for up to one month, after which the compulsion fades and the Mesmerism ends.
Mesmerisms cannot string together multiple unrelated actions. You cannot use Mesmerism to force another character to, "Tell me where your ghoul lives, and give me your car keys, then go punch that Brujah, and finally, sit in the corner for the rest of the hour." You may imply more than one action in a single command, such as, "Show me where your ghoul lives." In this case, the recipient will likely lead you to the location (which could require leaving the building, getting into a car, and driving there).
Mesmerism cannot be used to prevent a character from using a discipline, although it can be used to prevent a victim from acting in certain ways. For example, you cannot use Dominate with the command ‘Stop using Celerity,’ although you can Mesmerize a target by saying ‘Stop attacking me.’
In all cases, your Storyteller is the final arbiter of what is or is not appropriate for a Mesmerism.
Example: Tanya the Toreador has annoyed Vincent the Ventrue. He puts the following Mesmerism into her mind: "When you see a glass of red wine, pour it over the front of your dress." Tanya later sees Mallory the Malkavian drinking a glass of wine. Immediately, Vincent's Mesmerism kicks in. Tanya picks up Mallory's wine and begins to tip it towards her dress. However, Mallory sees what's happening. He turns to Tanya and uses Mesmerism on her, saying, "Give me back my wine." Mallory's newer Mesmerism interrupts Vincent's older one, and Tanya is forced to return Mallory's glass of wine.
After fulfilling Mallory's Mesmerism, Vincent's older Mesmerism re-exerts itself within Tanya's mind. Tanya lunges for Mallory, attempting to spill the very confused Malkavian's wine on her dress.
Exceptional Success: When the target fulfills your Mesmerism (or when the duration of the power ends), your victim will not remember following your instructions. She will remember all actions she took of her own free will, but will not recall what she was forced to do by your Mesmerism. If the Mesmerism takes more than a few turns to fulfill, your target may notice strange holes in her memory.
Focus [Intelligence]: Your Mesmerisms may remain dormant in your target's mind for up to three months instead of one month, and the effects, once triggered, will last for up to two hours rather than one.
••• Forgetful Mind
Your skill with mental manipulation gives you the power to modify and shape the memories of other individuals. By holding your target's attention and speaking to her clearly, you can place her in a hypnotic state. While she is somnambulant, you may ask questions, cause her to describe something she has experienced, or give her specific details with which to alter or overwrite her memory of an event.
It's a relatively simple matter to rifle through a victim's psyche and erase swaths of memory, but unless you offer something in its place, the deletion will leave a blank spot in the victim's recollection. The Dominate user can instead create false memories, describing a plausible story for the victim's subconscious to absorb.
The user of this power can tell the target to incorporate new information into (or remove details from) her original memory. The target will do so seamlessly, justifying the information within the context of her overall remembrance.
Unless someone else points out critical paradoxes in the memory, the target will rationalize away any contradictions. Forgetful Mind does not grant the user any telepathic ability to see an event in the target's mind. The events are remembered from the subject's point of view and are verbally described to the best of the subject's ability. If the subject does not know a detail about the event, then she cannot describe that detail under Forgetful Mind.
System: To activate Forgetful Mind, expend a standard action and make an opposed challenge. If you are successful, your target enters a trance for a small amount of time while the user of this power offers details to alter, erase, or completely overwrite the target's memory. If the target is threatened in any way, she will snap out of this trance, ending the application of Forgetful Mind. For this reason, it's not possible to use Forgetful Mind in a combat situation.
A successful use of Forgetful Mind allows you to erase or alter up to 10 minutes of memory. A more substantial period of time may be altered (in 10-minute increments) with repeated application of this power.
A character can also use Forgetful Mind to detect false or missing memories and (under the correct circumstances) restore them. When you use Forgetful Mind on a target, you must log your action with the subject's Storyteller. Include your character's Dominate test pool and the number of Dominate powers possessed (including elder powers but not techniques) at the time you performed the Forgetful Mind.
Restoring lost or altered memories is difficult, and takes a great deal of patience and dedication. If another character attempts to restore the subject's altered memory, she must first tell the subject's Storyteller how many Dominate powers she possesses (including elder powers but not techniques). If she has fewer powers than you, then she is incapable of overpowering your Dominate enough to even make an attempt to restore the original memory. If the Forgetful Mind user inserted memories carelessly, or the Storyteller wants to progress plot, she has the option to fast track the wearing down of the mental walls to allow for a reversal of the altered memories.
If she has equal or more powers than you, she may make an opposed Mental challenge against the highest Dominate pool you currently have applied to that subject. If she is successful, all memories altered by that Dominate user are restored to the subject. This process requires 1 downtime action to be spent by both the subject and the individual restoring the memories.
A vampire cannot use Forgetful Mind to alter or restore her own memories.
Exceptional Success: When you score an exceptional success, your character is considered to have 1 more dot of Dominate for the purpose of determining whether or not this application of Forgetful Mind can be undone by other characters in the future or for determining if you can undo alterations to your target's memories.
Focus [Wits]: You may alter up to one hour of the target's memory with a single application of Forgetful Mind (rather than 10 minutes).
•••• Conditioning
It takes little effort to control an individual's actions for a brief moment or to twist her memories of a few minutes' time. You are capable of far more insidious feats. By taking your time and applying a more dedicated amount of effort, you can permanently alter a portion of your subject's personality, adding habits or removing them. This takes a significant amount of exertion, but once accomplished, you will have reshaped your target into something more amenable to your purposes.
System: Through sustained exertion and focus, you can implant a semi-permanent Mesmerism (as per the above Dominate power) deep in your subject's mind. Conditioning a target takes three hours of diligent and uninterrupted focus, during which time your subject must be conscious and aware. The target may be restrained, but she cannot be unconscious, drugged, or otherwise unaware. Once your character has completed this prerequisite, make an opposed challenge against the subject. If successful, you implant a Mesmerism that can be triggered repeatedly.
Mesmerisms implanted through Conditioning must have a clearly defined trigger. A Conditioned character acts normally, with no alterations of her standard behavior, until such time as her Conditioning is triggered. Once activated, the target must fulfill the behaviors demanded by the Conditioning (or attempt to for one hour, whichever comes first). Just like Command or Mesmerism, a Conditioning compulsion will automatically break if the target realizes that performing these actions will lead to direct harm. When this happens, the current compulsion to act will cease, but the Conditioning itself will remain (and can be triggered again in the future, as per normal).
For example, you might Condition a target to drink mortal blood every time she hears the word 'vagrant'. If your target hears the word, and there is a source of mortal blood nearby, she will always attempt to do so. The initial compulsion will end as soon as she finishes drinking, but could start again if someone else says the word. If the Conditioned individual is stranded in the middle of a desert, with no source of blood available when she hears the word, she will spend an hour looking for a source of mortal blood. Thereafter, the compulsion will fade (until the next time she hears the word).
A successful compulsion implanted with Conditioning is permanent until broken by the subject; it cannot be removed or overwritten. A mortal who goes one year without having her Conditioning triggered may make an opposed challenge (using the subject's Mental attribute + Willpower versus the Dominator's Mental attribute + Intimidation). If successful, the target breaks the Conditioning. If she fails, the target must wait another year before she can attempt to break the Conditioning a second time, and another year after that before she can try a third time.
Supernatural characters may attempt to break their Conditioning if they avoid having the compulsion triggered for three months. If the victim fails that opposed challenge, then she must wait another three months before making another attempt, and so forth.
A character's Conditioning cannot be triggered more than once per hour. The compulsion placed by Conditioning does not count towards a character's Mesmerism limit; a target may be the victim of your Mesmerism and Conditioning powers at the same time. However, even as you can only implant one Mesmerism at a time on your target, you can also only implant one Conditioning compulsion at a time.
A subject may have multiple Conditioning compulsions, provided each one comes from a different user of Dominate.
Focus: [Intelligence]: If you are Intelligence-focused, a mortal target must avoid having her Conditioning triggered for three years before making an attempt to break that Conditioning (instead of the standard one year). Supernatural creatures must go six months without having the Conditioning triggered before attempting to break it (instead of the standard three months).
••••• Possession
The strength of your will is such that you can Dominate another individual's psyche, controlling her thoughts and actions, inhabiting her psyche, and completely taking over your target's physical form. You cannot access the victim's thoughts or memories while in this state; her mind is suppressed, as though deep in sleep, and she knows nothing of your activities. While you are in command of the subject's body, you can take any physical action she is capable of performing.
System: To use Possession, you must use your standard action to stare into the eyes of your subject; this power will not work on blind subjects or subjects who cannot see your eyes. Make an opposed challenge against the person you intend to Possess. If successful, your consciousness is transferred into the target's body, and her mind is rendered into a fugue-like state. Because your character's mind is focused entirely on controlling the body she has inhabited, the vampire has no innate sense of anything occurring to her native physical form. The character's original body falls into a torpid state and can neither defend itself nor act on its own (although your body does have access to any Fortitude you possess while your consciousness is absent). While in Possession, you always know the location of your real body, although you cannot perceive its surroundings.
Mortals and partially supernatural creatures, such as ghouls or kinfolk, can be targeted with Possession. Fully supernatural creatures, such as vampires and werewolves, cannot be targeted by Possession. Be sure to ask your Storyteller if you have a question about whether an individual is an appropriate target for this power.
Mortals have no disciplines and cannot spend Blood. However, if your character is possessing a ghoul, you may use the ghoul's Blood pool, and can spend 1 Blood per turn (regardless of your character's Generation). A ghoul can hold up to 5 points of vampiric Blood in her pool. You can spend this Blood to fuel any of the ghoul's Physical powers. You cannot spend this Blood to affect your character's native form in any manner.
A character cannot use any of her own disciplines while in Possession. Also, you cannot use any powers the subject possesses, except for Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence.
While in Possession, a character uses her own Mental attributes and focuses, Social attributes and focuses, skills, and backgrounds. If you possess a subject that has its own character sheet, use that subject¡¦s Physical attribute (rather than your own) for all Physical challenges while in Possession.
If you use Possession on a Stock NPC, the subject's Physical attribute is equal to double that NPC's rating. You cannot utilize the target's attribute focuses, nor any powers that are not intrinsic to vampires or ghouls.
Possession lasts until the next sunrise or until you spend a simple action for your character to return to her native body. Possession ends immediately if the character travels more than 10 miles away from her native body, if the character's native body takes 1 point of damage, or if the body she's possessing takes damage.
Possessed bodies do not take damage from sunlight, but if the vampire's native body is exposed to sunlight, it will take damage. However, a vampire with Beast traits still risks frenzy. For more information on frenzy, see Chapter Seven: Dramatic Systems.
Exceptional Success: If you achieve an exceptional success, your character's mind can maintain control of the possessed form for up to three days without further challenges. Possession will end after the third sunrise, instead of the first. Note that your Possession will still end if the character travels more than 10 miles away from her native body, if the character's native body takes damage, or if the body she's possessing takes damage.
Focus [Wits]: You can use the first 2 dots of your Mental and Social in-clan disciplines while employing Possession, but you cannot use elder powers or techniques. If you are in Possession of a ghoul, you may spend up to 5 Blood to fuel these in-clan disciplines, at the rate of 1 Blood a turn, regardless of your character's Generation. Vampires with this focus who have Dominate in-clan can activate Possession while in Possession, transferring directly from one subject body to another. Each new use of Possession requires a standard action, eye-to-eye contact, and a successful opposed challenge, as per the standard use of this power.
