Mortis Path
The Mortis Path deals with the physical processes and manifestations of death as they affect the physical form. This path springs from a deep necromantic understanding of the undead form, and it philosophically focuses on the nature of a corpse as a gateway between life and death.
In ancient times, members of the Cappadocian clan were the preeminent necromancers of vampiric society, but over the centuries, their proprietorship over the discipline has weakened. Now, only the Mortis Path remains as the exclusionary path of Necromancy practiced by that ancient clan. Only Cappadocians and the Cappadocian bloodline of Lamias can learn this path of Necromancy.
Neither Giovanni, nor the Samedi bloodline, have innate access to this path.
Contents
• Masque of Death
This power aids the vampire both in deception and in understanding the differences between a true corpse and a necromantically animated member of the undead. By using the abilities of this power, you can transform yourself into a corpse for a period of time, even using the power to hide among other corpses during extended periods of torpor.
System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your standard action to transform your physical form into that of a normal corpse. While Masque of Death is active, you are considered to be a mundane corpse. You cannot move, you have no aura, you lose access to all of your vampiric powers (except for the effects of Masque of Death), you do not take damage from sunlight, and you appear to all investigation as a simple, non-magical dead body. A character using Masque of Death is not a true corpse and cannot be targeted by powers that only affect a true corpse.
While Masque of Death is active, you are aware of everything that occurs within five steps of your physical form. You do not take wounds from damage to your body while in this state, and you are immune to staking, but you can be killed if your head is severed or your body is destroyed. Destroying or beheading your corpse in this manner requires the attacker to utilize three standard actions, during which you may choose to end Masque of Death and revert instantly to your physical form. During this reversion, you erase any damage that has been done to your corpse, and your body ejects any stakes or foreign matter.
Masque of Death lasts until you choose to end the power. If a character uses Masque of Death for an extended period of time, her corpse will rot and decay normally but will never entirely lose cohesion. In this manner, she will become as withered and decrepit as any other corpse in a tomb until such time as she awakens. The user of this power can end this effect by spending a simple action.
Focus [Appearance]: Once per turn, while using Masque of Death, you can spend 1 point of Blood to take one simple action, including using that simple action to move. Further, Masque of Death automatically activates if you enter torpor due to damage or if you are staked. Under these circumstances, you are not required to spend 1 Blood or use an action to activate Masque of Death.
•• Resume the Coil
This subtle power allows you to defeat the deep slumber of torpor, drawing yourself or another vampire from those depths.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to touch a torpid vampire. The target immediately wakes from torpor. A target awakening from torpor has the same number of health levels as when she entered torpor. Resume the Coil can be used to awaken yourself while you are torpid. This is an exception to the rule that prevents characters from using powers while in torpor.
Focus [Manipulation]: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to touch the true corpse of an individual who died within the last 24 hours. The target immediately rises from the dead. Her body reanimates, the soul returns, and she can act normally for the duration of this power. She has no memory of anything that happened since her death, neither on this side of the Shroud nor on the other. While this power lasts, the target cannot be killed, although her body can be destroyed (thus effectively killing her). This power lasts as long as you continue to spend 1 Blood per turn. When Resume the Coil ends, the target irrevocably dies and cannot be resurrected (or Embraced) by any means. Vampires, whether they are undead or have met Final Death, cannot be targeted with this power.
••• Blight
Through mastery of this power, you can infect a victim’s body, giving her a wasting disease that closely resembles the effects of the Black Death. Boils rise on her skin, her flesh rots and sloughs away, and dark, livid black patches of gangrene spread across her body.
System: Spend 1 Blood, expend your standard action to point dramatically at your target, and then make an opposed challenge using the Necromancy test pool. If you succeed, your target contracts a terrible, wasting sickness. Victims of Blight take 1 point of aggravated damage as their flesh rots and falls off in clumps. This damage cannot be reduced or negated. After one hour, your target must make a static test using her Physical attribute + Survival with a difficulty equal to your Mental Attribute + Occult. Because this is a static challenge, you cannot use your Willpower to retest, although the target can do so. If the target fails this challenge, she takes another point of aggravated damage that cannot be reduced or negated. Repeat this process once per hour until the target either succeeds in a challenge (indicating her body has finally resisted the disease), dies, or falls into torpor.
Living characters can die from Blight, but vampires stop taking damage from this power once they fall into torpor. If a vampire voluntarily enters torpor before running out of health levels, Blight continues to eat away at her flesh until she runs out of health levels.
Exceptional Success: When you activate this power, the target takes 2 points of aggravated damage rather than 1. Further, the victim suffers 2 points of damage for every static challenge she fails while attempting to resist the disease. This damage cannot be reduced or negated.
Focus [Manipulation]: The static challenge to avoid damage must be made every 10 minutes, rather than every hour.
•••• Reaper’s Passing
The dreaded form of the reaper is never far from a vampire’s soul, and those forced to face the realities of eternity will find it all too filled with the lingering threat of death. Even mortals fear the coming of their inexorable end.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to make an opposed challenge using the Necromancy test pool. If you succeed, your target experiences a fleeting glimpse of death. Some lucky few see the momentary bliss of heaven, but most experience the horrors of hell or the terrors of utter emptiness. No matter what form this power takes, the victim is briefly incapacitated by her brush with death. The target loses her next standard action.
If this power is used twice on a single target, the effects are lessened, as the target is somewhat inured to the shock. If a target has been affected by this power within the last three turns, a second use of this power on that target has no effect.
Exceptional Success: If you score an exceptional success with Reaper’s Passing against a mortal target, that target dies instantly. Supernatural targets survive, but take 3 points of aggravated damage in addition to the normal effect of this power. This damage cannot be reduced or negated.
Focus [Manipulation]: Victims of your successful use of Reaper’s Passing lose both their next standard and their next simple action. If a target has already been affected by Reaper’s Passing within the last three turns, she loses only her next simple action on the second use of this power.
••••• The Fourth Horseman
Through invoking the power of the Shroud and drawing that energy into yourself, the user of this power transforms into a literal incarnation of death. Most users of this power appear as a skeletal human in a black, tattered robe, with glowing pinpricks of eerie light in its empty eye-sockets, and surrounded by the audible wails of the dammed. Others may take a form suited to their cultural history or personal psyche, but in all cases, this form must be a recognizable avatar of death.
System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your simple action to transform dramatically into a physical avatar of death. This transformation must feed, fueling itself on the life-force in its surrounding area. If it cannot draw power from other sources, it eats at the user from within, slowly drawing her into death.
At the beginning of each turn in which the Fourth Horseman is active, any living individual within two steps of the user takes 2 points of normal damage as her life force is corroded and destroyed. This damage cannot be reduced or negated by any means.
Vampires in this radius lose 1 point of Blood, as the only life force they possess is that which was stolen from others. The blood in a vampire’s veins literally turns into ash. Vampires with no blood in their bodies suffer no ill effects. If the Fourth Horseman has no nearby sources upon which to feed, either by damaging a living character or by turning a vampire’s blood to ash, it turns inward, turning 2 points of the user’s Blood to ash. This power ends immediately if the user runs out of Blood, falls into torpor, or spends a simple action to deactivate it.
While a character is under the effect of this power, all of her Brawl and Melee attacks inflict an additional point of damage.
The Fourth Horseman is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers. You can use weapons while in this form.
Focus [Appearance]: While you are transformed into the Fourth Horseman, your fists or weapons are surrounded by visible necromantic energy. All of your Brawl and Melee attacks inflict aggravated damage. This energy can manifest as black, swirling clouds of smoke, as buzzing insects, or in some other manner appropriate to your specific form.
