Protean
“To hunt, to soar, to fear neither man nor beast. This is what it means to be a vampire.” — Beckett, Noddist Scholar
For hundreds of years, vampires clung to the shelter of cities, hiding themselves among mortal man. The wilderness was too untamed for all but the most savage and the most hardy.
The Protean discipline, developed first among the Gangrel, allowed a vampire to find shelter in the soil of the earth, or to travel as swiftly as a bat could fly or a wolf could run.
Protean was essential to vampiric survival in the Middle Ages, and even in modern nights, it remains one of the most cinematic and renowned disciplines of the children of Caine.
There is no standardized Protean test pool.
Contents
• Eyes of the Beast
With but a moment of concentration, you can shift the composition of your eyes to more greatly resemble those of an animal. Your ability to see in darkness increases, but this refraction also gives your eyes an eerie, animalistic glow.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Eyes of the Beast. For the next hour, your eyes glow a soft, feral red. While this effect lasts, you can see perfectly even in pitch darkness. So long as your character is not physically blinded, you can fight in darkness without needing the Fighting Blind combat maneuver.
Focus [Perception]: Your Eyes of the Beast are always active, and you do not need to spend Blood to activate this power. Unlike the standard activation of this power, your eyes do not glow unless you choose to make them glow. Causing your eyes to glow, or to stop glowing, requires the expenditure of a simple action.
•• Feral Claws
By activating this power, your fingernails lengthen and harden into sharp, powerful claws. These claws are supernatural and capable of rending flesh, stone, or even thin sheets of metal. You can retract these claws with a mere effort of will, returning your hands to their normal state.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Feral Claws. Your fingernails sharpen, harden, and lengthen into clearly visible, bestial claws. Slashing a foe with your Feral Claws inflicts aggravated damage. You may sheath Feral Claws at any time by spending a simple action. A character attacking with Feral Claws uses her Physical attribute + Brawl versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge.
If your claws break, you can regrow them by reactivating this power.
Focus [Wits]: You can grow or sheath Feral Claws at any time without expending an action. Additionally, when you activate Feral Claws, your muscles subtly rearrange themselves to make slashing more efficient. When fighting with Feral Claws, you receive a +1 bonus to your Brawl attack test pools.
••• Earth Meld
Before the advent of rapid transportation and widespread civilization, the power to meld with the earth in order to sleep safely, hidden from the sun, was absolutely essential for vampires to survive. By using this power, a vampire can mystically meld with the soil at her feet, and remain hidden there until she wills herself to rise.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use your simple action to sink into the ground. You must be touching the earth (clay, soil, or any other soft-consistency ground) in order to use Earth Meld. While joined with the earth, the vampire exists in a semisolid form and cannot take actions or use any powers. Earth Melded characters are semi-conscious, but are not aware of their surroundings. Melding with the earth shelters a character from the sunlight during the day, or from fire searing the ground overhead, and further makes the vampire immune to most forms of physical harm.
Significant disruption to the ground where a character is melded ends this power prematurely. If someone spends three standard actions causing such disruption, the vampire immediately ejects from the ground. An ejected vampire returns to full wakefulness immediately, showering dirt in a wide radius as she erupts violently from the soil. Using tools to disturb the ground can reduce the number of actions needed to disrupt an Earth Meld. For example, a character with a shovel might be able to eject a melded vampire with two standard actions, whereas a character with a pipe bomb could eject her with a single standard action.
Earth Meld allows a vampire to sink into dirt or substances with similar consistency, such as sand or gravel, but cannot be used to meld with (or pass through) concrete, rock, metal, plastic, wood, or any other ground covering. Earth Meld cannot be combined with transformative powers; melding with the earth returns a vampire to her native state.
Focus [Perception]: While awake and melded with the earth, you can perceive your surroundings as though you were standing above the ground with which you are merged. If a melded character is asleep or in voluntary torpor, she will awaken as soon as someone begins to disturb the soil of her resting place, although waking up is not automatic and requires all normal tests and expenditures.
•••• Shape of the Beast
One of the most renowned abilities possessed by vampires, this power allows you to take the form of a wolf or bat, literally shifting your flesh and bone into a new state. Although such a beast is no more alive than the vampire, it is capable of flying, running, or using its animal senses just like a living member of its species.
System: Spend 1 Blood point and use a standard action to transform into either a bat (your flight form) or a wolf (your fight form). You may end your Shape of the Beast transformation at any time by expending a simple action.
While in your flight form, you gain a +3 bonus to Dodge-based defensive test pools and can fly at your normal movement speed. However, due to the bat’s small size, your Physical attribute is reduced to 3 for the purpose of Physical attacks.
While in your fight form, you gain a +2 bonus to Brawl based attack test pools, and your brawling attacks, biting or clawing, inflict aggravated damage.
Both of your animal forms convert and retain the significant physical qualities and notable appearance-related flaws of your humanoid shape, such as one eye, a shock of white hair, or any other distinctive features. Vampires on paths still seem monstrous when in animal form, and Nosferatu or other disfigured vampires make for ugly animals, indeed.
Shape of the Beast is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.
Focus [Wits]: When you purchase Shape of the Beast, you may choose to thematically alter your fight and flight forms, changing their appearance to something appropriate to your character’s background or Archetype. The creatures you choose must be predators or scavengers, meat-eaters; they cannot be insects or herbivores, and must be animals that your character could logically encounter in person (no extinct or imaginary animals). Once you select your character’s flight and fight forms, you cannot alter them thereafter.
Instead of a bat, you may transform into any small flying animal you wish. Examples include ravens, owls, or vultures. Instead of a wolf, you may transform into any similarly sized land or water-bound predator. Examples include lynxes, komodo lizards, foxes, leopards, hyenas, sharks, wolverines, or small bears. Your Storyteller is the final arbiter of whether a particular animal is an appropriate choice for Shape of the Beast.
All flight forms receive the same bonus and have the same detriments; you gain a +3 bonus to Dodge-based defensive test pools and can fly at your normal movement speed. However, due to your relatively small size, your Physical attribute is reduced to 3 for the purpose of Physical attacks.
When you choose your fight form, you may apply one of the following templates as appropriate for the animal you choose, in addition to the standard bonuses and detriments of the wolf template. You may also apply one of these templates even if you choose to keep the visual appearance of a wolf; these templates simply make your particular wolf more unique.
- Huge: You transform into a large, lumbering animal, gaining 2 additional Healthy wound levels.
- Vicious: You receive an additional +1 bonus to Brawl based attack test pools. This bonus stacks with the normal +2 bonus gained when in Shape of the Beast’s fight form (+3 total).
- Fast: If you expend both your simple and standard actions to move, you can move nine steps in a round instead of the standard six steps.
- Agile: You gain a +1 bonus to Dodge-based defensive test pools.
- Aquatic: You can swim at your normal movement speed, but your land speed is reduced to one step per action, or, at your Storyteller’s discretion, you may not move on land at all while in this form. While submerged, you receive a +2 bonus to Brawl based attack test pools. This bonus stacks with the normal bonus from being in Shape of the Beast’s fight form (+4 total).
••••• Form of Mist
Like the vampires of ancient myth, you have achieved such control over your physical form that you can dissolve into a gentle cloud of mist, dispersing throughout a small area. This mist is visible and noticeable (much like fog over the moors), as well as bitingly cold to the touch. You control the cloud’s movements as you would control your own, and you can slip through cracks, small holes, or under closed doors.
System: Spend 1 Blood and expend a standard action to transform into a cloud of mist. While in Form of Mist, you cannot spend Blood, talk, activate powers, or physically attack, but you are also immune to Physical attacks from sources other than fire and sunlight. You can be injured by non-Physical attacks, and you can be harmed by flaming weapons, such as a torch or a road flare; however, incendiary ammunition passes through your form too quickly to inflict damage.
While in Form of Mist, you are a semi-solid, fluctuating cloud. You can pass through any crack, hole, or aperture that mist could normally transverse. You cannot pass through solid objects or airtight passages, nor can you travel through panes of glass, as you do not condense. You also cannot fly, though you can travel along tilted or raised surfaces, such as up a wall. You take no damage from falling, but cannot control the rate of the fall nor the exact location of your landing.
While in Form of Mist, you move one step per simple action, or two steps per simple action if moving in the same direction as a notable level of wind. If you attempt to move against a notable flow of air, you must make a Physical attribute + Athletics test at a difficulty established by your Storyteller, based on the speed of the wind you are attempting to fight.
While in Form of Mist, you are effectively water vapor, and you do have a tangible physical presence. You can be touched by anyone who passes her hand through your form, and you may touch other individuals by flowing in the target’s direction. Touching, or being touched, may require a Brawl attack.
Form of Mist is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.
Focus [Wits]: While in Form of Mist, you can move three steps per simple action in any direction, no matter what direction or how fiercely the wind is blowing. Additionally, you can fly at three steps per simple action.
