Quietus
“Courage is the blood of one’s soul. A brave heart beats with it. A brave soul dies with it. The two cannot be separated.” — Reza Fatir
The Quietus discipline is sacred to members of Clan Assamite, who view its use as a reverent practice. Based on elements of blood alteration, vitae control, and pestilence, Quietus focuses on weakening and injuring a target so that she may be more easily destroyed. Through the use of this discipline, a vampire can become a fearsome assassin, causing death and leaving behind only a trace of blackened blood to tell the tale.
Weapon Application: A single weapon cannot be coated with Quietus powers multiple times. When fighting with multiple weapons that have been coated with different powers, only the poison coating your primary weapon affects your target.
Quietus Test Pool: The Quietus wielder uses her Mental attribute + Athletics versus the target’s Mental attribute + Willpower.
Contents
• Silence of Death
The first lesson is that of silence. Anonymity and surprise are two of the most powerful weapons in a vampire’s arsenal, helping an ambush provide a truly insurmountable advantage. With the use of this power, you can hide your approach, attack, and escape, smothering your victim’s desperate pleas for help or mercy.
System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use a simple action to create an area of absolute silence. The area affected by Silence of Death is a sphere surrounding your physical form. This sphere extends a maximum of three steps in every direction, though you may choose to make the sphere of effect smaller, if you wish. Once created, you can shrink the size of the sphere by spending a simple action, but you cannot extend it to exceed the three-step maximum.
Sounds originating within the sphere of your Silence of Death are completely silenced. Powers that rely on sound can be blocked by Silence of Death. This might mean such powers fail at origin, because the user is within the silence, or it might mean that these powers fail because the target of such a power is within the sound-dampening sphere. This includes effects such as the Melpominee power Death of the Drum and the Dominate powers Mesmerism or Command (though Dominate powers can be utilized without sound, and such applications succeed).
Note that some uses of blood magic, such as Thaumaturgy or Necromancy, require the caster to speak. However, those powers do not require their target be able to hear the words spoken. Thus, such powers are not hampered by Silence of Death, even if the user of those powers is within the globe.
Silence of Death lasts for a maximum of 10 minutes, unless you end the power early by spending a simple action.
Focus [Wits]: Your Silence of Death can extend up to five steps. Additionally, you can invoke Silence of Death on a static location rather than having the power’s barrier surround you. Once you have created a static Silence of Death, the barrier remains stationary, even if you placed the Silence of Death on an object which is then moved.
•• Scorpion’s Touch
Through meditation, the use of herbal concoctions, and natural soporifics, you can change the properties of your vitae. When you activate this power, your blood becomes a powerful poison that slows injured prey and robs them of their ability to fight.
System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your simple action to meditate upon the properties of your vitae, and then draw a sharpened blade across your skin, creating a shallow cut in order to coat the edge of the weapon with a layer of your own vitae. This weapon must be used quickly, before the blood dries and loses its supernatural properties. For the next three turns, anyone struck with this weapon is poisoned by your venomous blood.
Individuals struck by a weapon coated with Scorpion’s Touch suffer a -2 penalty to all Physical attack test pools. These penalties last for five minutes. Additional applications of Scorpion’s Touch do not add further penalties, but do extend the duration of the original penalties by an additional five minutes. For example, a character hit by three such attacks would suffer a -2 penalty to all Physical attack test pools for the next 15 minutes.
An individual successfully struck by a weapon poisoned with Scorpion’s Touch suffers these penalties even if the attack did not inflict damage after your opponent applies her defensive powers. The venom only needs to touch its target, not damage.
You are immune to your own Scorpion’s Touch, but other individuals wielding weapons coated with your venom risk being poisoned. If someone else uses a weapon coated by your Scorpion’s Touch, she receives this power’s penalties if she loses any test involved in the challenge. This occurs even if the individual wins the overall challenge. It is possible for both a weapon’s wielder and the target of that attack to be affected by your venom in the same action. If the wielder repeatedly loses tests in challenges, she suffers the same extended penalty durations as does someone who was struck multiple times.
You can poison a single sword-sized or smaller weapon with each expenditure of Scorpion’s Touch. This item could be a dagger, a sword, one crossbow bolt, one arrow, or something similar. Scorpion’s Touch is normally used with edged or sharpened weapons. If used on a non-edged weapon, you must spend a standard action, rather than a simple action, to tear open your flesh by some other means and coat the weapon with vitae. Scorpion’s Touch cannot be used to modify bullets or other firearms equipment, as the heat and speed of a firearm destroys the blood coating on any projectile fired. Scorpion’s Touch cannot be used with unarmed attacks.
Focus [Intelligence]: Weapons coated by your Scorpion’s Touch remain toxic for five turns instead of three. Additionally, you may choose to thicken the ichor of your blood sufficiently so individuals other than yourself can wield it safely without risking being affected. Anyone poisoned by your Scorpion’s Touch suffers a -3 penalty to all Physical attack test pools.
••• Dagon’s Call
This vicious power allows a vampire to use a target’s blood against her, bursting blood vessels and causing organs to bleed internally. These ruptures are intensely painful, delivering swift internal agony to anyone affected by this power.
System: Spend 1 point of Blood, expend your standard action, and engage your target in an opposed challenge using the Quietus test pool. If you succeed, you cause your target’s internal organs to rupture and bleed.
A character successfully targeted by Dagon’s Call takes 2 points of normal damage in any turn during which she spends Blood. This damage occurs the moment the victim spends her first point of Blood in a given turn. After the first turn, you can spend your simple action on every subsequent turn in order to maintain this power’s effect, for up to five turns in total.
Damage caused by Dagon’s Call cannot be reduced or negated. Multiple uses of Dagon’s Call do not stack. A character affected by two uses of this power still only takes 2 points of normal damage per turn.
Exceptional Success: Your target takes 3 normal damage, rather than 2, on any turn during which she spends Blood.
Focus [Wits]: If your target has some of your blood on her person (knowingly or unknowingly), or if your target has ingested your blood within the last 24 hours, you do not need line of sight to use Dagon’s Call, so long as the target is within one mile. Individuals who have been affected by your Scorpion’s Touch or Baal’s Caress are considered to have your blood on them for the purpose of using Dagon’s Call.
•••• Baal’s Caress
By continuing her study into vitae transformation, this power’s user can alter the properties of a vampire’s blood even further, rendering it into an intensely vitrolic ichor. This ichor destroys any flesh it touches, whether living or undead.
System: Spend 1 point of Blood and use your simple action to meditate upon the properties of your vitae, and draw a sharpened blade across your skin, creating a shallow cut in order to coat the edge of a weapon with a layer of your own vitae. This weapon must be used quickly, before the blood dries and loses its supernatural properties. For the next three turns, the weapon gains the Deadly trait, and anyone struck with this weapon takes aggravated damage from the weapon’s strike.
Note that Baal’s Caress does not increase the damage done by a given weapon, but that weapon inflicts aggravated damage, rather than normal damage.
You are immune to your own Baal’s Caress, but other individuals wielding weapons coated with your ichor risk being injured. If someone else uses a weapon coated by your Baal’s Caress, she takes a point of aggravated damage if she loses any test involved in the challenge. This occurs even if the individual wins the overall challenge. It is possible for both a weapon’s wielder and the target of that attack to be affected by your ichor in the same action. If the wielder repeatedly loses tests in challenges, she will take multiple points of aggravated damage.
You can poison a single sword-sized or smaller weapon with each expenditure of Baal’s Caress. This item could be a dagger, a sword, one crossbow bolt, one arrow, or something similar. Baal’s Caress is normally used with edged or sharpened weapons. If used on a non-edged weapon, you must spend a standard action, rather than a simple action, to tear open your flesh by some other means and coat the weapon with vitae. Baal’s Caress cannot be used to modify bullets or other firearms equipment, as the heat and speed of a firearm destroys the blood coating on any projectile fired. Baal’s Caress cannot be used with unarmed attacks.
Focus [Intelligence]: Weapons coated by your Baal’s Caress remain toxic for five turns instead of the standard three. Additionally, you may choose to thicken the ichor of your blood sufficiently so individuals other than yourself can wield it safely without risking injury.
••••• Taste of Death
With this level of mastery, a vampire can commute a small portion of her blood into a caustic acid. Thus transmuted, the vampire can spit this toxic blood at an opponent, searing flesh and corroding bone.
System: Spend 1 Blood point. For the rest of the turn, you may use a standard action to spit toxic blood at your target. Attacks made with Taste of Death are made using a test pool consisting of your Physical attribute + Athletics versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge.
When you make an attack using Taste of Death, you must choose whether the blood you spit with this power is transmuted into the poison of Scorpion’s Touch or the vitriolic ichor of Baal’s Caress. Utilizing Scorpion’s Touch through Taste of Death causes the victim to suffer the effects listed under that power. Spitting the ichor of Baal’s Caress deals 2 points of aggravated damage to your target.
Taste of Death can be used during Celerity rounds.
Focus [Intelligence]: If Taste of Death is used to carry Scorpion’s Touch, anyone poisoned suffers a -3 penalty to all Physical attack test pools, rather than the standard -2 penalty. If Taste of Death used to carry Baal’s Caress, your attack inflicts 3 points of aggravated damage, instead of the standard 2.
