The Sepulchre Path
The Sepulchre Path encompasses the study of spirits, ghosts, and intangible entities. Through the practice of this path, a vampire can summon and control wraiths, forcing them to serve the necromancer's will. Unless otherwise noted, powers that affect ghosts, wraiths, and spectres can only be used on the spirits of the dead. These powers cannot be used on psychically projected, Umbral, or otherwise intangible entities.
• Witness of Death
The first trick to learn when dealing with ghosts is the ability to sense and interact with these spirits. By learning this ability, a necromancer can discover and communicate with nearby wraiths.
System: Once purchased, this power is always active. You can see, hear, and talk to wraiths, communicating with them whether or not there is a common language. Note that, unlike the Medium merit, you can only see the ghost itself, not the wraithly surroundings of the Shadowlands.
Focus [Appearance]: You also recognize and identify wraith powers, spells, and visible effects of vampiric Necromancy, as well as necromantically enchanted items (but not wraith fetters, if those items are not otherwise enchanted). You have no ability to see invisible uses of magic, only to recognize magic that clings to those things you can perceive. You cannot identify powers or spells you do not possess, but you do recognize such things as necromantic in origin.
•• Torment
Recalcitrant spirits cannot evade your power, nor can they long survive your wrath. By focusing the power of your necromantic magic, you can engage in ectoplasmic battle across the barrier of the Shadowlands.
System: Spend 1 Blood and expend a standard action as your character gestures toward her target. Then, make an opposed challenge with the Necromancy test pool against a target wraith. If you succeed, you inflict 3 points of normal damage to that ghost.
Exceptional Success: This use of Torment deals 4 points of normal damage, instead of 3.
Focus [Manipulation]: Your Torment target also loses 1 Pathos from a successful attack.
••• Summon Soul
By reaching into the Shadowlands, you can summon a ghost and force it to obey your will. You call upon the closest spirit to your location, and, unless you know the true name of a specific wraith, have no control over what kind of individual will respond. However, the wraith is forcibly made loyal and must do its best to obey your demands or suffer soul-wracking pain.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to summon a wraith. Wraiths are invisible to individuals who do not have the Medium merit, Witness of Death, or other such powers. Summon Soul can be used to summon a specific wraith, provided you know the name that entity had in life. Alternately, you can summon the closest uncontrolled wraith. Normally, the wraith arrives over the course of the next five minutes, so long as she is capable of reaching your location. Wraiths can pass through walls, but cannot fly, nor cross barriers enchanted against their passage.
Summoned wraiths attempt to obey your requests and follow your orders until dawn or until they take a total amount of damage equal to their NPC rating. Multiple uses of Summon Soul do not allow you to summon an additional wraith while still controlling the first; if you use Summon Soul, any wraith you are controlling with Summon Soul is released in favor of the new summoning. However, if your original wraith is released (by taking damage, fleeing, or if you send her away), you can utilize this power again to summon a second wraith. Further, Summon Soul cannot be used to control wraiths that are currently under the effect of another practitioner's use of the Necromancy discipline.
Wraiths summoned by this power are created as 2-point Stock NPCs. They cannot perform downtime actions, but they can act with relative independence.
Focus [Appearance]: Wraiths you summon with this power are 3-point NPCs, rather than 2-point NPCs.
•••• Bind Soul
Most necromancers must be content with temporarily summoned allies, but your power of Necromancy has grown to the point where you can force a ghost to inhabit a location on a near-permanent basis or to free one thus subjugated by another user of this power.
System: Spend 1 Blood and concentrate for three full turns to bind a wraith to your location. You cannot bind a wraith to a person or other creature in this manner. A wraith affected by Bind Soul counts as a 3-point Retainer, and she cannot move more than 10 steps from the spot where she is bound.
You can only have one wraith bound in this manner at a time. If you bind a new wraith, the previous wraith is released. You can release a wraith you've bound by using a simple action. To release a wraith bound by another Necromancer, you must best the other character in an opposed challenge using the Necromancy test pool.
Focus [Manipulation]: You can bind a number of wraiths equal to your level of the Occult skill. You must bind each wraith individually.
••••• Soul Stealing
The most terrifying power of a spirit necromancer is the ability to tear a soul out of its body, rendering the body torpid or unconscious while the disembodied spirit is within your control. Even creatures who arguably have no souls are affected by your power, lending to significant philosophical discussions about the nature of the ephemeral world.
System: Spend 1 Blood, expend your standard action, and make an opposed challenge using the Necromancy test pool. If you succeed, your target must immediately spend a Willpower to stave off the effects of your Soul Stealing. If she is unable (or unwilling) to spend a point of Willpower, you successfully rip her soul from her flesh. The character's original body falls into a torpid state and can neither defend itself nor act on its own. While a soul is out of its body, the individual so affected always knows the location of her body, although she has no unusual ability to perceive its surroundings if she is not present in the same location as her physical form.
A soul thus removed from a creature's body finds itself in the Shadowlands. She can see and hear everything happening around her body, but cannot communicate nor interact with the physical world, unless individuals there have the Medium merit, Necromancy, or similar ability to communicate with ghosts. The individual is not truly a wraith, has no Pathos, and cannot manifest in the real world.
A soul removed by this power cannot be targeted by powers or effects that can only target ghosts. A character affected by Soul Stealing has 9 health levels while trapped in the Shadowlands. If a soul-stolen character runs out of health levels, she is dispersed and unable to act until she returns to her body. If the target was a supernatural creature, the individual still has access to her powers, but cannot spend Blood and cannot attack individuals who are not also in the Shadowlands. Characters in the Shadowlands can attack, and be attacked, by a character whose soul has been removed with this power. After one hour, the creature's soul will return to her body. This restoration occurs even it would normally be prevented by other powers or effects.
While a soul is missing, that soul's body retains its always-active Physical powers, such as Fortitude, but is otherwise defenseless.
If an individual using Possession, or a similar power, is targeted by Soul Stealing, the controlling spirit is the one affected, not the quiescent one. If Soul Stealing succeeds, the controlling spirit is the one removed from the body, and the original entity regains control of the physical form. When the effects of Soul Stealing end, a spirit thus removed from a mortal body returns to its native form, not the body it was Possessing.
Exceptional Success: A target must spend 3 points of Willpower to stave off the effects of your Soul Stealing, rather than 1.
Focus [Appearance]: In addition to its normal effect, your successful use of Soul Stealing inflicts 1 point of normal damage on your target as the soul is torn from its physical form with extreme violence. This point cannot be reduced or negated.
