The Bone Path
The study of the Bone Path is the study of physical corpses; rotting flesh and dusty bone. By mastering the Bone Path, a necromancer gains the ability to create and destroy zombies and shambling hordes of undead. These creatures mindlessly obey the necromancer's commands.
Contents
• Eyes of the Dead
You are no stranger to corpses and the remnants of hewed flesh. Your experiments, and your skill with Necromancy, give you the ability to glance at a corpse and understand the manner of its death.
System: Target a true corpse within line of sight and expend your simple action. You instantly know the manner of that creature's death, as well as when the death occurred and whether the corpse has been moved or otherwise altered. Further, by spending a standard action in concentration, you can sense the presence of corpses within 100 yards and discover their locations.
Focus [Appearance]: By spending 1 Blood, you can also disguise the manner of a corpse's death, rendering the body in every way as though it had died in a manner of your choosing and erasing all traces of any other injuries or reason for its death. Once you have invoked this power on a corpse, even other practitioners of Necromancy cannot tell that the corpse has been tampered with by Eyes of the Dead.
•• Destroy Husk
Philosophers say that it is easier to destroy than to create, and your powers of Necromancy prove that saying to be true. By targeting an animate corpse, you can sever the connections that maintain the construct, dissipating its dynamic force.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use a standard action to target a single true corpse, part of a true corpse, or zombie in line of sight, even if it is a zombie you do not control. This power destroys the target utterly. Not even ash is left behind. You cannot use this power on vampires nor other supernatural creatures, but you can destroy a true corpse that is currently inhabited by a wraith or by another vampire. If you do so, this forces the possessing spirit back into the Shadowlands, or to its natural body, and destroys the corpse.
Focus [Charisma]: You can use Destroy Husk as a simple action, rather than a standard action.
••• Shambling Hordes
By summoning your necromantic might, you empower deceased bodies with the raw essence of the Shadowlands, animating the rotting flesh. So long as a corpse is mostly in one piece, it can ignore physical debilitation; shuffling on broken legs, or seeing despite empty eyesockets; to obey your will.
System: Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to cause a true corpse to rise and obey your verbal commands. You must already possess (and have with you) a suitable corpse to animate in order to use this power. At any given time, you can control a number of zombies equal to the number of dots you possess of the Occult skill. Each zombie must be animated separately.
You can cause corpses to animate within their graves, even if you cannot see such corpses, so long as you are aware that corpses are in the area, such as by using Eyes of the Dead. It may take such zombies several turns to reach you, as they slowly dig or hammer their way out of graves or mausoleums. The creatures created with this power are zombies, with very little sentience and absolutely no creativity. The zombies attempt to obey your requests and follow your orders. These zombies are relatively permanent; they last until you release them, or until they take damage equal to their NPC rating.
Zombies created by Shambling Hordes are created as 2-point Stock NPCs. Each zombie has either the Potence or the Fortitude specialization, and either the Brawl or Melee specialization. A zombie cannot perform downtime actions or act independently, although it can perform simple tasks while unsupervised, such as sweeping the floor or attacking anyone who enters a room.
Focus [Charisma]: Zombies created by this power are 3-point Stock NPCs, instead of the standard 2-point Stock NPCs. These retainers have both the Potence and Fortitude specializations and your choice of either Brawl or Melee.
•••• Morbidity
Wraiths and zombies are relatively fragile creatures, easily defeated or chopped apart. By focusing your necromantic power, you can alter an undead creature, enhancing its rotting flesh or fortifying its spirit through your magic.
System: Spend 1 point of Blood, use your standard action, and target a zombie, wraith, or other servitor undead. This power has a variety of uses:
Zombies:
- Heal a zombie within three steps of up to 3 points of damage. You can cosmetically repair a zombie. Altering a zombie in this manner causes it to become less decayed and rotting; it regains the semblance it had at the moment after its death. Thereafter, the zombie begins to rot again as normal. By application of this power on a zombie every few weeks, such a zombie could even pass for human.
If a zombie is within three steps, you can give it 3 additional health levels. These additional health levels are marked off first when a zombie takes damage, and fade after five minutes, whether it has taken damage or not. No zombie can be under the effects of more than one application of this power at a time.
Wraiths:
- You can raise a wraith's NPC rating by 1 point, to a maximum of 6. The effects of this power last for the next hour. No wraith can be under the effects of more than one application of this power at a time. You can cosmetically alter a wraith, changing its general appearance. You cannot change the wraith's gender or natural features, but you can alter its clothing, hairstyle, and other superficial qualities. Many necromancers use this power to update their wraith retainers to a more modern style.
Focus [Appearance]: You can use the zombie-based effects of Morbidity on a vampire, thus temporarily causing her to look more human. Application of this power in this manner can cause a vampire on a path to appear to be on Humanity for a short length of time. Such uses of Morbidity last for 10 minutes. You cannot target a vampire with Morbidity more than once per night.
••••• Death's Puppetry
The most terrifying power of a corpse necromancer is the ability to inhabit a corpse, spiritually taking over your target's physical form and wearing the corpse as if it were your own flesh. While you are in command of the target's body, you can take any physical action that body is capable of performing.
System: To use Death's Puppetry, you must spend your standard action and target a true corpse or zombie within line of sight, including zombies you do not control. Your consciousness transfers into the target corpse as though that body were your own. Your original body falls into a torpid state and can neither defend itself nor act on its own, although your torpid body still has access to any Fortitude you possess. Corpses have no disciplines and cannot spend Blood. While possessing a zombie, you cannot spend Blood points, but can use the zombie’s Fortitude and/or Potence. Further, a character cannot use any of her own disciplines while using Death's Puppetry. While inhabiting this corpse body, a character uses her own Mental attributes and focuses, Social attributes and focuses, skills, and backgrounds. You must use the corpse's Physical attribute, rather than your own, for all Physical challenges while using Death's Puppetry. If you use Death's Puppetry on a Stock NPC, the subject's Physical attribute is equal to double that NPC's rating. You cannot utilize the target's Physical attribute focuses.
Death's Puppetry lasts until the next sunrise or until you spend a simple action for your character to return to her native body. Death's Puppetry ends immediately if the character travels more than 10 miles away from her native body, if the character's native body takes damage, or if the corpse she's inhabiting is destroyed.
Focus [Charisma]: You can possess any zombie you control, such as those created by Shambling Hordes. You can activate this power even if you cannot see that zombie, so long as it is within one mile of your current location. You must still pay all other costs of using this power.
