The Path of Corruption
“Seven deadly sins? No. There’s only one, and its name is restraint. Restrain your baser drives for too long, and they will rise up and destroy you.” — Dawn Cavanaugh, Setite Mistress of Hollywood
The Path of Corruption grants the ability to subtly influence victims via a mystical twisting of the victim’s morality, desires, and cognitive processes. You can employ these powers to subtly corrupt your victim’s psyche into sliding towards the Beast. Properly taking advantage of this path requires an intimate knowledge of deception, addiction, and the dark places hidden in the heart.
If you fail a challenge when using Path of Corruption, you cannot use the same power against the same target for 10 minutes.
Casting the Path of Corruption is subtle, unlike other paths of Thaumaturgy. You do not need to speak to enact powers from Path of Corruption, and it is not immediately obvious that you are the source of your Path of Corruption powers.
Path of Corruption cannot be used without breaking the invisibility granted by Obfuscate.
• Contradict
You have the power to twist your target’s cognitive processes and perceptions, forcing her to reverse her last decision into something darker and destructive.
System: Spend 1 Blood, use your standard action, and make an opposed challenge using the Thaumaturgy test pool to use Contradict. If you succeed, the action or decision your target is about to undertake becomes its negative, far darker opposite. Your target determines the details of this decision, and she must roleplay it, although the Storyteller may intervene and provide specific instruction. You cannot predict the exact results of Contradict in advance, but it always takes the form of a more negative action than the subject had originally intended to perform.
You can use Contradict on any target within your line of sight. Contradict cannot be used in combat nor to effect actions that are mainly physical or reflexive.
Exceptional Success: This use of Contradict is subtle, and cannot be detected with an Awareness challenge. This is an exception to the rule that allows Awareness to detect the use of supernatural powers.
Focus [Wits]: Opponents receive a -5 penalty to Awareness challenges to discover your uses of Contradict.
•• Subvert
Subvert pushes your victim to surrender to dark temptations that her Morality might normally discourage her from indulging under normal circumstances.
System: When you witness another character taking an action that indulges a desire or resisting the temptation to act on her desires, you can spend 1 Blood, use your standard action, and make an opposed challenge to enact Subvert. If you succeed, the subject's actions change, and she succumbs to her desires. Subvert influences all of a subject's actions with varying degrees of subtlety. Should another opportunity arise to succumb to her desires, the victim must expend a point of Willpower to overcome this effect for five minutes.
Subvert lasts for one hour.
Exceptional Success: Your Subvert lasts for the rest of the night.
Focus [Wits]: Characters under the effect of your Subvert suffer a -2 penalty to resist your use of other Path of Corruption powers.
••• Dissociate
You have the ability to metaphorically cut into the heart of your victim and dissociate her emotional bond with others, leaving her a shell of her former self. Your victim becomes withdrawn from passionate lovers and bitter enemies alike.
System: Spend 1 Blood, use your standard action, and make an opposed challenge using the Thaumaturgy test pool to enact Dissociate. If you succeed, the victim of this power becomes withdrawn, suspicious, and emotionally distant. For the next hour, your target suffers a -3 penalty to Social challenges in which she must interact in a friendly or pleasant way. This penalty does not apply to defensive test pools.
All of the victim's blood bonds lower by one step for one hour. If you use this power on a character who has participated in the Vaulderie or a similar ritual, her vinculum rating reduces by one step for the duration of the effect. A victim may relent to this power, but if she does so in the hope of temporarily reversing bonds of blood, she must spend 1 Willpower to relent. Similarly, you must spend a point of Willpower to use this power on yourself if you hope to overcome a blood bond.
Exceptional Success: The effects of Dissociate last for the rest of the night.
Focus [Intelligence]: Blood bonds and vinculum ratings reduce to zero for the next hour.
•••• Addiction
You have the power to trigger an uncontrollable hunger in your victim, creating a physical and psychological dependence that drives all of her thoughts and motivations. This addiction must have a specific focus, such as a sensation, substance, or specific action normally considered taboo.
System: If you wish to addict a subject to a sensation, substance, or action, she must first encounter it. The thaumaturge then spends a Blood, uses her standard action, and makes an opposed challenge to enact Addiction.
If you succeed, the victim gains one Compulsion or Obsession derangement for the rest of the night; you determine that derangement's trigger, based on your manner of temptation. If a character is subjected to a second use of this power, the new effects overwrite the older application.
No individual can become addicted to something that causes damage (normal or aggravated) through the use of this power.
Exceptional Success: The Addiction inflicted by this power lasts for two game sessions or one month, whichever is longer.
Focus [Intelligence]: Targets affected by your Addiction gain a Derangement trait. Additionally, your addictions cannot be overwritten by other thaumaturges, unless the other thaumaturge is also Intelligence-focused. Other uses of this power simply fail when targeting a subject you have already Addicted.
••••• Dependence
You are the ultimate addiction. With your cult of personality and thorough mastery of Path of Corruption, you can force your victims to become obsessed with being in your presence.
System: You must engage your target in conversation and talk to her for at least one minute to activate this power. After meeting this prerequisite, spend 1 Blood, use your standard action, and make an opposed challenge to enact Dependence. If you succeed, the victim’s psyche becomes bonded to your own for the rest of the night, as she suffers from the Obsession derangement.
A bonded victim is no less likely to attack you and feels no particular affection toward you. However, she is psychologically addicted to your presence. For the duration of this power, she suffers a -2 penalty to all test pools when you are not present. Additionally, you gain a +5 wild card bonus in Social test pools against your victim for the duration of this power.
Penalties from this power do not subtract from defensive test pools.
Exceptional Success: The duration of Dependence extends to two game sessions or one month, whichever is longer.
Focus [Wits]: The victim cannot attempt to harm you while this power is active.
