Vicissitude
“A soul is just another bit of clay, to be twisted between your fingers.” — Sascha Vykos
The Tzimisce are known for their scientific demeanor and their cruel callousness, but more, they are legendary for their ability to twist and shape mortal flesh, bone, and tissue. The Fiends harbor ancient secrets that make other vampires shudder with horror at the sight of their handiwork. These powers require physical contact for the vampire to shape and contour another creature’s physical form.
Healing Vicissitude: Supernatural characters affected by Vicissitude can undo the effects of that power through further applications of Vicissitude or by healing the affliction as though it were 5 points of normal damage.
Vicissitude and Transformative Powers: When you activate a transformative power, any alternations made by Vicissitude to your original form do not affect your transformative form, but return when you revert to your original form. For example, if Vicissitude has permanently twisted your ankle, your wolf form does not have that affliction. However, the Vicissitude twisted ankle returns when you revert once more to your human form.
There is no standardized Vicissitude test pool.
• Malleable Visage
With this power, a fleshcrafter can alter her appearance, shaping her flesh and tissue to match the visage of another individual. The person to be mimicked in this fashion may be someone specific, or the visage may be a random assortment of features, as you desire.
System: Spend 1 Blood and expend five standard actions to modify your body. Malleable Visage requires you to physically sculpt your features, pulling and twisting the flesh beneath your hands. This power can be used to alter your features to any appearance within a normal human range. You can alter your face, size, sex, skin, or hair color, as well as adding or subtracting distinguishing marks. You can alter your height by up to one foot up or down, but you cannot become something that is not human, such as an animal, and you cannot rearrange your organs. Malleable Visage can modify your voice, if you spend an additional Blood when you activate this power.
To believably mimic a specific individual’s appearance, you must have at least 2 dots of the Medicine skill and you must study that individual from multiple angles for at least five minutes, learning her facial expressions, how she moves, and other distinctive qualities. You might be able to mimic someone’s face after studying a photograph, but your disguise will not fool people who have ever met your target, as you do not know enough to successfully exemplify that person. To believably mimic another character’s voice, you must have at least 3 dots of the Medicine skill, and you must listen to her talk for at least five minutes as she uses a variety of words and phrases. Listening to a recording of that voice is not enough for a true replication; your disguised voice would not have the depth necessary to fool anyone who has ever spoken directly to the person you are impersonating.
Alternately, you can use this power to give yourself a more beautiful, if slightly alien, appearance. When used in this way, you suffer a -2 penalty to your Social attribute, but gain the Appearance focus.
Malleable Visage is not a transformative power, but its effects only apply to your normal form. If you use a transformative power, the effects of Malleable Visage do not transfer to your transformed shape.
Focus [Charisma]: You can shape your flesh using only one single standard action, and you do not have to physically use your hands in order to mold your visage as you desire.
•• Fleshcraft
The flesh of other creatures is putty in your hands, shifting and stretching as you will it. You can perform drastic alterations to the flesh and organs of any creature you touch.
System: If the target is willing, you can spend 1 Blood and expend five standard actions to change another individual’s appearance exactly as you would by using Malleable Visage.
In combat, you can expend a standard action and spend 1 Blood to make a Brawl-based attack augmented by Vicissitude. If your attack succeeds, you viciously smear, twist, or remove hunks of the target’s flesh, inflicting 1 point of normal damage. This damage cannot be reduced or negated, and cannot be increased or modified by other powers. You cannot increase the damage from this attack by using Potence, and you cannot upgrade the damage to aggravated damage by using Feral Claws or similar powers. Like the other powers of Vicissitude, Fleshcraft requires you to physically mold your target’s body into the desired shape. Fleshcraft is not a transformative power, but its effects only apply to your normal form. If you use a transformative power, the effects of Fleshcraft do not transfer to your transformed shape.
Exceptional Success: When making a Brawl-based attack, you inflict 2 points of normal damage, which cannot be reduced or negated, and cannot be modified by other powers.
Focus [Manipulation]: You can use Fleshcraft on a willing target by expending three standard actions, instead of the normal five. Attacks using Fleshcraft now inflict a base of 2 normal damage and inflict 3 normal damage when you score an exceptional success while using this power.
••• Bonecraft
At this level of mastery, you can shatter bone with a touch, lengthening or shortening it as you will. The secrets of anatomy and the physical form are yours to command, and you have the capacity to cause terrible harm — or create twisted playthings of flesh and bone.
System: Spend 1 Blood and expend five standard actions to radically alter your form or the form of another character who is either willing or unable to move. Using Bonecraft, you can shift or remove bones, muscle groups, nerve endings, and internal organs, warping a physical body into a drastically different, and potentially anatomically improbable, shape. When you use Bonecraft on yourself or another individual, assign one of the following effects to your target. No character can be affected by more than one application of Bonecraft at a time.
- Extra Limbs: Sacrifice 2 health levels in order to grow one or more extra limbs. Once per turn, you can expend your simple action to cause these extra limbs to attack. Attacks from the extra limbs use your normal attack test pool, but do not receive bonuses from disciplines. For example, you cannot use Potence to augment an attack made by your extra limbs. These extra limbs cannot be used during Celerity rounds.
- Tough: Sacrifice up to 3 points of your Physical attribute to gain an equal number of health levels. These health levels are all in the Healthy wound track.
- Transformed Biology: Your heart (and/or other organs) are in unusual places. You cannot be staked, and you may be difficult to kill. Separating your brain from your heart still causes you to meet Final Death, but it can be difficult to behead a vampire who keeps her brain in an unusual place.
- Crippled: You morph your target into a shape incapable of fighting, or, in some cases, moving. You can rob your victim of her simple action, her standard action, or both.
- Body Weaponry: Sacrifice 1 health level in order to transform a part of your body into a weapon. Build the weapon normally, using the rules for creating weapons. Your body weaponry cannot be disarmed, and if it is broken, you can reform it by spending 1 point of Blood. Health levels and attribute points sacrificed to uses of Bonecraft cannot be regained until the Bonecraft is undone.
Like the other powers of Vicissitude, Bonecraft requires you to physically mold your target’s body into the desired shape. Bonecraft is not a transformative power, but its effects only apply to your normal form. If you use a transformative power, the effects of Bonecraft do not transfer to your transformed shape.
Focus [Manipulation]: When you activate Bonecraft, you may choose to apply two of the above modifications instead of only one. You cannot apply the same modification more than once.
•••• Horrid Form
Your body is capable of transforming into a horrible, mutated abomination, warping and twisting into an H.R. Giger-like monstrosity. You may develop spikes of bone across parts of your body, cloak yourself in fur or hair, develop numerous eyes, or anything else your twisted mind can imagine.
System: Spend 1 Blood and expend a standard action to transform into a massive, inhuman monster. While in Horrid Form, you suffer a -3 penalty to your Mental and Social attributes, but you also receive the Strength Physical attribute focus, and a +3 bonus to your Physical attribute when making brawling attacks. Additionally, your brawling attacks inflict aggravated damage, while you are in Horrid Form.
Horrid Form is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.
Focus [Charisma]: While in Horrid Form, your bonus to Brawl-based attacks increases to +5, instead of the standard +3. Your Horrid Form is also tremendously frightening to behold. Opponents whose current Willpower is less than yours suffer a -2 penalty when attacking you with Melee- or Brawl-based powers. This penalty always applies to NPCs with no Willpower rating.
••••• Blood Form
If you concentrate briefly, you can cause your body to liquefy into a pool of blood. In this state, you can still act and register the world around you. You are a liquid creature in a world of those confined to a solid state.
System: Spend 1 Blood and expend a standard action to transform into a pool of blood. While in Blood Form, 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. If hit by a flaming weapon, such as a torch or a road flare, you can spend 1 point of Blood to extinguish that flame in the moment it strikes you. Your Blood Form is semi-gelatinous, but cannot maintain a solid form. It is not human-shaped and cannot appear to walk or talk. While in Blood Form, other characters can attempt to drink you. To do so, an attacker must make a Brawl-based challenge using her Physical attribute + Brawl versus your Physical attribute + Dodge. If successful, the attacker drinks 1 point of your Blood. If you run out of Blood while in this transformation, either from someone drinking your vitae, or from your expenditure of Blood points, you immediately meet Final Death. Characters who have very little vitae left in their Blood pools should be cautious about transforming into Blood Form.
In this form, you can pass through any crack, hole, or aperture that liquid could normally transverse. You cannot pass through solid objects or airtight passages, nor can you travel through planes 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.
While in Blood Form, you are formed of liquid vitae and do have a tangible physical presence. You can be touched by anyone who passes her hand through your form, and you can touch other individuals by flowing in the target’s direction. Touching, or being touched, may require a Brawl attack. Blood Form is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.
Focus [Manipulation]: Rather than a pool of blood, you can transform into a vaguely human-shaped gelatinous blob of blood. This form can remain upright, maintaining its consistency while walking or performing simple activities, and it is capable of speaking.
