Tremere

Clan

The Anarch Movement

Broken by a new Inquisition, the once-mighty Warlocks seek to restore their monopoly on sorcerous power.

Disciplines:

(Auspex, Dominate, Blood Sorcery)

Bane:

Tremere dependency on blood is even more pronounced than that of other Kindred. It takes only two draughts of another vampire’s blood for a Tremere to become blood bound instead of the normal three — the first drink counts as if the Tremere had taken two drinks. (For more information on the blood bond, see p. 286 of vtm 20th anniversary edition). The elders of the Clan are well aware of this and seek to impart loyalty to the Clan by forcing all neonate Warlocks to drink of the (transubstantiated) blood of several Tremere elders soon after their Embrace.

Compulsion:

Tremere: Perfectionism Nothing but the best satisfies
the vampire. Anything less than exceptional performance instills a profound sense of failure, and they often repeat tasks obsessively to get them “just right.”

Until the vampire scores a critical win on a Skill roll or the scene ends, the vampire labors under a two-dice penalty to all dice pools. Reduce the penalty to one die for a repeated action, and remove it entirely on a second repeat.

Members

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Abilities

Disciplines

Auspex

Extrasensory perception, awareness, and premonitions

Storytellers may wish to make Auspex rolls for characters in order to more convincingly provide wrong or incomplete answers after failed rolls.

Type: Mental
Masquerade threat: Low. Auspex never by itself manifests in a way visible to the naked eye or causes effects that can’t be rationalized, if only as dumb luck.
Blood Resonance: Phlegmatic. Artists (especially photographers) and visionaries, certain schizophrenics, users of psychoactive substances, detectives.

Dominate

Mind control practiced through one's piercing gaze

Characteristics:

Most Dominate powers require
eye contact with the victim. Once they establish contact, Dominate holds the gaze of the victim until the user conveys their command or commands, barring interference. Catching the eyes of someone actively attempting to avoid the vampire’s gaze requires a contest of the user’s Resolve + Intimidation vs the target’s Wits + Awareness. It is of course impossible to catch the eyes of someone squeezing their eyes shut or wearing a blindfold, but that person should be easy prey to other tactics.

Using Dominate in combat or in other frantic situations is limited to people attacking or otherwise interacting with the user directly, as everyone else’s attention is firmly focused on their own peril.

Unless the user has supernatural means such as Telepathy (Auspex 5) at their disposal, they must command the victim verbally. The victim must be able to hear the user and understand their language.

Without Terminal Decree (Dominate 5), commands resulting in obvious death or serious injury fail automatically. Subjects roll to resist commands resulting in other social or physical harm (such as undressing in public), commands that have a character go against their Convictions, and those that would have negative effects towards their Touchstones or their relationship with them.See individual powers for details. Vampires cannot use Dominate to extract information, as the victim becomes a mindless puppet while under its influence. For example, the Compel command “Speak” results in blabbering word salad, while someone Mesmerized to “tell what you know about the assassin” responds “what you know about the assassin.” Dominate can- not make subjects do something they could not do on command, such as “Sleep.” Ultimately, the Storyteller determines what the Discipline can accomplish, but they should take care that Dominate remains one Discipline of many, rather than the catch-all solution to every problem.

Dominate cuts to the core of vampiric mastery and predation. Thus, vampires must resist attempts to Dominate them. A vampire of lower (stronger) generation can resist Dominate attempts from higher generation vampires by spending a Willpower point, negating the effect completely.

On a total failure on the roll of any Dominate power, that vampire can no longer Dominate that target for the rest of the story.

Dominate threatens Humanity, especially if the vampire has any Principles involving personal freedom or forbidding violations of human integrity. Using it may incur Stains (p. 239).

■ Type: Mental

■ Masquerade Threat: Low. Barring someone Dominating an entire auditorium to jump off the cliffs of Dover, it remains one of the more subtle vampiric powers.

■ Blood Resonance: Phlegmatic. The blood of the submissive or the dominant, masters and slaves, captains of industry, power trippers, cult leaders and followers.

Blood Sorcery - Discipline

The use of the Blood to perform magic

Characteristics

Blood Sorcery is a special Discipline in that it both confers powers, like other Disciplines, and also unlocks the ability to perform Rituals up to and including the level the user holds in the Discipline. Ghouls of Blood Sorcerers or thin-bloods drinking from Sanguine temperaments gain temporary access to the Discipline powers, but not to Rituals. Its regular powers seem comparatively weak, but the versatility of the Rituals more than compensates, assuming the user can learn them. At character creation, a player can choose one Level 1 ritual if they have at least one dot in Blood Sorcery. Characters can buy new rituals at the cost of the ritual’s level x 3 experience points. Learning new Rituals during play requires both experience and time. Expect a Ritual to take at least the square of its rating in weeks to learn.

■ Type: Sorcery

■ Masquerade Threat: Low-High.

The individual appearance
of the powers and Rituals in Blood Sorcery varies as widely as their effects.

■ Blood Resonance: Sanguine. Although not inherent in the Blood itself, Blood Sorcery responds eagerly to blood from human occultists, sorcerers, and cult leaders, as well as hemophiles and bibliophiles.