Minimum Shadow Potency 7
One of the most heinous Dread Powers, a Strix with this power has learned to tear at the very foundations of living beings — their souls.
Action: Instant and Contested
Cost: 5 Vitae
Dice Pool: Power + Finesse vs. Victim’s Composure + Resolve
The victim, unlike other Strix forms of feeding, must be conscious, and must be a living human being with no supernatural powers — the Strix needs the soul to be active in order to hook it like a worm and rip it out of the victim, and the souls of monsters are too strange for the Strix to grab hold of. If the Strix succeeds, it removes the victim’s soul. The victim begins to suffer from the Soulless Condition (see p. 305).
Living souls aren’t much good for the Strix by themselves — they can’t eat them like they can consume one another through diablerie. The soul does, however, continue to produce Vitae while detached. The Strix may attach it to an object with another successful Power + Finesse roll, creating a phylactery, a soul- housing talisman. A phylactery produces one Vitae per night, which the Strix can absorb by touching it in Shadow Form or by handling it in a host body. Vitae not absorbed is lost — the phylactery only ever contains one Vitae. Some Strix have variants of this Dread Power that cause strange effects linking the victim to the phylactery containing her soul, such as a doll that inflicts very real versions of mock-injuries it undergoes on its “twin.”