To those she would command, a vampire must first make herself understood. So it is with beasts as well as men. A vampire using Feral Whispers overpowers the animal’s instinctive reactions and forces it to understand. She can ask questions of a creature and it must respond as best it can, and with a further slight nudge, she can compel it to obey her. A canny vampire can use magpies and crows to spy on her victims from above, or command a gangster’s mastiffs to savage their owner.
The vampire talks to the animal, either using human words or, much more frequently, by making animal sounds of her own. She can command groups of animals, such as a flock of birds or a swarm of rats, as long as she is close enough that the animals can all hear her, and she can see all of them.
Cost: None
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Animal Ken + Animalism
Action: Instant
Duration: Scene, command can persist up to a night.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The animal misunderstands the vampire’s command, giving false information when the vampire asks, or obeying a twisted version of the vampire’s command.
Failure: The animals fear the Beast, fleeing from a superior predator.
Success: The vampire can communicate with an animal, asking it what it has perceived. Most animals can remember what has happened over the last night. Animals relate what they have encountered through the lens of their own perceptions — dogs answer in terms of smell and hearing, while birds relate what they could see. The vampire can also give the victim a simple command, equivalent to what the animal could do on its own, such as “attack him,” “follow her then return here,” “chew through these cables.” The command doesn’t normally persist for more than a night, but the vampire can add simple contingencies such as forcing the beast to go to ground if noticed, or to return once the command is complete.
Exceptional Success: The animal is exceptionally obedient to the vampire, improvising to follow the spirit of the Kindred’s command.