Minimum Shadow Potency 5
Unlike the Kindred, Strix hosts do age, and their Vitae can’t sustain ghouls unless they possess vampires. Most Strix abandon corpse hosts when they decay beyond repair, and almost none stay in a living host long enough for that body to die of old age. "Almost none” is not “none,” however, and a few Strix learn how to meld their shadow Vitae into a host.
Strix with this Dread Power modify their Possess Corpse and Possess Living Embodiments. Corpse hosts do not decay, but are otherwise unchanged. The more obvious changes come with living hosts, who grow more entwined with the Strix. While possessed by Strix with this power, living hosts age but don’t die of old age, kept alive for decades or centuries. Although they don’t decay, Strix Vitae lacks the magical stasis of Kindred Vitae; so living hosts altered by this Power gradually change over time, warping to become more Strix-like. Fingernails grow long into claws, and teeth elongate after a year, allowing living hosts to bite for lethal damage in a grapple and convert blood into Vitae like a vampire. After a few decades the host resembles an emaciated walking corpse, a living vampire with yellowed eyes and a permanent snarl. Unfortunately for the host, separation is fatal if the possession lasts longer than a year — the body has become so warped it can’t survive without the Strix’s presence.