Character and Traits

 

Concepts

 

Ad-Hoc Emissary
Your sire always told you to hide, but you never could listen. Your skills were too useful to your herd, to the herds of other vampires. Then two strange things happened: an car crash victim with a strange aura offered you a boon against the Tremere, and a freaking werewolf cried in front of you and thanked you for saving his wife, vile spawn or not. Now, like the Watchers of old, you act as public emissary to various supernatural factions around the city. You’re sacrosanct, and the prince constantly asks you how much leverage you think you can levy as she schemes to use your contacts to further her own ends. You wonder which will come first: her deciding to throw you to the Tremere calling for your blood, or your new friends deciding you’re the monster they think you are.

 

Chosen One
You were always special in school. Not the most studious, or the most popular, but you had spirituality about you. You believed you had a calling to the holy orders, but no religion truly fit your parents, so none fit you. You were a great and grand soul, but there was no place for you in the world. In college, you met a much older man who brought you to your place in the world. He was one of seven, he said, one who were a light in the darkness for the displaced of the world. He brought you into that dark world, and then you took his light into yourself. Now you try to shed that light on others, before you have to spread your own on. 

 

Military Doctor
The army’s offer to pay for school certainly helped, but what appealed to you about military service was the same thing that drove you to become a doctor in the first place: being where people needed you the most, right in the thick of things. Compassion fueled your care, as you saw healthy and fit soldiers broken by roadside bombs or shattered by the cruel rigors of war. Compassion saw you treat civilians injured by those same bombs or the strikes of your army’s drones. Compassion was what marked you, and what Damned you when the pale woman in the white hijab came for you. You went missing in action, stayed in the cities after your countrymen left. The al-Amin welcomed you even as they hid from the rest of the Ashirra, betrayed by the Camarilla alliance. For now, you work as their envoy in Camarilla territory, your youth and foreign association working to the benefit of the shattered remnants of your bloodline.

 

Merits and Flaws

 

Scent of the Other (1pt. Merit)
“You don’t seem like a soul-sucker…” For whatever reason, your third eye shuts tightly when you choose to hide it, and your blood and aura don’t give away your Clan. You might be regarded as a Caitiff, or as a member of another Clan. In any case, Tremere or other Salubri hunters are thrown off your trail, unless you do something to reveal yourself again.

 

Sight Beyond Sight (3pt. Merit)
Your third eye occasionally experiences visions and pierces illusions. When your eye is open (via use of Auspex or Obeah), you occasionally pierce Obfuscate or Chimerstry. Some past Salubri have seen through faerie miens or glimpsed the dead lands of ghosts. You have no control over what your eye sees, though it’ll sometimes open involuntarily in response to the above phenomena. 

 

Warrior’s Heart (3pt. Merit)
Steel sits in the placid heart of the Salubri bloodline, and Adonai’s resurrection has caused your own heart to flutter ever so slightly. Like the Healers of old, you may learn the Valeren powers of the antitribu at a cost of current rating x6; if you know the first two dots of Obeah and Valeren, you gain a 2-die bonus to using the first two Discipline dots. However, your warrior’s heart suffers from the Precept of Samiel, the well-defined wanderlust that affects many Salubri — for every week you spend in the same location, you lose a point of Willpower, as your soul agitates without action. The antitribu might have a similar Merit allowing them to learn Obeah at a cost of always helping someone in need, at the Storyteller’s discretion. 

 

The Eighth (6pt. Flaw)
Your sire is one of the Seven, the diablerist Golconda seekers, trying to ensure the spiritual wealth of salvation would never be lost with their Final Death. They sought you as a successor, and proudly prepared you for your sacred duty. You, on the other hand, smiled at their lies, listened to their bullshit, and ran for the hills the first chance you got. You’re constantly hunted, not only by the Tremere, but by your sire, the other Seven, and their various hangers-on. You must be at least Ninth Generation to take this Flaw. 

 

Permanent Third Eye (2 or 4pt. Flaw; Salubri and Tremere only)
While most sealed third eyes are visible as a slight scar, yours remains permanently open on your forehead. For 2 points, the eye is merely open, and may be closed for a scene on a successful Willpower roll (difficulty 6). For 4 points, the eye sheds light, increasing all Stealth difficulties by 2. 

 

Discipline Powers

 

Auguring the Sickness (Obeah/Valeren ••)
This power allows the Salubri to go beyond Obeah or Valeren’s ability to determine wounds and reveal the fine damage caused by illness and disease. While best used by a medically-trained Salubri, even novices find the power useful. 
System: The Salubri holds his hands above the patient, and the third eye gently teases out a vision of the afflicted tissues made of pure light (neonate Salubri delightfully describe them as holograms). The player rolls Perception + Medicine (difficulty 7). Each success reveals one fact about the illness, including likely developments and symptoms and potential avenues of treatment. Additionally, once augured, the vampire may use Corpore Sano (V20, p. 469) to cure the disease outright, at a difficulty determined by the commonality and virulence of the disease (difficulty 5 for the common cold, difficulty 7 for most forms of herpes or chicken pox, or difficulty 9 for Ebola or HIV).

 

Ending the Watch (Obeah ••••)
Ancient tales record Enochian Salubri walking the night streets, freeing those mortals ravaged by vampiric excess from pain. The death watch were respected for their knowledge and power, garnered by preserving elements of a dying mortal’s soul within their own. Ending the Watch can be used only on a dying mortal or one who truly, without coercion, wishes for death. Generally, the mortally wounded or the elderly are targets of this power, but torture victims or those suffering deeply from depression are equally viable. Even in these nights, the Tremere continue to speak of this power with dread, calling the Salubri soulsuckers to all who will listen. 
System: The Salubri spends a Willpower point and lays a hand over a valid target’s heart, peacefully and painlessly killing them. The player then rolls the character’s Perception + Empathy (difficulty 7); upon a success, the target’s soul is absorbed, remaining within the Salubri and visible via Auspex as a bright white vein in the aura. With the soul’s vitality residing inside the Salubri, she knows much of what the dying mortal did — interesting secrets, passwords, or personal minutiae. She may recall specific facts of the target’s memory (“What is the bank password?”), requiring an Intelligence + Empathy roll (difficulty 5) for each significant fact. She may also consume the soul; for each success on the original roll, she may heal herself of one level of lethal or bashing damage. A botch on either roll inflicts a level of aggravated damage as the soul bursts free of the Salubri’s. The Salubri may hold a number of souls within her equal to her Generation Background.  

 

The Third Eye

 

Obeah and Valeren cause a physical change in vampires: a bump or nodule developing in the center of the forehead, eventually cracking open when the character learns the Discipline’s second dot. This stigmata bleeds whenever it opens, but remains an open wound for many mortal lifetime as the eye inside takes hundreds of years to fully form. Those clinging to Humanity have human eyes, while inhuman Path followers have concomitantly inhuman eyes. The scar or eye opens intermittently (when the Salubri is agitated), or when she uses any level of Auspex, Obeah, or Valeren. Attempting to cover the sensitive opening results in a penalty of one die to all rolls, though a decent hoodie is usually good enough to keep it from being easily noticed. It may be retracted and hidden for the scene with a Stamina + Stealth roll (difficulty 5), though a slight, faded scar remains on the forehead. Using any level of Obeah or Valeren brings it forth once more.

 

Combination Disciplines

 

Vital Fluids (Obeah •••, Fortitude •••)
With complete mastery over her undead frame and the power of vitae healing, the Salubri finds that healing wounds no longer overly taxes her duties towards humanity. Additionally, the Salubri may apply Corpore Sano (V20 p. 469) to herself, though the only benefit is for healing aggravated damage. System: Any blood spent to heal bashing or lethal damage returns to the vampire’s blood pool, at a rate of one point per hour. This does not apply to points lost to use Copore Sano. This power is always active at no cost. This power costs 18 experience points to learn.