Character and Traits

Concepts
 

Barker
“Step right up!” You used to travel from town to town, a peddler of the bizarre and grotesque. Ever the showman, your macabre charm brought in the audiences to gaze upon your freak show attractions. Occasionally, you took their blood. Sometimes you kept an audience member and added him to the menagerie. These nights, you lead a more stationary life. You’ve opened a House of Oddities in the city. Your creations hide in plain sight. This modern world celebrates the grotesque. The gawkers come to you. Why just last week, a small band of thieves tried breaking into your place. The look on their faces when the pickled punks leapt out of the jar to defend you…? Well, that was just priceless. “Safe home, dear friends, and come again!” 

 

Foreign Exchange Student
You have recently arrived in a new country. You carry the soil of your homeland, but you seek to transcend it. Just as the koldun of the old country commune with the spirits of the earth there, you seek to find the voices in this new soil. You research the lore of this new place. You meditate on the ebb and flow of its energy. You commune with these new people also. Through Auspex, you peer inside of them. You taste their emotions. You pluck out their joys, fears, character quirks, and idiosyncrasies. You bury these concepts in your brain. You perform mental grave robbery, taking the spare parts to the laboratory in your skull, trying out each intangible trait, grafting them to your psyche in varying combinations. Every night, you let loose a new creation, a new you. Let the other Fiends play at their crude patchwork of flesh. You construct Azi Dahaka in the mind.

 

Foundation Recruiter
The blood of the revenant families has spread so far and so thin. The right talent and genes can surface almost anywhere in the world. The Romanian Legacy Foundation sends you out to find the descendants of the revenant houses who are now far beyond the ancestral lands. You maintain a Foundation website. You give presentations in hotel convention rooms. You follow emails, birth certificates, genealogy studies — the nearly invisible trail of Tzimisce blood that spans the globe. You conduct interviews. When you find the worthy, you bring them in, saving them from the fate of dying as exceptionally talented mortals.

 

Lost in the Ivory Tower
The Camarilla took the city. Everyone was destroyed, all of your packmates. Only you remain. Desperate, you took on the face of one of the Ivory Tower Kindred who died in the battle. You tasted his heart’s blood and touched just enough of his memories. Somehow, in the chaotic aftermath, the ruse worked. But what now? All you know is the city. Outside are the Lupines and death. How long can this insane farce continue? You fall deeper and deeper into this stolen identity, Sect, and Clan. The nights go by, and Vinculum is a distant memory. This was only supposed to be a temporary solution.

 

Old Clan New
You are of the Old Clan, the recent Embrace of an ancient sire. You were chosen because you were born in the homeland. You grew up on the old ways, but your curiosity hungers to see the world beyond. The Oradea League realized that history had passed them by, and so they Embraced you. They are so much older than you are, but you are given a measure of respect for your knowledge of modern technology and culture. Walking between the world of the archaic and the cutting edge, you are something new. You are their experiment. Now you are sent out again, away from your Romanian home. You are to help the Old Clan make contact with the wider, contemporary world. Distinctions like Camarilla and Sabbat hold little meaning to you. Perhaps there is something to learn from both. 

 

Paranoid Fiend
You’ve read the writings of an ancient of the Old Clan. An Obertus monk preached to you about the Dracon’s immaculate conception. You once talked to a guy who talked with Lambach Ruthven. You’ve put it together. You know what’s going on. But now, it knows that you know. It began in small ways. You woke to find your clothing torn, t h i n g s i n y o u r h a v e n rearranged, a knife in one hand and fingers missing from the other. One dusk, you found the words “BE A GOOD LAD” flesh-scrawled into your chest. It’s in there, watching you now, isn’t it? Now you spend all your time in the lab. You’ve missed several auctoritas ritae. The others are beginning to talk. Who can you trust? You experiment until you collapse with the sun. You write your findings in the dark, so it won’t see. You tried to exsanguinate all of your vitae. You removed your own limbs. It does no good. No going back. You scream from the hyperawareness of something the size of a planet greasily slithering between your dead cells. You try to warn the other Fiends, but no one listens. They say you are insane. Really? Do they think so? Oh, how glorious that  would be if it were true.

 

Scholar of the Akoimetai
You grew up among the Obertus. You learned the 12 Legacies and were Embraced a Child of the Dracon. You travel the world, in study and pious contemplation. You search for the Divinity Within. You attempt to sculpt Heaven on Earth in the flesh. Your hands are not an artist’s hands, but when inspired by the Holy Ghost, you can find godhead in the crude meat. You tap into something bigger than yourself and are able to shape symmetry you could never have imagined, forms that existed before dreams. Sometimes you show mortals this primeval iconography. When  you show them your celestial face, whenthey scream and sweat, then you are reminded of why angels always must preface their visitations with the words “Be not afraid.”

 

Shabby Voivode
You are the land. You claimed a particularly opulent mausoleum in the city cemetery as your manor. You took in the homeless as your subjects. Democracy had used and discarded them, and you gave them something more pure. To the few exceptional transients, you gave the sacrament of your blood, from your bent chalice, making them your personal bogatyri. You control the city park where you hold court, but your demesne grows alley by alley, shelter by shelter. Judicious impaling taught the gangs where not to tread. The urban birds and beasts are your eyes and ears. Your word is law in the hearts and minds of peasants. Your loving subjects made you a crown of barbed-steel thorns. You live the neofeudalist ideal better than your fellow Cainites, who hide in penthouses or skulk in sewers. They laugh at you, but it must be from jealousy. 

 

Walking Urban Legend
The Eldest found transcendence in dreams, and you seek inspiration in the dark dreams of others. You travel the country, collecting urban and rural myths — stories passed from mouth to ear — stories that live, crawl, and evolve with each telling. You change with the stories too, fashioning yourself into the monsters. You are a hook-handed killer. You are the bleeding woman who appears in the darkened mirror. You are the chupacabra. You enact the gory legends, enriching the dead soil in the nightmares of the kine. Sometimes you focus on one legend, refining the minutia of its image as you travel. You find Metamorphosis through the nuanced regional differences you discover from town  to town, forced evolution along the road. Scary stories are fun when you’re dead!

 

Weaver
You wield your bone shears with the gentle grace of an artist. The miracles you can work with human leather. The osseous jewelry. The bioluminescent gown. The stillliving great coat, kept alive with vitae, covered in eyes that still blink. The flesh and bone coffin you designed for  the Archbishop herself that lovingly opens for her, every dawn, with the deliberation of a Venus flytrap. For all the Sabbat’s talk of transcending human customs, they still preen like demon peacocks when they gather. Shock and awe. You give that to them. You are in high demand. You give them post-human fashion — postmundane. Not just garments; you give them designer ghouls and designer selves. The packs strive to be monsters, reach for freakishness, but many do not have the skill to truly transform. The poor dears. Why should the Fiends be the only ones to experience Metamorphosis? Your Clanmates are so self-centered. You were always extroverted. You want to share. You want to give. 

 

Merits and Flaws

 

Bioluminescence (1pt. Merit)
Perhaps through biological expertise, or perhaps by unlocking something primordial within, you have accessed the secrets of bioluminescence. Using Vicissitude, you may grant yourself (through Malleable Visage) or others (via Fleshcraft — both as per V20, p. 241) the ability to emit a soft glow. With muscle control and practice, you can control the color and pattern of the illumination. This can light a soft glow in the dark, create beautiful displays, or even act as a primal form of communication. Some Fiends grant their ghouls or childer bioluminescence, developing an eerily nuanced and wordless language with their thralls and broods. Only characters with at least one dot of Vicissitude may purchase this Merit.

 

Pain Tolerance (2pt. Merit)
Maybe you are a badass or shut off your nerves through Vicissitude. Maybe your sire put you through so many intricate hells that it would be tough for anyone else to compete. Maybe it just turns you on. Regardless, at Hurt or Injured, you suffer no wound penalties, though you still suffer full penalties at Wounded and below. You must have a Conviction or Courage rating of 3 or more to take this Merit.

 

Dracon’s Temperament (3pt. Merit)
You emulate the ideal of Azi Dahaka within and without, to levels visceral and abstract. Your psyche flows with the permutable nature of change. Like the protean Dracon, you are a whirlwind of temperaments. This is not multiple personalities. You are one identity shown through the prism of ever-shifting Natures. No anchor fetters your sense of self. You can be any you. At the start of each story, you may choose one Personality Archetype to function as your Nature, spending the rest of the story perceiving the world through that perspective. You also regain Willpower according to your new Nature and may be affected by other effects or Discipline powers as per your new Nature as well.

 

Haven Affinity (3pt. Merit)
You are the land. The land is you. The home soil calls to you. You give to it, and it gives to you. Your connection to the earth of your prime haven grants you an extra die to all dice pools when operating there. It also acts as a mystic beacon, allowing you to home in on its location with a standard Perception + Survival roll (difficulty 6), +1 difficulty when a state or country separates you; +2 if you’re halfway across the globe. This applies only to your primary haven.

 

Revenant Disciplines (3pt. Merit)
The blood of your revenant family runs deep, deeper than the Embrace. The Disciplines that were innate to you as a ghoul have remained so as a Cainite. At character creation, select the ghoul family from which you hail (V20, pp. 503-506). Instead of the Tzimisce’s standard complement of Animalism, Auspex, and Vicissitude, you draw from your three family Disciplines for your starting allocation (though you may buy other Disciplines with freebies, as normal). You trade in the entire set of Tzimisce Clan Disciplines for the set of revenant family Disciplines, for the purposes of in-Clan Experience cost. 
 

Promethean Clay (5pt. Merit)
Your flesh ripples and molds itself to your preternatural will, almost before you consciously invoke the change. The difficulty to use any Vicissitude power on yourself is two less than normal, and you may activate Vicissitude powers reflexively at your full dice pool while taking other actions. Powers that require multiple turns to activate still require the usual duration. The change simply occurs without conscious direction. As a final benefit, you need no physical sculpting to use the first three levels of Vicissitude on yourself, as your flesh undulates and extrudes to its desired shape. Only characters with at least one dot of Vicissitude may purchase this Merit.

 

Unblinking (1pt. Flaw)
Your eyes do not close. Ever. Perhaps you have left your humanity too far behind to upkeep such habits, or perhaps you fleshcrafted some form of transparent eye-scale or nictitating membrane. Your quirk probably makes astute observers uncomfortable, adding +1 to the difficulty of friendly social interactions with humans, Kindred on Humanity, and others with mortal sensibilities.

 

Ancestral Soil Dependence (2pt. Flaw)
Your flesh yearns for a homeland you have never seen. The voice of Kupala punishes your day sleep if this yearning is not met. The soil from a place important to you as a mortal will not suffice; in addition, you require two handfuls of the tainted Eastern European soil of the ancestral Tzimisce homeland. This Trait mostly commonly manifests in the childer of koldun and the branch of the Clan thought to be descended from Yorak. It can even manifest in childer sired generations after their ancestors relocated. Characters Embraced in Eastern Europe can’t take this Flaw (they’re already dependent on the local soil).

 

Faceless (3pt. Flaw)
You have escaped the tyranny of physical self-identity. You call no face your own. Every sunset, you awaken to a new visage, an amalgam pieced together from memory and dream. Your features, ethnicity, even gender become fluid things while you sleep. While this Flaw exemplifies the extreme ideals of Azi Dahaka (and should impress most Metamorphosists), it can cause complications for vampire concerned with maintaining recognition, reputation, or a mortal alias. Every sundown, the player rolls one die and is subject to the results on the following table:
 

Roll     Result
 1               No change.
 2-3          Minor changes, somewhat recognizable.
 4-8          Unrecognizable by even those closest to the character (such as her                              packmates or sire). Ethnicity and gender may change.
 9-10        Total metamorphosis. Tentacles, bone spikes, or other inhuman features                       may appear.
 

This Flaw affects some Backgrounds (V20, p. 110). Without a stable face, Alternate Identity and Fame cannot be maintained. Backgrounds like Allies, Contacts, Influence, and Status might be complicated by the lack of a solid identity as well. The vampire can use Malleable Visage and a mirror to reconstruct her true face from memory, but this requires at least three successes at difficulty 8 to make her recognizable, and five successes for a flawless copy. The Mistaken

Identity Flaw (V20, p. 450) cannot be taken. Other Merits/Flaws may be affected, at the Storyteller’s discretion. Characters must have at least one dot of Vicissitude to take this Flaw.

 

Privacy Obsession (3pt. Flaw)
Perhaps it is a trait carried in the blood. Perhaps your strict sire carved this lesson into your mind and flesh. Either way, you carry the Tzimisce respect for privacy to extremes. You must make a Willpower roll (difficulty 6) to enter another being’s dwelling without being invited, though you can go to fiendishly clever lengths to garner an unwitting invitation. When disturbed in your haven by an uninvited guest, you must make a Self-Control or Instincts roll (difficulty 7) to avoid frenzy. 

 

Revenant Weakness (3pt. Flaw)
You were once part of a revenant family. Following the Embrace, you suffered both your Clan’s weakness and your revenant family’s limitation (V20, pp. 503-506). The Storyteller might let you manifest a weakness from a lost or destroyed revenant line. This could add mystery to your background and allow for a bit of genealogical detective work, certainly making you a curiosity to the Romanian Legacy Foundation. 

 

Consumption (5pt. Flaw)
There is something hungry inside of you. But what is it? Portions of the Antediluvian? Your Vicissitude gone horribly wrong? Whatever it is, it is active, acting like a cancer, devouring you from the inside out. Your very blood is wrought with corrosive, flesh-eating bacteria. At the beginning of each evening, you suffer one health level of lethal damage that cannot be soaked nor healed with blood. The only way to counteract the effect is by ingesting one-tenth of your body-weight in flesh to supplement your depleted carcass. Whether you kill and devour the skin from humans or raid the biohazard containers of liposuction clinics for siphoned fat, you need your ration of human flesh in order to survive. If you try and ingest this macabre meal before damage is done, you’ll simply vomit it out like any other food — this does not impart the benefits of the Eat Food Merit.

 

Elder Discipline Powers

Eye of the Szlachta (Animalism ••••• •)
Many Fiends can possess the lowly beasts of the wild, but some few can ride any ghoul who shares their blood. By locking eyes with her ghoul, the Fiend can transfer her soul into the creature. Although some Tzimisce consider such intimate contact with their servants distasteful, sometimes it is necessary to calm a rampaging vozhd in a disposable vessel. More than one Fiend has faked their death in the body of a cleverly fleshcrafted ghoul.

System: Use the system for the Animalism power Subsume the Spirit (V20, pp. 131-132). 

 

Flesh Bond (Animalism ••••• ••••)
At this level of Animalism, the vampire develops an extraordinary bond with the “lower” creatures. She can now physically merge with animals, becoming one flesh. 
System: With a roll of Stamina + Animal Ken (difficulty 7), the character can absorb smaller animals into her very being. She may release the animals at will. Each creature thus absorbed forces the character to spend one of her blood points for every five points in the animal’s blood pool (see V20, pp. 388-391, for some examples); a character can thus bond with 20 rats — each of which is worth 1/4 a blood point — by spending one of her own blood points. The vampire cannot feed to regain any blood points spent in this manner until the character releases the animals. At any time, the character can ingest the absorbed creatures, acquiring their collective blood pool. The exsanguinated corpses of the animals are then spat out of the vampire’s body.

While the character cannot physically absorb a larger creature, she can meld her body with such a creature by making a successful Stamina + Animal Ken roll (difficulty 7) and spending one blood point. Thus, she can merge her body into that of a charging Kodiak bear and move around during the day within it. Note that the character has no control over the animal with which she has merged unless she has also used Subsume the Spirit (V20, p. 131) upon it. A successful use the Aura Perception (V20, p. 135) upon a character or creature who has “riders” will notice an unusual tinge to the subject’s aura. 

 

Ecstatic Agony (Vicissitude ••••• •)
Pain is transformative. Pain awakens primal potential in the tortured flesh. A Fiend with this ability delights in every slash of the blade and caress of bullet, transmogrifying agony into physical prowess and incredible displays of Caine’s Gifts. 
System: After spending two Willpower points, the character becomes empowered by pain. Add his wound penalties to all non-reflexive actions involving a Physical Attribute or use of a Discipline. As the character heals, this bonus wanes. Treat Incapacitated and Final Death normally. This power lasts for one scene.

 

Kraken’s Kiss (Vicissitude ••••• ••)
The Fiend’s face erupts into a mass of tentacles, a foot in length and similar to that of a squid. These tentacles can be used to grasp and constrict a foe. Moreover, in place of a squid’s suckers are rows and rows of fanged, drooling mouths, permitting incredibly rapid blood drain.
System: The vampire spends a Willpower point and rolls Stamina + Medicine (difficulty 8). Success enables formation of the tentacles with no loss of sensory abilities. The tentacle mass can be used in melee (difficulty 5; Strength +2 lethal damage). A successful hit indicates a grab. Feeding begins on the same turn as the initial grab, and for each success scored on the attack roll, one additional blood point can be drained from the victim each turn, as dozens of mouths bite and suck. To break the grip, the victim must score three more successes than the vampire in an extended contest of Strength. 

 

Combination Disciplines
 

Birth the Vozhd (Animalism ••••• •, Vicissitude ••••• •)
While the creation of vozhd was once the sole province of koldunic ritual, Tzimisce who have mastered both fleshcrafting and control of the Beast Within can build vozhd as well. This power requires at least 15 ghouls (although 20 or more is preferable). First, the Tzimisce fleshcrafts the ghouls together, forging the bodies into a single entity. The Fiend feeds the corporate mess a concoction of the intermingled blood of the ghouls, creating something like a Vinculum among them. This bond in place, the Fiend uses Animalism to coalesce the minds of the ghouls into one insane and imperfect Beast that drives the vozhd to crush or devour everything in sight. 
System: After the Tzimisce collects enough ghouls, roll her Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty 9) to determine how quickly she constructs and “masters” the vozhd. With one success, the process takes as long as a year; with five, it might only take a month. The Fiend can make further Vicissitude modifications to her creation; raise the difficulties of such Discipline rolls by two to reflect the size and complexity of the creature. Botches result in a nonviable dead creature or a frenzied, uncontrollable vozhd. Also note that vozhd, driven by their flawed Beasts, are notoriously difficult to control. Raise the difficulty of all Animalism rolls involving a vozhd by three. This power costs 36 experience points to learn.

 

Body Armory (Protean •••, Vicissitude •••)
This power enables the vampire to form wicked weapons from her own body. The vampire may create sword blades, axes, and even spiked mauls. These weapons do terrible damage to their targets. Many Tzimisce make sword-arms, knife-bladed knuckles, and the like, but more dramatic implementations are possible. 
System: This power costs two blood points per weapon (though larger weapons like two-handed swords and great axes cost four), and the player must roll Dexterity + Medicine (difficulty 7). Each weapon takes two turns to form (larger weapons take three turns). Weapons created in this manner cause aggravated damage, and turn to ash once they are removed from the user. This power costs 18 experience points to learn.

 

Chaining the Beast (Animalism •••, Dominate •)
As a lord of the land, able to influence the minds of humans and animals alike, the Fiend gains special insight into controlling and cowing even the Beast. The Tzimisce can now Dominate a frenzied vampire more easily.
System: This power allows the player to use the Dominate Discipline (see V20, p. 151) on a vampire suffering frenzy or Rötschreck and ignore the normal penalties for doing so (V20, p. 297). This power costs 16 experience points to learn.

 

Ears of the Bat (Auspex •, Vicissitude •)
The vampire grows long, pointed ears and achieves echolocation, much like a bat. She can “see” in pitch darkness and that sense extends 360° around her, leaving no blind spots for would-be ambushers to exploit. 
System: The player must spend a blood point and roll Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty 7). While manifesting the ears, the character gains -3 difficulty on all hearing rolls and suffers a +1 difficulty to all Social rolls with mortals unless she takes steps to hide her ears. This power costs 6 experience points to learn.

 

Flaying Touch (Potence ••, Vicissitude ••)
With this cruel power, a Tzimisce can tear away a victim’s skin as easily as removing a robe, all without disturbing the muscles and other tissue beneath. The Fiend simply grabs a handful of skin and pulls it away or surgically slices it with the artful caress of a fingertip. Regardless of the method used, the target suffers excruciating pain and begins bleeding profusely from the exposed flesh. Even if a target somehow survives the blood loss, the area of skinless flesh soon becomes infected. Even Cainites suffer under this agony, though they do not have to fear blood loss. 
System: This power requires the same roll as a conventional use of Fleshcraft, though the difficulty is always one higher than normal (maximum difficulty 9). The vampire need not restrain the victim as long as he strikes exposed skin (requiring a Dexterity + Brawl roll as usual), in which case the activation roll is reflexive. Each success inflicts one level of lethal damage, which may be soaked (if the victim can soak such damage) at difficulty 8. If the damage exceeds the victim’s Stamina, she can only writhe and scream in pain for the rest of the turn. Mortal victims continue bleeding profusely from their exposed skin, suffering a number of levels of bashing damage each minute equal to the initial damage. Once any of the original damage is healed or the wound is stanched (Dexterity + Medicine, difficulty 9), the bleeding slows to one level of damage per hour. Only when the original injury is completely healed does the bleeding stop. This power costs 12 experience points to learn.

 

Soul Decoration (Auspex ••, Obfuscate •••)
The body and soul are linked. Outer change brings inner change (and vice versa). The body’s experiences can be summed up in the aura, but this phenomenon is the product of physical forces. By physically adjusting certain locations on the body — chakras, joints, erogenous zones, and the like — a Tzimisce with this power can “paint” whatever aura he chooses. The aura artist uses tools such as needles, clamps, and electric shock to work such change. 
System: Aura crafting is a sensitive and precise art and requires at least ten minutes of uninterrupted work. After spending three Willpower points, the player makes a Perception + Empathy roll. The difficulty of this roll is equal to the subject’s current Willpower — stronger personalities resist alteration. The number of successes indicates how completely the aura can be changed to the Tzimisce’s specifications. 

Successes    Result
     1                 Can alter primary color
     2                Can alter secondary color
     3                Can alter psychological state (frenzied, psychotic, etc.)
     4                Can conceal or falsify diablerie and magic use
     5                Can conceal or falsify natural condition (vampire, shapeshifter,                             ghost, etc.)

The deception lasts one night per success. During this time, the aura doesn’t change to reflect new conditions in its owner. This power changes only the aura, not the subject herself. At the Storyteller’s discretion, the subject may feel token emotions to match her new colors. She might feel somewhat distrustful if her aura was painted light green, for instance. This power costs 21 experience points to learn.

 

The False Drink (Auspex •, Vicissitude •••••)
Some independent elder Fiends who pay lip service to the Sabbat developed this trick. Using a heightened self-awareness and vitae control, the Tzimisce is able to divert imbibed blood to a discrete cavity within her body. The compartmentalized blood is not absorbed into the vampire’s system, and thus, the blood bond or Vinculum can be secretly avoided. The vampire can then vomit up the unwanted blood at her leisure.
System: Upon drinking the blood, the player must roll Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty 8). Failure means the vampire accidentally absorbs the imbibed blood as normal, affecting any blood bond or Vinculum as per normal. Botching the roll causes the vampire to vomit the imbibed blood, along with half of her own blood pool, in a messy spray. This power costs 18 experience points to learn. 

 

Wound Sculpting (Fortitude •••, Vicissitude ••)
A vampire with this power may vastly accelerate her healing by concentrating and willing flesh to mold back to its original form.
System: The player spends one blood point and rolls Wits + Medicine (difficulty 8). Each success heals one level of lethal or bashing damage. Each wound level requires one minute of uninterrupted work. This power costs 15 experience points to learn.