This path enhances the necromantic understanding of the unliving form and allows the user to fully experience the corpse as a gateway between life and death. The path lets the vampire apply some of a corpse’s traits to a vampire, and she can enhance or reduce these traits at various levels of the power.
• Masque of Death
The character with this ability can assume a visage of death or inflict that shape on another vampire. The victim’s flesh becomes pallid and thin (if it is not already), and skin pulls tight against bone. This ability can be very useful, as it allows one to hide in plain sight in a tomb or crypt at any time (though the character remains as vulnerable to sunlight and fire as ever). When a necromancer uses this power on another Kindred, the victim gains the same corpselike demeanor. In this sense, the ability works as something of a minor curse.
The player spends one blood point for the character to gain the form described. Those afflicted with the Masque of Death lose two points of Dexterity and all benefits from Strikin Looks (minimum of 1 in Dexterity) for the duration of the power. The player also gets two extra dice to his Intimidation dice pool, should he wish to terrify any onlookers. Further, if the character remains perfectly still, observers must roll five successes on a medicine roll to distinguish the character from a normal corpse. The player doesn’t need to roll anything to have the character stop moving — vampires have no autonomic functions. If the user inflicts Masque of Death on another vampire, he must spend a blood point, touch the target, and then make a Stamina + Medicine - Target’s Stamina + 3. The Masque of Death lasts until the next sunset, unless the character who created the masque wishes to extinguish its effects earlier.
•• Cold of the Grave
The dead feel no pain, though most undead do. With this ability, the character can temporarily take on the unfeeling semblance of the dead, in order to protect herself from physical and emotional harm. When assuming the Cold of the Grave, the vampire’s skin becomes unusually cold. When she speaks, her breath
mists even in warm air — those with exceptional senses might even see a slight red tinge to the breath. The power brings a sense of lethargy over the character, as a mortal might feel under the influence of a mildly unpleasant disease. It becomes difficult to rouse oneself to action, and very little seems important enough to really worry about. A corpse has no worries, after all.
The player spends one Willpower point. For the remainder of the scene, the character takes no wound penalties, and the player gains an additional die
to all dice pools that involve resisting emotional manipulation, such as Intimidation or Empathy. However, the player also loses a die from dice pools to emotionally manipulate others. The character is a cold fish to those she interacts with, and they do not respond readily to her. The Cold of the Grave does not protect the character against the depredations of the Beast. She may be emotionally cold on the surface, but if others taunt and anger her sufficiently, she is still subject to
frenzy as normal.
••• Curse of Life
The Curse of Life inflicts some of the undesirable traits of the living upon the undead, removing their corpselike nature and creating a false life to remind them of the worst things about being alive. Targets of this power regain only the unpleasant aspects of life, as culled from the memory of the Discipline’s user. This may include mundane hunger and thirst, sweat and other excretions, the need to urinate and defecate, a decrease in sensory acuity, and a particular vulnerability to attacks that the character might normally shrug off.
The player spends one Willpower and rolls Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty 8) to affect a target within line of sight and no farther than 20 yards or meters from the character. If the roll succeeds, the target suffers the weaknesses of the living without gaining any benefit from that state. He does not become immune to sunlight or holy artifacts, for instance. However, he does become badly distracted by mundane needs, with the net result that his player suffers a +2 difficulty penalty to all rolls. He can ignore these distractions at the cost of one Willpower point per scene. Additionally, the victim cannot use blood to raise his Physical Attributes while this power is in effect, and Willpower cannot eliminate this penalty. The power remains in effect until the next sunset.
•••• Gift of the Corpse
With Gift of the Corpse, a Cainite is able to enjoy many of the best aspects of mortal life without forsaking the power of her vampiric nature. The voice of the Beast
speaks only in a whisper, and she may enjoy the pleasures of mortal food and drink. She may enjoy the embrace of a lover and feel the warmth of the sun on her skin as a living woman would. Necromancers who use this discipline enjoy a temporarily reprieve from their clan’s weakness, and appear as they did before the Embrace.
Cost: 1 Willpower
The player must spend twelve blood points to activate this power. They needn’t be spent in a single turn, but they must be spent continuously. A vampire may feed while simultaneously spending blood. Unless the vampire is older than Seventh Generation, having a sacrificial victim close by may be necessary to invoke Benedictio Vitae. With this power in effect, the necromancer can travel in daylight with little fear, and she takes no damage from sunlight if she is in the shade
or suitably covered (as in a hooded cloak). She is not compelled to slumber during the day, but she is still vulnerable to being staked in the heart and is still repelled
by holy artifacts. Though the voice of the Beast is not as insistent as it usually is, Gift of the Corpse does not silence it utterly. The necromancer can still succumb to
the effects of frenzy and Rötschreck, though the penalty of both checks is halved (rounded up). Gift of the Corpse lasts until the next midnight after its casting.
The Beast deeply resents being caged, however, and exacts its vengeance upon its jailer when it is freed. After the Benedictio Vitae expires, the penalty of all rolls
to resist frenzy and Rötschreck for the next six nights increases by three.