Serpentis

Serpentis is believed to be the legacy of Set himself, a gift to his children. The Followers of Set are very careful to guard this Discipline’s secrets, only teaching the art to those who they deem worthy. Most vampires fear the Setites because of the powers of Serpentis and its connection to snakes and reptiles; this Discipline can evoke a primordial fear in others, particularly those who recall the tale of Eden.

Serpentis is the legacy of Set, his gift to his children. The Followers of Set carefully guard this Discipline's secrets, teaching the reptilian art only to those they deem worthy (almost never outsiders). Most Cainites fear the Setites purely because of this Discipline, the way of the serpent and the tempter. Serpentis can evoke an almost primordial fear in others, particularly those who recall the tale of Eden. After all, hiss the Setites, the serpent was an evil older than even Caine himself.

There are two branches of Serpentis, one practiced by the main clan, and the other is a mutated version held by the Serpents of the Light. The first three levels of the discipline are the same for both branches, but 4th level and above (including elder disciplines) are wildly different.

Setites, Warrior Setites, and Walid Set know practice Typhonic Serpentis.

Serpents of the Light, Children of Damballah, and Daitya practice Antitribu Serpents.

Typhonic Serpentis

• Enchanting Gaze

This power makes the vampire the proverbial flame to a moth by granting the Setite the legendary hypnotic gaze of the serpent. She takes on an alluring, enchanting feature, such as a serpent’s gold eyes with large black irises, or a pearlescent sheen to her skin. She can paralyze with a glance, and mortals in her vicinity find themselves drawn to her. These features are always subtly supernatural; if a person pays close attention, it betrays the Setite’s inhuman nature, but casual observation gives nothing away. A mortal who meets the vampire's beguiling gaze is immobilized. Until the character takes his eyes off his mortal victim, the person is frozen in place.

Cost: —

Dice Pool: — (Manipulation + Persuasion +Serpentis - Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance when vs Supernaturals)

Action: Instant

Duration: —

No roll is required for mortals, but this power can be avoided if the mortal takes care not to look into the Setite's eyes. Vampires and other supernatural creatures (Lupines, mages, et al.) can also be affected by this power if the Setite's player makes a. If attacked or otherwise harmed, supernatural creatures can spend a point of Willpower to break the spell.

•• Typhonic Maw

The vampire’s jaw becomes a ferocious, malleable thing she can control in a variety of ways. Her jaw distends to her chest, her fangs grow to the size of small daggers, her tongue forks at the tip and lashes out a meter long, and her throat expands to consume anything she can get her mouth around. She can choose to adopt some or all of these adaptations when activating Typhonic Maw.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: — (Strength + Athletics - Defence to attack with her Tongue, Strength + Brawl - Defense for the bite)

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

Spend a blood point to reflexively activate Typhonic Maw. The tongue’s lashes cause aggravated wounds. Additionally, if she wounds her enemy, the proboscis of her tongue allows her to feed from her victim as if she’d bitten him. This causes the Kiss like a bite. She also suffers no penalties from the darkness while her tongue is extended. Her jaw allows her to make bite attacks without a grapple. Successful bites cause one additional point of damage (Piercing damage, so lethal to all but vampires) and initiate a grapple automatically. When she bites an opponent, her enlarged throat can consume five points of blood per turn instead of three.

••• Serpents Flesh

By calling upon her Blood, the vampire may transform her skin into a mottled, scaly hide. A vampire in this form becomes more supple and flexible. With this power, the Setite’s flesh becomes leathery, scaly, slimy, and otherwise monstrous. Her body becomes flexible and malleable, and she becomes harder to hurt.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: —

Action: Reflexive

Duration: Scene

The Cainite gains 1 point of armor for the scene that applies against everything but fire and sunlight. She may slip through any opening wide enough to ft her head. Lastly, she can reflexively escape any grapple. This change can be subtle, if the vampire spends a Willpower point during activation. If subtle, casual scrutiny will not reveal her supernatural nature if she’s wearing at least modest clothing. If she chooses to bear the weight of her supernatural nature, increase Intimidation dice pools by two.

•••• Typhonic Avatar

Now, the Setite can become a Typhonic Beast, a creature of legend. It stands as a tall jackal with a hard, forked and spiked tail, with severe, pointed ears and a long snout. Typhonic Beasts are red, black, or a combination thereof. Alternatively, she can take a hybrid human/serpent form with a long, prehensile tail for legs. Setites use this as a sort of ‘war form’ in addition to religious functions.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: —

Action: Three Turns (Or Less)

Duration: Scene

The transformation takes three turns, but additional blood points can be spent to reduce the time by a turn. Four blood points makes the transformation reflexive. Either form gains two dots to Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina. The animal form moves at twice the vampire’s speed, does one additional bite damage, and has perfect balance. The hybrid form’s tail can act as an additional attack as part of an action, and the tail gains five dots to Strength instead of two.

Obviously, both forms are unquestioningly supernatural. The vampire inspires terror and awe in mortals. Mortals with fewer Willpower dots than the vampire’s Serpentis score must flee or subjugate themselves. They can act for a single turn by spending a point of Willpower. Mortals with more Willpower can roll Resolve + Composure to avoid awe and fear.

When learning Typhonic Avatar, choose either the animal form or the hybrid form. You can purchase the other form later at half the normal experience cost.

••••• Mother of Monsters

Echidna was called the Mother of Monsters. This power allows the Setite to birth small typhonic beasts from her flesh. The monsters grow from her skin, starting by opening eyes and mouths from her flesh, then ripping from her body, taking part of her with them. These monsters have childlike intelligence and understand the vampire’s speech. They follow her commands without exception, and cannot be commanded or frightened away from their duty. Some Setites can create other mythological monsters. Rumors persist of some Setites who can create rudimentary humans from their flesh.

Cost: 1 (or more) Vitae

Dice Pool: —

Action: Instant

Duration: Permenant

Spend one or more blood points and mark Two Health Levels on your character’s sheet with Lethal Damage, these cannot be soaked. That health level cannot recover so long as the beast remains apart from the vampire. The first blood point creates the monster, and additional blood points act as a blood pool the beast can use to heal damage (the way a vampire can) or to activate the vampire’s level 1-4 Serpentis powers for himself.

Each monster takes one turn to birth. The vampire may only spend as much blood as she can in a single turn to fuel the monster’s blood pool. The vampire can reflexively subsume a monster back into her flesh, replenishing its remaining blood pool and recovering the lost health level. She may also subsume a beast’s corpse to recover the lost health level. The Setite can choose a different mythological form for the beast. However, these monsters must be obviously unnatural.

TYPHONIC BEAST

Attributes: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3, Intelligence 1, Wits 4, Resolve 2, Presence 1, Manipulation 1, Composure 1

Abilities: Athletics 3, Brawl 3, Intimidation 3

Health Levels: 8 (Or more)

Disciplines: The beast shares the vampire’s Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence powers.

Armor: 1

Attacks: Bite (2 Piercing damage), Claws (1 Slashing damage)

Antitribu Serpentis

• The Eyes of the Serpent

This power makes the vampire the proverbial flame to a moth by granting the Setite the legendary hypnotic gaze of the serpent. She takes on an alluring, enchanting feature, such as a serpent’s gold eyes with large black irises, or a pearlescent sheen to her skin. She can paralyze with a glance, and mortals in her vicinity find themselves drawn to her. These features are always subtly supernatural; if a person pays close attention, it betrays the Setite’s inhuman nature, but casual observation gives nothing away. A mortal who meets the vampire's beguiling gaze is immobilized. Until the character takes his eyes off his mortal victim, the person is frozen in place.

Cost: —

Dice Pool: — (Manipulation + Persuasion +Serpentis - Resolve + Supernatural Tolerance when vs Supernaturals)

Action: Instant

Duration: —

No roll is required for mortals, but this power can be avoided if the mortal takes care not to look into the Setite's eyes. Vampires and other supernatural creatures (Lupines, mages, et al.) can also be affected by this power if the Setite's player makes a. If attacked or otherwise harmed, supernatural creatures can spend a point of Willpower to break the spell.

•• The Maw of the Asp

The vampire’s jaw becomes a ferocious, malleable thing she can control in a variety of ways. Her jaw distends to her chest, her fangs grow to the size of small daggers, her tongue forks at the tip and lashes out a meter long, and her throat expands to consume anything she can get her mouth around. She can choose to adopt some or all of these adaptations when activating Typhonic Maw.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: — (Strength + Athletics - Defence to attack with her Tongue, Strength + Brawl - Defense for the bite)

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

Spend a blood point to reflexively activate Typhonic Maw. The tongue’s lashes cause aggravated wounds. Additionally, if she wounds her enemy, the proboscis of her tongue allows her to feed from her victim as if she’d bitten him. This causes the Kiss like a bite. She also suffers no penalties from the darkness while her tongue is extended. Her jaw allows her to make bite attacks without a grapple. Successful bites cause one additional point of damage (Piercing damage, so lethal to all but vampires) and initiate a grapple automatically. When she bites an opponent, her enlarged throat can consume five points of blood per turn instead of three.

••• Skin of the Adder

By calling upon her Blood, the vampire may transform her skin into a mottled, scaly hide. A vampire in this form becomes more supple and flexible. With this power, the Setite’s flesh becomes leathery, scaly, slimy, and otherwise monstrous. Her body becomes flexible and malleable, and she becomes harder to hurt.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: —

Action: Reflexive

Duration: Scene

The Cainite gains 1 point of armor for the scene that applies against everything but fire and sunlight. She may slip through any opening wide enough to ft her head. Lastly, she can reflexively escape any grapple. This change can be subtle, if the vampire spends a Willpower point during activation. If subtle, casual scrutiny will not reveal her supernatural nature if she’s wearing at least modest clothing. If she chooses to bear the weight of her supernatural nature, increase Intimidation dice pools by two.

•••• The Form of the Cobra

The Serpent may change his form into that of a huge cobra. The serpent weighs as much as the vampire's human form, stretches over 10 feet long, and is as thick as a woman's thigh. The Form of the Cobra grants several advantages, including a venomous bite, the ability to slither through small holes, and a greatly enhanced sense of smell. The character may use any Disciplines while in this form save those that require hands (such as Feral Claws).

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: —

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

Clothing and small personal possessions transform with the vampire; the vampire remains in serpent form until the next dawn, unless he desires to change back sooner. The Storyteller may allow the Setite bonus dice on all Perception rolls related to smell. The cobra's bite inflicts damage equal to the vampire's, but the vampire does not need to grapple his victim; furthermore, the poison delivered is fatal to mortals. Additionally the Serpent's speed is doubled, he gains one dexterity and one strength, and all rolls to grapple have the 9-Again quality.

••••• The Heart of Darkness

The Serpent with mastery of Serpentis may pull her heart from her body. She can even use this ability on other Cainites, although this requires several hours of gruesome surgery. Only the new moon, the invisible moon, may grant this power success. If performed under any other moon, the rite fails. Upon removing her heart, the Setite places it in a small clay urn, and then carefully hides or buries the urn. She cannot be staked by any wood that pierces her breast, and finds it easier to resist frenzy. The heart is the seat of emotion, after all, and so the difficulties of all rolls to resist frenzy are two lower.

Setites are careful to keep their hearts safe from danger. If someone seizes her heart, the Setite is completely at that person's mercy. The Setite heart can be destroyed only by casting it into a fire or exposing it to sunlight. If this happens, however, the Setite dies where she stands, boiling away into a blistering heap of ash and blackened bone. Plunging a wooden stake into an exposed heart drives the Setite into instant torpor.

A Setite may carry her heart with her, or have several false hearts buried in different places. A Setite often avoids her heart's hiding place, to deter discovery. Those wise in Serpent lore whisper that the corrupt elders of the clan often hold their underlings' hearts, the better to control the errant hatchlings.

Cost: —

Dice Pool: —

Action: —

Duration: Permenant

This power requires no roll. Those who witness a Setite pull his heart from his breast (or cut the heart from another vampire) must make Composure rolls. Failure indicates anything from strong uneasiness to complete revulsion, possibly even Rötschreck.