Dominate is one of the most dreaded of Disciplines.
It is a vampire’s ability to influence another person’s
thoughts and actions through her own force of will.
Dominate requires that the vampire capture her victim’s
gaze (see p. 152); as such, it may be used against
only one subject at a time. Further, commands must be
issued verbally, although simple orders may be made
with signs — for example, a pointed finger and forceful
expression to indicate “Go!” However, the subject
won’t comply if he can’t understand the vampire, no
matter how powerful the Kindred’s will is.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, vampires to which Dominate
comes naturally tend to be from willful, domineering
Clans. The Giovanni, Lasombra, Tremere, and Ventrue
all consider an iron will to be a boon, and are eager
to impose that iron will on any who would move
against them.

Eye Contact
Many myths and stories exist about a vampire’s
mystical ability to put people under her
spell by looking deeply into her victim’s eyes.
The persistence of such stories through the
ages isn’t surprising, since a number of Kindred
Disciplines powers (most notably Dominate)
require eye contact in order to work.
Other vampires, learning of this requirement,
have attempted everything from wearing mirrored
sunglasses to gouging out their own eyes
in order to prevent an elder from exerting his
will upon them.
But Kindred are not so easily thwarted.
The need for eye contact stems from the aggressor
Kindred’s need to see his victim’s soul,
and the eyes are the traditionally known as
the windows to the soul. While the vampire
needs to capture his target’s attention, the
target’s eyes need not be present for such
a power to work (although the arts of the
Tzimisce make this somewhat challenging at
times) — they only need to find the soul of
his victim laid bare.
A target trying to avoid eye contact can make
a Willpower roll against a difficulty equal to
Dominate user’s Manipulation + Intimidation
(or other appropriate combination for
other Disciplines or specific situations, at the
Storyteller’s discretion). The difficulty may be
reduced for mitigating factors: -1 in the case
of the target obscuring his eyes slightly (such
as closing her eyes or wearing dark sunglasses)
up to a -3 for the eyes being completely unseen
(such as with a thick blindfold or having
her eyes torn out). Ultimately, however, it is
up to the Storyteller to decide whether eye
contact is established in a particular case.

• Command
The vampire locks eyes with the subject and speaks
a one-word command, which the subject must be obey
instantly. The order must be clear and straightforward:
run, agree, fall, yawn, jump, laugh, surrender, stop,
scream, follow. If the command is at all confusing or
ambiguous, the subject may respond slowly or perform
the task poorly. The subject cannot be ordered to do
something directly harmful to herself, so a command
like “die” is ineffective.
The command may be included in a sentence, thereby
concealing the power’s use from others. This effort
at subtlety still requires the Kindred to make eye
contact at the proper moment and stress the key word
slightly. An alert bystander — or even the victim —
may notice the emphasis. Still, unless she’s conversant
with supernatural powers, the individual is likely to
attribute the utterance and the subsequent action to
bizarre coincidence.
System: The player rolls Manipulation + Intimidation
(difficulty equals the target’s current Willpower
points). More successes force the subject to act with
greater vigor or for a longer duration (continue running
for a number of turns, go off on a laughing jag,
scream uncontrollably).
Remember, too, that being commanded to against
one’s Nature confounds the use of this power. Being
told to “sleep!” in a dangerous situation or “attack!”
in police custody may not have the desired effect, or
indeed, any effect at all.

•• Mesmerize
With this power, a vampire can verbally implant a
false thought or hypnotic suggestion in the subject’s
subconscious mind. Both Kindred and target must be
free from distraction, since Mesmerize requires intense
concentration and precise wording to be effective. The
vampire may activate the imposed thought immediately
or establish a stimulus that will trigger it later. The
victim must be able to understand the vampire, though
the two need to maintain eye contact only as long as it
takes to implant the idea.
Mesmerize allows for anything from simple, precise
directives (handing over an item) to complex, highly
involved ones (taking notes of someone’s habits and
relaying that information at an appointed time). It is
not useful for planting illusions or false memories (such
as seeing a rabbit or believing yourself to be on fire). A
subject can have only one suggestion implanted at any
time.
System: The player rolls Manipulation + Leadership
(difficulty equal to the target’s current Willpower
points). The number of successes determines how well
the suggestion takes hold in the victim’s subconscious.
If the vampire scores one or two successes, the subject
cannot be forced to do anything that seems strange to
her (she might walk outside, but is unlikely to steal a
car). At three or four successes, the command is effective
unless following it endangers the subject. At five
successes or greater, the vampire can implant nearly
any sort of command.
No matter how strong the Kindred’s will, his command
cannot force the subject to harm herself directly
or defy her innate Nature. So, while a vampire who
scored five successes could make a 98-pound weakling
attack a 300-pound bouncer, he could not make the
mortal shoot herself in the head.
If a vampire tries to Mesmerize a subject before the
target fulfills a previously implanted directive, compare
the successes rolled to those gained during the implanting
of the first suggestion. Whichever roll had the
greater number of successes is the command that now
governs in the target’s behavior; the other suggestion is
wiped clean. If the successes rolled are equal, the newer
command supplants the old one.

••• The Forgetful Mind
After capturing the subject’s gaze, the vampire delves
into the subject’s memories, stealing or re-creating
them at his whim. The Forgetful Mind does not allow
for telepathic contact; the Kindred operates much like
a hypnotist, asking directed questions and drawing out
answers from the subject. The degree of memory alteration
depends on what the vampire desires. He may alter
the subject’s mind only slightly (quite effective for
eliminating memories of the victim meeting or even
being fed upon by the vampire) or utterly undo the victim’s
memories of her past.
The degree of detail used has a direct bearing on how
strongly the new memories take hold, since the victim’s
subconscious mind resists the alteration. A simplistic
or incomplete false memory (“You went to the
movies last night”) crumbles much more quickly than
does one with more attention to detail (“You thought
about texting your girlfriend while you were in line at
the new movie theater, but you knew you’d have to
turn your phone off once you got inside. You liked the
movie well enough, but the plot seemed weak. You
were tired after it ended, so you went home, watched a
little late-night television, and went to bed.”).
Even in its simplest applications, The Forgetful Mind
requires tremendous skill and finesse. It’s a relatively
simple matter to rifle through a victim’s psyche and rip
out the memories of the previous night without knowing
what the subject did that evening. Doing so leaves
a gap in the victim’s mind, however — a hole that can
give rise to further problems down the road. The Kindred
may describe new memories, but these recollections
seldom have the same degree of realism that the
subject’s original thoughts held.
As such, this power isn’t always completely effective.
The victim may remember being bitten, but believe it
to be an animal attack. Greater memories may return
in pieces as dreams, or through sensory triggers like
a familiar odor or spoken phrase. Even so, months or
years may pass before the subject regains enough of her
lost memories to make sense of the fragments.
A vampire can also sense when a subject’s memories
were altered through use of this power, and even restore
them, as a hypnotist draws forth suppressed thoughts.
System: The player states what sorts of alteration he
wants to perform, then rolls Wits + Subterfuge (difficulty
equal to the target’s current Willpower points).
Any success pacifies the victim for the amount of time
it takes the vampire to perform the verbal alteration,
provided the vampire does not act aggressively toward
her. The table below indicates the degree of modification
possible to the subject’s memory. If the successes
rolled don’t allow for the extent of change the character
desired, the Storyteller reduces the resulting impact
on the victim’s mind.
Successes Result
1 success - May remove a single memory;
lasts one day.
2 successes - May remove, but not alter, memory
permanently.
3 successes - May make slight changes to memory.
4 successes - May alter or remove entire scene
from subject’s memory.
5 successes - May reconstruct entire periods of
subject’s life.
To restore removed memories or sense false ones
in a subject, the character’s Dominate rating must be
equal to or higher than that of the vampire who made
the alteration. In that situation, the player must make
a Wits + Empathy roll (difficulty equal to the original
vampire’s permanent Willpower rating) and score
more successes than his predecessor did. However, the
Kindred cannot use The Forgetful Mind to restore his
own memories if they were stolen in such a way.

•••• Conditioning
Through sustained manipulation, the vampire can
make a subject more pliant to the Kindred’s will. Over
time, the victim becomes increasingly susceptible to
the vampire’s influence while simultaneously growing
more resistant to the corrupting efforts of other Kindred.
Gaining complete control over a subject’s mind
is no small task, taking weeks or even months to accomplish.
Kindred often fill their retainers’ heads with subtle
whispers and veiled urges, thereby ensuring these mortals’
loyalty. Yet vampires must pay a high price for
the minds they ensnare. Servants Dominated in this
way lose much of their passion and individuality. They
follow the vampire’s orders quite literally, seldom taking
initiative or showing any imagination. In the end,
such retainers become like automatons or the walking
dead.
System: The player rolls Charisma + Leadership (difficulty
equal to the target’s current Willpower points)
once per scene. Conditioning is an extended action, for
which the Storyteller secretly determines the number
of successes required. It typically requires between five
and 10 times the subject’s Self-Control/Instinct rating.
Targets with more empathic Natures may require
a lower number of successes, while those with willful
Natures require a higher total. Only through roleplaying
may a character discern whether his subject is conditioned
successfully.
A target may become more tractable even before
becoming fully conditioned. Once the vampire accumulates
half the required number of successes, the Storyteller
may apply a lower difficulty to the vampire’s
subsequent uses of Dominate. After being conditioned,
the target falls so far under the vampire’s influence that
the Kindred need not make eye contact or even be
present to retain absolute control. The subject does exactly
as she is told (including taking actions that would
injure herself), as long as her master can communicate
with her verbally. No command roll is necessary unless
the subject is totally isolated from the vampire’s
presence (in a different room, over the phone). Even
if a command roll fails, the target will still likely carry
out part of the orders given, simply because her master
wishes it.
After the subject is fully conditioned, other Kindred
find her more difficult to Dominate. Such conditioning
raises others’ difficulties by two (to a maximum of 10).
It is possible, though difficult, to shake Conditioning.
The subject must be separated entirely from the
vampire to whom she was in thrall. This period of
separation varies depending on the individual, but
the Storyteller may set it at six months, less a number
of weeks equal to the subject’s permanent Willpower
rating (so a person with 5 Willpower must stay away
from the vampire for just under five months). The
subject regains her personality slowly during this time,
though she may still lapse into brief spells of listlessness,
despair, or even anger. If the vampire encounters
the target before that time passes, a single successful
Charisma + Leadership roll (difficulty of the target’s
current Willpower points) on the part of the vampire
completely reasserts the dominance.
If the subject makes it through the time period without
intervention by her master, the target regains her
former individuality. Even so, the vampire may reestablish
conditioning more easily than the first time,
since the subject is now predisposed to falling under
the Kindred’s mental control. New attempts require
half the total number of successes than the last bout of
conditioning did (which means the subject reaches the
threshold for reduced difficulties sooner, as well).

••••• Possession
At this level of Dominate, the force of the Kindred’s
psyche is such that it can utterly supplant the mind of
a mortal subject. Speaking isn’t required, but the vampire
must capture the victim’s gaze. During the psychic
struggle, the contestants’ eyes are locked on one another.
Once the Kindred overwhelms the subject’s mind,
the vampire moves his consciousness into the victim’s
body and controls it as easily as he uses his own. The
mortal falls into a mental fugue while under possession.
She is aware of events only in a distorted, dreamlike
fashion. In turn, the vampire’s mind focuses entirely
on controlling his mortal subject. His own body lies
in a torpid state, defenseless against any actions made
toward it.
Vampires cannot possess one another in this fashion,
as even the weakest Kindred’s mind is strong enough
to resist such straightforward mental dominance. Only
through a blood bond can one vampire control another
to this degree. Supernatural creatures also cannot be
possessed in this way, although ghouls that have drunk
from the vampire using Possession can.
System: The vampire must completely strip away the
target’s Willpower prior to possessing her. The player
spends a Willpower point, then rolls Charisma + Intimidation,
while the subject rolls his Willpower in a
resisted action (difficulty 7 for each). For each success
the vampire obtains over the victim’s total, the target
loses a point of temporary Willpower. Only if the attacker
botches can the subject escape her fate, since
this makes the target immune to any further Dominate
attempts by that vampire for the rest of the story.
Once the target loses all her temporary Willpower,
her mind is open. The vampire rolls Manipulation +
Intimidation (difficulty 7) to determine how fully he
assumes control of the mortal shell. Similar to the Animalism
power Subsume the Spirit, multiple successes
allow the character to utilize some mental Disciplines,
noted on the chart below. (Vampires possessing ghouls
can use the physical Disciplines the ghoul possesses,
but not the mental ones.)
Successes Result
1 success - Cannot use Disciplines
2 successes - Can use Auspex and other sensory
powers
3 successes - Can also use Presence and other
powers of emotional manipulation
4 successes - Can also use Dementation,
Dominate, and other powers
of mental manipulation
5 successes - Can also use Chimerstry,
Necromancy, Thaumaturgy,
and other mystical powers
The character may travel as far from his body as he is
physically able while possessing the mortal. The vampire
may also venture out during the day in the mortal
form. However, the vampire’s own body must be awake
to do so, requiring a successful roll to remain awake
(see p. 262). If the vampire leaves the mortal shell (by
choice, if his body falls asleep, through supernatural expulsion,
after sustaining significant injury, etc.), his consciousness
returns to his physical form in an instant.
Once freed from possession, the mortal regains mental
control of herself. This can happen in an instant, or
the victim may lie comatose for days while her psyche
copes with the violation.
The vampire experiences everything the mortal body
feels during possession, from pleasure to pain. In fact,
any damage the victim’s body sustains is also applied
to the character’s body (though the Kindred may soak
as normal). If the mortal dies before the vampire’s soul
can flee from the body, the character’s body falls into
torpor. Presumably this is in sympathetic response to
the massive trauma of death, though some Kindred believe
that the vampire’s soul is cast adrift during this
time and must find its way back to the body.
The Kindred can remain in the mortal’s body even if
his own torpid form is destroyed, though such a pathetic
creature is not likely to exist for long. At each sunrise,
the vampire must roll Courage (difficulty 8) or be expelled
from the body. If forced from the mortal body, the
vampire tumbles into the astral plane, his soul permanently
lost in the spirit world. A vampire trapped in a
mortal body may not be “re-Embraced.” If the Embrace
occurs to such a creature, he simply meets Final Death.

••••• • Chain the Psyche
Not content with merely commanding their subjects,
some elders apply this power to ensure obedience from
recalcitrant victims. Chain the Psyche is a Dominate
technique that inflicts incapacitating pain on a target
who attempts to break the vampire’s commands.
System: The player spends a blood point when her
character applies Dominate to a subject. Any attempt
that the subject makes to act against the vampire’s
implanted commands or to recover stolen memories
causes intense pain. When such an attempt is made,
the Storyteller rolls the character‘s Manipulation + Intimidation
(difficulty equal to the subject’s Stamina +
Empathy). Each success equals one turn that the victim
is unable to act, as she is wracked with agony. Each
application of Chain the Psyche crushes a number of
resistance attempts equal to the character’s Manipulation
rating, after which the effect fades.

••••• • Loyalty
With this power in effect, the elder’s Dominate is so
strong that other vampires find it almost impossible to
break with their own commands. Despite the name,
Loyalty instills no special feelings in the victim — the
vampire’s commands are simply implanted far more
deeply than normal.
System: Any other vampire attempting to employ
Dominate on a subject who has been Dominated by a
vampire with Loyalty has a +3 difficulty modifier to his
rolls and must spend an additional Willpower point.

••••• • Obedience
While most Kindred must employ Dominate through
eye contact, some powerful elders may command loyalty
with the lightest brush of a hand.
System: The character can employ all Dominate
powers through touch instead of eye contact (although
eye contact still works). Skin contact is necessary —
simply touching the target’s clothing or something she
is holding will not suffice. The touch does not have to
be maintained for the full time it takes to issue a Dominate
command, though repeated attempts to Dominate
a single target require the character to touch the subject
again.

••••• •• Mass Manipulation
A truly skilled elder may command small crowds
through the use of this power. By manipulating the
strongest minds within a given group, a gathering may
be directed to the vampire’s will.
System: The player declares that he is using this
power before rolling for the use of another Dominate
power. The difficulty of the roll is that which would be
required to Dominate the most resistant member of the
target group — if he cannot be Dominated, no one in
his immediate vicinity can. For every success past that
needed to inflict the desired result on the first target,
the player may choose one additional target to receive
the same effect in its entirety. The vampire needs to
make eye contact only with the initial target.

••••• •• Still the Mortal Flesh
Despite its name, this power may be employed on
vampires as well as mortals, and it has left more than
one unfortunate victim writhing in agony — or unable
to do even that. A vampire who has developed this
power is able to override her victim’s body as easily as
his mind in order to cut off his senses or even stop his
heart. It is rumored that this power once came more
easily to the Kindred, but modern medicine has made
the bodies and spirits of mortals more resistant to such
manipulations.
System: The player rolls Manipulation + Medicine
(difficulty equal to the target’s current Willpower
points + 2; a difficulty over 10 means that this power
cannot affect the target at all). The effect lasts for one
turn per success. The player must choose what function
of the target’s body is being cut off before rolling.
She may affect any of the body’s involuntary functions;
breathing, circulation, perspiration, sight, and hearing
are all viable targets. While Still the Mortal Flesh is in
effect, a vampire can either stop any one of those functions
entirely or cause them to fluctuate erratically.
The exact effects of any given bodily function being
shut off are left to the Storyteller. Most mortals panic
if suddenly struck blind, but only the shutdown of the
heart will kill a target on the spot. Vampires are unaffected
by loss of heartbeat or breathing, but may be
rendered deaf and blind as easily as mortals.

••••• ••• Far Mastery
This refinement of Obedience (though the character
need not have learned Obedience first) allows the use
of Dominate on any subject that the vampire is familiar
with, at any time, over any distance. If the elder knows
where his target is, he may issue commands as if he
were standing face- to-face with his intended victim.
System: The player spends a Willpower point and
rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty equal to the subject’s
Wits + Stealth) to establish contact. If this roll
succeeds, Dominate may be used as if the character had
established eye contact with the target. A second Willpower
point must be spent in order for a vampire to use
this power on another vampire or other supernatural
being.

••••• •••• Speak Through the Blood
The power structures of Methuselahs extend across
continents and centuries. This power allows such ancients
to wield control over their descendants, even
those far outside their geographic spheres of influence.
Speak Through the Blood allows an elder to issue commands
to every vampire whose lineage can be traced
to her — even if the two have never met. Thus, entire
broods act to further the goals of sleeping ancients
whose existences they may be completely unaware of.
The vampires affected by this power rarely act directly
to pursue the command they were given, but over a
decade or so, their priorities slowly shift until the fulfillment
of the Methuselah‘s command is among their
long-term goals. Speak Through the Blood, because it
takes effect so slowly, is rarely recognized as an outside
influence, and its victims rationalize their behavior as
“growing and changing,” or something to that effect.
System: The player spends a permanent Willpower
point and rolls Manipulation + Leadership. The difficulty
of this roll is equal to four plus the number of
Generations to which the command is to be passed.
Unless the character is aware of the location and present
agenda of every descendant of his — a highly unlikely
event — he may only issue general commands,
such as “work for the greater glory of Clan Malkavian”
or “destroy all those who seek to extinguish the light
of knowledge.” Speak Through the Blood can be used
by a vampire in torpor. Commands issued through this
power last for one decade per success on the roll. Difficulties
over 10 require one additional success for each
point past 10, making it that much more difficult to
issue long-lasting commands stretching down to the
ends of one’s lineage.
A vampire who has reached Golconda is not affected
by this power, and is completely unaware that it has
been used. Her childer, however, are affected normally
unless they are also enlightened. Ghouls of the victims
of this power are also affected, but to a lesser extent.

Resisting Dominate
Most victims cannot stand against the effects
of Dominate. Still, there are situations
where this Discipline is powerless to sway the
subject.
• Mortals: Few mortals can hope to resist
Dominate, as their strength of will nothing
compared to the supernatural magnetism
of a vampire. Still, there are extremely rare
individuals who, due to strong religious
faith, unique psychic talent, or extraordinary
mental resolve, can shrug off this Discipline’s
effects. Only a foolish vampire ignores the
potential threat such human beings represent.
(See p. 372 for more information about True
Faith, for example.)
• Vampires: It is impossible to Dominate
another Kindred who is of stronger Blood.
The vampire must be of an equal or higher
Generation than the target for the powers to
be effective. Scholars of the Kindred condition
suspect that this is one of the protections
Caine put in place to protect himself from
the whims of his willful childer. A faction of
those who believe this theory also maintain
that this implies that Caine himself employed
the Discipline of Dominate.
• Nature: A character’s Nature can have a
distinct impact on how easily Dominate influences
her. A vampire might easily control
subjects with inherently empathic Natures
(Caregiver, Child, Conformist), while those
whose Natures denote a great degree of inner
strength (Bravo, Director, Rebel) can be more
of a challenge. The Storyteller may reduce
the required difficulty or number of successes
by one or two when the player rolls against
those subjects with “weaker” Natures, or
raise them by a similar amount for “stronger”
Natures. On the other hand, “strong” Natures
might be more easiliy influenced to take
aggressive actions — for example, coaxing a
Rebel to denounce the Prince is likely easier
than goading a Conformist to do the same
thing. Ultimately, the Storyteller must adjudicate.
• Botches: If a Dominate roll botches, the
target is rendered immune to future attempts
by the same vampire for the rest of the story.