Necromancy (1/2)

Necromancy is both a Discipline and a school of
blood magic devoted to the command of the souls of the
dead. It’s similar to Thaumaturgy in that it has several
“paths” and accompanying “rituals” rather than a strict
linear progression of powers. The study of Necromancy
is not widespread among the Kindred, and its practitioners
— primarily the Giovanni — are shunned and
despised for their foul practices (until those practices
become useful, of course).
Over the centuries, the various schools of vampiric
Necromancy have evolved and diversified from an earlier
form of death magic, leaving several distinct paths
of necromantic magic available to Cainites. Nearly all
modern necromancers learn the Sepulchre Path first
before extending their studies to other paths. The primary
Necromancy path increases automatically as the
character increases her overall Necromancy rating.
Other paths must be bought separately, using the experience
costs for secondary paths.
Like Thaumaturgy, Necromancy has also spawned a
series of rituals. While not nearly so immediate in effect
as the basic powers of Necromancy, Necromantic
rituals can have impressive long-term effects. Unsurprisingly,
the elements of Necromantic ritual are things
like long-buried corpses and hands from the cadavers
of hanged men, so obtaining suitable materials can be
quite difficult.
System: A Cainite necromancer must learn at least
three levels in his primary path before learning his first
level in a secondary Necromancy path. He must then
master the primary path (all five levels) before acquiring
any knowledge of a third path.
As with Thaumaturgy, advancement in the primary
path costs the normal experience amount, while study
of additional Necromantic paths incurs an additional
experience-point cost (see p. 124). Because Necromancy
is not quite so rigid a study as Thaumaturgy is, the rolls
required to use Necromantic powers can vary from path
to path and even within individual paths. The commonly-
learned Sepulchre Path is presented first, with the remaining
paths presented in alphabetical order.
Statistics for ghosts may be found in Chapter Nine,
p. 385.


The Sepulchre Path
Through the Sepulchre path, the vampire can witness,
summon, and command the spirits of the dead.
At higher levels, the necromancer can force the ghost
to remain in a particular place or object, or even damage
wraiths directly. Since many other areas of Necromancy
involve dealing with ghosts, this is the most
common path for necromancers to start with.
Note: If a Kindred uses a Sepulchre Path power in
the presence of something of great importance to the
ghost the power affects, the chances for success in the
summoning increase dramatically (reduce the difficulty
by 2). This might be the bathtub in which the ghost’s
mortal body was drowned, the rusted-out wreck of the
car where the ghost’s physical body was trapped alive,
or something unrelated to the ghost’s demise, such as a
favorite book or a child-ghost’s beloved nursery.

• Witness of Death
Before it is possible to control the dead, one must
perceive them. This power allows just that, attuning
a vampire’s unliving senses to the presence of the incorporeal.
Under its effects, a necromancer sees ghosts as translucent
phantoms gliding among the living and hears
their whispers and moans. She feels the spectral cold
of their touch and smells their musty hint of decay. Yet
one cannot mistake the dead for the living, as they lack
true substance, and appear dimmer and less real than
creatures of flesh and blood. When a vampire uses this
power, her eyes flicker with pale blue fire that only the
dead can see.
Ghosts resent being spied upon, and more powerful
shades may use their own powers to inflict their displeasure
on the incautious.
System: The player rolls Perception + Awareness
(difficulty 5). Success allows the vampire to perceive
ghosts as described for the rest of the scene (in the
mortal world — seeing ghosts in the land of the dead
requires Shroudsight, on p. 163). Failure has no special
effect, but a botch means the vampire can see only the
dead for the scene; everything else appears as shapeless,
dim shadows. While the vampire’s other senses remain
attuned to the living, he is all but blind in this state
and suffers a +3 difficulty to most vision-based Perception
rolls and attacks. Ghosts notice the glowing eyes
of a vampire using this power only with a successful
Perception + Alertness roll (difficulty 7).

•• Summon Soul
The power of Summon Soul allows a necromancer to
call a ghost back from the Underworld, for conversational
purposes only. In order to perform this feat (and
indeed, most of the feats in this path), the vampire
must meet certain conditions:
• The necromancer must know the name of the
wraith in question, though an image of the wraith obtained
via Witness of Death (see above), Shroudsight
(see p. 163), Auspex, or other supernatural perception
will suffice.
• An object with which the wraith had some contact
in life must be in the vicinity, though it need not be
something of significant importance to the ghost’s living
consciousness. A piece of the ghost’s corpse works
well for this purpose (and even provides a -1 difficulty
modifier).
Certain types of ghosts cannot be summoned with
this power. Vampires who achieved Golconda before
their Final Deaths, or who were diablerized, are beyond
the reach of this summons. Likewise, many ghosts of
the dead cannot be called — they are destroyed, unable
to return to the mortal plane, or lost in the eternal
storm of the Underworld.
System: The player spends one blood point and rolls
Manipulation + Occult (difficulty equal to 7 or the
ghost’s Willpower, whichever is higher). The vampire
must know the name of the ghost and have on hand an
object the ghost had contact with in life. Provided that
the target has died and become a ghost, success means
the shade appears before the necromancer as described
above. Not everyone becomes a ghost — it requires a
strong will to persevere in the face of death, and souls
that have found peace pass on to their eternal rewards.
Moreover, it is possible for the dead to suffer spiritual
dissolution and destruction after they become ghosts.
The Storyteller should consider all these factors when
deciding whether a particular ghost exists for a vampire
to summon.
Vampires know if their summons should have succeeded
by a feeling of sudden, terrifying descent as they
reach too far into the great Beyond, so this power can
be used to determine whether a soul has endured beyond
death. While a failure means the vampire wastes
blood, a botch calls a spirit other than the one sought
— usually a malevolent ghost known as a Spectre (see
p. 385). Such a fiend torments the one who summoned
it with every wicked power at its disposal.
Once a ghost is summoned, it may not deliberately
move out of sight of the vampire, though it can take
any other actions, including direct attack. The vampire’s
player may spend a Willpower point to dismiss
the ghost at any time (unless he rolled a botch). Otherwise,
at the end of the scene, shadows engulf the spirit
once more and return it to its original location.

••• Compel Soul
With this power, a vampire can command a ghost to
do his bidding for a while. Compulsion of the soul is a
perilous undertaking and, when used improperly, can
endanger vampire and wraith alike.
System: The vampire locates and approaches the intended
ghost or calls it to his presence with Summon
Soul. As with the previous power, he must have the
ghost’s name and an object it handled in life. His player
then spends one blood point and rolls Manipulation +
Occult in a resisted roll against the ghost’s Willpower
(difficulty 6 for both rolls).
If the vampire wins, the number of net successes determines
the degree of control he has over the ghost
(as described below). Moreover, the vampire’s control
keeps ghosts that have been called with Summon Soul
from returning to their original locations at the end of
the scene. If the ghost wins, the vampire loses a number
of Willpower points equal to the ghost’s net successes.
On a tie, the roll becomes an extended contest that
continues each turn until one side wins. If the vampire
botches at any point, the ghost is immune to any use
of the vampire’s Necromancy for the rest of the scene.
If the ghost botches, it must obey as if the vampire’s
player had rolled five net successes.

Successes - Result
1 success - The ghost must perform one simple
task for the vampire that does not
place it in certain danger. It must
attend to this task immediately,
although it can delay the
compulsion and pursue its own
business at a cost of one Willpower
point per scene. The ghost may not
attack the vampire until this task is
complete. It is possible to issue the
task of answering one question, in
which case the ghost must answer
truthfully and to the best of
its knowledge.
2 successes - The vampire may issue two orders
or ask two questions as outlined for
one success. Alternatively, the
vampire may demand a simple task
with a real possibility of danger, as
long as the danger is not certain. The
ghost may delay this compulsion with
Willpower.
3 successes - The vampire may issue three orders
as outlined for one success.
Alternatively, he may demand the
ghost fulfill one difficult and
dangerous task or a simple assignment
that has an extended duration of up
to one month. The ghost may delay
such orders with Willpower.
4 successes - The vampire may issue four orders,
as outlined for one success, or
assign two tasks, as for two successes.
Alternatively, the vampire may
command the ghost to perform one
complex assignment that puts the
ghost at extreme risk, or perform any
number of non-threatening tasks
as the vampire’s slave for up to one
month (or, if the necromancer spends
a permanent point of Willpower, for
a year and a day). It is possible for
ghosts to delay individual tasks, but
not put off enslavement.
5+ successes - The vampire may issue multiple
orders that have a sum complexity
or danger of five successes’ worth.
Instead, the vampire may order the
ghost to perform any one action that
it is capable of executing within one
month. Such a task can place the
ghost in immediate peril of
destruction, or even force it to betray
and assault loved ones. It is not
possible for ghosts to delay a task of
this magnitude with Willpower —
they must obey.

•••• Haunting
Haunting binds a summoned ghost to a particular
location or, in extreme cases, an object. The wraith
cannot leave the area to which the necromancer binds
it without risking destruction.
System: The player spends one blood point while
standing at the location for the haunting or touching
the intended prison. She then has the ghost brought to
her by whatever means she desires, though Summon
Soul is quickest and most reliable. Her player then
rolls Manipulation + Occult (difficulty is equal to the
target’s current Willpower points if resisted, to a minimum
of 4; otherwise it is 4). The difficulty rises by one
if the vampire wishes to place the ghost in an object.
As usual, the difficulty decreases by one if the necromancer
has a part of the spirit’s corpse in addition to
knowing its name (minimum difficulty 3).
Each success binds the ghost within the location or
object for one night. This duration extends to one week
if the player spends a Willpower point or a year and a
day for a dot of permanent Willpower. A wraith attempting
to leave the area of a haunting must make an
extended Willpower roll (difficulty 9, four cumulative
successes necessary in a single scene) or take a level of
aggravated damage for each roll. If the wraith runs out
of health levels, it is hurled deep into the Underworld
to face destruction.

••••• Torment
It is through the use of this power that powerful necromancers
convince bound ghosts to behave — or else.
Torment allows the vampire to strike a wraith as if he
himself were in the lands of the dead, inflicting damage
on the wraith’s ectoplasmic form. The vampire
remains in the real world, however, so he cannot be
struck in return.
System: The player rolls Stamina + Empathy (difficulty
equal to the wraith’s current Willpower points),
and the vampire reaches out to strike the wraith. Each
success inflicts a level of lethal damage on the wraith.
Should the wraith lose all health levels, it immediately
vanishes into what appears to be a doorway to some
hideous nightmare realm. Ghosts “destroyed” thus cannot
reappear in or near the real world for a month.


The Ash Path
The Ash Path allows necromancers to peer into the
lands of the dead, and even affect things there. Of the
paths of Necromancy, the Ash Path is the most perilous
to learn, because many of the path’s uses increase a
necromancer’s vulnerability to wraiths.

• Shroudsight
Shroudsight allows a necromancer to see through the
Shroud, the mystical barrier that separates the living
world from the Underworld. By using this power, the
vampire can spot ghostly buildings and items, the landscape
of the so-called Shadowlands, and even wraiths
themselves. However, an observant wraith may notice
when a vampire suddenly starts staring at him, which
can lead to unpleasant consequences.
System: A simple roll of Perception + Awareness
(difficulty 7) allows a necromancer to utilize Shroudsight.
The effects last for a scene.

•• Lifeless Tongues
Where Shroudsight allows a necromancer to see
ghosts, Lifeless Tongues allows her to converse with
them effortlessly. Once Lifeless Tongues is employed,
the vampire can carry on a conversation with the denizens
of the ghostly Underworld without spending blood
or causing the wraiths to expend any effort.
System: To use Lifeless Tongues requires a roll of
Perception + Occult (difficulty 6) and the expenditure
of a Willpower point.

••• Dead Hand
Similar to the Sepulchre Path power Torment, Dead
Hand allows a necromancer to reach across the Shroud
and affect a ghostly object as if it were in the real world.
Ghosts are solid to necromancers using this power,
and can be attacked. Furthermore, the necromancer
can pick up ghostly items, scale ghostly architecture
(giving real-world bystanders the impression that he’s
climbing on air!), and generally exist in two worlds.
On the other hand, a necromancer using Dead Hand is
quite solid to the residents of the Underworld — and
to whatever hostilities they might have.
System: The player spends a point of Willpower and
makes a successful Wits + Occult roll (difficulty 7) to
activate Dead Hand for one scene. For each additional
scene the vampire wishes to remain in contact with
the Underworld, he must spend a point of blood.

•••• Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo allows a necromancer to enter the Underworld
physically. While in the lands of the dead,
the vampire is essentially a particularly solid ghost. He
maintains his normal number of health levels, but can
be hurt only by things that inflict aggravated damage
on ghosts (weapons forged from souls, certain ghostly
powers, etc.). A vampire physically in the Underworld
can pass through solid objects in the real world (at the
cost of one health level) and remain “incorporeal” for
a number of turns equal to her Stamina rating. On the
other hand, vampires present in the Underworld are
subject to all of the Underworld’s perils, including ultimate
destruction. A vampire killed in the realm of the
dead is gone forever, beyond even the reach of other
necromancers.
System: Using Ex Nihilo takes a tremendous toll on
the necromancer. To activate this power, the vampire
must first draw a doorway with chalk or blood on any
available surface. (The vampire may draw doors ahead
of time for exactly this purpose.) The player must then
expend two points of Willpower and two points of
blood before making a Stamina + Occult roll (difficulty
8) as the vampire attempts to open the chalk door
physically. If the roll succeeds, the door opens and the
vampire steps through into the Underworld.
When the vampire wishes to return to the real world,
he merely needs to concentrate (and the player spends
another Willpower point and rolls Stamina + Occult,
difficulty 6). At Storyteller discretion, a vampire who
is too deeply immersed in the Underworld may need
to journey to a place close to the lands of the living in
order to cross over. Vampires who wander too far into
the lands of the dead may be trapped there forever.
Vampires in the Underworld cannot feed upon
ghosts without the use of another power; their only
sustenance is the blood they bring with them.

••••• Shroud Mastery
Shroud Mastery offers the Kindred the ability to
manipulate the veil between the worlds of the living
and the dead. By doing so, a necromancer can make
it easier for bound wraiths in his service to function,
or make it nearly impossible for ghosts to contact the
material world.
System: To exercise Shroud Mastery, the necromancer
expends two points of Willpower, then states
whether he is attempting to raise or lower the Shroud.
The player then makes a Willpower roll (difficulty 9).
Each success on the roll raises or lowers the difficulties
of all nearby wraiths’ attempts to cross the Shroud in
any way by one, to a maximum of 10 or a minimum of
3. The Shroud reverts to its normal strength at a rate of
one point per hour thereafter.


The Bone Path
The Bone Path is concerned primarily with corpses
and the methods by which dead souls can be restored
to the living world — temporarily or otherwise.

• Tremens
Tremens allows a necromancer to make the flesh of a
corpse shift once. An arm might suddenly flop forward,
a cadaver might sit up, or dead eyes might abruptly
open. This sort of thing tends to have an impressive
impact on people who aren’t expecting a departed relative
to roll over in his coffin.
System: To use Tremens, the necromancer spends
a single blood point, and the player must succeed on
a Dexterity + Occult roll (difficulty 6). The more successes
that are achieved, the more complicated an action
can be effected in the corpse. One success allows
for an instantaneous movement, such as a twitch, while
five allow the vampire to set up specific conditions under
which the body animates (“The next time someone
enters the room, I want the corpse to sit up and open
its eyes.”). Under no circumstances can Tremens cause
a dead body to attack or cause damage.

•• Apprentice’s Brooms
With Apprentice’s Brooms, the necromancer can
make a dead body rise and perform a simple function.
For example, the corpse could be set to carrying heavy
objects, digging, or just shambling from place to place.
The cadavers thus animated do not attack or defend
themselves if interfered with, but instead attempt to
carry out their given instructions until such time as
they’ve been rendered inanimate. Generally it takes
dismemberment, flame, or something similar to destroy
a corpse animated in this way.
System: A roll of Wits + Occult (difficulty 7) and
the expenditure of a point of both blood and Willpower
are all that is necessary to animate corpses with
Apprentice’s Brooms. The number of corpses animated
is equal to the number of successes achieved. The necromancer
must then state the task to which he is setting
his zombies. The cadavers turn themselves to their
work until they finish the job (at which point they collapse)
or something (including time) destroys them.
Corpses animated in this way have no initiative of
their own, and are unable to make value judgments.
They respond to very literal instruction. Thus, a zombie
could be told “sweep this room every day until all
the dust and cobwebs are gone” or “transcribe this
manuscript” with an expectation of reasonable results,
while a more open-ended command such as “fix this
motorcycle” or “research this Necromantic ritual and
write down the results” would be doomed to failure.
Bodies energized by this power continue to decay, albeit
at a much slower rate than normal.

Zombie Statistics
Corpses animated by a necromancer of the
Bone Path have Strength 3, Dexterity 2,
Stamina 4, Brawl 2, and always act last in
a turn (unless there are mitigating circumstances).
They have zero Willpower points to
spend, but resist attacks as if they have Willpower
ratings of 10. All Mental and Social
ratings are zero for a reanimated corpse, and
zombies never attempt to dodge. Zombies’
dice pools are not affected by damage, except
that caused by fire or the claws and teeth of
supernatural creatures. Most zombies have
10 health levels, but they are incapable of
healing any damage they suffer. They have
no minds or personalities to affect, so they are
immune to uses of powers such as Dominate
and Presence. Unless otherwise noted, they
likewise cannot be usurped from the control
of the necromancer invoking them.

••• Shambling Hordes
Shambling Hordes creates obvious results: reanimated
corpses with the ability to attack, albeit neither very
well nor very quickly. Once primed by this power, the
corpses wait — for years, if necessary — to fulfill the
command given them. The orders might be to protect
a certain site or simply to attack immediately, but they
will be carried out until every last one of the decomposing
monsters is destroyed.
System: The player spends a point of Willpower.
The player then must succeed on a Wits + Occult roll
(difficulty 8). Each success allows the vampire to raise
another corpse from the grave, and costs one blood
point. If the player cannot or chooses not to pay the
blood point cost of additional zombies past a certain
number, the extra successes are simply lost. Each zombie
can follow one simple instruction, such as “Stay
here and guard this graveyard against any intruders,”
or “Kill them!”
Note: Zombies created by Shambling Hordes will
wait forever if need be to fulfill their functions. Long
after the flesh has rotted off their mystically animated
bones, the zombies will wait and wait and wait, still
able to perform their duties.

•••• Soul Stealing
This power affects the living, not the dead. It does,
however, temporarily turn a living soul into a sort of
wraith, as it allows a necromancer to strip a soul from
a living body. A mortal exiled from his body by this
power becomes a wraith with a single tie to the real
world: his now-empty body.
System: The player spends a point of Willpower
and then makes a contested Willpower roll against
the intended victim (difficulty 6). Successes indicate
the number of hours during which the original soul is
forced out of its housing. The body itself remains autonomically
alive but catatonic.
This power can be used to create suitable hosts for
Daemonic Possession. It has no effect on Kindred or
other supernatural creatures (except ghouls) until such
creatures are dead – in the case of vampires, this means
Final Death.

••••• Daemonic Possession
Daemonic Possession lets a vampire insert a soul into
a freshly dead body. This does not turn the reanimated
corpse into anything other than a reanimated corpse,
one that will irrevocably decay after a week, but it does
a vampire using Psychic Projection) a temporary home
in the physical world.
System: The body in question must be no more than
30 minutes dead, and the new tenant must agree to inhabit
it — a ghost or astral form cannot be forced into a
new shell. However, most ghosts would gladly seize the
opportunity. Should the vampire, for whatever reason,
wish to insert a soul into another vampire’s corpse (before
it crumbles to ash), the necromancer must achieve
five successes on a resisted Willpower roll against the
original owner of the body. Otherwise, the interloper
is denied entrance.
Note: The soul can use whatever physical abilities
(Athletics, Brawl, Potence) his new fleshy home possesses,
and whatever mental abilities (Computer, Law,
Presence) he already possessed. He cannot use the
physical abilities of his old form, or the mental abilities
of his new one.


The Cenotaph Path
Practitioners of the Cenotaph Path are primarily
concerned with discovering or forging links between
the living world and the Shadowlands. It functions
on the principle that a Kindred, already a corpse, is
an unnatural bridge between the living and the dead,
and the necromancer can use this to find other, similar
linkages. The basic rudiments of the Cenotaph Path
function easily enough once the Kindred learns to attune
himself to these connections. Advanced mastery
of the path usually entails some brief ritual to forge artificial
connections, either through focusing unsavory
passions or commanding this world and the Shadowlands
together.

• A Touch of Death
Just as a necromancer may exert mastery over the
Shadowlands, so too can some ghosts exert themselves
in the mortal world. Whereas obvious displays
of ghostly power such as bleeding walls or disembodied
moans certainly won’t be mistaken, some ghostly abilities
exert subtle effects that aren’t easily recognized.
A necromancer sensitized to the residue of the dead,
though, can feel whether an object has been touched
by a ghost or sense the recent passage of a wraith.
System: The necromancer simply touches a person or
object that he suspects is a victim of ghostly influence.
The player rolls Perception + Awareness (difficulty 6).
If successful, the necromancer can determine whether
a ghost has exerted any sort of power on the subject, or
even crossed nearby, to the duration detailed below.
Successes Result
1 success - Last turn; detect use of ghostly powers
2 successes - Last three turns; detect use of ghostly
powers
3 successes - Last hour; detect ghost’s touch and
use of ghostly powers
4 successes - Last day; detect ghost’s touch and use
of ghostly powers
5 successes - Last week; detect nearby passage of
ghost, ghost’s touch, and use of
ghostly powers
On a failure, the necromancer receives no impressions.
A botch reveals a misleading answer (an object
may seem tinged with ghostly power when it’s not, or
vice versa). Should the necromancer succeed in detection
while touching an object or person that a ghost
is possessing, he immediately becomes aware that the
ghost is still inside. The impression gained in such a
case is sufficient to count as an image of the spirit for
purposes of the Sepulchre Path’s powers, so the Kindred
may be able to (for example) immediately command
a ghost to exit a person whom it possesses.

•• Reveal the Catene
Necromantic compulsions function much more effectively
when the caster uses an object of significance
to the ghost in question. Such fetters tie the dead to
the living lands through their remembered importance
— a favored recliner for relaxing, a reviled piece of art
foisted off by hated relatives, or some object of similarly
intense emotion. Many necromancers can detect such
catene through the use of rituals (see Ritual of the Unearthed
Fetter, p. 181). With this power, though, the
necromancer can determine a fetter with just a few moments
of handling. The Kindred simply runs his hands
over the object and concentrates on it. He quickly
receives an impression of the item’s (or person’s) importance
to wraiths, if any; should the wraith be one
known to the necromancer, he immediately recognizes
the object as a fetter to that (or those) ghost(s). Successful
identification of a connected ghost is not exclusive;
that is, if the vampire determines that the object
is important to a given wraith, he can also determine if
there are other ghosts tied to the item, though he must
use the power again to gain their identities.
Many necromancers use this power on objects already
identified with A Touch of Death, in order to
determine whether the ghost is trying to attune a given
fetter or simply toying with the world of the living.
System: The necromancer holds and examines the
object for at least three turns — if it’s an item, this
means turning it over in his hands, running his fingers
along it, or otherwise giving it a critical eye; with
a person, this may require a more… invasive… examination.
The player then spends a blood point and
rolls Perception + Occult (difficulty 7). If successful,
the Kindred determines whether the object holds any
significance to any ghost and, with three or more successes,
the identity of at least one such ghost (which
allows the Kindred to use the Sepulchre Path on that
wraith, if desired). If the necromancer already knows
any of the ghosts involved, their ties are revealed with
their identity — so, if the necromancer already knows
a wraith well enough to summon and compel it with
other powers, successful identification of a fetter tells
whether the object is tied to that ghost, in addition to
any other impressions gained.
If a botch is scored, the necromancer can never successfully
use this power on the item being examined.

••• Tread Upon the Grave
The extended awareness granted with the Cenotaph
Path allows the necromancer to find locations where
the Shadowlands and the living world come close.
Often, the necromancer experiences a chill or shiver
when stepping into an area where the Underworld lies
near the living one. With practice, the vampire can
tell exactly where such locations are.
Experienced necromancers learn that certain locations
are susceptible to ghostly influence; these haunted
areas often become homes of a sort for ghosts. A
knowledgeable vampire can thus discover places where
the dead are likely to congregate, the better to snare
them with other Necromancy powers.
System: The player simply declares intent to sense
the Shroud in an area and makes a Willpower roll
(difficulty 8). Success reveals whether the location is
highly attuned to the Shadowlands, about average (not
particularly close to the world of the dead), or far removed
from the realm of death. A failing attempt at
using the power has no adverse effect, though it may
be attempted only once per scene (so the necromancer
must either wait for a time or move to a different area
before attempting Tread Upon the Grave once more).
A botch stuns the necromancer into inaction for a full
turn and costs him a temporary Willpower point, as he
is overcome by shivers and a sense of overwhelming
despair.
With three or more successes, the necromancer can
determine whether the Shroud’s strength has been artificially
altered in the area.

•••• Death Knell
Not all who die go on to become ghosts — many
lack the drive to hang on after death or simply have no
overwhelming needs that compel them to stick around.
Normally, even necromancers have no way to sort
those who might become ghosts from the masses who
go on to whatever rewards await. Over time, though, a
necromancer can become sensitized to the pull that occurs
when a soul escapes from a body only to hover in
wait, enslaved by its desires. The weight of desperation
becomes like a tangible tug, and some necromancers
savor this emotion even as they follow the sensation to
find the new ghost.
Of course, actually discovering the new ghost can be
problematic. The Kindred may need some means to see
through the Shroud or may have to send other wraiths
to look for the new unfortunate, especially if a large
accident or massacre leaves too many corpses for the
necromancer to easily discern and test names.
System: Whenever someone dies and becomes a
ghost within a half-mile or kilometer of the necromancer,
she automatically senses the demise (though many
choose to ignore this “always-on” power unless actively
seeking someone). This power does not automatically
pinpoint the location of the new ghost or identify it,
but the player may spend one Willpower point and roll
Perception + Occult (difficulty 7) for the necromancer
to gain a vague sense of the distance and direction to
the new wraith. With one success, the Kindred may
sense a vague pull in a general direction; with three
successes, the necromancer can sense the direction and
guess distance to within a quarter-mile or half a kilometer.
With five successes, the necromancer immediately
senses the location of the new ghost to within
one foot or 30 cm. A failure carries no penalty but a
botched attempt sends the necromancer scurrying off
in the wrong direction.
The Storyteller may rule that disturbances in the
Underworld, intervening magic, or other similar phenomena
cloud this sensation, simply to prevent overburdening
a chronicle with constant ghost-hunting
and dice rolling.

••••• Ephemeral Binding
The most puissant necromancers learn not only to
sense the ties between living and dead, but to forge
such ties themselves. The master of Ephemeral Binding
turns an otherwise mundane object or person into a
depository for his own necromantic energy. The undying
Curse transforms the subject into a sort of linkage
between the living and dead. The necromancer smears
his blood on the item in question, which mystically absorbs
the vitae and, in doing so, becomes a vessel to
anchor a spirit.
System: The necromancer must coat an object with
his blood (a full blood point’s worth); if the subject is
a person, then that individual must ingest the vitae.
The player marks off the blood point, spends a point
of Willpower, and rolls Manipulation + Occult (difficulty
8). If successful, the item temporarily becomes
a fetter to one wraith. If the Kindred already knows
the name of the wraith or has a strong psychic impression,
then the object can become a fetter at any range,
even to a ghost who normally does not come near the
living world (so long as the ghost still exists). Otherwise,
the necromancer must be able to see or sense the
ghost (with Witness of Death, Shroudsight, or other
such means).
A fetter artificially created in this fashion functions
for all necromantic and ghostly purposes as a normal
fetter: It can be detected with other Necromancy powers,
the vampire gains a bonus to Necromancy against
the wraith attuned to it, and the ghost similarly finds
exertion of its powers easier upon the subject (so the
vampire might turn an unwitting ghoul into a consort
for a wraith familiar with possession…). The ghost can
sink into the fetter to heal; conversely, if the fetter is
destroyed, the wraith is banished to some inaccessible
region of the Underworld, perhaps never to return.
A fetter created with Ephemeral Binding lasts for
one night per success scored. The expenditure of an additional
point of Willpower increases this duration to
a week per success, whereas spending a permanent dot
of Willpower extends the duration to a year and a day.
Botching with this power not only causes failure but
also makes the ghost immediately aware of what the
necromancer was trying to do. Most ghosts do not take
kindly to meddling Kindred trying to make artificial
chains for them.

Necromancy (2/2)

The Corpse in the Monster

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.
System: 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 Appearance (minimum of 1 in Dexterity and
0 in Appearance) 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 Perception + Medicine roll (difficulty
7) 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 roll (difficulty equal
to the 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.
System: 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.
System: 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
This power, one of the most potent on the Corpse
in the Monster path, enables a necromancer to ignore
most of her race’s inherent weaknesses for a short time.
A dead body is not particularly vulnerable to sunlight,
holy artifacts, frenzy, or being staked through the heart,
after all, and so it is with a vampire using the Gift of
the Corpse. As with the Cold of the Grave, above,
the character using this power takes on an even more
deathlike mien. It lasts for less than a minute, typically,
but that time may be enough to enable a character
to charge through a burning building without fearing
frenzy or instant death.
System: The player spends one Willpower and rolls
Stamina + Occult (difficulty 8). For every success, the
character can spend one turn in a state in which he is
more akin to an animated corpse than a vampire. Holy
artifacts and sanctified ground have no effect, and the
character is immune to frenzy and Rötschreck. Sunlight
does only bashing damage, and then only if bare
skin is exposed on a clear day. Being staked through
the heart is only as much of a danger as getting stabbed
through his dead spleen would be. Fire harms him only
as it would a mortal — causing lethal damage instead
of aggravated.
Should the character end the power’s duration while
exposed to any of the aforementioned harmful things,
he immediately takes their full effect. If he is staked, he
become immobilized; if he is on or near fire, he begins
to take the damage a Cainite should take, and he must
immediately roll against Rötschreck.

••••• Gift of Life
With the Gift of Life, the character can experience
the best and most positive things about being alive. The
overwhelming hunger for blood temporarily abates, allowing
the character to consume and enjoy food and
drink. She can also enjoy sex as she wishes, and the sun
does not burn her. The Gift of Life comes with a dark,
terrible cost, however. Its use is almost sure to result in
the death of a mortal, as the vampire must expend an
enormous quantity of vitae in order to initiate it. The
Discipline’s effects last until the midnight after the
character uses the power, so it is in her best interests to
use it just after midnight.
System: The player spends 12 blood points, burning
as much blood as possible each turn until she meets
that level. She then rolls Stamina + Occult (difficulty
6) and needs only one success for the power to work.
A botch has catastrophic effects. The character might
be instantly killed or might inadvertently Embrace her
victim, for example. If it takes longer than one turn
to spend the necessary blood to enact this ability, it
does not take effect until all 12 points have been spent.
However, the blood must be spent continuously — the
vampire cannot burn five, run off and feed, then burn
seven more an hour later. On the other hand, she may
feed as she activates the power — in one turn she might
burn one blood point while drinking three. Since few
Kindred above the Seventh Generation can easily expend
such an amount of blood, the most efficient way
to activate this power is to have a human nearby who
can be sacrificed to power the transformation.
After her transformation, the character gains many
traits of an ordinary human. She is largely immune to
the scorching effects of the sun (Fortitude difficulties
to soak damage from direct sunlight are halved, and
she takes no damage if she is sufficiently covered), and
she can experience and enjoy many of the fine things
about human life. She retains a few of her vampiric
benefits, however. Fortitude and Auspex abilities remain
in place if she has either of those Disciplines, and
the Storyteller may allow her to retain other Disciplines
as well if he deems them dramatically appropriate. She
also retains a vampire’s benefits when it comes to handling
bashing damage. However, she is still vulnerable
to holy artifacts, human faith, and being staked. Her
blood remains vitae, not human blood. Use of this ability
— which creates a mockery of human life — may
interfere with a character’s Path advancement, at the
Storyteller’s discretion.
The vampire is no more vulnerable to fire than any
other mortal while in this half-alive state, but she still
suffers somewhat from the Beast. Frenzy and Rötschreck
difficulties are halved (round up). She can remain active
during the day without Humanity or Path-based
dice pool caps, although she is certainly tired during
the day, since that is not her usual time of activity.
Her Beast exacts a dangerous retribution when her
day of “life” is done. Although its influence is greatly
suppressed during this power’s duration, the Beast has
its way with the vampire for the next six nights, as all
difficulties to resist frenzy increase by three. The wise
necromancer hides herself away somewhere during
that period, but, depending on morality and temperament,
enforced isolation might drive her to frenzy on
its own.


The Grave’s Decay
This path is derived from the observation of the
working of time on all things mortal. Stone crumbles
and the corpse rots away to nothing, a process of endless
fascination to the lost Cainites known as Cappadocians.
Indeed, for the undying, the process of decay
is a fascinating disease that afflicts everyone and everything
save them. Under this path, a practitioner of
Necromancy channels that force.

• Destroy the Husk
Cainites who kill their victims, rather than just feeding
upon them, frequently find themselves in need of a
quick way to dispose of a corpse. While there are many
ways to make sure that a corpse is not found — feed it
to a pack of hounds or weigh it down and throw it in a
river — many of these methods do involve risk to the
vampire and are not guaranteed to succeed. Destroy
the Husk, by contrast, is foolproof. Use of this power
simply turns one human corpse to a pile of about 30
pounds (13 kilograms) of unremarkable dust, roughly
the size and shape of that body.
System: The player spends one blood point as the
vampire drips her vitae onto the corpse. The player
then rolls Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty 6). One
success is all that is needed to render the corpse into
dust, although the process takes a number of turns
equal to five minus the successes.

•• Rigor Mortis
One of the first changes that comes over a dead body
is rigidity; the corpse becomes stiff as a board, frozen
in a single pose. The Cainite who wields Rigor Mortis
is able to push a living or undead body to that frozen
point using only his will and understanding of the forces
of decay. She forces her target to become rigid and
unable to move without enormous effort of will, as his
very muscles betray him.
System: The player spends a point of Willpower and
rolls Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty 7). Each success
freezes the target in place for one turn. A failure
simply indicates the loss of the Willpower point, while
a botch renders the target immune to powers in the
Grave’s Decay path for the next 24 hours. The target
must be visible and within about 25 yards or meters for
this ability to take effect. A frozen target is treated as
though he has been staked (see p. 280). With a Willpower
roll (difficulty 7) and two successes, the target
can break out of the rigor on her turn. Failure causes
her a level of bashing damage and means another turn
wasted and frozen.

••• Wither
Reminiscent of some of the powers of Vicissitude,
Wither allows a vampire to cripple an opponent’s limb.
Whether the foe is living or undead, muscle shrivels
away, skin peels, and bone becomes brittle. The target
is unable to exert any noteworthy strength in the
crippled limb. This injury lasts for far longer than most
injuries trouble vampires, and in mortals it simply does
not heal.
Wither doesn’t have to be used on a limb, although
that is its usual purpose. It can also be used simply to
affect the target’s face and hair, making him appear far
older than his years. It could also be applied to a target’s
eye or ear, killing the sense in that organ (and
thus requiring two uses to permanently blind or deafen).
Wither cannot be used as an “instant-kill” power
— necromancers cannot wither internal organs — but
it can inflict a wide variety of injuries on a foe.
System: The player spends a Willpower point. The
character chooses a limb on the target and then touches
that limb. If the target is trying to avoid contact, the
invoker’s player rolls Dexterity + Brawl to hit as normal.
If the character succeeds in touching the intended
limb, the target suffers two aggravated wounds. Unless
the target soaks both wounds (such as with Fortitude),
the struck limb is crippled and unusable until both of
those wounds have healed. Kindred heal the wounds as
they would any other aggravated wound (see p. 285).
Mortals are incapable of healing aggravated wounds, so
they suffer throughout their lives unless they are healed
through supernatural means. A withered limb does not
degenerate further, even on a mortal. The character
may be crippled for life, but the limb won’t become
infected or gangrenous.
The effects of the withering depend on the affected
limb. A crippled arm has a Strength of 0, cannot benefit
from Potence, and cannot carry anything heavier
than about half a pound (200 grams). A crippled leg
prevents the character from moving faster than a stuttering
hop or dragging limp. The character suffers the
effects of the Lame Flaw (see p. 482). A single withered
eye or ear imposes a +1 difficulty to relevant Perception
rolls. Losing both eyes or both ears imposes the effects
of the Blind or Deaf Flaws (see pp. 484 and 483). A
withered tongue imposes the effects of the Mute Flaw
(p. 483), while a withered face reduces the target’s Appearance
by one for each aggravated wound suffered.

•••• Corrupt the Undead Flesh
Corrupt the Undead Flesh blurs the line between life
and undeath, turning an undead creature into something
just living enough to carry and suffer from disease.
The disease inflicts the target, causing lethargy,
dizziness, loss of strength, clumsiness, and the inability
to keep blood in his system. This pernicious influence
is extremely virulent among mortals. They pick
the disease up simply by spending a few hours near the
victim. Other vampires have a harder time acquiring
the disease. They must consume the victim’s blood to
do so, but afterward, they suffer just as much as the
original target — including passing the affliction on
to others.
The disease fades after roughly a week.
System: The player chooses a target within her
character’s line of sight and no more than 20 yards or
meters away. She rolls Intelligence + Medicine (difficulty
6) and spends a point of Willpower. The victim’s
player must roll Stamina (+ Fortitude, if appropriate)
against a difficulty equal to the attacker’s Willpower. If
the player scores more successes than the victim, he acquires
a virulent disease immediately. The disease has
the following effects:
• The victim’s Strength and Wits are halved (round
down).
• The victim loses one point of Dexterity.
• The victim’s player must spend one additional
blood point every evening for the vampire to rouse
himself to consciousness. Mortals lose one health level
per day instead.
• The victim’s player must roll Self-Control or Instinct
each time the character feeds (difficulty 8). On
a failure, the vampire cannot keep the blood he just
ingested inside his body, and he vomits it up in great
horrifying gouts of gore, losing any benefit the blood
might have provided. Humans vomit up food.
Every evening at sunset, the victim has a chance to
throw off the plague. The victim’s player rolls Stamina,
with a difficulty equal to 10 minus the number of sunsets
since acquiring the plague. On a successful roll, the
character fights the disease to a standstill and begins
to recover. He instantly regains his ability to manage
blood, and he heals back one lost Attribute point per
hour until all have returned.

••••• Dissolve the Flesh
This ability brings the Grave’s Decay path full circle,
as it causes Destroy the Husk to apply to vampires. Dissolve
the Flesh allows a necromancer to attempt to
turn vampiric flesh to dust or ash, as though the target
had been burned or left out in the sun.
System: The player spends two blood points and a
Willpower point as the vampire extracts a quantity of
her vitae charged with the power of the grave. If she
drips it onto a single Kindred victim anytime within
the next few turns (most of the blood must reach the
victim, so flinging a few drops is ineffective), it causes
whole chunks of the victim’s body to crumble to ash.
The player rolls Willpower against a difficulty of the
victim’s Stamina + 3. For every success, the target
takes one aggravated wound.
The undead flesh damaged by this power turns to
dust (gone for the time being), and it must be regenerated
painstakingly by the victim, should he survive.
That dust doubtlessly has mystical properties that various
sorcerers might be able to take advantage of. Every
wound inflicted by this ability represents the loss of
about one-eighth of the target’s weight; the Storyteller
chooses where the loss comes from. (It might also be
shed from all over, leaving the victim a bit gaunter or
missing chunks of flesh.)
Regenerating body parts occurs naturally while healing
aggravated wounds at the normal rate (see p. 285).


Path of the Four Humors
Philosophically, the four humors represent different
qualities, split along two axes: hot and cold, and wet
and dry. Blood is hot and wet; phlegm is cold and wet;
yellow bile is hot and dry; and black bile is cold and dry.
Historically, when a mortal was out of sorts or ill, it was
said that his humors were out of balance, and a philosopher
or physician would try to heal him by bringing his
humors back into balance. Ancient necromancers believed
that in their undead forms, all four humors were
held in a mystical stasis, and that they could tap into all
four of them instead of merely tapping into blood in the
form of vitae as other vampires did.
This antiquated path was primarily considered the
knowledge of the Lamia bloodline, and certainly very
few necromancers have learned this path without tutoring
from a Lamia. Since the loss of the Lamia, elder
necromancers have searched everywhere (both in this
world and the next) for clues to its existence.

• Whispers to the Soul
The necromancer with this ability can let slip a little
of her own undead bilious humor as she speaks to another
being (whether mortal or Kindred). The wicked
vapor slips into the target’s ear and whispers nightmares
to the target throughout the day and night. The
target has a harder time sleeping, and becomes irritable
and distracted during his waking hours.
System: The character must whisper the target’s
name (as she knows it) into his ear. The victim rolls
Willpower (difficulty 8). If the roll fails, the victim suffers
from nightmares and hears mad, wicked mutterings
while awake, for a number of full days equal to the
necromancer’s Manipulation. The victim loses one die
from all dice pools while thus afflicted, and at the Storyteller’s
discretion, the difficulty to resist Rötschreck
may be increased by one at the same time.

•• Kiss of the Dark Mother
Kiss of the Dark Mother allows the necromancer
who uses it to mix her vitae with black bile, turning it
into a noxious poison. The necromancer forces it into
her mouth as saliva might once have come; the vitae
tastes acrid and bitter, as though it had been scorched.
Once the necromancer coats her teeth and lips with it,
she can inflict terrible damage with her bite.
System: The player spends one blood point; activating
this power is a reflexive action, but it must be done
before making a bite attack. If the bite hits, the aggravated
damage inflicted by a single bite is doubled before
soak is calculated. This power does not affect the
character’s ability to drain blood from the target, nor
does it increase the amount of damage done by blood
loss. The necromancer’s bite remains potent until this
ability is discharged by a successful hit or she spends
one turn cleansing the dark blood from her mouth.

••• Dark Humors
The vampire can exude a coat of a particular humor
onto her skin, causing all that touch it to experience
the most intense form of that humor. After a necromancer
has used this power, she generally feels the
opposite of the sensation the humor usually conveys:
Using blood leaves her depressed and pessimistic; using
yellow bile renders her calm and placid; using black
bile leaves her optimistic; and using phlegm makes her
aroused and angry.
System: The player spends two blood points. The
necromancer chooses which humor she wishes to excrete.
The humor can simply coat the skin — in which
case touching the victim’s skin lets the humor take effect
— or it can act as a poison if placed in a beverage
(or in vitae). The victim must make a Stamina roll
(difficulty 8) to resist the effects of the humor:
• Phlegm: Target becomes lethargic; all dice pools
are reduced by two for the remainder of the scene.
• Blood (vitae): Target becomes prone to excessive
bleeding, and any lethal or aggravated wounds he suffers
deal an additional health level of damage on the
turn after they originally occur. Vitae altered by Dark
Humors will not turn a human into a ghoul if ingested,
nor will it initiate a blood bond.
• Black Bile: Target suffers a number of health levels
of damage equal to the necromancer’s Stamina. This
damage is considered lethal and can be soaked (if the
victim is normally capable of soaking such damage),
though armor does not protect against it.
• Yellow Bile: Target becomes melancholic and is
plagued with visions of death. He cannot spend Willpower
for the remainder of the scene, and all Willpower
rolls receive a +2 difficulty.

•••• Clutching the Shroud
Blood, the sanguine humor, was regarded by philosophers
as being both hot and wet. Blood from a cold
corpse has been transubstantiated into a dead form —
a cold incarnation of a hot, wet element. This transformation
of the living into death holds great power;
the necromancer knows how to infuse her own being
with the blood of a cold corpse and transform herself
into something not wholly vampiric. Instead, the necromancer
edges closer to being an animated corpse in
fact as well as name. She grows distant and chill, as
though possessed by the spirit of Death itself; she has to
work to push her attention into the physical world.
System: The character must drink, and then spend,
five blood points from a cold corpse (one dead for 24
hours or more, but generally less than three days). It
will generally take at least two turns to consume that
blood, and the power is not activated until the character
can spend all of it. For example, if the character
is Twelfth Generation, Clutching the Shroud takes at
least seven turns total to activate (two to consume the
blood and five to spend it).
After the power is active and for the rest of the scene,
the necromancer gains several benefits. First, she receives
two additional soak dice, which may be used to
soak any sort of damage, even if the character does not
possess Fortitude. Second, she gains a mystic sense of
how far those in the area are from death — whether
they are healthy or infirm, suffer from diseases, or are
undead, ghouls, or mortals. Finally, a Manipulation +
Occult roll lets her speak with ghosts freely. The difficulty
for this roll depends on how attuned to death a
locale is; a cemetery would be difficulty 5, while a cozy
apartment might be difficulty 7. However, this ability
makes the necromancer much more susceptible to the
effects of powers used by ghosts, which means that she
must act carefully.

••••• Black Breath
A necromancer who has mastered this path can harness
the undead black bile that festers at the core of her
being; she pulls that melancholy to her lungs and lets it
mingle with her outgoing breath. She then exhales the
dark mist, letting it engulf those nearby. The necromancer
feels curiously lightheaded and optimistic after
using this power, as she has forced some of her most
depressed nature out into the world; those caught in
the black vapors grow despairing and hopeless.
System: The player spends one Willpower and one
blood point, and rolls Stamina + Athletics (difficulty
7). Black Breath allows the character to exhale a dark
cloud of vapor that is five yards or meters in diameter per
success rolled. Those caught in the mists may attempt
a Dexterity + Athletics roll to escape it if they have an
available action; otherwise, they may be overwhelmed
by depression to the point of suicide. Those who cannot
escape the mists must immediately roll Willpower
(difficulty 8 for mortals, 7 for supernatural beings) and
achieve more successes than the invoker did. Mortals
who fail in this actively attempt to kill themselves on
their next turn. They do not attempt such ludicrous
suicides as praying for a lightning bolt or holding their
breath; they use the most effective means at hand to
end their own lives. If prevented from suicide, they attempt
it again as soon as an opportunity presents itself.
This impulse lasts for the rest of the scene, and the Storyteller
may impose flare-ups over the next day or so at
his discretion. Those who succeed on the Willpower
roll still become enchanted with the prospect of death,
whether mortal or Kindred, and lose two dice from all
dice pools for the rest of the scene.
Kindred who fail the Willpower roll do not attempt
suicide; as they are already dead, the malign influences
of undead humors do not have as strong an effect on
them. Instead, the affected vampire sinks into torpor.
The duration of this torpor is based on the vampire’s
Humanity or Path rating, just as if lethal wounds had
forced him into it.


Vitreous Path
The Vitreous Path allows a necromancer to control
and influence the energies pertaining to death. This
extremely rare path manipulates entropy, a force that
even most necromancers are uncomfortable harnessing.
A development of the Nagaraja bloodline (p. 406,
although they sometimes call the path “Nihilistics”),
the Vitreous Path makes a formidable complement to
the necromantic craft, and those obsessed with mastery
over death and souls — such as the Harbingers of
Skulls — would certainly risk much to uncover this
path’s secrets.
Like most necromancers, Nagaraja generally learn
the Sepulchre Path before any others. The Vitreous
Path is usually their second focus of study.

• Eyes of the Dead
The necromancer employing the Eyes of the Dead
can see with the perceptions of the Restless Dead
(called Deathsight). To such a manipulator of ghostly
energies, the auras of surrounding beings give off telltale
hints as to their health and even their ultimate
fate; the necromancer can see the energies of death
flowing through everyone, just as ghosts can. By looking
at the entropic markings on a person’s body, the
necromancer can gain rough knowledge of how far that
person is from death, how soon that person is likely to
die, and even what the cause of her death is likely to
be. The information thus gained is not exact by any
means, but it gives the necromancer an edge over those
she scrutinizes.
System: The player rolls Perception + Occult, difficulty
6. One success lets a necromancer determine
whether someone is injured, diseased, or dying, as well
as whether the individual labors under any sort of curse
or baleful magic.
Further, the vampire can divine the target’s eventual
demise, depending on the successes scored. One success
means the character can guess how long the target
has to live to within a few weeks. Three successes
means the character can estimate how long the target
has to live and what the probable source of death will
be, as the entropic markings show the wounds that will
someday exist on that person. Five successes means the
character can actually see where and when the event
will occur by interpreting the black marks on the target’s
soul.
This ability lasts for one scene, though the necromancer
may choose to end the power early. It can be
used to read the fate of only one target at a time. Storytellers
should exercise judgment with this power, since
the markings of death are typically unavoidable. He
may decide to roll the dice himself, so that the player
has no way of knowing whether her insight is correct.

•• Aura of Decay
The necromancer can strengthen the feeling of entropy
around her to the point where it breaks down
nonliving objects and machines. It can gnarl wood,
rust metal, crack silicon chips, and erode plastic, glass,
and dead organic material. This power has a range of
one yard or meter from the necromancer’s body, but all
those in the presence of the vampire can feel her corruption
as an icy wind.
System: No roll is required, but this power does cost
at least one blood point. Objects subjected to this Aura
of Decay break down and become useless after being
targeted. How the object gives out, as well as the exact
mechanism of failure, is up to the Storyteller. Corrosion,
metal fatigue, or sheer brittleness are all suitably
likely for any given item’s demise, but the in-game effect
of using a doomed item is as if the owning character
rolled a botch. The speed at which an item breaks
down depends on how many blood points are spent.
Blood Spent - Time to Breakdown
One - One week
Two - One day
Three - End of scene
Four - Five turns
Five - One turn
Note that since this power requires the expenditure
of blood points, a character cannot cause an Aura of
Decay while staked.

••• Soul Feast
Just as the necromancer can release entropic energies
from within, she may also pull them into herself
as a source of power. Soul Feasting allows the caster
to either draw on the ambient death energies around
her or to actively feed on a ghost, stealing the wraith’s
substance and mystically transforming that energy into
sustenance.
System: The player spends one Willpower point to
allow the vampire to feed on the negative energies of
the dead. If the character is drawing the energies from
the atmosphere, she must be in a place where death has
occurred within the hour or in a place where death is
common, such as a cemetery, a morgue, or the scene of
a recent murder. Generally, the necromancer can draw
anywhere from one to four points of entropy from such
a location, although the difficulty in using all Necromancy
and similar deathly powers within the area
increases by an equal amount for a number of nights
equal to the points taken. The energies of such an area
may only be drained once until the area’s entropy replenishes.
In cases when the necromancer feeds on a ghost, the
vampire must actually attack the wraith as if feeding
normally. Wraiths have up to 10 “blood points” that
may be taken from them, and they become less and
less substantial as their spirit essence drains away. The
character is vulnerable to any attack the ghost might
make, even those that do not normally affect the physical
world; while feeding, the vampire is essentially in
a half-state, existing in both the living lands and the
Underworld simultaneously. The wraith so attacked is
considered immobilized and cannot run or escape unless
it can defeat the vampire in a resisted Willpower
roll (difficulty 6 for both sides). This power may also
be used in conjunction with Ash Path Necromancy,
allowing the vampire to drain power (though not sustenance)
from ghosts while traveling in the lands of
the dead.
This soul energy may be used just like blood in every
respect except for when the vampire rises for the
night. It can activate Disciplines, heal wounds, boost
Attributes, etc. Botching this power renders the vampire
unable to feed through the Shroud for the rest of
the night. However, she remains susceptible to the assaults
of ghosts and spirits for several turns (generally,
a number of turns equal to the amount of energy that
could have been drawn from the area, or one turn if attacking
a ghost) as she hovers between worlds, unable
to function effectively in either.

•••• Breath of Thanatos
The Breath of Thanatos allows the necromancer to
draw out entropic energy and focus it upon an area
or person by taking a deep breath and then forcefully
exhaling a fog of necromantic energy. This cloud of
virulence is completely invisible to anyone without the
ability to see the passing of entropy. The energy of this
cloud is like a beacon for Spectres, and they are drawn
to the entropic force like moths to a flame.
Once the energy is pulled from the necromancer’s
body, she can either disperse it over a large area as a
lure for Spectres, or use the mist for more sinister purposes.
Channeled into an object or person, the deathmist
inflicts the subject with a debilitating, wasting illness.
Furthermore, the focused energies are tainted and
eerie, and though generally invisible (except to powers
such as Aura Perception), they tend to cause people
and animals to feel uncomfortable around the victim.
System: The player spends one blood point and rolls
Willpower (difficulty 8). Only one success is needed to
draw out the Breath of Thanatos. If dispersed to summon
Spectres, the energies cover roughly one-quarter
of a mile (400 meters) in radius, centered around the
necromancer. The range increases by an additional
one-quarter mile or 400 meters for every additional
blood point expended.
Spectres summoned with this power will ignore the
summoning necromancer for the duration of the power
unless provoked, but may well go out of their way
to wreak havoc on anyone else in the vicinity. The
necromancer can then use other Necromancy powers
(such as those in the Sepulchre Path) to manipulate
and affect these Spectres. Ghosts so targeted may then
interact with the necromancer as normal, although the
other Spectres in the area will continue to ignore both
the vampire and the targeted ghost. This energy disperses
after a scene, after which the Spectres leave to
find new prey. Mechanics for Spectres can be found on
p. 385.
If the cloud is directed toward a particular target, the
necromancer must either touch the target or direct the
stream of entropy using Dexterity + Occult (difficulty
7). A target laden with entropy suffers one (and only
one) level of aggravated damage; this generally manifests
as sudden illness or decay. The target’s social difficulties
while interacting with those unfamiliar with
the touch of death — most normal humans, as well as
some supernatural creatures — increase by 2. Furthermore,
supernatural perceptions indicate the target is
tainted with decay, which can be dangerous. This form
of taint lasts until sunrise; a victim already plagued by
this power cannot be affected again until the previous
fog of entropy has dispersed.
A botch on the roll to control this power indicates
that the vampire has turned the energy upon himself,
and suffers all the effects of the vitriolic breath. This
inflicts the usual injury and may subject the necromancer
to the possibly dangerous attention of provoked
Spectres and other creatures from beyond the grave.

••••• Night Cry
The breath of entropic energy becomes a scream of
pure chaos. The necromancer can issue an unearthly cry
(heard both in the living world and in the Shadowlands).
The howl pours icy oblivion into a target or group of
targets — either sweeping away the inherent entropy or
collecting that destruction and unleashing it.
System: The vampire chooses a number of targets
within one yard or meter per dot of Necromancy and
invokes Night Cry with a terrible scream. The player
spends a Willpower point and a blood point for each
target beyond the first. (In other words, she spends
no blood if only going after one target, or one blood
for two targets. Generational blood limits apply, and
the vampire may not “pre-spend” blood prior to using
Night Cry.)
The player then chooses whether the vampire will aid
or harm the targets, and rolls Manipulation + Occult
(difficulty 6). If she chooses to aid the target or targets,
each success gives each affected target a -2 difficulty
modifier to all of his actions for one turn per success. If
she instead chooses harm, each success causes an aggravated
wound to each target. Targets may be any kind of
living creature, including supernatural ones.
No matter the result, the Night Cry is heard on both
sides of the Shroud, attracting the attention of anyone
nearby. On a botch, the necromancy may summon unruly
ghosts or Spectres, similar to Breath of Thanatos
(although the ghosts are under no compulsion to ignore
the necromancer…).

NECROMANTIC RITUALS

The rituals connected with Necromancy are a hodgepodge
lot. Some have direct relations to the paths, while
others seem to have been taught by ghosts themselves,
for whatever twisted reason. All beginning necromancers
gain one Level One ritual automatically, but any
others learned must be gained through in-game play.
Necromantic rituals are otherwise identical to Thaumaturgy
rituals (pp. 230-240) and are learned in similar
fashion, though the two are not at all compatible.
System: Casting times for necromantic rituals vary
widely; see the description for particulars. The player
rolls Intelligence + Occult (difficulty 3 + the level of
the ritual, maximum 9). Success indicates the ritual
proceeds smoothly, failure produces no effect, and a
botch indicates something has gone horribly wrong.


Level One Rituals

Call of the Hungry Dead
Call of the Hungry Dead takes only 10 minutes to
cast and requires a hair from the target’s head. The ritual
climaxes with the burning of that hair in the flame
of a black candle, after which the victim becomes
able to hear snatches of conversation from across the
Shroud. If the target is not prepared, the voices come
as a confusing welter of howls and unearthly demands;
he is unable to make out anything intelligible, and may
go briefly mad.

Eldritch Beacon
Eldritch Beacon takes 15 minutes to cast. The material
component is a green candle, the melted wax from
which must be collected and molded into a half-inch
(1.5 cm) sphere. Whoever carries this sphere, whether
in his hand or in a pocket, is highlighted in the Shadowlands
with a sickly-glowing green-white aura. All
ghostly powers affect this individual with greater ease
and severity. The sphere retains its power for one hour
per success on the casting roll.

Insight
This ritual allows a necromancer to stare into the
eyes of a corpse and see reflected there the last thing
the dead man witnessed. The vision appears only in
the eyes of the cadaver and is visible to no one except
the necromancer using Insight. The player rolls
as normal as the vampire stares into the target’s eyes
for five minutes. The number of successes on the roll
determines the clarity of the vision. A botch shows the
necromancer his own Final Death, which can provoke
a Rötschreck roll (see p. 299).
This power cannot be used on the corpses of vampires
who have reached Golconda, or on bodies in which
both eyes are missing or advanced decomposition has
already occurred.
Successes - Result
1 success - A basic sense of the subject’s death
2 successes - A clear image of the subject’s death
and the seconds preceding it
3 successes - A clear image, with sound, of the
minutes preceding death
4 successes - A clear image, with sound, of the
half-hour before the subject’s demise
5 successes - Full sensory perception of the hour
leading up to the target’s death

Knowing Stone
By use of her own blood and the proper rituals, a
necromancer can mark a person’s spirit, allowing the
vampire to see where her subject is at any time, even
after he has died. In this fashion many of the spirithaunted
vampires keep tabs on their close kin and
their enemies.
The necromancer cuts her skin or otherwise bleeds
herself, and then uses the vitae to paint the name of
the target on a consecrated stone. If the ritual is successful,
she can afterward learn the target’s current
whereabouts by dancing around the stone in a trance
state until one of the spirits whispers the desired information
into her ear. The stone loses its powers on the
night of All Saints Day unless the vampire spends a
blood point.

Minestra di Morte
The necromancer obtains a piece of a dead body and
simmers it in a pot with half a quart (or half a liter)
of vampiric vitae. To this stew, the necromancer adds
rosemary (for remembrance), basil (the funerary herb),
and salt (the alchemic principle of clarification). After
bringing the concoction to a full boil, the necromancer
eats it.
If the roll to activate this ritual is successful, the
character discovers whether the subject of the grisly
rite became a wraith or Spectre after death, or if indeed
she became either. Unfortunately, this information can
be learned only about the person from whose body the
“stew meat” was taken.
The blood component is spent progressively through
the ritual: If the Necromancer takes the blood from
another Kindred, she doesn’t become partially bound
from drinking it, nor does she add a point to her blood
pool. Similarly, if she uses her own blood, her pool decreases
by a point but does not increase when she consumes
the soup.
Necromantic vampires without the Eat Food Merit
(see p. 480) can’t keep the soup down, but can still use
the ritual and gain the information.

Ritual of the Smoking Mirror
This ritual allows the necromancer to use an obsidian
mirror to see as ghosts do. By gazing into the mirror’s
ebony depths, the vampire may discover an object’s
flaws, assess the general health of mortals, or even read
a being’s aura.
At the start of the ritual, the Kindred decides which
of the ritual’s two aspects she will use — she may not
use both at the same time. With Lifesight, the necromancer
may read auras as if she had the level two
Auspex power Aura Perception. Deathsight, on the
other hand, grants the necromancer the ability to see
ghosts and the Shadowlands. It also shows the stain of
oblivion on the living, as per Eyes of the Dead (p. 174).
At the Storyteller’s discretion, the Kindred may make
a similar study of an inanimate object’s flaws and how
to repair them, if that object has a strong link to either
life- or death-energies (such as a murderer’s knife or a
window box used to grow healing herbs).
To perform the ritual, the necromancer grasps an obsidian
mirror that has had its edge sharpened so that it
cuts the flesh of whoever takes hold of it. As the vitae
flows onto the mirror’s surface, it allows the mirror’s reflective
power to bridge the worlds of the living and the
dead, much as it allows the necromancer herself to do.
The player then rolls to activate the ritual as normal.
If successful, the Necromancer may view the world as
a ghost does via the reflective surface of the mirror, for
one scene. On a botch, the vampire may well invoke
the ire of the spirits upon whom she calls.


Level Two Rituals

Eyes of the Grave
This ritual, which takes two hours to cast, causes the
target to experience intermittent visions of her death
over the period of a week. The visions come without
warning and can last up to a minute. The caster of the
ritual has no idea what the visions contain, as only the
victim sees them. Each time a vision manifests, the target
must roll Courage (difficulty 7) or be reduced to
quivering panic. The visions, which come randomly,
can also interfere with activities such as driving, studying,
shooting, and so on.
Eyes of the Grave requires a pinch of soil from a fresh
grave.

The Hand of Glory
The Hand of Glory is a mummified hand used by the
necromancer to anesthetize a home’s residents and,
thereby, allow him free rein to do what he will in the
residence. To create one, the necromancer wraps the
severed hand of a condemned murderer in a shroud,
draws it tight to squeeze out any remaining blood, and
preserves the hand in an earthenware jar with salt, saltpeter,
and long peppers. After a fortnight, the vampire
removes the hand and dries it in an oven with vervain
and fern. At the end of this process, if the roll to activate
the ritual garners any successes, the creation is
viable.
To use the Hand of Glory, the vampire first coats
the fingertips of the mummified hand with a flammable
substance derived from the fat of a hanged man and
sets the fingers alight. The necromancer then recites
the phrase, “Let all those who are asleep be asleep, and
let those who are awake be awake.” All mortals within
a household who are affected fall into a deep sleep and
cannot be roused (the hand has no effect on supernatural
creatures). For each unaffected occupant of a home,
one finger of the hand will refuse to light. Botches may
result in all of the fingers being lit but no one in the
home being asleep. The hand may be extinguished at
any time by the necromancer who created it. Anyone
else wishing to douse the hand must use milk to do so
— nothing else works. Once made, the Hand of Glory
may be reused indefinitely. Effects last for one scene.

Occhio d’Uomo Morto
To cast this ritual, the necromancer needs an eye
from a corpse whose absent soul became a ghost or
Spectre. The eye is ritually prepared in a process involving
incense, the new moon, and a period of midnight
chanting. The chanting climaxes when the necromancer
removes one of her own eyes and replaces it
with the one from the corpse (fresher is better). Kindred
healing takes over at that point, sealing the eye
within the socket.
If the ritual succeeds, the Necromancer permanently
gains the Shroudsight ability (see p. 163). This ability
is always active and does not require a roll.
Furthermore, if it was a Spectre’s corpse, the vampire
can hear the vague murmuring of any Spectres in the
area. This ability isn’t very precise; rather than mind
reading, it’s more like trying to overhear a low-voiced
conversation in the next room. With a Perception +
Occult roll, the Necromancer can glean a very vague
impression of what nearby Spectres are up to. Botching
this roll may well earn the necromancer a new derangement
(at the Storyteller’s discretion), as the whispers
creep into the caster’s subconscious.
This ritual has some major drawbacks, the first being
that its proper result is hideously ugly. Unless the vampire
wears sunglasses or finds some other way to conceal
her eye, her Appearance is reduced by one dot.
Also, dead or rotted tissue is not the best for normal
perception. Any mundane visual Perception rolls are at
+1 difficulty (possibly more if the corpse had bad eyesight
in life). On the other hand, since the eye offers
a window into a different soul than the necromancer,
it offers some protection against powers requiring eye
contact. These Disciplines are used against the deadeyed
necromancer at +1 difficulty.
Most importantly, however, the ghost whose body
was desecrated knows it, and very likely hates it. The
ghost can find the necromancer possessing his eye anywhere,
and all ghostly powers used against the necromancer
by that particular ghost are at –1 difficulty.

Puppet
Used primarily to facilitate conversations with the
recently departed, though also applied as a method of
psychological torture, Puppet prepares a subject (willing
or unwilling) as a suitable receptacle for ghostly
possession. Over the course of one hour, the necromancer
smears grave soil across the subject’s eyes, lips, and
forehead. For the remainder of the night, any wraith
attempting to take control of the subject gains two automatic
successes. The ritual’s effects remain even if
the soil is washed off.

The Ritual of Pochtli
This ritual cannot be cast by itself, but only in conjunction
with another Necromantic ritual, or with the
heavily ritualized use of a Necromantic path. The action
of the ritual is this: Two or more Kindred necromancers
restrain a mortal vessel and inflict incisions in
the shape of blasphemous symbols (typically subverted
Egyptian hieroglyphs or Aztec symbols). They then
drink from these injuries. Each participating Necromancer
must make his own cut and drink from no other
cut. Thereafter, the Necromantic power the Kindred
seek to employ gains the benefit of all the participants’
knowledge. This ritual makes it possible for Necromancers
to create truly fearsome feats of death magic.
The player rolls to activate this ritual as normal. If
the roll succeeds, the Kindred who have participated
in the ritual may work together on the path or ritual
the Ritual of Pochtli is intended to assist, and players
share successes. Note that the primary application of
Necromancy requires its own roll, and that successes
(and failures) garnered by the group are pooled. All
Kindred participating in the ritual must know the Ritual
of Pochtli as well as the ritual or path power the
group seeks to enact.
The downside of this power is that a single player’s
botch negates the successes of the entire group, resulting
in a horrific failure for all the ritual workers.

Two Centimes
The necromancer ceremonially “kills” a mortal, laying
him out on a pallet and putting pennies on his eyes.
The mortal’s soul journeys to the Underworld, which
he perceives, initially at least, as a way-station. The
mortal can interact with the souls of the dead and travel
elsewhere in the Underworld, while also retaining
the power to speak to the vampire and describe what
he’s experiencing. While in the Underworld, however,
the subject’s soul cannot affect the environment. Although
he may talk to other spirits, he may not physically
interact with them or their surroundings — he is
a “ghost among ghosts,” as it were. Minions may voluntarily
undergo the ritual to assist necromancers, or
the vampire may use Two Centimes to terrify unwilling
victims.


Level Three Rituals

Blood Dance
The Blood Dance allows a ghost to communicate
with a living relative. Necromancers sometimes perform
this ritual for people in exchange for money or
favors.
The vampire must dance and chant for two hours,
calling forth the right spirit and entreating all other
ghosts to leave the area. While dancing, the vampire
pours colored sands and ocean salt on the ground in a
precise pattern and then makes the link between the
living person and the deceased. If successful, the ghost
“appears” within the necromancer’s sand-sigil and the
living person can communicate with her for one hour.
Failure means the spirit could not be contacted.

Divine Sign
Upon learning a person’s birth date, the necromancer’s
player may roll to activate this ritual. If successful,
the Kindred may use this to predict the target’s next
course of action, allowing him to deal with it accordingly.
The effect on ghosts is quite different: Instead,
the ritual imparts upon the necromancer so intimate
an understanding of the wraith in question that it acts
as a connection to the ghost, making it easier to invoke
other Necromancy effects on that spirit. For story purposes,
it’s the equivalent to holding one of that wraith’s
fetters (see Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter, below).

Din of the Damned
This ritual is similar to the Level One Ritual Call
of the Hungry Dead (see p. 177) in that it makes the
sounds of the Underworld audible in the physical realm.
However, Din of the Damned is an area-effecting ritual
used to ward a room against eavesdropping. Over
the course of half an hour, the necromancer draws an
unbroken line of ash from a crematorium along the
room’s walls (this line may pass over doorframes to allow
entrance and egress). For the rest of the night, any
attempt to listen in on events inside the room, whether
simple (such as a glass to the wall), electronic (like a
laser microphone), or mystic (including powers such as
Heightened Senses), requires the eavesdropper to score
more successes in a Perception + Occult roll (difficulty
7) than the caster of the ritual scored. Failure to beat
this mark gives the listener an earful of ghostly wailing
and moaning and the sound of howling winds; a botch
deafens him for the rest of the night.

Nightmare Drums
The necromancer using this ritual sends the dead to
haunt the dreams of an enemy, using the ghosts to drive
an opponent slowly insane. Once the ritual is cast, the
vampire has no control over this power, except to stop
it from continuing. The shape of the nightmares and
the images that assault the target are not under the
control of the necromancer; they are under the control
of the ghosts who actually do the haunting.
The necromancer uses his own blood and a personal
possession of the target’s in this ritual. Once the item
has been coated with blood, the vampire must burn the
item, sending a ghostly icon of it to the Shadowlands
both as an identifying badge and as a reward to the
ghosts who agree to haunt the target. While the item
burns, the necromancer (and assistants, if available)
pound out a relentless beat on gigantic drums of human
skin. The drums are inaudible in this realm but
thunderous in the home of the dead. To silence the
deafening drums, the ghosts resignedly agree to negotiate
with the necromancer. They promise to send nightmares
to the victim for as long as the vampire demands,
in return for a favor. Their request normally runs along
the lines of passing a message to a living relative or exacting
revenge against someone who slighted them.

Ritual of The Unearthed Fetter
This ritual requires that a necromancer have a finger
bone from the skeleton of the particular ghost he’s
interested in. When the ritual is cast, the finger bone
becomes attuned to something vitally important to the
wraith, the possession of which by the necromancer
makes the casting of Necromantic powers against that
ghost much easier (see the Sepulchre Path, p. 160, for
an example). Most necromancers take the attuned finger
bone and suspend it from a thread, allowing it to
act as a sort of supernatural compass and following it to
the special item in question.
Ritual of the Unearthed Fetter takes three hours to
cast properly. It requires both the name of the ghost
targeted and the finger bone already mentioned, as
well as a chip knocked off a gravestone or other marker
(not necessarily the marker of the bone’s former owner).
During the course of the ritual the stone crumbles
to dust, which is then sprinkled over the finger bone.

Tempesta Scudo
Unlike most rituals, Tempesta Scudo can be cast
speedily. The necromancer performs a short and awkward
dance that ends with her biting through her own
lip and spitting the blood in a circle around her. All
ghosts’ actions within the circle of blood are made at
+2 difficulty.
To cast this ritual successfully, the necromancer must
spend one combat turn performing the dance. At the
end of the turn, she makes a Dexterity + Performance
roll against difficulty 7 (if done outside of combat, the
difficulty is only 6). During the next combat turn, she
bites through her own lips (taking a level of bashing
damage) and spits (spending one blood point). Then
the normal ritual roll is made to see whether the power
takes effect.


Level Four Rituals

Baleful Doll
A baleful doll is a powerful figure that is linked directly
to the spirit of the target. This doll must be handcrafted,
and is only finished when it has been painted
with the blood of the necromancer and dressed in some
article of clothing from the victim (which should be
unwashed for a better connection). Once the doll has
been cursed, the vampire can use it to cause physical
damage to the target. If the doll is injured (often with
pins or other items), the victim takes six dice of bashing
damage. If the doll is destroyed, the target suffers
six dice of lethal damage.
The necromancer must craft the doll, using ritual
chants throughout the process. This normally takes
four to five hours. The player rolls Stamina + Crafts
(difficulty 8) to succeed in this part of the ritual — a
doll that does not resemble its victim is useless for the
purposes of this ritual, though some necromancers sell
failures as “authentic voodoo dolls” to tourists.

Bastone Diabolico
Casting this ritual is tricky because it requires the
removal of a leg bone from a living person. The donor
must survive the removal, at least for a little while. The
bone is then submerged in molten lead. Once it cools,
the thin lead coating is inscribed with various runes.
The necromancer then uses this metal-shod bone
to beat its donor to death while repeating a droning

Greek chant.
With a successful roll, this ritual produces a bastone
diabolico or “devil stick.” The stick can be activated by
anyone who holds it and expends a point of Willpower.
Activation lasts for a scene, and during that time any
ghost hit with the devil stick loses a point from its Passion
pool (see p. 385). In addition to its normal effects,
this club does an additional die of damage when used
against the walking dead (not vampires), and such
damage is aggravated.
Unfortunately for the necromancer, ghosts can sense
that the bastone diabolico is bad news, even if they don’t
know exactly what the thing does. They tend to stay
away from anybody carrying one, which means that all
rolls for such a character to use powers that summon or
attract ghosts occur at +1 difficulty.

Cadaver’s Touch
By chanting for three hours and melting a wax doll in
the shape of the target, the necromancer turns a mortal
target into a corpselike ruin. As the doll loses the last
of its form, the target becomes cold and clammy. His
pulse becomes weak and thready, and his flesh pale and
chalky. For all intents and purposes, he becomes a reasonable
facsimile of the walking dead. This can have
some adverse effects in social situations (+2 difficulty
on all Social rolls). The effects of the ritual wear off
only when the wax of the doll is permitted to solidify.
If the wax is allowed to boil off, the spell is broken.

Peek Past the Shroud
This hour-long ritual enchants a handful of ergot
fungi mold to act as a catalyst for second sight. By eating
a pinch of the mold, a subject gains the benefits of
Shroudsight (p. 163) for a number of hours equal to the
necromancer’s Stamina score. Three doses of the enchanted
ergot are created for every success on the roll.
Ergot is normally poisonous to some degree; this ritual
removes its toxic properties. However, a botch renders
the ergot highly and instantaneously toxic, inflicting
eight dice of lethal damage on any subject who ingests
it — including vampires.

Ritual of Xipe Totec
To perform the ritual, the Kindred removes his victim’s
top layer of skin with an obsidian dagger, taking
care to damage the skin as little as possible in the
process. The victim must survive this process (though
she may well die of blood loss shortly after the ritual
if not seen to properly). He then drains the victim’s
blood into a large ceremonial golden bowl. There the
blood is mixed with octli, amaranth flower, and other
ingredients. When imbibed by the necromancer, this
mixture causes him to sweat a glistening sheen of blood
(equal to one blood point). The Kindred then dons the
skin of his victim, which on a successful roll absorbs
the Kindred vitae and begins to heal, forming a second
skin over the vampire’s own. The victim needs to be of
similar stature — otherwise, the features become distorted
and the disguise is rendered useless. This power
also has no effect on supernatural creatures (although
it can affect ghouls).
Under normal visual scrutiny, the ruse is flawless. Of
course, it imparts none of the victim’s knowledge or
mannerisms (and does nothing to mask the Kindred’s
own undead nature). Therefore, it works best for situations
in which contact with friends and family may
be minimized. To preserve the skin’s condition, the
Kindred must bathe it in a blood point’s worth of vitae
nightly. When the necromancer removes the skin
(which causes one level of unsoakable lethal damage
to the user and must be done with the same knife used
to flay the victim in the first place), it is ruined in the
process.


Level Five Rituals

Chill of Oblivion
Performed over the course of 12 hours (reduced by
one hour per success on the casting roll), this ritual
infuses the necromancer or a willing subject with the
chill of the grave. The ritual’s material component is a
one-foot (half-meter) cube of ice, which is slowly melted
on the subject’s chest (inflicting three health levels
of bashing damage on mortal subjects). The subject
must lie naked on bare earth for the entire duration
of the ritual. Once the ritual is completed, its effects
remain for a number of nights equal to the caster’s Occult
rating.
An individual affected by Chill of Oblivion treats
aggravated damage from fire and high temperatures as
if it were lethal damage. Furthermore, he may attempt
to extinguish any fire by rolling Willpower (difficulty
9); each success reduces the fire’s soak difficulty (see
p. 297) by 1, and a fire with a soak difficulty of 2 dwindles
to glowing embers.
However, this ritual has several drawbacks. First
and foremost, the subject’s aura is laced with writhing
black veins that resemble those left by diablerie, and
may well be mistaken for such by any observer who is
not familiar with this ritual. The subject also radiates a
palpable aura of cold that extends to about arm’s length
from him; this can be extremely disconcerting to mortals,
though it causes no damage, and its game effects
mirror those of the Flaws Touch of Frost (p. 494) and
Eerie Presence (p. 495). Finally, the mystical nimbus of
the ritual draws hostile ghosts to the subject, who may
plague him with unwholesome acts.

Dead Man’s Hand
The necromancer takes a rag stained in the blood,
sweat, or tears of the intended victim. She takes a
freshly severed human hand (which can come either
from a corpse or a living “donor”) and closes it around
the rag. As the hand decomposes, so does the victim.
His flesh bloats, turns gray and then green, then starts
to slough off. The victim’s brain remains fresh until the
very end, so he can see the maggots writhe in the putrescent
rack of meat that once was his healthy body.
The necromancer makes the standard roll and spends
two blood points for each point of Stamina (and Fortitude)
possessed by the victim. The victim loses health
levels according to the timetable below. Only the removal
of the rag from the hand can stop the process.
If this happens, health levels return, also according to
the chart below.
Health Level - Time Until Next Loss
Bruised - 12 hours
Hurt - 12 hours
Injured - Six hours
Wounded - Three hours
Mauled - One hour
Crippled - 30 minutes
Incapacitated - 12 hours
Mortal characters who suffer more than 12 hours of
incapacitation die, while Kindred who remain Incapacitated
for more than 12 hours succumb to torpor.

Esilio
Like Tempesta Scudo, Esilio is a quick and dirty ritual.
The necromancer simply speaks five syllables. No one
can identify the casting language, but according to the
ritual’s oblique history, the language is what God gave
humankind before the confusion of Babel. The legend
further states that while the particular meaning of the
words is lost, they are what Caine’s father said to him
while exiling him to Nod.
Regardless of the truth of the matter, the Words of
Exile are not spoken lightly. When the ritual is cast
successfully, it opens a hole within reality itself — a rip
between the lands of the living and the darkest depths
of the Underworld. This tear is invisible to normal vision,
but to Witness of Death or Shroudsight it looks
like a black vortex opening within the vampire’s own
body (the very few unfortunate enough to look into the
gap with high levels of Auspex are generally unwilling
or unable to discuss it). Any ghost clutched to the
Kindred’s chest is instantly torn to shreds. Grabbing a
ghost in this fashion requires a Clinch or Tackle maneuver.
Destroyed spirits don’t come back for at least
a month, if ever. A wraith destroyed in this fashion
tends to return as a Spectre, if it returns at all.
The necromancer may clutch and destroy a number
of spirits equal to the number of successes she rolled.
After that, the vortex closes. It closes at the end of the
scene if it hasn’t already.
Of course, using one’s body as a portal between our
world and what some people might call Hell is neither
simple nor healthy. For starters, it costs a blood point
and a point of Willpower (which does not give an automatic
success on the ritual roll). More importantly,
each success rolled inflicts a level of unsoakable lethal
damage on the necromancer. Most significantly, every
use of Esilio permanently reduces the necromancer’s
Humanity by one point if he follows that morality, and
may impact other Paths at the Storyteller’s discretion.

Grasp the Ghostly
Requiring a full six hours of chanting, this ritual allows
a necromancer to bring an object from the Underworld
into the real world. It’s not simple, however
— a wraith may object to having his possessions stolen
and fight back. Furthermore, the object taken must be
replaced by a material item of roughly equal mass, otherwise
the target of the ritual snaps back to its previous,
ghostly existence.
Objects taken from the Underworld tend to fade away
after about a year. Only items recently destroyed in the
real world (called “relics” by ghosts) may be recaptured
in this manner. Artifacts created by wraiths themselves
were never meant to exist outside the Underworld, and
vanish on contact with the living world.

The Path of Haunting

The Path of Haunting, mainly used by the Impundulu
and the Giovani (who rumor holds, may have originally
acquired the Path through relations with a Bomzaki tutor),
concerns itself with the power death holds over the living,
rather than the dead themselves.

• Song of the Dead
The vampire chants, weaving unheard words into the
song and instilling an unhealthy fascination with death in
his listener. Afflicted individuals find themselves drawn
to lonely, inauspicious places as they sink into depression;
mortality concerns them as never before and they see
ill omens everywhere. If affected by this power for an
extended period, mortals go mad and become suicidal,
while vampires eventually succumb to torpor.
System: The vampire chants to the victim while his
player spends one blood point and rolls Manipulation +
Occult (difficulty of the target’s Willpower). A botch indicates
the vampire affects himself as though he had gained
successes equal to the 1s rolled. For a number of nights
equal to the successes rolled, the target suffers depression
and morbid anxiety. This fixation adds two to the difficulty
of Social rolls (except those involving Intimidation) and
adds one to the difficulty of all other non-reflexive rolls. If a
target suffers the effects of this power for more continuous
nights than her permanent Willpower, she loses a dot of
permanent Willpower. This cycle continues after an interval
of the new rating in days, with the victim losing a dot
of permanent Willpower after each such iteration. Once
a character drops to zero Willpower, she commits suicide
(if living) or falls into torpor (if a vampire). If the power is
interrupted for at least one night, the victim recovers her
permanent Willpower at the rate of one dot per week. A
vampire who falls into torpor from reaching zero Willpower
awakens with her original rating.

•• Summon Wisp
The vampire infuses droplets of his blood with the
ephemeral energy of the Underworld, summoning a sphere
of flickering lights. The wisp dances and moves at his
command, and its hypnotic quality may lure unsuspecting
mortals into a trap or provide a clever distraction.
System: The player spends one blood point and rolls
Charisma + Occult (difficulty 5) to conjure an orb of pale
light that lasts one scene. The wisp can take any color
the vampire chooses and has no substance or weight.
It may fly as fast as the vampire can run, casting cold
illumination as bright as a candle. Mortals who behold
the wisp must roll Willpower (difficulty 4) and achieve
more successes than the caster or fall into a mild trance,
which increases the difficulty of all actions by one due to
distraction. If the vampire’s successes double their own,
they follow the light without regard for any but the most
obvious obstacles. They walk around trees and rocks, but
fall prey to quicksand or a high parapet. Any loud noise
or other distraction immediately breaks the reverie. If the
vampire’s player botches the conjuration roll, the wisp
appears and acts with its own malevolent agenda. Such
a creature is only a nuisance, but can display remarkable
cunning in luring enemies to the vampire’s haven or giving
away his position.

••• Harrowing
Harrowing extends the terror inflicted by Song of the
Dead by haunting her in her sleep, turning her dreams to
nightmarish visions of her own death.
System: The vampire makes eye contact with the
victim, while his player spends one blood point and
rolls Manipulation + Occult (difficulty of the target’s
permanent Willpower). If successful, the victim feels a
slight sense of unease. When she next sleeps, she suffers
horrible nightmares about her own demise. Even though
she cannot fully remember the content of her visions
after she wakes, the emotional trauma prevents her from
regaining Willpower. In addition, her twisted déjà vu and
unnatural paranoia give her the Nightmares Flaw (see p.
422), and behaves as if she’s always near someone with
the Eerie Presence (see p. 427) for the day. A botch in
casting this power inflicts the same terrible dreams on the
vampire when he slumbers.

•••• Phantasms
The vampire sculpts the energy of the Underworld into
elaborate hallucinations that terrorize the living. These
apparitions have no substance, though they emit a surreal
cold, and cannot speak or perform complicated actions.
while the player spends one blood point and rolls Manipulation
+ Occult (difficulty 7). A botch calls the attention
of a malefic ghost, giving the vampire the Haunted Flaw
(see p. 427) for a number of nights equal to the number
of 1s rolled. Each success allows the vampire to create
one phenomenon, or add one characteristic or condition
to another phantom. For example, three successes could
animate shadows to shuffle and writhe (one success) and
create an illusion of dripping gore that bursts into a spray
of flies when someone draws close (one success for the gore
and one success for the conditional effect). This power
may create apparitions anywhere in the caster’s line of
sight. The Storyteller remains the final arbiter of what is
or is not possible with this power.

••••• Spectral Menacing
The vampire rends the shroud between life and the
Underworld around his victim, calling malicious ghosts
to haunt her.
System: The player spends one blood point and
rolls Manipulation + Occult (difficulty 8). On a botch,
the vampire permanently gains the Haunted Flaw (see
p. 427), attracting the vilest and most hateful ghosts. If
successful, the victim feels a sudden chill. The difficulty
for ghosts to affect the target with any power decreases
by one for every success rolled, to a minimum of difficulty
4. Malicious ghosts flock to the target, eagerly inflicting
every horror at their disposal. The difficulty reduction
diminishes by one every day at dawn until the victim
returns to normal and the Spectres lose interest. Multiple
applications of this power may not be stacked to increase
duration or intensity of effect. The statistics and powers
of Spectres are left to the Storyteller, but the experience
should terrify the character utterly and may well result
in Derangements at the least.


POWER AND PASSION
As ghosts are creatures of passion, they possess
a metaphysical link to the people and things
they care about. When a vampire is in the presence
of a physical object or person that has strong
meaning to a ghost (such as the gallows where
they were hanged, the home that they built with
their own hands in life, or a beloved relative), the
difficulty of any attempts to summon a ghost are
reduced by 2.