DAIMOINON

These are the mysteries of the Baali, black arts torn
whole and beating from the sorcerer-kings of ancient
cultures and prehistoric civilizations, incoherent
memories passed from tome to tongue, hearkening to
times of oblivion. They are sibilant secrets in which all
begins to end and begin again. With every new night
and novice brought into the circle, the telling grows
shorter.

• Sense the Sin
A real mark always convinces himself. The most
dangerous Baali aren’t the ones that use extortion,
threats, or over displays of power; the most dangerous
Demons simply know how to talk their victims into
cutting their own throats. This power allows the Baali
to find a target’s particular vice.
System: The player rolls Perception + Empathy
against living or undead beings; the difficulty is equal
to the subject’s Self-Control or Instincts +4. If successful,
the Baali can sense the subject’s greatest weakness.
The significance of this information is dictated by the
degree of success: One success might determine a low
Virtue, weak Willpower, or a poorly defended avenue
of approach, while two might yield a closely guarded
secret or conversational misstep. Three or more yields
a central derangement or formative trauma from the
subject’s past.

•• Fear of the Void Below
Once the Baali has mastered reading a subject’s darkest
secrets, he can reach into the victim’s mind and
twist what he finds there. The shock of feeling one’s
most deeply held beliefs and darkest fears manipulated
can send the victim into catatonia or fits of panic.
System: The Baali must first employ Sense the Sin
(above) or use some other method to discern the tragic
flaw of the target. She must then speak to the target,
playing upon his inadequacies and the inescapable
consequences of his shortcomings. A successful Wits
+ Intimidation roll (difficulty of the subject’s Courage
+4) drives the victim into fits of terror (one success),
mindless panic-borne flight similar to Rötschreck (two
successes), or even unconsciousness (three or more
successes). All effects last for the remainder of the
scene. Kindred targets may resist with a Courage roll
(difficulty equal to the Baali’s Willpower) — they are
accustomed to dealing with their Beasts. If the Kindred
target garners more successes than the Baali did on her
original roll, he resists the power completely.

••• Conflagration
Not all of the Baali’s powers are designed for manipulation
and subtlety. The Demons can also call up the
fire from the realms of their infernal patrons, hurling it
at their enemies in exultation of the Outer Dark. This
fire spreads and burns normally, but at the moment of
creation it is black and cold, as though drawn from a
place where terrestrial physics do not apply.
System: The player spends a blood point. This creates
a bolt of black flame that inflicts one die of aggravated
damage; more blood points may be spent to increase
the size and damage of the flame. Such fires are fleeting
and dissipate at the end of the turn, unless the Baali
continues to spend blood points on Conflagration over
several turns, gradually creating a larger flame. The
player also rolls Dexterity + Occult (difficulty 6) to hit
his target, who may dodge as normal. Vampires confronted
with this black fire make Rötschreck tests as if
confronted with a similar quantity of normal flame.

•••• Psychomachia
With this power, the Baali combines his ability to
read the psyche of a victim with the ability to summon
up matter from the Outer Dark. Psychomachia pits a
victim against the most dangerous, shameful parts of
her own subconscious.
System: The vampire, after learning the targets tragic
flaw (such as after using Sense the Sin, above), forces
the subject’s player to roll her lowest Virtue (difficulty
6). Failing this roll pits the target against an apparition
summoned from her darker self, perceptible to the subject
only. The target may see or feel his abusive father,
a long-dead lover, a childhood bogeyman, or (for Kindred
victims) even the Beast itself. A botch indicates
the target has been overwhelmed and frenzies — or,
worse, becomes possessed by his inner demons.
This imaginary antagonist may be wholly narrated,
or assigned Traits equivalent or slightly inferior to the
victim’s, at the Storyteller’s option. All injuries sustained
by the target in such an encounter are illusory
(substitute catatonia or torpor for death as appropriate)
and vanish upon the phantasm’s defeat or the Baali’s
loss of concentration.

••••• Condemnation
The Baali levies a curse upon the victim. The more
skillful in her dark studies the Baali has become, the
more dire the curse is likely to be. Legend states that
some Baali can wield curses so foul that the victims attempt
suicide after a single night — only to find that
they can no longer die.
System: An Intelligence + Occult roll (difficulty
equal to the subject’s Willpower) dictates the length
and severity of the curse. Successes must be split between
both these effects, as per the sidebar below.
The player must split successes between effect and
duration – curses with zero successes allotted to duration
last for one night. For example, if the Baali’s player
rolls four successes, she can inflict a two-success curse
for one month, a three-success curse for up to week,
or a four-success curse for one night. At any time, the
Baali may choose to end the curse. Storytellers should
feel free to invent creative or story-appropriate curses.

Successes - Duration - Example
1 success - Up to one week - “No voice shall be lent your lying tongue.” — All Subterfuge rolls
suffer a +3 difficulty.
2 successes - One month - “Sicken and wither, infidel… a babe’s weakness upon you.” —
All Strength rolls suffer a +2 difficulty, or vampire cannot use blood
to boost Strength.
3 successes - One year - “Reap this bitter harvest — may your closest friends turn foe.” —
The character’s friends do not trust him. This can have any number
of mechanical effects (higher difficulty on Social rolls, friends might
be more prone to frenzy around the character) at the Storyteller’s
discretion.
4 successes - Ten years - “Barren be thy seed and the loins of all your line.” — The character
becomes sterile or barren, or (if Kindred) cannot Embrace childer or
create ghouls.
5 successes - Permanent - “The mark of doom — all you touch must fail.” — Simple failures
are considered botches while the curse is in effect.

••••• • Concordance
The Baali makes a Devil’s bargain and takes the
unholy nature of his masters into his own being. This
warps his body both to his detriment and benefit. A
truly dedicated Demon might make numerous such
pacts, growing more grotesque and more powerful each
time.
System: The most typical manifestation of this
power incorporates immunity to the damaging effects
of fire, though other equivalently-powered assets may
be available at the Storyteller’s option. Most of these
tributes take the form of left-handed “gifts” with unforeseen
consequences (a telltale bronze tint to flameresistant
flesh, a vestigial set of wings, visible talons or
horns that cannot be concealed, etc.). This Discipline
may be purchased more than once at greater cost to
body and soul. (The current shaitan is said to have been
so gnarled and twisted by the Masters as to be no longer
even remotely mistakable for human.)
Note that three of the banes particular to the Baali
— piety, vulnerability to sunlight, and dependency on
blood for sustenance — may not be overcome by this
Discipline under any circumstances. In the end, it is
up to the Storyteller’s discretion what the Baali can or
cannot withstand.

••••• •• Summon the Herald of Topheth
Using the same skill that allows for calling up demon-
fire, the Baali can call a minion of his masters to
Earth. Although the names assigned them differ (angel,
demon, daeva, djinn, efreet, malakim, shedim, and
countless others), the end results are the same. This
being is under the Baali’s control, at least for a short
time after being summoned. Yet scholars who have
studied the blasphemous rite by which this Discipline
is enacted note that no provision is made for banishing
the Herald.
System: To summon a Herald of Topheth, the Demon
must spend at least three blood points and perform
an infernal ceremony. Heralds of Topheth have
the following stats: Attributes 10/7/3, Abilities (15
points worth), Willpower 8, Disciplines (10 points
worth), Fortitude of at least 3, and the capacity to heal
one health level at least every other round. Storytellers
should feel free to alter these guidelines based on
the power level of the troupe and the form the Herald
takes. Though most celestial beings chafe at the notion
of wearing a single shape, many adopt those common
to myth and legend; preternatural succubi or angels,
reptilian horrors, and bat-winged monsters are among
the most often seen.

••••• ••• Contagion
The most damaging disease is human sin. Pandora
learned it to her detriment, as did the ungrateful and
impolite denizens of Sodom. The Baali, of course, revel
in the slow decay of human settlements, and Methuselahs
of the bloodline learn to infect a mortal community
with jealousy, slander, hate, and bigotry. Crime
and violence soar, petty angers give rise to seething
hatreds, and local economies take a downward spiral.
Marriages end over trivial quarrels and the world becomes
a nastier place in general. In the history of the
Baali, entire towns and villages have been temporarily
enslaved to an infernal master’s will.
System: Successes garnered on an Intelligence + Occult
roll (difficulty 9) must be divided between the intensity
and the area of the desired effect – at least two
successes are needed to cover both area and effect. Sufficiently
high degrees of Auspex or powers that detect
demons may be able to pick up on this vague, malevolent
aura; otherwise they will simply assume that times
have taken a dire change for the worse.
Successes - Area Effect
1 success - Immediate Ill-tempered/out-ofvicinity
sorts behavior
2 successes - An office Civil/domestic
complex unrest, prejudice
3 successes - A city block Angry (even riotous)
dissent
4 successes - A stadium or Bar-brawls,hate
apartment crimes, blood in the
complex streets
5+ successes - An entire city A throng of blood
thirsty single-minded Philistines

••••• •••• Call the Great Beast
This Discipline is largely theoretical. Baali have, in
the past, boasted that their most powerful elders know
a ritual that can tear a rift to the Outer Dark and allow
the creatures that dwell there into our world. Occasionally,
a vampire destroys a Baali and sees the beginnings
of such a ritual carved on a wall or tattooed onto
a minion’s flesh. But even among the Kindred who
know of the Baali and what they are capable of, the
ability to Call the Great Beast doesn’t meet with much
credence. This isn’t because the Kindred don’t think
it’s possible, but because they realize that if a Demon
ever succeeded in using it, there wouldn’t be much to
be done anyway.
System: The preparatory ritual requires a tremendous
investment of time and sacrifice; veiled allusions
such as “fivescore souls, plucked clean and whole” and
“when three times sets the hooded sun” indicate a selective
sacrificial rite spanning days, nights, and dozens
of victims. (Deviation or imperfection in this litany
may well have unforeseen consequences, ranging from
simple failure to unwelcome demonic attention)
At this point, the high priest expends all of his permanent
Willpower and releases his consciousness in a
desperate attempt to breach the gulf Beyond, becoming
an empty vessel for whatever will most effectively
end the world as your chronicle knows it. You’re the
Storyteller — what would the Devil do to your world?
(Call the Great Beast has two main functions in the
chronicle. It’s either a plot device that the characters
must work to prevent, or a means to change the world
of Vampire into a demon-infested apocalypse. Either is
useful, but it’s not the sort of power that a vampire just
pulls out casually.)