detournement
The hungry corpses who have inhabited the Moulding Room these last thirty years have dedicated themselves to surveillance and subversion in equal measure, and that subversion extends to the flesh, both their own and others’.
• the contaGion PrinciPle
The vampire can disconnect a shred of her fingernail which, on contact with living or undead flesh, burrows just under the skin. The owner feels a sympathy with it, and knows how far away and in what direction it lies, for as long as the effect lasts. A vampire with this power activated will never be able to lose track of the person implanted.
Cost: One Willpower
Dice Pool: Wits + Stealth + Detournement, opposed
by the target’s Wits + Blood Potency. The character must first touch the target (as per The World of Darkness
Rulebook, p. 157) to use this power.
Action: Reflexive and Contested; resistance is reflexive.
A handshake or a brief brush is all a character needs to use this power. Unless the character rolls a dramatic failure, the target does not know that anything has come to pass.
A character can only use this power on one individual at a time.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The target knows exactly what has
happened, and feels a great deal of discomfort. The shred of fingernail itches like hell, but it can easily be removed from the target’s skin with a pair of tweezers, like a splin- ter. The vampire gains no information.
Failure: The character fails to implant the splinter of
fingernail.
Success: The target feels nothing, and the character
now knows how far away and roughly where the target is. If the character is within a hundred yards of the victim, she knows the victim’s location exactly . This power has a variable duration, depending on how many successes the character rolled.
Successes Duration
1 success One night
2 successes Three nights
3 successes One week
4 successes Two weeks
5+ successes One month
Exceptional Success: Apart from the enhanced dura-
tion, the character gains no extra benefits from rolling five or more successes.
Cost: Two Vitae
Dice Pool: No roll necessary: this power activates au-
tomatically.
Action: Reflexive
The armor created by this power lasts for the rest of the scene. It grants 2/1 points of armor to the character, but reduces the character’s Defense and Speed by 1 point each, since the shell is melded directly with the skin and slows down movement.
•••• fleshdart
The Norvegus grows a vicious-looking spike of blood, bone and stale, solidified fat in the palm of his hand, which he can eject with lethal force.
Cost: One Vitae per dart.
Dice Pool: thrown attack (the dice pool is Dexterity +
Athletics – target’s Defense as per normal)
Action: Instant
The dart counts as a normal thrown attack (see The
World of Darkness Rulebook p. 67). The dart has a dam-
age bonus of 1 and causes aggravated damage. Its short range is equal to the character’s Strength + Dexterity + Athletics, medium range is twice that and long range is four times short range.
••••• eruPtinG Quills
The Norvega’s entire body explodes into an array of blades and spikes, some of which leave her body altogether, like a porcupine’s quills. The power shreds her clothes but impales anyone and everyone around her within a range of about five feet.
Cost: Three Vitae
Dice Pool: Strength + Brawl + Bloodworking Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The blades erupt inwards, causing
three Health points of aggravated damage to the char- acter.
Failure: The points of Vitae are spent, but apart from
a rippling under the skin, nothing happens.
Success: The character takes two points of aggravated
damage from the eruption of his flesh. Everyone within a five feet radius of the Norvegus takes points of lethal damage for every success the player rolled. The explosion of blades is so fast, it gives no chance of using Defense, although armor protects against the assault as if it were a close combat attack.
Exceptional Success: The character causes an excep-
appendix • your psychic power of concealment: rules for shadows
102
•• the Pleasure
of
the text
The vampires of the Moulding Room have a terrifying ability to consume information. A vampire with this power seeps his blood over a book, CD, DVD or video tape. Then, he takes the blood back into himself, leaving the media blood-smeared and completely devoid of any of the recorded material on that medium. In this fashion, the vampire literally ingests the knowledge formerly stored on that item.
Cost: One Vitae to activate the power, though this point
is regained when the blood is re-consumed.
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Stamina + Detournement Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character’s blood rejects the
media. Upon consuming the blood once more, the vam- pire takes a point of aggravated damage. Additionally, the vampire does not regain the point of Vitae used to activate the power.
Failure: The character’s blood simply fails to imprint
the information, and the vampire does not regain the point of Vitae used to activate the power.
Success: The character instantly knows the information
on the media she anointed with her blood, as if she had read it, watched it or listened to it. The object is destroyed by the blood.
Exceptional Success: The character assimilates the
information on the media item targeted by this power. Additionally, this process does not destroy the media item — the blood simply wicks away cleanly when the vampire re-consumes it.
••• the eYe behind
the Glass
The Residents of the Moulding Room are masters of surveillance, and part of this has to do with their fe- tishization of the camera, the Eye Behind the Glass. The Residents have turned the fetish into a fact. A resident with this power can literally remove her eye and install it with wiring, Vitae and spittle behind a camera lens or a mirror, meaning that she can always perceive that area as though she were looking out of the lens or mirror herself, wherever she is.
Cost: One Vitae. Also, the power inflicts one level of
lethal damage on the character as she gouges out her own eye.
Dice Pool: Wits + Stamina + Detournement Action: Instant
Anyone who finds the eye can destroy it automatically, causing the vampire intense pain and another level of lethal damage.