Animalism

You can communicate with animals by murmuring to them in growls and using body language. To ask questions of an animal, consult your Storyteller. The Storyteller should respond from the point of view of a local animal that has been drawn by your howls, chirps, or other inquiring noises. A character who wishes to establish communication must be both visible and audible to the creature. You may speak to a specific animal, or you may use Feral Whispers to interrogate all local wildlife within hearing. If there are no animals nearby, your queries may go unanswered. Further, if the Storyteller believes you are asking about something animals would not notice (or might not understand), your character may receive a confused or incomplete answer. Asking, "Have any two-legged creatures (human or vampire) passed through here tonight?" will likely receive a reasonable answer. The local chipmunks, stray dogs, or birds could tell you that a pack of six men walked by, and that they were here very recently. However, such animals would be unable to tell one human from another, nor identify the kind of equipment they were carrying.

Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to summon up to five small animals, three medium animals, or one large animal. You determine the type (and size) of the animals. Normally, these animals will arrive over the course of the next 10 minutes. However, if you choose to summon animals that are particularly common in your area, it may take less time. Summoning especially rare animals may take longer (at the Storyteller's discretion). Attempting to summon creatures that do not exist within the locale (such as calling a polar bear in the Egyptian desert) will have no result. Summoned animals are not granted any unusual power to answer your call and must be able to travel to your location. A coyote cannot open a locked door, but will arrive in the parking lot, while a crow could more easily fulfill a rooftop summons. This power confers no special abilities, intelligence, or courage to the animals summoned. Summoned animals consider you an alpha of their breed. If you use Feral Whispers to communicate, Beckoned animals will attempt to obey your requests. They will work for you until dawn or until they take damage equal to their NPC rating. Multiple uses of this power do not allow you to summon additional packs of creatures while still controlling the first. However, if your original group of Beckoned creatures is disbanded (by taking damage, fleeing, or dismissal), you can utilize this power again to summon a second pack. Further, Beckoning cannot be used to control animals that are currently under the effect of another practitioner's use of the Animalism discipline (though you may use Feral Whispers to speak with such animals). Animals summoned with Beckoning are created using the Retainer rules, with the following additional guidelines: Small Animals: Use the rules for 1-point Retainers. Small animals may possess one unusual movement ability. This movement ability allows them to climb, swim, fly, or burrow at their normal movement rate. Small animals include small dogs, cats, and squirrels, as well as most birds, fish, or moles. Medium Animals: Use the rules for 3-point Retainers. This category includes larger dogs, brown bears, coyotes, and bobcats. Large Animals: Use the rules for a 5-point Retainer. The summoner might Beckon a horse, a stag, or a grizzly bear. Before going to sleep or entering torpor, you can spend 1 Blood to activate this power. If used in this way, the animals summoned by this power will guard your resting place until they are killed or you wake.

The target of this power must be a vampire or other supernatural creature capable of frenzy. When you are the focus of another character's attention (as per Gaze and Focus), you can spend 1 Blood, expend a standard action, and make an opposed challenge using the Animalism test pool. If the target was in frenzy when this power was successfully used, she immediately falls out of frenzy. If the target of your Quell the Beast was not in frenzy, she becomes incapable of entering frenzy for the next hour. Further, her Willpower is sapped, and she must spend 2 Willpower (instead of 1) to retest challenges for the remainder of this turn and for the next full turn. A vampire's Beast is a critical part of her predatory nature. When it is somnambulant, the vampire is slower to react. If an individual has a Beast trait (or gains a Beast trait) while under the effect of Quell the Beast, she struggles to use Willpower for a longer period of time. For the next five minutes, she must continue to spend 2 Willpower instead of 1 to retest challenges. Characters with merits or powers that allow them to make retests without spending Willpower can use those merits normally while under the effect of Quell the Beast and do not spend an additional point of Willpower to use those retests. Quell the Beast cannot be used on yourself.

To use Subsume the Spirit, you must spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to stare into the eyes of an animal; this power will not function on blind subjects or subjects who cannot see your eyes. Make an opposed challenge against the animal you intend to control. If successful, your consciousness is transferred into the target's body, and its mind is rendered into a fugue-like state. Because your character's mind is focused entirely on controlling the body she has inhabited, the vampire has no sense of anything occurring to her native physical form. The character's original body falls into a torpid state and can neither defend itself nor act on its own. Your body does retain your Fortitude or other powers that are always active while your consciousness is absent. While Subsuming the Spirit, you always know the direction and distance of your real body, although you cannot perceive its surroundings. Normal and ghouled animals can be targeted with Subsume the Spirit. Supernatural creatures (such as vampires transformed into an animal or werewolves) cannot be targeted by Subsume the Spirit. Normal animals have no disciplines and cannot spend Blood. However, if your character is controlling a ghouled animal, the ghoul holds up to 5 points of vampiric Blood (as per a standard ghoul). The controlling vampire may spend this Blood pool at a rate of 1 Blood per turn, regardless of the character's generation. You cannot spend this Blood to affect your character's native form in any manner. A character cannot use any of her own disciplines while using Subsume the Spirit. You can spend the ghoul's Blood to fuel the ghoul's Physical powers: Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence. While using Subsume the Spirit, a character uses her own Mental attributes and focuses, Social attributes and focuses, Skills, and Backgrounds in challenges. However, you utilize the Physical attribute of the animal for any Physical challenges. This attribute is equal to double that animal's NPC rating. If the animal you are controlling has the power to fly or is adapted to aquatic life (like a fish), you gain its ability to fly or swim at normal speeds. Subsume the Spirit lasts until the next sunrise, or until you spend a simple action for your character to leave the animal and awaken. Subsume the Spirit ends immediately if the character travels more than 10 miles away from her native body, if the character's native body takes damage, or if the animal she's controlling takes damage. Animals do not take damage from sunlight even when controlled by a vampire. However, a vampire with Beast traits still risks frenzy.

Spend 1 Blood and expend a simple action to immediately cause your character to fall out of frenzy. Alternately, you may spend 1 Blood and expend a simple action to instantly launch your character into a rage frenzy.

Anyone who tastes your vitae can sense the barely-contained fury of your Beast. Biting you or drinking 1 or more points of your Blood causes an individual to enter fear frenzy and flee in terror. This power does not require a challenge; the frenzy is automatic and cannot be resisted with Willpower. Crimson Fury will affect any character who bites you or drinks your blood, even individuals who are normally immune to frenzy, such as mortals, ghouls, or vampires currently affected by Quell the Beast. Anyone who becomes blood bound to you after you purchase this power becomes immune to this effect and carries the mark of your Beast in her blood. Anyone who tastes the blood of someone who is bound to you, by biting or drinking from her, suffers from the effects of Crimson Fury as well, although she fears the individual's mystical protector (you, though she cannot know who you are) instead of fearing your thrall. If another character manages to diablerize you, your Beast lives on, tearing at her soul. The diablerist dies within three nights, as your Beast slowly and painfully tears her apart from the inside out. This effect is not passed on to characters who are blood bound to you.

You can only target vampires, or other supernatural creatures capable of frenzy, with this power. When you are the focus of another character's attention (as per Gaze and Focus), you can spend 2 Blood, expend your standard action, and make an opposed challenge against your victim using the Animalism test pool. If you succeed, your Beast supernaturally assaults your target's Beast, sending it into a panic. Any time this victim confronts you, her Beast claws at her psyche, trying to force her to back down from what it perceives as a more potent predator. The victim must immediately look away from you or she will take 2 points of normal damage, which cannot be reduced or negated. For the next 10 minutes, each time your victim looks at you, attempts to speak with you, confronts you, or attacks you in any way, she takes 2 points of normal damage that cannot be reduced or negated, as her Beast erupts in horror. The victim of Intimidate the Beast can avoid taking damage by looking down or away from you and avoiding any kind of confrontation. A victim of this power instinctively knows what actions will cause her to take damage. Intimidate the Beast cannot damage a character more than once per turn, and it has no effect on creatures that do not have a Beast.

Spend 1 point of Blood and a simple action to allow a number of vampire allies to benefit from Drawing Out the Beast, if they choose. The selected allies receive the power's benefits as though they had just activated Drawing Out the Beast without paying its costs and gain the benefit from your Attribute focus for this power, if applicable. If an ally targeted by Master of the Hunt already possesses the power Drawing Out the Beast, they do not suffer the standard -2 penalties to Physical defense pools while in frenzy; however, you still suffer the -2 penalty to Physical defense pools while in frenzy unless another vampire has used Master of the Hunt on you. In addition, you may use this power on Stock NPCs of level 3 or lower, which automatically succeeds. If you do, they immediately enter frenzy even if they otherwise cannot. So long as the Stock NPCs are physical and aggressive in nature, they will obey your orders in combat such as orders to follow you, to attack a specific target, or to hold their action. These orders must be simple and basic. More complex orders, such as disarm the security system, cannot be given as your subjects are in the thrall of frenzy. In addition, a Stock NPC's blood bond to another or supernatural compulsion caused by another through powers such as Dominate or Majesty cannot be overcome by your orders. You may only affect a number of vampires and Stock NPCs equal to your dots in the Animal Ken skill. This power lasts for up to 1 hour; however, targets must remain within eyesight of you for this power to remain active. Any time before the hour expires you may end the benefits of Master of the Hunt and your vampire allies may end the effects upon themselves if so desired.

When you attempt to use Quell the Beast, you may choose to spend 1 additional Blood point to activate Quell the Herd and affect multiple targets. Choose a number of vampires or supernatural creatures capable of frenzy within your line of sight up to the number of dots you have in Animal Ken. You must have their Gaze and Focus. When targeting multiple vampires or creatures, you must make a separate opposed challenge against each of the defenders. Should you spend Willpower to retest one of these opposed challenges, you also gain the ability to retest all the remaining opposed challenges without spending further Willpower.

Spend 3 points of Blood and your simple action to activate Embrace the Beast and immediately enter a rage frenzy. While embracing your Beast you maintain enough control over yourself to determine friend from foe. In addition to the benefits of Drawing out the Beast, you are immune to hostile Mental and Social powers that do not cause physical damage; however, you cannot initiate Mental or Social powers while in this berserk state. If a Mental or Social power causes an effect that includes damage, such as a Soul Steal attempt in conjunction with the Appearance focus, you are susceptible to it. This power remains active until either all threats are incapacitated, all threats escape, or you choose to deactivate it. If you deactivate the power prior to incapacitating at least a single threat with your own hands, you immediately take 3 points of aggravated damage that may not be reduced or negated. A threat declaring her surrender or ceasing hostilities without a show of submission is not sufficient; you must either incapacitate her or end this power yourself unless she meaningfully submits.

Once learned, this power is always active. Whenever someone attempts a Willpower retest against you, she must spend 1 additional Willpower for the retest. If she cannot or is unwilling to spend the extra Willpower, she may not retest, though she does not lose any Willpower. This penalty is cumulative with any other penalties that cause your target to spend additional Willpower, such as Quell the Beast. If your target has a power, merit, or effect that allows her a Willpower retest without spending a point of Willpower, the effects of Supreme Resolve do not affect her. In addition, whenever you are in a state of frenzy, once per everyman round and once per Celerity round you do not have to spend Willpower to retest, provided you are able to do so. This power does not grant an exception to the rule restricting Willpower retests to one per challenge.