Auspex

Auspex turns the Beast’s predatory instincts loose on secrets, finding points of weakness and hidden gems that the vampire can exploit to his advantage. Auspex is an internal Discipline, revealing information to the Kindred through visions that range from the direct to the hallucinatory. Other vampires have no way to know when someone is using Auspex to discover their secrets, and for that reason many Mekhet feel the stares and whispered barbs of other vampires who worry what secrets the clan of Shadows will uncover next.

Beast’s Hackles •

La Bestia se centra en el peligro y las debilidades. Un vampiro que pide prestado los sentidos de su Bestia puede usar esa concentración para saber si alguien le va a atacar, o para encontrar a la persona más débil de la sala. La Bestia es sensible a cosas que otra gente no puede ver normalmente. Esta disciplina puede ver a través de Ofuscación.

Coste: Varía, ya que la disciplina causa cansancio. El primer uso en una escena es gratis, pero usos a partir de ese en la misma escena cuesta 1 Vitae cada uno.
Reserva de dados: Astucia + Empatía + Auspex
Acción: Instantánea

Resultados de la tirada

• Fallo Dramático: El jugador pregunta como si hubiera sacado un éxito y el Narrador puede dar una respuesta con información falsa, o presentar una versión tergiversada de la verdad.
• Fallo: Los sentidos del vampiro se nublan, la Bestia no ve ninguna debilidad inmediata.
• Éxito: El jugador puede preguntarle una pregunta al narrador. La respuesta del narrador puede incluir imagenes conjuradas por la Bestia para dar la respuesta. Este nivel de Auspex solo puede responder preguntas inmediatas sobre peligros o debilidades.
• Éxito Crítico: El jugador puede preguntar dos preguntas.

Sample Questions

• Who here is the most likely to give me what I want? Blood throbbing through the victim’s jugular vein. The sound of jingling coins from the victim’s pocket.
• Who/what here is most likely to lapse into violence? The victim’s hands stained with blood. The smell of gunpowder wafting from the victim.
• Who here is most afraid? The smell of urine from the victim’s pants. A whimpering sound from the victim.
• Who/what here is most likely to hurt me? Blood drying on a car crusher. Waves of hot rage boiling off the victim.
• Who here is closest to frenzy? The victim’s face twists into a frenzied rictus. The taste of hot bile when facing the victim.
• Is a vampire here using Auspex 5? A pall of grey smoke hanging in the air. A feeling like someone walked over the vampire’s grave.

Percepción Insólita ••

El vampiro se centra en una única víctima, pelando las distintas capas de mentiras para revelar la verdad. La bestia huele los secretos más oscuros de la víctima, cosas que no quiere que nadie más conozca. Lo que haga el vampiro con esa información depende de él.

Coste: Varía, el primer uso en una escena es gratis, pero usos subsecuentes en el mismo objetivo esta escena cuesta 1 Vitae cada uno.
Reserva de Dados: Inteligencia + Empatía + Auspex
Acción: Instantánea

Resultado de la tirada

• Fallo Crítico: El jugador pregunta como si hubiera sacado un éxito. El narrador puede dar información falsa o engañosa.
• Fallo: La bestia no destapa ningún secreto. ¿Realmente la víctima no tiene nada que esconder?
• Éxito: El jugador le puede preguntar al Narrador una pregunta por éxito. El Narrador puede incluir imágenes conjuradas por la Bestia para traer el mensaje. Este nivel de Auspex se centra en preguntas con respecto a secretos y debilidades de un solo personaje.
• Éxito crítico: Las imágenes dan al vampiro un conocimiento mayor sobre las preguntas preguntadas.

Sample Questions

• What is this person’s mood? A flash of emotion on the victim’s face. A smell that the vampire associates with the emotion — the smell of fresh blood signifying rage, the sound of grinding stone signifying isolation.
• What is this person afraid of right now? Shock as lights suddenly shine on the victim. The sound of dogs barking.
• What is this person’s Vice/Requiem? The sound of conspiratorial whispers. The smell of drugs wafting off a junkie.
• What is one of this person’s psychological vulnerabilities? A sudden feeling of incredible depression. Shifting walls and colors as if in a hallucination.
• Is this person a diablerist? The smell of brimstone and clotted blood. Thick black blood dripping off the victim’s chin.
• Is this person being controlled by someone else? Marionette strings leading from the victim’s limbs up to the ceiling. A whispered voice that tells the victim what to do as she acts.
• Is this person a supernatural creature — and if I have seen them before, what is she? The taste of torn flesh. The glowing halo of a mage’s nimbus.
• Who here does this person want to hurt most? A bloody dagger drops from the victim’s hand, pointing to the answer. The taste of bile when looking at the target of the victim’s ire.

Toque del Espíritu •••

Un vampiro puede tornar los sentidos de su Bestia hacia un objeto o lugar, descubriendo secretos y destruyendo mentiras con tanta seguridad como si se hubiera centrado en una persona. Un vampiro solo puede usar esta Disciplina en un objeto particular una vez por escena.

Coste: None
Reserva de Dados: Astucia + Ocultismo + Auspex
Acción: Instantánea

Resultados de la Tirada

Fallo Dramático: El jugador pregunta como si hubiera sacado un éxito. El narrador puede dar información falsa o engañosa.

Fallo: El objeto no oculta ningún secreto a los sentidos del Vástago, esta vez...

Éxito: El jugador puede preguntarle al Narrador una pregunta por éxito sobre el lugar u objeto. La Bestia conjura imágenes para responder en vez de solo palabras. Además de las preguntas de ejemplo, el personaje puede preguntar cosas que fueran relevantes y sean objeto de los poderes de Auspex 1 y 2.

Éxito Excepcional: El vampiro puede apreciar completamente el objeto o lugar, y gana un bono de +1 cuando usa/interactúa con él durante el resto de la escena.

Sample Questions

• Who last touched/owned this? A vision of the person holding the object. The sound of the victim’s voice, identifying herself.
• What is the strongest emotion associated with this object? A hot flash of rage. A sudden flash of serene clarity.
• What was the object being used for at the point of strongest emotion? A vision of the vampire using the object. Sounds and ghostly outlines of people walking through the room.

Lay Open the Mind ••••

The Mekhet focuses on bringing her thoughts in line with her victim. He begins to think like her, and soon hears her thoughts in his mind. By concentrating and gently changing his own thoughts, he can project ideas or memories into the victim’s mind. With a little practice, the vampire can communicate without words, or project full memories to overwhelm the victim’s senses. He can even stimulate memories by thinking of a time, place, or emotion that causes the victim to remember — even if the victim had blocked it out or had it removed by magic.

Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Socialize + Auspex vs. Resolve + Blood Potency
Action: Instant
Duration: Scene

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The vampire aligns to the victim’s thoughts, but he cannot keep his thoughts separate from hers. He suffers the Confused Condition (p. 302).

Failure: The victim’s thoughts remain outside of the vampire’s grasp.

Success: The vampire’s thoughts align with the victim’s mind, and remain connected for the rest of the scene. He hears her thoughts as though she were speaking them aloud. People don’t think in complete sentences, but the vampire can discern the victim’s precise mood and intention, and some snippets of her current motivation and considerations. He can also project
thoughts, either speaking directly into the victim’s thoughts, or depositing a mental image or memory.

By focusing, the vampire can drag up a full memory from the victim, including things that the victim has forgotten or that were suppressed by magic (though doing so takes a Clash of Wills). He experiences all of the memory in an instant, with all five senses. If he chooses to transmit that memory to the victim, he can inflict a Condition like Guilty, Inspired, or Shaken as appropriate (p. 302 and p. 305). Uncovering further memories costs 1 Vitae per memory.

Exceptional Success: The vampire can retrieve as many deep memories as he has dots in Auspex before paying Vitae to uncover more.

Twilight Projection •••••

The vampire unshackles his mind, leaving his body and projecting his senses throughout the world. His astral form exists in a twilight state, with no real physical or spiritual substance to it, but still in the world and noticeable only by other vampires with Auspex. The vampire can move at incredible speeds, traveling to any point within the moon’s orbit — an area that some Kindred call the “lunar sphere.” While his senses and consciousness travel the world the vampire’s body appears to be a normal corpse, albeit one that does not decay.

Cost: 2 Vitae
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Occult + Auspex
Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The character’s senses part from his body, but something sends his consciousness far away.

Failure: The vampire cannot slip the bounds of his dead flesh.

Success: The vampire’s senses part from his body, and can travel the world. Multiply the vampire’s Speed by his (Auspex + Blood Potency). The vampire is not bound by gravity, and can travel through physical obstacles and even into the ground. He cannot interact with the physical world in any way when separate from his body. He can see and hear as well as he can normally, but cannot use Disciplines. The vampire’s body lies in a torpor-like state, and he is unaware of anything that happens to it — though if someone kills his body or drives him to torpor, his mind jumps back to his body. Apart from that, the vampire must move his astral form back to his body to awaken. Every sunrise that the vampire remains separate from his body he loses a dot of Blood Potency — and suffers Final Death if his Blood Potency reaches 0. He regains any lost dots upon returning to his body. He must still spend a point of Vitae at the beginning of each night. Some vampires speak of strange magic that can prevent a vampire from returning to his body, or of his body walking around unbidden, with yellow eyes the only sign that something might be wrong.

Exceptional Success: The vampire’s senses slip away easily, and he is left with a memory of where his body is. He can reflexively spend a point of Vitae to instantly return to his body — or to the edge of any mystic boundary that prevents him from returning.