Crimson Dusk - Auspex

Auspex

This potent Discipline grants a character superlative sensory capabilities. At the lowest levels, it sharpens a Kindred’s mundane senses. As one progresses in mastery, entirely new avenues of insight open up before the user. Ultimately, this is the Discipline of gleaning information, whether that data comes from sights and smells, from auras and patterns of energy or directly from the mind of another creature. In addition, Auspex can be used to pierce the veil of powers that cloud, dissemble and deceive. Indeed, precious little can be kept secret from a true master of Auspex.

Once in a while, this uncanny Discipline provides extrasensory and even precognitive visitations. Such premonitions might come as quick flashes of imagery, overwhelming feelings of empathy or even as an ominous sense of foreboding. The Kindred has absolutely no control over these insights, but he can learn to interpret their significance given time and experience.

Such potent sensitivity can have its drawbacks, however. When a vampire actively uses any level of Auspex save the fifth (Twilight Projection), he runs the risk of his delicate senses being overwhelmed by excessive stimuli. Sudden or severe occurrences such as a gun report or flash bulb in the eyes can distract the character unless the player succeeds on a Resolve roll. Failure disorients the character, making him effectively unaware of his surroundings until the end of the following turn.

Heightened Senses

Cost: 5

When this power is activated, all of the vampire’s senses sharpen to a razor’s edge, effectively doubling both the range and clarity of all stimuli received. Heightened eyesight allows the vampire to perceive the most minute details of objects at great distances, while a heightened sense of smell might alert a character to the presence of trace amounts of alcohol on a mortal’s breath. Kindred with this power also have the option of magnifying a single sense, as opposed to all five, in order to better block out unwanted stimuli from other sources. Note, however, that the risk of sudden distraction remains, regardless of how many or how few senses are currently heightened. Note that vampires do not breathe. As such, the Kindred do not smell unless they actively will themselves to do so, and thus cannot be overwhelmed suddenly by smells unless they are actively smelling at the time.

Activation Cost:—

Dice Pool: This power typically involves no roll. The player simply activates the power and explains to the Storyteller what his character is doing and with which sense(s). The Storyteller responds by relating whatever information can be gleaned. The only time a roll comes into play for Heightened Senses is when the Storyteller wishes to permit the character a chance to perceive an imminent threat. In this case, the Storyteller may allow the player to add her character’s Auspex dots to a surprise roll (Wits + Composure — see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 151). This power allows a vampire to see in pitch-black darkness.

Action: Instant

Beasts Hackles

Cost: 5

The Beast focuses on danger and weakness. A vampire who borrows his Beast’s senses can use that focus to know if someone is about to attack him, or to pinpoint the weakest person in the room. The Beast is sensitive to things that other people cannot normally perceive; using this Discipline can pierce Obfuscate (see “Clash of Wills,” p.125).

Activation Cost: Varies, as the Discipline is slightly tiring; the first use in a scene is free, but subsequent uses in the same scene cost 1 Vitae each.

Dice Pool: Wits + Empathy + Auspex

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The player asks a question as though he had rolled a success; the Storyteller should either give false information, or present a warped version of the truth.

Failure: The vampire’s senses cloud; his Beast doesn’t see any immediate point of weakness.

Success: The player can ask one question of the Storyteller. The Storyteller’s answer should include the imagery conjured by the Beast to convey the answer. This level of Auspex can only answer immediate questions about danger or weakness; the sample questions below cover much of the information the Beast can provide.

Exceptional Success: The player can ask two questions.

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.

Uncanny Perception

Cost: 10

The vampire focuses on a single victim, peeling back the layers of lies and misdirection to reveal the truth underneath. The Beast sniffs out the victim’s dark secrets, things that he doesn’t want anyone else to know. What the vampire does with that information is up to him.

Activation Cost: Varies; the first use in a scene is free, but subsequent uses against the same target that scene cost 1 Vitae each.

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Auspex

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The player asks a question as though he had rolled a success; the Storyteller should give false or misleading information.

Failure: The Beast unveils no secrets. Does the victim really have nothing to hide?

Success: The player can ask the Storyteller one question per success. The Storyteller’s answer should include the imagery conjured by the Beast to convey the answer. This level of Auspex focuses on questions concerning the secrets and weaknesses of a single character.

Exceptional Success: The images give the vampire further insight into the questions asked.

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 he? 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.

Aura Perception

Cost: 10

With this mystic power, a vampire can open his perceptions to the psychic auras that surround all sentient creatures. Numerous and often-shifting hues and patterns compose these auras, and it can take many years before a vampire becomes truly proficient at reading them correctly with any degree of regularity. Although the strongest emotions predominate, almost every individual has more than one color to his aura at any given time, and an observer can see any number of streaks or flashes of these other colors. “Psychic colors” change with the subject’s mental or emotional state, creating an ever-moving pattern that is as unique to each person as a fingerprint. As a rule, the more powerful the emotions, the more intense the colors, but even this guideline is betrayed by any number of mitigating factors, depending on circumstance. All the same, practice makes perfect; a true master aura-perceiver learns to understand the significance of each whorl and eddy.

Due to the peculiar nature of such creatures’ auras, this power can be used as a means of detecting other supernatural entities. Vampire auras, for example, tend to be extremely pale, regardless of the colors. Werewolf auras are quite the contrary, nearly frantic in their intensity. Mage auras sparkle with power. Ghostly auras flicker like guttering candles.

Activation Cost:—

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Auspex – subject’s Composure

Action: Instant. Note that though this is an instant action, it takes more than just a fleeting glance to see the detail in an aura. A character must scrutinize her subject’s aura for two full turns to glean information from it, though only the single, immediate roll is necessary to determine if she can read it successfully.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The character gleans utterly misleading and wholly inaccurate information.

Failure: The character can distinguish no information at all.

Success: The character perceives a number of colors in the subject’s aura equal to the number of successes obtained on the roll.

Exceptional Success: As per a normal success, with one additional color or degree of emotional intensity discernible to the character.

Note that a failure indicates that no useful information is perceived, while a dramatic failure indicates a false or misleading reading. The Storyteller may therefore wish to make the roll for the player, to keep the true results secret.

An Auspex user who observes someone in the act of lying may recognize that the subject speaks falsely. Intelligence + Empathy + Auspex is rolled versus the subject’s Composure in a contested action. The Auspex user recognizes the lie if the most successes are rolled for him.

Applied toward reading the mood of potential combatants, this power also grants its user a bonus to Initiative equal to the number of successes rolled in activating the effect. Doing so requires that the vampire speaks to or is in the proximity of intended combatants for at least one turn before a fight breaks out. That period of interaction allows the reading vampire to recognize that events are about to turn violent, so he can react with advanced knowledge.

AURA SIGNIFIERS

Condition	Color
Afraid	Orange
Aggressive	Purple
Angry	Bright Red
Bitter	Brown
Calm	Light Blue
Compassionate	Pink
Conservative	Lavender
Depressed	Gray
Desirous/Lustful	Deep Red
Distrustful	Light Green
Envious	Dark Green
Excited	Violet
Generous	Rose
Happy	Vermilion
Hateful	Black
Idealistic	Yellow
Innocent	White
Lovestruck	Bright Blue
Obsessed	Bright Green
Sad	Silver
Spiritual	Gold
Suspicious	Dark Blue
Confused	Mottled, shifting colors
Daydreaming	Sharp, flickering colors
Diablerist	Black veins in aura
Dominated/Controlled	Weak, muted aura
Frenzied	Rapidly rippling colors
Psychotic	Hypnotic, swirling colors
Vampire	Aura colors are pale
Shapeshifter	Intensely vibrant aura
Ghost	Splotchy, intermittent aura
Magic Use	Myriad sparkles in aura

Suggested Modifiers

The number of dice added to or removed from the dice pool is determined by the amount of information the character wishes to discern.

Modifier	Situation
+2	Power is turned on a vampire with whom the user has a blood tie (see p. 162)
0	The shade (such as pale, bright or weak), but not the color of the aura.
-1	The primary shade and color.
-2	Color patterns, including information revealing the nature of the creature.
-3	Subtle shifts in the mixtures of color and pattern.

Thus, if a reader wants to study the subtle shifts in the mixtures of color and pattern in a subject’s aura, the player suffers a -3 penalty. Each success rolled thereafter offers one piece of information in that regard. Two successes might indicate that a ghoul swings from love to hate toward his mistress (bright blue to black), and is envious of a fellow ghoul (dark green).

The Spirits Touch

Cost: 15

The Kindred’s powers of perception have progressed to the point that he can pick up psychic impressions from objects simply by handling them for a moment or two. Such impressions can tell the vampire who last held the object, when it was last held and even what was done with it in the past.

These psychic impressions typically come in the form of quick and cryptic images, and as with other Auspex powers, learning how to decipher the information gleaned can be a task all its own. Most impressions (and therefore, most visuals stemming from them) pertain to the last person who handled the object in question, but two circumstances usually preclude such a reading. First, a long-time owner or handler of the object leaves stronger impressions than someone who handled it briefly, if more recently. Second, experiences associated with great emotion — be it hate, passion or fear — often linger in the form of intense psychic impressions on objects. It is these impressions that likely come to the fore over anything more recent or, in all likelihood, far less emotionally significant.

All that is required in order to glean information from an object by using this power is that the vampire turn the item over in his hands (or otherwise handle it) for a few moments, during which he enters a shallow trance. This trance is the gateway through which psychic snapshots arrive, and anything that prematurely disrupts the trance likely prevents any useful information from being received.

Activation Cost:—

Dice Pool: Wits + Occult + Auspex

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: A dramatic failure indicates the psychic equivalent of a “mixed message” or a very believable but entirely false impression.

Failure: Failure indicates that no impressions come through.

Success: Success yields a sense of the previous handler or owner’s identity, as well as a reliable vision or sense of the memory in question.

Exceptional Success: An exceptional success provides a comprehensive or extended chronological understanding of the event and its participants, such as an entire slideshow of images pertaining to the object and its past.

This power can also be used to glimpse the past of another. The subject must be touched, which could require a roll if the subject is resistant (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 157). A contested roll of Wits + Occult + Auspex versus the subject’s Resolve + Blood Potency is made. The subject’s roll is reflexive, and he does not know that past events in his existence are perceived. If the reader gets the most successes, a vision is received of the subject’s past, all from the subject’s perspective. With no timeframe or criteria for the event witness, the last dramatic, tense or passionate act performed or experienced by the subject is glimpsed. If a specific timeframe or event is focused on, the Auspex user’s roll suffers a -1 penalty for each night that has passed since the event. Therefore, witnessing a feeding that the subject performed three nights before imposes a -3 penalty to the contested roll made for the reading vampire.

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: Events witnessed from the subject’s eyes are misinterpreted. He seems to have been attacked rather than to have initiated an attack, for example.

Failure: The contested roll is lost or tied. No impressions come through.

Success: The most successes are rolled for the reading character. A distorted and blurred glimpse of the event or situation in question passes through his mind. He is left with an intuitive, general understanding of what transpired.

Exceptional Success: The reading character wins the contested roll with five or more successes. An instantaneous glimpse of the event or situation in question passes through his mind. He implicitly understands every aspect of what happened, essentially as if he were there in the subject’s stead. The reader doesn’t acquire any new traits or capabilities — say, if the subject committed diablerie. The reader simply knows what transpired.

Suggested Modifiers

Modifier	Situation
+2	Power is turned on a vampire with whom the user has a blood tie (see p. 162)
+1	The character has drawn a psychic impression from the object or person before.
0	Recent and intense (a murder weapon used four hours ago, or a murder was committed).
-1	Recent but mild, or old and intense (a dusty family heirloom in a chest).
-2	Emotionally shallow or long forgotten (a leisure suit found at a secondhand clothing store).
-3	Disconnected or spiritually muted (a set of keys found several weeks ago).
-3	Object or person read amid a fight or other stressful circumstance.

Telepathy

Cost: 20

At this level of advancement of one’s extrasensory perceptions, a vampire may project his consciousness into a nearby individual’s mind. Doing so creates a mental link whereby the Kindred can communicate silently or even scan the surface of the target’s subconscious. The user senses any thought picked up as a voice inside his own mind, and the data can hardly be considered unobtrusive. Nevertheless, this power has the potential to be one of the most potent of the abilities in any vampire’s mystical arsenal. With enough practice, a vampiric telepath can uncover nearly any secret from any sentient being around him.

Telepathy is most effective on the mortal mind. When used on ordinary people, the character can maintain a link as long as he keeps concentrating, and as long as the mortal target does not leave his line of sight for more than moment or two. Trying to breach the supernatural mind, however, is a more difficult prospect. A given link is good only for the moment and must be reestablished each time the character wishes to send or dig for thoughts.

Activation Cost: None for a mortal; 1 Willpower for a supernatural subject unless the supernatural subject is willing.

Dice Pool: Intelligence + Socialize + Auspex – subject’s Resolve

Action: Instant

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: Dramatic failure on a Telepathy attempt can be disastrous, as the user instantly adopts any derangements present in the target for the rest of the night.

Failure: Failure results in no link being established, and the character cannot try again for the remainder of the scene.

Success: Success allows a character to read from or add a thought to the subject’s mind. See the suggested modifiers list that follows for specific applications of the Telepathy power.

Exceptional Success: Exceptional success at Telepathy allows the character to gain an additional piece of information (or an additional aspect to the original insight). Note that the player of any subject who is aware that he is being probed or “ridden” may spend a Willpower point to eject the telepath. Each time the telepath sends a message, the subject instantly becomes aware that the thought didn’t originate from his own mind. Each time the telepath digs out a piece of data, Intelligence + Composure is rolled for the subject to detect the intruder.

Suggested	Modifiers
Modifier	Situation
+2	Power is turned on a vampire with whom the user has a blood tie (see p. 162)
0	Attempting to project a single thought/message into the subject’s mind.
-1	Trying to probe the subject’s surface thoughts for whatever idea is there at the time.
-1	Each derangement the subject possesses.
-2	Digging for one piece of data about which the subject isn’t currently thinking.
-3	Searching for a specific memory or event buried deep in the subconscious.

Lay Open the Mind

Cost: 20

The kindred focuses on bringing his thoughts in line with his victim. He begins to think like him, and soon hears his 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.

Activation 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 the target. 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 the thoughts as though he 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 his 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

Cost: 25

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.

Activation 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.