Chimerstry

Disciplines / Discipline Techniques

Beauty bestowed upon your face

False as the words you speak and taste

Blind to see, but seen by the blind

Covered over and sweetened

Still just as bitter

Looks are deceiving

Personality is now unhidden.

- "Deception", published anonymously on hellopoetry.com

Introduction to Chimerstry

The Ravnos clan is the only one with a facility for Chimerstry and it is from them that all tales of its origins come. Most believe that it originated with the clan's founder, a wanderer who delighted in capriciously torturing mortals by twisting their perceptions of reality. Some stories say that the Ravnos clan founder learned this ability from drinking the blood of the Fair Folk - a tradition a few European Ravnos maintain to this day. Other suggest that in torpor, he reached his mind out to touch a corner of Hell, and he brought back the Devil's flair for blending truth and fiction.

Chimerstry allows its user to create realistic illusions with which to flatter to torment others. Chimerstry is an elusive Discipline. It works best when its victims do not know that its possessors are using it. Therefore, those who are proficient with Chimerstry rarely confess to it. Those Cainites, however, who are familiar with the lore of other clans know that it is likely to be found in the blood of the Ravnos, which gives the high-blooded one more reason to mistrust Ravnos and deny them entry into their cities. It's undoubtedly responsible for their sobriquet of "Charlatans."

Chimerstry is one of the most versatile Disciplines available to the Children of Caine. With appropriate levels of it, an additional staging where necessary, nearly anyone can be made to believe almost anything, and it isn't necessary to resort to blunt-instrument Disciplines like Dementation or Dominate to make it so. The Discipline is useful for anything from feeding to ousting the prince of a desirable city.

Chimerstry has its downside. Most of the Discipline's abilities require the expenditure of Willpower, representing the fraction of the character's self that must go into creating the illusion. At the moment of creation, the illusion is very real to the Chimerstry user; for just an instant, her power fools her, too. In addition, a botch on any Chimerstry power causes the character to be haunted by the illusion she creates, as described under each power. The fabric separating perception from reality is a tenuous one, and the character toys with it at her own risk.

Chimerstry does not allow its user to create an illusion that she cannot sense in some fashion. She cannot create a purely auditory illusion somewhere she can't hear it, or the image of a crown if she is blinded. However, if she can sense the illusion in any fashion, she can create the other sensory components of it. That is to say, if she has Dweomer (Chimerstry 2), she can create an illusory bowl of stew and it will taste right, even if it were across the room from her. She could create that crown if it were to rest on her head, so that she could feel it.

A victim of Chimerstry illusions cannot generally dismiss them, even if the victim is doubtful of their reality. Just because you don't believe that the window in front of you is actually bricked shut doesn't mean you can suddenly see through it. However, Chimerstry illusions cannot support weight or impede movement past a quick sensation of resistance. So, assuming that the bricks on a window were created with Dweomer, you would feel their surface if you reached out to touch them, but you would pass through if you tried to push them over. If they were created with Ignis Fatuus, your had would sail right through. Therefore, Ravnos entertainers can dazzle a crowd with shining lights and dancing spirits even if the crowd suspects that the lights are the work of illusion, and it is very difficult to be absolutely sure that an illusion really is illusory.

There are a few exceptions to these guidelines. Characters who experience damage from sources created with Horrid Reality or Mass Horror and then become convinced of its illusory nature can be relieved of the pain they have suffered. In addition, vampires with Auspex and others with forms of supernatural perception have chances to both detect and learn to "filter out" the illusion, hence seeing through illusory darkness or hearing past an illusory scream. Detecting an illusion in this manner is automatic if the watcher's Auspex level is higher than the caster's Chimerstry level. If it is equal to or less than the Chimerstry level, she must convince herself of the illusory nature of the apparition through mundane means (such as plunging her hand into illusory fire). To filter out an illusion once the vampire knows it is false, the player rolls Perception + Alertness against a difficulty equal to 6 + caster's Chimerstry - observer's Auspex. A single success filters it out of all her senses.

Note: As a provisional house rule, in order to "disbelieve" Chimerical illusions, the observer must either have enough Auspex to see through it, or roll Perception + an appropriate knowledge (medicine, occult, science and crafts are moderately common) at a difficulty of the illusionist's Manipulation + Subterfuge. One success is all that is required, but the attempt can only be made once per round. Once the illusion has been detected, it may be "cleared from the senses" as above, as a free action, again, one attempt per round.