Shadow Play
The powers of Shadow Play are both simplistic and foundational, allowing the Lasombra to see through and manipulate mundane shadows or darkness with a minimum of effort. It does not allow the Lasombra to summon the primordial darkness or the Abyss, as later Obtenebration powers do. If the wielder is willing to expend some of his immortal essence, he may use the ambient shadows to grant him a more forbidding visage or layer them about himself in such a way as to move nearly unseen from one place to another.
System: Automatically, as the character’s strength in Obtenebration increases, he reduces darkness related penalties by his Obtenebration rating (to a minimum of zero, of course). If the character wishes to manipulate the shadows for amusement or to communicate a point, then the player must roll Manipulation + Occult at a difficulty of 6. Obviously, the more successes he scores, the more impressive is his Shadow Play.
Should the character need or want to use the shadows to enhance his Intimidation or Stealth dice pools, the player must expend a point of blood from the vampire's blood pool - this adds one die to the chosen die pool. While the vampire can enhance either his Intimidation or Stealth dice pools, he cannot do both at the same time. Equally, enhancing either dice pool is a separate action and requires its own expenditure of blood. Enhanced dice pools in either Intimidation or Stealth last for a scene, unless the character dismisses the effect or utilizes the alternate power to enhance the other pool of dice.
Mortals are often quite disturbed by use of these powers, and their players must make Courage rolls (difficulty 7) when they see Shadow Play used. Failure means the mortal suffers a one-die penalty to Social dice pools for the remainder of the scene.
