The Path of Veille

Thaumaturgy

Introduction

The Path of Veille was the first customized path of thaumaturgy created by Criaâr. His Tremere Sire, Gustacio, didn't feel it necessary to make his little Corax Abomination pet a full Tremere. Criaâr was then a Bâtard. Criaâr, his Corax Gifts lost tried to win back his powers by using his Blood to replace his lost Rage and Gnosis. When Criaâr met Alexis, who had concerns about the Supernatural Phenomenon in Paris, the Toreador decided to bring in this Abomination to work with the Veilleur. Criaâr began to explore ways to create a new power with the help of Alexis. The new thaumaturgic path of the Corax was interesting, but they had difficulties in making it work. It was Meryt-Neith who found the solution: Veille had to be a Thaumaturgical Path, and she used her own Hekau thaumaturgy to optimize it; She already had some rituals in mind that she could merge with those of Criaâr to become a true thaumaturgic.

Criaâr became a Veilleur, and his unique path, Veille, became the first path of the thaumaturgy of the Veilleurs (watchmen).

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* Sentir le Dangereux

This is a danger sense. Enemy Ways is more than just a heightened (and reasonably accurate) sense of paranoia. Instead, it provides solid information on what immediate peril the caster faces. This is the first skill Criaar brought to the path.

System: The roll entails a difficulty of 4 and a cost of 1 blood point. With a successful Perception + Occult roll the Caster can pick up hints as to the nature of enemies in the area. Usually the caster who uses this discipline successfully can pick out the number and type of his opponents; with five or more successes sometimes more can be learned.

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** Percevoir le Surnaturel

Difficulty: 5 Cost: 1 Blood point,

The duty of the Veilleurs is to find supernatural threats. Use of this discipline ability reveals if supernatural abilities have been used in the vicinity and what nature those abilities are based in. Thaumaturgy results in the caster being able to perceive symbols over the area where supernatural power was used. Discipline use coalesces in an on the spot of it's use. Sphere usage becomes a , Gifts the mark of . Necromancy becomes . Static mortal sorcery becomes

System: The difficulty is 5 and the thaumaturge expends 1 point of blood. The caster invokes the power and the symbol coalesces over the spot. If the spell succeeds it coalesces as stipulated above.

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*** Clairvoyance Radiale

The magician is able to extend her perceptions: She is now able to use another one. Directed by the Veille's Sense, she extends his consciousness to her surroundings, to see what's happening around her.

This power is an unsubtle one: It's near impossible to look precisely at objects, or to read normal-sized texts with the 360°: It's like if you tried to read with your peripheral vision (Try it, you will see! I heard that people with partial blindness of the central vision could learn to read with peripheral vision: So a new Knowledge should be created for this kind of reading...).

System: The player rolls at a difficulty of 6 and expends 1 point of willpower; the power lasts a scene. If the Path roll to use this Path is botched, this power still works, albeit in a very twisted way (see after). The magician must use a Willpower point, and remember how many successes she made in the Veille Path Roll (Remember that additional successes can be bought with Vitae):

Successes Veille Effects 1 360� Vision 2 M.D. at 4 meters 3 M.D. at 8 meters 4 M.D. at 16 meters 5 M.D. at 32 meters

Note: M.D.: Movement Detection.

When a distance is given, the magician can detect the movements of human-sized objects up to this distance, even if some obstacle hides it from direct view. A greater object (Crinos Garou?) would be seen at the next category's distance, and a tinier (cat?) would be seen only at the precedent category's distance. Should the category be the first (1: 360� Vision), then the Veilleur isn't able to see the Movement of this object. The Veilleur must at least make two successes to use Movement Detection.

For example, the magician make 3 successes: She can, then, see in a 360°. . .(more precisely, in a 4πr2 steradian solid angle) Vision, and can detect human sized movements up to eight meters, no mater the obstacles. A cat's movement would be detected at 4 meters, and a Crinos Lupine's at 16 meters. If the magician had only 2 successes, she would see human-sized movement at 4 meters, Crinos' at 8 meters, and would not see a Cat-sized movement at all (but can still see the cat through the 360� vision). If the magician had only 1 success, she would not be able to see any movement behind obstacles, even if a silent truck was about to destroy the wall just behind her!

This power doesn't work for objects who/which doesn't move, but any moving object who stops will still be visible for 1 turn (the Veilleurs calls it a Trace).

It was said before that the Trace that shows the magician that something is moving couldn't be seen with more precision. In reality, someone using Auspex will be able to see it more precisely by a Perception+Veille roll (Difficuly 8 if the magician Veilleur is trying to discern if this little thing in the Trace is a firearm, for example!).

Veille's Sense is a power that lasts one Scene, and failure to active it means no other try can be done until the end of the Scene. It's also compatible with other Disciplines/powers: Someone who can see in the darkness (Protean **) and who can see in 360 degrees (Veille ***) can combine the two powers to see in the darkness in 360�.

Should a Botch occur in the Path Roll to active this power, or in any Auspex roll while this power is active, then the power goes awry: Any Danger Sense, sensitive Veille, or Auspex power will be lost for the night: Interferences are created by the Botches, and give a lot of random informations (noise), instead of real ones. The magician can have, then, a lot of Danger Sense alerts, when there is no reason, or see random Auras in anything she looks at when using Auspex **, or even believe half the statements made by that annoying Anarch to be lies.

If there is too much movement around him, the magician will have to use 1 Willpower point to continue concentrating in all those confusing Movements.

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**** Convocation

Difficulty: 7

This Ritual is similar to the Convocation power of the Presence Discipline (Presence ****), but this calling is heard by everyone who has shared blood with the caster. It works only at night (local time), and up to the local sunrise.

Any person with whom the caster has shared blood and in range knows in which direction to go to find the source of the calling. All know the identity of the magician. So, if more than one magician are using this Ritual, each calling will be heard and its source recognized. Each magician hearing the call is free to answer or not to it, as they aren't affected by this convocation as they would be by the Presence **** power: It's a simple calling, nothing more.

Successes Range

1 1 Km

2 10 Km

3 100 Km

4 1,000 Km

5 10 000 Km

+1 x10

This power only works in the dimension in which it is cast, so a magician calling through the Shadowlands would not be heard in our reality.

***** Parlez à la Confrérie

Difficulty: 7

This ritual is similar to the simpler Convocation, as it calls to every magician who has shared blood. But the contact is not an empathic calling, but a 1 turn message.

System: See Convocation. Note that a similar Ritual was created thousands years ago by Meryt-Neith to call her Knights to her.

***** * Parlez à la Confrérie

Difficulty: 8

This ritual is similar to the simplier Convocation, as it calls to everyone the magician has shared blood with. But the contact is not an empathic calling, but a telepathic contact between the caller and any magician who has shared blood and name is known. The caller chooses how many people will be contacted. Every sent thought is heard by every person contacted, so no whisper can be sent to one person without the others contacted people hearing it.

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Proposed Level 4 and 5 Disciplines

Trouver Le Caché (Finding the Hidden)

The difficulty in protecting the city of Paris against those who would attack it using magic is that many of them have ways to be hidden. A Veilleur needs to be able to perceive them in order to track or fight them. Finding the Hidden helps with that, boosting the Veilleurs natural perception.

System: The Veilleur spends blood, and rolls Wits + Occult, difficulty 6 to boost the casters Perception ability by the amount of blood spent (within Generational limits). The effect also makes the casters eyes glow with a slight golden color. Failure means the blood is spent, with no bonus. A botch means the casters eyes burn up, for 1 point of lethal damage, rendering himself blind until healed.

L'illumination Des Commandants (Commanders Enlightenment)

This ability extends the power of the previous abilities in the path. It allows any of the earlier effects to be applied to a group. This makes the Veilleurs a more effective team.

System: The player chooses one of the lower-level powers in the path, invoking it as normal. Afterword, he touches another character and (if the roll for L'illumination Des Commandants is successful) bestows the benefit on her as well. The same power may be delivered to any number of packmates, as long as the thaumaturge pays the appropriate blood point cost.

Veilleur Rituals

Rencontre des Esprits

Difficulty: 8 Cost: 1 blood point per person contacted

This ritual is similar to the simplier Convocation, as it calls to every magician mastering this Path. But the contact is not an empathic calling, but a 1 telepathic contact between the caller and any magician mastering this Path whose name is known. The caller choses how many people will be contacted. Every thought expressed is heard by every person contacted, so no whisper can be sent to one person without the others contacted people hearing it.

System: See Convocation. Note that a similar Ritual was created thousands years ago by Meryt-Neith to call her Knights to her. Now that the Ritual found its true Hekau Path, its cost, Level and Difficulty decreased drastically.

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