Harvest Path

Necromancy -x- Giovanni

Introduction

The Harvest Path concerns itself with detecting and capturing the energies of death, and therefore allowing the necromancer to "reap" the souls of the recently departed for her own purposes. This path also gives the Necromancer the power to sever the life-strands of a victim prematurely, inflicting death before its appointed time.

Like the Nocturnal Path, the Harverst Path works upon the premise that a vampire, having crossed the shroud of death and been "reborn" in the land of the living, enjoys a special connection to the lands of the dead. Where as the Nocturnal Path seeks to bridge the gap between vampire and wraith, the Harvest Path uses the vampire’s undead state to affect the life energy of others.

The powers of the Harvest Path enhance the natural capabilities of the vampire: the ability to bestow immortality by creating ghouls becomes the capacity to bestow everlasting death by ensuring that a specific person returns as a wraith in the afterlife, where as the embrace is transmuted into the hideous power to trap the soul. Even the forbidden power of diablerie is enhanced, allowing the necromancer to subsume his victim’s memories and traits… permanently.

Doomsayer

When a mortal’s time of death approaches, the weight of destiny imprints its mark on that individual in the form of deathmarks—ghostly manifestations of future wounds that will prove fatal to the target. Most of these marks appear in the days or weeks before the mortal’s death, but a few rare individuals who are touched with especially tragic destinies may wear their deathmarks for months or even years prior to their demise. A necromancer may detect these deathmarks through Doomsayer, and further, he may turn his scrutiny on an already dead soul in an attempt to discern its cause of death. This use of the power resembles the first level of the Sepulcher Path, Insight, but the necromancer need not look into the eyes of a corpse to glean this information, he need only view the spirit he wishes to study for death markings.

This use of the power on mortals is quite unreliable, as the future is never concrete. The most that can usually be gleaned is the imminence of the target’s death, and possibly the cause of death, although some necromancers have divined the date, time, or even the way the target will feel at the moment of death. Most necromancers use this ability to find prospective servants before they even cross the shroud. A small number actually work to alter the target’s fate out of a rare sense of remorse. A few even claim to have been able to see the deathmarks on their enemies before combat had even begun, boosting the necromancers’ confidence in their chances of survival.

System: By spending a turn scrutinizing a mortal and rolling Perception + Occult against a difficulty of 8, the necromancer may gain insight into the way in which the target of Doomsayer is most likely to expire. This information is discerned by the various phantom wounds that will appear on the target to the vampire’s fatalistic sight. If attempted on a vampire, the difficulty of this roll is 10. The vampire may also see the death wounds on any Ghost that is visible to her (through Auspex or other Necromancy paths). These markings will reveal information on the death of the ghost.

• 1 success The necromancer knows if the target possesses Death Marks, although he cannot make them out clearly enough to interpret their meaning. If the target possesses (or possessed) the Dark Fate flaw, this will be readily apparent with even a single success.
• 2 successes The vampire gains a momentary glimpse of the wound that will kill (or has killed) the target. A gunshot wound to the head is a pretty straight-foreword example, where as the dual pin-prick holes created by vampire fangs might indicate diablerie if seen on a vampire. Targets who are fated to become vampires may actually be detected by their bloodstained lips.
• 3 successes The vampire can tell roughly how long it will take for the target to die from his wound; whether his death will be quick, clean, slow, painful, or torturously long and grueling. When viewing ghosts, the necromancer learns how long and painful the death of a given wraith was.
• 4 successes The necromancer can determine roughly how long the target has left to live (or how long ago a ghost died), the accuracy depending on how close the event is. The death of a target who is fated to die months in the future (or who died months in the past) could be dated to the week of the occurrence. The time of death for a target who is weeks from the event could be discerned down to the day of the week. Lastly, the deathmarks of a person who will die within a few days (or only recently passed away) will reveal the time of death down to the hour of the happening.
• 5 successes The necromancer gets an indication of the emotional state of the target at the time of death: depressed (which may indicate suicide), surprised (which would indicate a situation where the character "never knew what hit him"), terrified (possibly an indication of murder), or any other emotional response the storyteller deems appropriate.

This power, while a basic function of the Harvester Path can also be quite difficult for the Storyteller to handle if the player decides to use this power on key players in the story’s plotline—it would be pretty hard to give much of the information gained through Doomsayer in a case where the Storyteller doesn’t know any more than the player how a certain character will perish. This shouldn’t be a problem when it comes to vampires (the difficulty is 10), but the strangest things can happen where dice are concerned.

The Storyteller has a few options in a situation where he’s not prepared to answer a highly successful roll. Firstly, he can just wing it. Make it up; tell the necromancer’s player whatever is convenient, and then weave it into the plot. If story events would dictate that the target couldn’t meet his doom in the proscribed way, then some outside force must have altered the progression of fate (and discovering this unknown influence may lead to new subplots). The necromancer may even attempt to prevent the incident.

Secondly, the Storyteller can simply decide that there are no deathmarks on that particular character. This might mean that that particular character will not die during the course of the story (though perhaps later on in the chronicle), or it may mean that the character doesn’t develop deathmarks until a very short time before his demise, or it could simply mean that the target is not fated to die any time soon… but the necromancer may always attempt to alter that fate.

Marked for Death

One of the most trying limitations of Necromancy is that it can be very difficult to determine exactly who will become a wraith after death. All the preparation in the world will be pointless if the prospective ghost doesn’t show up in the underworld. The Egyptians were said to have known spells that would ensure a place for a spirit (or rather, the multifaceted spirit) in the underworld, and through Marked for Death, a necromancer can accomplish the same task, effectively assuring that the target will become a Wraith upon death.

When the necromancer invokes the Mark, he touches the target, leaving a ghostly, stain-like marking somewhere upon the target’s body. This blotch cannot be seen by normal sight, only through Aura Perception or Doomsayer, or the Deathsight of wraiths (and hence, through the Vitreous Path as well). Even if an observer can see this mark, he will not necessarily be aware of its meaning.

The mark only remains for a short time, unless the necromancer invests a great deal of emotional energy into this power. Once the target becomes a wraith, however, the mark remains permanently. The target will only return as a wraith if he dies while the mark remains on his spirit. The mark itself may be placed on any living mortal, or even on a person who has died within the last five minutes. It cannot be used to ensure the wraithlike survival of a vampire or other supernatural creature, however, nor of any individual who possesses True Faith.

System: The necromancer must expend 1 point of Blood when he touches the target, and must roll Manipulation + Occult, difficulty 8. Even one success ensures that the mark will hold to the mortal’s spirit, while more successes ensure a longer duration. A necromancer who wishes to ensure that the mark remains permanently can instead expend a permanent point of Willpower.

• 1 success One night
• 2 successes One week
• 3 successes One month
• 4 successes One year
• 5 successes Ten years

While still living, the target of the mark is subject to sudden, uncontrolled cold flashes and will hear strange noises in the night. The target will generally be affected at random times (determined by the storyteller) as if by Level 2 Dementation. The mark of death also draws ghosts to the bearer like a lantern draws moths, so the person bearing the mark will most likely be the target of numerous hauntings before he expires. It is not unknown for long-term targets to develop the Necro-Psi psychic ability (see Demon Hunter X) or the Medium merit.

In addition, the necromancer may utilize Doomsayer at any time upon those whom he has marked, even if the target in question is not within sight, but the difficulty rises to 9 in this case. When the subject of the mark perishes, his soul is guaranteed to return as a wraith, provided that his soul is still "under warranty," so to speak. The target may, if he desires peace in death, make a Humanity roll (difficulty 10), with one success negating the mark and allowing him to pass on to his just rewards.

If the duration of Marked for Death expires before he dies, then the target is no more likely to become a wraith than he normally would be. The necromancer in question acts as a 1-point Fetter for the newly awakened wraith, which does not take up any of the wraith’s starting points for Fetters.

The necromancer is able to utilize the second level Sepulcher power, Summon Soul on any wraith who he had marked in life without needing an object of importance to that wraith: his connection to the wraith through the mark is sufficient, although the necromancer may still benefit from the difficulty reduction that applies with the use of the ghost’s other Fetters.

Scythe of the Reaper

The Necromancer may literally stop the target’s heart by touching her chest. A mortal suffers a sudden, severe cardiac arrest, and will die if she is not attended to swiftly. This power also works against Vampires, but as a vampire’s heart does not normally beat, the effect is less dramatic.

System: The Necromancer must expend a Willpower point and roll Dexterity + Medicine, difficulty of the target’s Stamina +4. The target’s heart will stop if the necromancer scores 3 successes—fewer successes mean that the target is gripped by intense, clenching pain in her chest, shoulder and arm for one turn per success, during which time she is considered Crippled for the purposes of wound-penalties, and must make a Stamina roll or pass out for the remainder of the scene. Vampires may not use blood points for one turn per success; mortals are in serious trouble. Ghouls may roll Fortitude, difficulty 8 in order to resist the Scythe of the Reaper, although Kindred do not gain this resistance roll (as they are not actually damaged by the power, and hence Fortitude does not apply).

A mortal who’s heart is stopped is immediately Incapacitated, and must be revived with a successful, extended Wits + Medicine roll at difficulty 9 (or a roll of Professional Skill: First Aid at –1 difficulty) although this difficulty can be reduced by 1 if the target is rushed to an emergency room or if portable medical equipment is readily available. Two attempts can be made per minute, and the paramedic must score as many successes on the extended roll as the number of minutes that the target has been clinically dead.

If the mortal is not revived within (Stamina x5) minutes, she will die, and may not be revived through mundane medicine.

Prison of the Flesh

The moment of death marks the severance of the soul from the mortal shell, and as the spirit flees the body it moves on to the hereafter. Some spirits "transcend" worldly existence and find peace in death, while others are caught in the grip of nihilism and dragged into the darkest recesses of the underworld. A great many become wraiths, chained as they are to the living world by unfinished business or matters of immense personal importance.

A necromancer who understands the intricacies of the soul’s transmigration can interrupt the process, halting the spirit’s exile from the body. Unlike higher-level powers of the Bone Path, however, Prison of the Flesh does not animate the corpse of the deceased individual—it simply prevents the victim’s spirit from leaving and going to Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. This is anything but a pleasant experience for the victim, who remains in a conscious (if confused) state during his incarceration in his own rotting corpse. And rot it will, for this power makes no provisions for the corpse’s decomposition (although the necromancer may rely on rituals or mundane embalming techniques to ensure a stable container for the soul if it is necessary).

This imprisonment is truly a hellish existence for a soul. Still subtly connected to the flesh of its former body, the spirit can feel everything that happens to its flesh. Vermin crawling over its chest, a surgical knife making an incision, and sexual violation are but a few of the horrible experiences the spirit can look forward to during its "sentence."

While the soul can feel what is happening to its body, and even see and hear in some instances, it cannot move: it must lay motionless as its flesh rots and its bones slowly turn to dust.

Most necromancers who possess this power use it to store spirits for the purposes of later interrogation through the Sepulcher path, although it is possible to trap the soul of a vampire who has suffered final death in order to later commit diablerie upon it (or to utilize Consume the Soul). System: Prison of the Flesh must be utilized on a victim not more than 5 minutes dead. So long as the majority of the corpse remains after death—no matter how gruesome a state—the soul may be trapped. Bodies that have been cremated, ground into pulp or dissolved in acid may not be used to contain their spirit: there must be some vestiges of the former body for this power to function (it is thought that some elder Giovanni are capable of locking souls into very small portions of the corpse, such as a skull or leg bone, for ease of storage). For this reason, the soul of an Elder vampire cannot be trapped in the Prison of Flesh if his body crumbles to dust, nor can any vampire who’s body is destroyed by fire, sunlight, acid, or dismemberment. Likewise, a vampire who has been diablerized cannot have his soul retained in his corpse: it has been subsumed into the body of another being.

To trap the soul inside of its body, the necromancer must first force a drop of his blood past the corpse’s lips. This begins the process of the embrace in mortals: the necromancer then expends a point of Willpower and roll Manipulation + Occult, difficulty of the deceased individual’s Willpower rating. Success means that he has been able to halt the embrace before the soul fully reconnects to its corpse. The spirit is called back to its body through the curse of the blood… but finds itself trapped inside of its own cadaver instead of being awakened as one of the undead. If the roll fails, then the spirit is not fooled by the necromancer’s ploy, and cannot be locked into its corpse. A botch on this roll means that too much of the necromancer’s vampiric essence has seeped into the corpse, and the process of the embrace cannot be halted—the necromancer loses a blood point in the process and the target arises as one of the Kindred, as if he had been embraced normally… and he is most likely very hungry.

The number of successes rolled determines how long the soul is trapped inside of the corpse.

• 1 success Two weeks
• 2 successes Three months
• 3 successes A year and a day
• 4 successes A decade
• 5+ successes A century per success above 4

The soul gains one chance to escape this fate: it may roll Willpower, difficulty of the necromancer’s Willpower, and must score more successes than the necromancer did on his Manipulation + Occult roll. Succeeding in this roll allows the spirit to resist the false call of the blood and flee its entrapment, while failure indicates that the soul returns to the body. If the soul fails to exceed the necromancer’s successes with its Willpower roll, then none of the necromancer’s successes are removed: this is an all-or-nothing roll. For example, if the necromancer scored 3 successes on his Manipulation + Occult roll, then the soul would have to score 4 successes on its roll to avoid being imprisoned. If the soul only scored 2 successes, then it would be imprisoned for a year and a day, and not three months, since its two successes would not subtract from the necromancer’s successes.

Failing its attempt to extradite itself to the afterlife, the soul becomes imprisoned. The soul retains its Mental and Social attributes, as well as its Willpower (although it can no longer expend Willpower points), and continues to suffer from any derangements that affected it in life (so souls who suffer from a fear of enclosed spaces or of death and dead things would quickly go mad inside of its Prison of Flesh). It can still feel everything that occurs to its body, although it may only hear through its rotting ears or see through dead eyes in any scene in which it succeeds on a Willpower roll at difficulty 9.

Hence, the soul may through force of will be able to observe what is happening around its body, although it will be unable to move its eyes, and if its eyelids are shut, then it will only be dimly aware of light and darkness. Once the body’s sensory organs have deteriorated, the spirit can no longer access those senses. When the skin has finally dried out, even the sense of touch becomes muted, and only physical damage will cause the soul to feel any physical sensation at all.

Because the soul can still feel pain, it can be affected through mundane torture methods. This can strip the spirit of its willpower points, making it easier to affect through certain necromancy powers. Because the spirit is readily available (the necromancer need only access the corpse), he need not possess an object that is of significance to the soul in order to Summon or Compel it. Summoning the spirit is always at a –2 difficulty as well.

If the necromancer also possesses the Bone Path or Skull Path, he may animate the corpse of the individual. Unless the necromancer utilizes Daemonic Possession to allow the soul inside of the corpse to fully bind to it, however, the soul will only be able to control the zombie’s movements by rolling Willpower (difficulty 8). Each success is one turn that the soul can direct the movements of the corpse—otherwise, it follows the commands of the necromancer (or stands idle if no orders are forthcoming). Botching this roll causes the corpse to take some unexpected action; such as dropping what it is carrying or falling into a seizure.

Trapping a vampire’s soul is extremely difficult, as all but the youngest vampires undergo rapid decay upon suffering the Final Death. If the target is old enough to instantly turn to ashes, then the soul may not be trapped through Prison of Flesh.

Age of Kindred Difficulty Penalty

• 1 night to 50 years No penalty
• 51 to 100 years +1 difficulty
• 101 to 250 years +2 difficulty
• 251 years or more +3 difficulty

Committing diablerie upon a vampire’s trapped soul requires only a single success on the Strength roll.

Consume the Soul

The act of Diablerie is an innate capacity of all vampires, but the ultimate aspect of the Harvest Path allows the necromancer to enhance the benefits gained when he consumes the soul of his victim—but at a terrible risk to his sanity and his soul. While normal diablerie imparts an increase of the vampire’s blood potency, Consume the Soul allows the necromancer to draw out memories and capabilities from his victim.

Additionally, while the Amaranth is only effective on the souls of those cursed to undeath, the necromancer learns to draw out the souls of the living or ingest the souls of the dead, and thereby devour the target’s very essence.

System: Activating this power requires that the necromancer commit diablerie. To Consume the Soul of a mortal, the vampire must drain all of the blood from the mortal’s body (who must either be living, or must have died not longer than 5 minutes prior unless treated with Prison of the Flesh), and must continue to drink. Ingesting the essence of a ghost requires that the necromancer possess the fifth level of the Vitreous Path in addition to this power.

As the target loses the last of his health levels, the necromancer invokes Consume the Soul by rolling Willpower, difficulty of the target’s Permanent Willpower. Each success drains one point of Permanent Willpower from the target, and every point so drained grants one Freebie point to the Necromancer, who may spend these points as desired to raise existing traits or buy new traits. The Freebie points are kept in a separate pool from the necromancer’s actual experience points: he may use these points only to purchase traits which the target possessed, including Abilities, Disciplines (in the case of Vampires, Ghouls or Revenants), and, with the Storyteller’s approval, even Merits.

Attributes, Virtues, Willpower and Backgrounds may not be transferred in this way, with two notable exceptions: if the target was of a lower Generation than the diabolist, then the necromancer gains a single dot in the Generation background, free of cost. The necromancer might also use his Freebie points to buy up the memories of his victim (see the new background, Memories in the sidebar).

This act destroys the spirit irrevocably: the target will never become a wraith or a Spectre, and can never be summoned through Necromancy powers. This act automatically reduces the offending necromancer’s Humanity score by 1. Practitioners of certain Paths of Enlightenment (Blood, Power and the Inner Voice, Death and The Soul, The Path of Bones, etc.) may actually spend the Freebies gained from Consume the Soul to raise their Path rating (with the Storyteller’s approval).

If the roll fails, then the target’s soul dissipates immediately, robbing the necromancer of any of the benefits of Diablerie, although he may still have to roll to resist frenzy and Humanity loss. A botched attempt to Consume the Soul exacts a terrible price from the necromancer: he gains none of the benefits of Diablerie save the lowering in generation, and additionally the target can immediately roll his Willpower (difficulty of 8). For each success, the player of the diablerized target (or the Storyteller in the case of an NPC victim) can decide to inflict one of the following penalties on the necromancer: Leave a soul-fragment: For each success devoted to a soul-fragment, one of the target’s Willpower points lingers on as a separate, if fractured personality inside the necromancer’s body. Once per story, the soul-fragment may roll its accumulated Willpower against a difficulty of the necromancer’s current Willpower points. If successful, the soul-fragment may influence the diabolist’s next action. This essentially acts as the Dominate power, Mesmerize, save that the target cannot resist the influence in any way, and he can be prodded to do anything that the soul- fragment’s successes would dictate—even send himself to Final Death if enough successes are scored, regardless of the character’s actual nature. Numerous soul-fragments from multiple diableries can "gang up," adding all their lingering Willpower points to this roll. Inflict a Derangement: For each success devoted to this penalty, the victim of the Amaranth can inflict one Derangement on the target. These are usually Derangements that the target himself possessed, but it could also be Multiple Personalities, with one of the personalities being that of the victim. Such Derangements can never be bought off, though they may be resisted temporarily with Willpower points. Inflict a Clan Weakness: For one success the victim can impose his clan-weakness on his murderer. If it is the same weakness (i.e. the victim was of the same bloodline as the diabolist), then the effects of the weakness are pronounced in some way: the difficulty to resist the effects of the weakness could be raised by 2, or the penalties incurred by the weakness could be two higher. For the Giovanni, this increases any damage they inflict on mortals through feeding on a mortal by 2, making their Kiss almost certainly deadly, even with the lightest of feedings. Some cases will require storyteller’s discretion: for example, a Ventrue might have to make a Willpower roll simply to feed at all from his chosen victims, where as a Gangrel may immediately gain another animal feature. A Nosferatu might become barely recognizable as human, and thus his Charisma might fall by 2 points, permanently (and he could never regain those points). Malkavians would not be able to resist their Derangements with Willpower. Inflict 1 point worth of Flaws: For each success devoted to this curse, the victim of the Diablerie may "purchase" 1 point worth of Flaws, preferably ones that he possessed before his demise, and inflict them on the Diabolist. The storyteller might allow certain flaws (such as Beacon of the Unholy, Cursed, or Touch of Frost) to be inflicted regardless of whether the target possessed them. Social flaws are not usually transferable unless they deal with the necromancer’s personality (as opposed to his social standing among his peers). Remove 1 point of Humanity or a Virtue: Each success the victim devotes to this penalty will strip the target of 1 point of Humanity or one of her Virtue points. This can actually push more bestial vampires into Wassail.

Notes

See: The new background - Stolen Memories.