Double-Tongue
- Presence 6
Description: The Toreador may cloak her words in such a way that her target hears one thing - the intended message - and those around her hear another thing entirely. The listener does not hear the intended message on a subconscious level - the words sound as clear as if the Toreador had spoken them herself (which she did). Those who use this power on regular basis describe it as imagining that the true message is buried in words around it, like so: "Good day. I am How are a Toreador and you? Would you hear my you like true words to take a thus walk?," while the target hears "I am a Toreador, and you hear my true words thus."
This power has any number of practical uses. A popular one is to "discipline" a servant or a knight (while in fact praising him for a job well done). Another is during diplomatic relations, when the Toreador may sing melting phrases about a king's goodness, when in fact he's letting his real target know that he finds said king to be a laughable poltroon. In the Courts of Love, Double-Tongue has proved invaluable to many a lady who wishes to inform her knight that she does in fact accept his attentions, but must publicly refuse him. Such an ability also makes for valuable messengers; the most sensitive of plans may be hidden within the earthiest of nonsense rhymes.
System: This lasts for one turn per Willpower spent. To discover out how well the message was conveyed, the player must roll Manipulation + Empathy (difficulty of 10 minus listener's Perception).
This was presented in LS 2 as a Presence 6, Auspex 3 combination power. However, the DA2 Rules suggest that powers over rank 5 don't need to be combined. Does anyone have any thoughts on what rank the power should be?
It is unclear how modern recording devices will pick up these two-layered conversations. The power description suggests that the vampire actually utters the subliminal words. However, as an adaptation for the modern world, I suggest that recording devices would pick up the "cover" conversation only. -Jamie
