Perfect Paragon

Presence 8

Perfect Paragon allows the user to appear as everyone’s ideal — a knight sees a master general or virtuous lady, a greedy merchant sees a wealthy individual, and a devout peasant sees a saint. This power is subtler than Majesty, but a crafty Cainite can exploit Perfect Paragon for a substantial benefit, especially if using it against other Cainites to appear as an elder of their clan or road.

System: Perfect Paragon can be used in one of two ways: either to affect a single target or to make the character seem exceptional in the eyes of all who see him... If used to target a specific victim, the player rolls Charisma + Subterfuge (difficulty equal to the target’s Willpower). If successful, the target sees the character as a perfect example of whatever her ideals are and anything the character says is subtly twisted to correspond with this perception. The player makes all Social rolls against this victim at –3 difficulty and any uses of mind-affecting or emotion-altering Disciplines, such as Dementation, Dominate or Presence, receive three extra dice. Should the character do something that violates the illusion (swearing when appearing to be a pious knight, disrobing in public while appearing to be a noble lady), the victim may roll Perception + Empathy (difficulty of the character’s Charisma + Performance) in order to realize that the character is not what he appears to be. If this roll succeeds, the character immediately loses all mechanical benefits of Perfect Paragon, although viewers do not see him for what he truly is.

Note that, unless high levels of Auspex are used, the character does not know what she is appearing to be. For example, if a person sees the user of this power as a noblewoman, the character will only know that she is treated with respect, not that the person in question sees her as a noblewoman (though if he calls her “milady,” she might figure it out). A Perception + Empathy roll (difficulty 6) allows the character some idea of how people perceive her.

In order to invoke Perfect Paragon upon all in the character’s presence, the player spends a point of Willpower and chooses whether to invoke the power subtly or powerfully. If invoked subtly, all present who can see the character ascribe to her traits and virtues that they find appealing. This translates to a –1 difficulty on all Social rolls while this is in effect (unless she grossly violates people’s perception of her) as well as one additional die on mind-affecting and emotion-altering Disciplines, as above. If invoked powerfully, the player must spend a blood point. All who can see the character react as if the character had targeted each of them specifically, as above. This usually results in the character suddenly having a small crowd following her, which is usually a boon but can be troublesome at times. Also, since each person in the crowd sees something different, fights occasionally break out over the true nature of the being before them.

Perfect Paragon lasts for a single scene.