Feral Speech

Animalism 1

This power allows the Cainite to hark back to the days before the fall of Babel, when all speech was one. Although he cannot use this ability to communicate with humans or Cainites who do not speak his language, he can communicate with animals, be they wild or domesticated. The vampire needs only to look into the creature's eyes for a moment, and he briefly gains facility with that animal's native speech. The two communicate in the animal's native speech. The two communicate in the animal's tongue - a vampire speaking to a horse must whinny, one talking to a wolf might bark or howl and so on. (The animal replies in kind, of course.) According to rumor, the Nosferatu can communicate with animals without making a sound, but they must concentrate solely on the creature in question, and they cannot lose eye contact for even a moment.

The use of Feral Speech does not predispose an animal to react in a friendly fashion toward the vampire. Keep in mind that animals that have not been made ghouls tend to react poorly to supernatural predators of the night. The character can bully small creatures such as squirrels or rabbits easily, but raptors and swift, independently minded animals do their best to escape from such a situation. Larger creatures require some negotiations to get any useful information.

This ability does not grant the animal in question any unusual information. The Storyteller should consult the Appendix (page 210) to determine a rough level of intelligence for the animal, and use that and the creature's known behaviors as a base for roleplay. Remember that few animals can count or read, and humans mostly all look alike to them. The character may be able to convince animals to do him favors if he is sufficiently impressive to them. If such is the case, the beasts do their best to perform such favors.

System: No expenditure or die roll is necessary to activate this power, but the character must spend one turn getting the animal's attention and looking into its eyes in order to key his own Beast to the creature's language. Roll Manipulation + Animal Ken to get favors or useful information out of an animal. The difficulty is 6, unless modified up or down for circumstances. Each success gleans one favor or one useful piece of information; five successes gets the character roughly anything he needs, within reason. The style by which the character gets what he wants depends in part on his road and Nature, but primarily on the roleplaying between the player and Storyteller.