Heart of Stone

Level 4.

A vampire under the effect of this ritual experiences the transformation suggested by the ritual's name: his heart is completely transmuted to solid rock, rendering virtually impervious to staking. The subsidiary effects of the transformation, however, seem to follow the Hermetic laws of sympathetic magic: the vampire's emotional capacity becomes almost nonexistent, and his ability to relate to others suffers as well.

System: This ritual requires nine hours (reduced by one hour for every success). It can only be cast on oneself. The caster lies naked on a flat stone surface and places a bare candle over his heart. The candle burns down to nothing over the course of the ritual, causing one aggravated health level of damage (difficulty 5 to soak with Fortitude). At the end of the ritual, the caster's heart hardens to stone. The benefits of this are that the caster gains a number of additional dice equal to twice his Thaumaturgy rating to soak any attack that aims for his heart and is completely impervious to the effects of a Shaft of Belated Quiescence (see above), and the difficulty to use all Presence powers on him is increased by three due to his emotional isolation. The drawbacks are as follows: the caster's Conscience and Empathy scores drop to 1 (or to 0 if they already were at 1) and all dice pools for Social rolls except those involving Intimidation are halved (including those required to use Disciplines). All Merits that the character has pertaining to positive social interaction (e.g. Animal Magnetism or Sanctity) are neutralized. Heart of Stone lasts as long as the caster wishes it to.