The Notorious Vampiric Lawn Chair

Rotes by Craft / Tradition

Description: A feat more spoken of than actually performed (if only because so few mages have Mastered Life and Matter well enough to enact such radical transformations of both), this legendary spell transforms a dreaded undead entity into domestic furniture. Variations include soap bubbles, trees, household pets, and – in one infamous urban legend – a bag of flaming poo. Despite such rumors, though, the realities involved in this sort of metamorphosis make the idea more theoretical than practical.

According to rumors, both Caeron Mustai and his arch-rival Porthos Fitz-Empress had several pieces of Kindred kindling in their studies, although this seems unlikely, given the risk of said furniture turning back into vampires at inopportune times. Certain vampires have claimed – rightly or wrongly – that mages turned them into chairs and other inanimate objects... typically using that claim to justify the nightmarish fates they inflicted upon those mages afterward. It was speculated that the Massasa Wars were sparked by such disgraceful transformations... and in at least one verified case, that speculation is true. The vengeance worked upon the Hermetic Master in question – who dared to turn a flesh- crafting Tzimisce into a commode – remains an object lesson for mages with more skill than sense.

System: Seriously, this is a truly stupid spell. No mage with the Sphere aptitude and Arete to perform it is likely to ignore the many complications involved in such a prank – to wit:

• It’s vulgar. Really vulgar. As in, there is no way to possibly justify this by paradigm-level vulgar. Paradox is inevitable.

• It’s got to overcome the innate resistance a vampire has to such spells. (See Night-Folk Counterspelling, p. 546.)

• It must inflict enough successes, after countermagick, to bring that vampire from full strength to Incapacitated. For a young vampire, that would demand at least four successes (eight health levels); the same feat might demand five, six, or even more successes if the mage is trying to convert an elder Kindred.

• If you’re using the divided successes option, then the player must devote at least that many successes to the transformation damage. That means that a four-success roll will change the vampire into a lawn chair for one turn. After that, the lawn chair becomes a vampire again – and the mage had better have a good escape spell handy at that point, or his name becomes “blood bag.”

• In order to effect a lasting transformation, the player must either spend or roll additional successes, as shown on the Base Damage or Duration chart . Turning a young vampire into a chair for one day, for instance, would require at least seven successes.

• Tuning an undead vampire into some other form of inert material demands Matter 5. “Vampire” is not listed on the Periodic Table of Elements, so transforming that substance into different forms of matter requires full Mastery of that Sphere.

• Vampires with the Protean and Vicissitude Disciplines can transform back to their original form with very little trouble. The vampire must spend one Blood Point for each success the mage rolled. Every point negates one success on the Arete roll, and the vampire changes back when those successes are all negated.

• The transformed vampire is still a vampire, and that vampire remains conscious. Said vampire may use any Discipline that doesn’t require moving her limbs. If the bloodsucker has minions within summoning distance, things might go rather poorly for the mage.

• A Kindred on the receiving end of this spell – whether or not the spell succeeds – must make a Frenzy roll at difficulty 8 (outright humiliation, plus dire peril). For players unfamiliar with Vampire: The Masquerade, this means that the vampire will flip her shit unless she makes a successful roll, and anyone within reach will become wallpaper in very short order.

• A vampire who gets turned into wooden furniture may be set on fire, for the usual amount of damage. If the spell lasts long enough, that vampire might be left out in the sun, again taking the usual amount of damage each turn. That burning Kindred automatically goes into frenzy and may immediately change back into her normal form by expending her entire blood pool, assuming that she has enough blood left to do so. If not, she burns.

• Vampires hold immortal grudges. Any mage who transforms a Kindred into furniture will be blood-hunted by that vampire, her allies, and probably other vampires as well. (A blood-hunt, for non-Vampire players, is essentially a zero-mercy undead APB.) After all, examples must be made, lest other mages get the wrong idea.

• When, not if, those hunters find the mage, their revenge will be as gorily theatrical as possible... and when it comes to gory theatrics, it’s hard to beat an angry vampire!

Any mage dumb enough to brag about doing this sort of thing (whether he can actually do it or not) deserves his impending sadistic demise.

Source: Mage V20 -- pg.610-611