Auspex - V20

Disciplines

Introduction

Auspex gives the vampire uncanny sensory abilities. She starts with the capacity to heighten her natural senses significantly, but as she grows in power, she can perceive psychic auras and read the thoughts of another being. Auspex can also pierce through mental illusions such as those created by Obfuscate — see the sidebar “Seeing the Unseen” on p. 142 for more.

However, a vampire with Auspex needs to be careful. Her increased sensory sensitivity can cause her to be drawn in by beautiful things or stunned by loud noises or pungent smells. Sudden or dynamic events can disorient an Auspex-using character unless her player makes a Willpower roll to block them out (difficulty of at least 4, although the more potent the source of distraction, the higher the difficulty). Failure overwhelms the character’s senses, making her oblivious to her surroundings for a turn or two. While the Malkavians and Toreador are more prone to these kinds of distractions, the Tremere and Tzimisce aren’t immune.

Dots in Perception are very useful for using Auspex powers, as more successes help the character gain more sensory information.

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● Heightened Senses
This power increases the acuity of all of the vampire’s senses, effectively doubling the clarity and range of sight, hearing, and smell. While her senses of taste and touch extend no farther than normal, they likewise become far more distinct; the vampire could taste the hint of liquor in a victim’s blood or feel the give of the board concealing a hollow space in the floor. The Kindred may magnify her senses at will, sustaining this heightened focus for as long as she desires. At the Storyteller’s option, this may make hunting easier.

Occasionally, this talent provides extrasensory or even precognitive insights. These brief, unfocused glimpses may be odd premonitions, flashes of empathy, or eerie feelings of foreboding. The vampire has no control over these perceptions, but with practice can learn to interpret them with a fair degree of accuracy.

Expanded senses come at a price, however. Bright lights, loud noises and strong smells present a hazard while the vampire uses this power. In addition to the possibility for distraction, an especially sudden or potent stimulus (like the glare of a spotlight or a clap of thunder) can blind or deafen the Kindred for an hour or more.

System: It takes a reflexive action to activate this ability, but no roll or other cost is required. In certain circumstances, dice rolls associated with using the character’s sense (such as Perception + Alertness) decrease in difficulty by a number equal to the character’s Auspex rating when the power is engaged.

Caveat: As a house rule we have changed this power, it gives you a number of extra dice equal to your Auspex rating on all Perception rolls.

The Storyteller may also use this power to see if the character perceives a threat. In this case, the Storyteller privately rolls the character’s unmodified Auspex rating, applying whatever difficulty he feels best suits the circumstances. For example, sensing that a pistol is pointed at the back of the character’s head may require a roll of difficulty 5, while the sudden realization that a rival for Primogen is planning her assassination may require a 9. Note that even this “precognition” comes only as a result of interpreting details the Kindred is able to notice. It’s not an all-purpose insight or miraculous revelation.

At the character’s discretion, she may selectively heighten one specific sense, rather than leaving them all on. In these cases, the difficulty to perceive stimuli using that sense drops by one, but the difficulty to avoid distraction or temporary bedazzlement increases by one.

This power does not let characters see in pitch darkness, as does Eyes of the Beast (p. 199), but it does reduce difficulty penalties to act in such darkness from +2 to +1, and the character may make ranged attacks in pitch darkness if she can hear, smell, or otherwise detect her foe.

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●● Aura Perception
Using this power, the vampire can perceive the psychic “auras” that radiate from mortals and supernatural beings alike. These halos comprise a shifting series of colors that take practice to discern with clarity. Even the simplest individual has many shifting hues within his aura; strong emotions predominate, while momentary impressions or deep secrets flash through in streaks and swirls.

The colors change in sympathy with the subject’s emotional state, blending into new tones in a constantly dancing pattern. The stronger the emotions involved, the more intense the hues become. A skilled vampire can learn much from her subject by reading the nuances of color and brilliance in the aura’s flow.

Aside from perceiving emotional states, vampires use Aura Perception to detect supernatural beings. The colors in Kindred auras, while intense, are quite pale; mage halos often flare and crackle with arcane power; the race of shape-shifters has strikingly bright, almost frantic, auras; ghosts have weak auras that flicker fitfully like a dying flame; and faerie creatures’ radiance is shot through with capricious rainbow hues.

System:After the character stares at the subject for at least a few seconds, the player rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty 8); each success indicates how much of the subject’s aura the character sees and understands (see the table below). A failure indicates that the play of colors and patterns yields no prevailing impression. A botch indicates a false or erroneous interpretation. The Storyteller may wish to make this roll, thus keeping the player in the dark as to the veracity of the character’s interpretation.

Successes -- Result
1 success -- Can distinguish only the shade (pale or bright).
2 successes -- Can distinguish the main color.
3 successes -- Can recognize the color patterns.
4 successes -- Can detect subtle shifts.
5 successes -- Can identify mixtures of color and pattern.

The Aura Colors chart offers some example ideas of common colors and the emotions they reflect that Storytellers can use. Note that it is nearly impossible to determine with certainty if a particular character is lying or not with this power – vampires are inherently deceitful by nature, but even mortals might react with anxiety to questions while still being truthful. It is, however, helpful in determine the target’s emotional state, which might lead the vampire to decide that a particular target is suspicious.

A character may choose to perform a very cursory aura scan of a large area like a nightclub’s dance floor or the audience in a gallery. In this case, the player decides which characteristic of auras she’s looking for, and that’s the only information she’s able to glean if the roll is successful. (At the Storyteller’s discretion, on this general scan roll, more successes on the roll may more quickly yield what the character seeks.) For example, the player may specify, “Who’s the most nervous person in attendance?” or “Are there any vampirically pale auras among the CEO’s entourage?” Thereafter, the player may narrow down her scrutiny of a single individual, with an additional roll as normal.

The character may focus in on a particular subject’s aura only once per scene with any degree of clarity. Any subsequent attempts that result in failure should be considered botches. It is very easy for the character to imagine seeing what she wants to see when judging someone’s intentions. After 24 hours, the character may try again at no penalty.

It is possible, though difficult, to sense the aura of a being who is otherwise invisible to normal sight. Refer to “Seeing the Unseen,” p. 142, for more information.

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