Vitreous Path v20

Necromancy

Introduction

The Vitreous Path allows a necromancer to control and influence the energies pertaining to death. This extremely rare path manipulates entropy, a force that even most necromancers are uncomfortable harnessing. A development of the Nagaraja bloodline (p. 406, although they sometimes call the path “Nihilistics”), the Vitreous Path makes a formidable complement to the necromantic craft, and those obsessed with mastery over death and souls — such as the Harbingers of Skulls — would certainly risk much to uncover this path’s secrets.

Like most necromancers, Nagaraja generally learn the Sepulchre Path before any others. The Vitreous Path is usually their second focus of study.

• Eyes of the Dead

The necromancer employing the Eyes of the Dead can see with the perceptions of the Restless Dead (called Deathsight). To such a manipulator of ghostly energies, the auras of surrounding beings give off telltale hints as to their health and even their ultimate fate; the necromancer can see the energies of death flowing through everyone, just as ghosts can. By looking at the entropic markings on a person’s body, the necromancer can gain rough knowledge of how far that person is from death, how soon that person is likely to die, and even what the cause of her death is likely to be. The information thus gained is not exact by any means, but it gives the necromancer an edge over those she scrutinizes.

System: The player rolls Perception + Occult, difficulty 6. One success lets a necromancer determine whether someone is injured, diseased, or dying, as well as whether the individual labors under any sort of curse or baleful magic.

Further, the vampire can divine the target’s eventual demise, depending on the successes scored. One success means the character can guess how long the tar- get has to live to within a few weeks. Three successes means the character can estimate how long the target has to live and what the probable source of death will be, as the entropic markings show the wounds that will someday exist on that person. Five successes means the character can actually see where and when the event will occur by interpreting the black marks on the target’s soul.

This ability lasts for one scene, though the necromancer may choose to end the power early. It can be used to read the fate of only one target at a time. Storytellers should exercise judgment with this power, since the markings of death are typically unavoidable. He may decide to roll the dice himself, so that the player has no way of knowing whether her insight is correct.

•• Aura of Decay

The necromancer can strengthen the feeling of entropy around her to the point where it breaks down nonliving objects and machines. It can gnarl wood, rust metal, crack silicon chips, and erode plastic, glass, and dead organic material. This power has a range of one yard or meter from the necromancer’s body, but all those in the presence of the vampire can feel her corruption as an icy wind.

System: No roll is required, but this power does cost at least one blood point. Objects subjected to this Aura of Decay break down and become useless after being targeted. How the object gives out, as well as the exact mechanism of failure, is up to the Storyteller. Corrosion, metal fatigue, or sheer brittleness are all suitably likely for any given item’s demise, but the in-game effect of using a doomed item is as if the owning character rolled a botch. The speed at which an item breaks down depends on how many blood points are spent.

Blood Spent Time to Breakdown

One -- One week

Two -- One day

Three -- End of scene

Four -- Five turns

Five -- One turn

Note: that since this power requires the expenditure of blood points, a character cannot cause an Aura of Decay while staked.

••• Soul Feast

Just as the necromancer can release entropic energies from within, she may also pull them into herself as a source of power. Soul Feasting allows the caster to either draw on the ambient death energies around her or to actively feed on a ghost, stealing the wraith’s substance and mystically transforming that energy into sustenance.

System: The player spends one Willpower point to allow the vampire to feed on the negative energies of the dead. If the character is drawing the energies from the atmosphere, she must be in a place where death has occurred within the hour or in a place where death is common, such as a cemetery, a morgue, or the scene of a recent murder. Generally, the necromancer can draw anywhere from one to four points of entropy from such a location, although the difficulty in using all Necromancy and similar deathly powers within the area increases by an equal amount for a number of nights equal to the points taken. The energies of such an area may only be drained once until the area’s entropy replenishes.

In cases when the necromancer feeds on a ghost, the vampire must actually attack the wraith as if feeding normally. Wraiths have up to 10 “blood points” that may be taken from them, and they become less and less substantial as their spirit essence drains away. The character is vulnerable to any attack the ghost might make, even those that do not normally affect the physical world; while feeding, the vampire is essentially in a half-state, existing in both the living lands and the Underworld simultaneously. The wraith so attacked is considered immobilized and cannot run or escape unless it can defeat the vampire in a resisted Willpower roll (difficulty 6 for both sides). This power may also be used in conjunction with Ash Path Necromancy, allowing the vampire to drain power (though not sustenance) from ghosts while traveling in the lands of the dead.

This soul energy may be used just like blood in every respect except for when the vampire rises for the night. It can activate Disciplines, heal wounds, boost Attributes, etc. Botching this power renders the vampire unable to feed through the Shroud for the rest of the night. However, she remains susceptible to the assaults of ghosts and spirits for several turns (generally, a number of turns equal to the amount of energy that could have been drawn from the area, or one turn if attacking a ghost) as she hovers between worlds, unable to function effectively in either.