Ward the Soul's Sanctity

Discipline Techniques

Auspex 2, Obfuscate 3. Optional Presence 3.

Even more than other Cainites, Sinners take the sanctity of their minds very seriously and seek to guard their wills against anyone and anything trying to defile them. This power was developed to discover whenever such attempts are made and to guard against them. In more recent nights, some Sinners have managed to develop a variant of this power that actually sends the offending power back against its user.

System: Whenever anyone attempts to use a mind-affecting power on the character, be it the Dominate of a Cainite or the mind-spell of a mage, the character is automatically made aware of that attempt by a "needles-and-pins" tingle in the back of her head. In some cases, this warning is redundant (such as if a Ventrue stares into the character's eyes and says "Leave!"), but whenever anyone is subtly trying to affect the character's mind, she knows that it is being done, though not who is doing it. At this point, the player must spend a point of Willpower to activate the defensive part of this power. If the character is out of Willpower, then the defensive part of this power cannot be used, though the Sinner is still aware of attempts to affect her.

Once the Willpower point is spent, the player rolls Willpower (difficulty 6). Each success subtracts one success from those achieved by the person trying to affect the character. If all successes are removed, the power fails. If the power is one that could normally be resisted, then the player makes any normal resistance rolls or expenditures after Ward the Soul's Sanctity has been used to weaken it. If the player botches the Willpower roll, the character loses one temporary point of Willpower.

Ward the Soul's Sanctity is effective against all powers that seek to alter or control the character's mind, mainly Dementation and Dominate, though certain Thaumaturgy and high-level Serpentis effective might also be thwarted. This power is ineffective against Presence, which affects the character's emotions rather than her mind.

The more advanced version of this power, which combines it with Presence, allows the wielder to reflect the offending power back at the attacker. If the number of successes on the Willpower roll exceeds the successes gained by the aggressor, then the power is reflected back, with a number of successes equal to the difference in successes.

Example: Miranda the Sinner finds herself the target of an Incubus Passion from Mateo the Malkavian. Miranda possesses Ward the Soul's Sanctity and, so, is aware that someone is trying to affect her. Her player spends a point of Willpower and rolls Miranda's Willpower of 9: five successes. Since Mateo's player only garnered four successes on his activation roll, the Incubus passion is not only cancelled, but also reflected back at Mateo, as if it had been activated with one success.

Experience Cost: 21