Warding the Beast
The most damaged souls that a Salubri might come across cannot be healed by ordinary means. Some of them show remorse, or at least wish they hand not fallen quite so far from the moral state they held as mortals. Others are subject to incapacitating Derangements - strange fears, uncontrollable anger, or even demonic voices speaking to them.
The Salubri at this level of master can remove a subject's soul from its physical shell, to comfort and heal it within his own body. In so doing, he can even ward it against the demons that cause madness, so that the soul will be protected against the insanity that plagued it when it returns to its body. The subject's body is an automation while its soul is absent; it does not drop into torpor. Responsible Salubri do not use this ability on an unwilling subject, but the subject's cooperation is not required.
In the case of a willing subject, the use of this power feels pleasant; the subject's soul slips from its shell into the warm embrace of a loving healer. the sensation of being ripped from one's body against one's will, however, is as unpleasant as might be imagined. Some Cainites liken it to reliving the first death.
System: The player rolls Stamina + Empathy (difficulty is 10 minus the subject's Road rating). Warding the Beast does not work on those with Road ratings of 1 or 0, nor on anyone on the Road of Sin or other Roads completely at odds with Humanity (Storyteller's discretion). These souls are either beyond saving (in the former case) or have deliberately chosen a road that the Path of healing cannot mend (in the latter). A failure on this road means that the charactger cannot try to use this ability until the following night; a botch means the same, and the character also acquires one of the subject's Derangements.
While the subject's soul is within the character's body, the character may take a few different actions. First, he may repair Derangements by using The Ailing Spirit (Healer Valeren 5); this power works normally on captive souls.
Second, he can attempt to repair the soul's corrosion inflicted by the nightly unlife of the Damned. To do this, the player spends one permanent Willpower point to raise the subject's Road score by one. Each point of Willpower spent in this fashion takes a full hour to restore the subject's Road. the maximum number of permanent Willpower points that can be spent in this fashion is equal to the character's Empathy score. However, she cannot increase the subject's road rating to a level higher than the sum of his appropriate virtues (Conscience/Conviction + Self Control/Instinct).
The subject's soul and his soulless body both cry out for one another, regardless of the Salubri's intention toward him. Holding a soul away from a body (be it Cainite or mortal) for more than a night is cruel in the extreme, and should be considered a serious sin against most roads (especially Humanity and Heaven). The soulless body needs nourishment and can even be forced to move around under its own power, but it lacks a motivating force. It is ripe for demonic (or ghostly) possession unless precautions are taken against that. If the body is destroyed, the soul knows immediately, and if it doesn't merely dissipate is likely to become a hostile poltergeist or worse.
souls that wish to escape the embrace of Warding the Beast must engage in a resisted Willpower roll with the player (difficulty is the trapped soul's Wits + Empathy). If the soul earns more successes than the Salubri, it returns to its body.
