Temporis
Once touted as certain proof of the True Brujah's claim to sole descent from the legitimate founder of their clan, Temporis has become in these late nights less a badge of honor and more the last bastion of survival for the true blood of Brujah. As with their former allies and associates the Nagaraja, many Elois were destroyed as Enoch fell and with them the greatest of those ever to wield Temporis. Of the handful that remain, only a fraction know more than a smattering of the Discipline. The highest arts may well be lost forever with the passing of their eldest, and what is left is hardly better than folklore and rumor. Even the imperturbable Elois arc stirred to rage at the slightest whisper that one not of the blood seeks the secret of Temporis. They do not part with it - they must not, they will not. Those that claim to have stolen the secret rarely live long enough to enjoy it as the cold vengeance of a desperate bloodline is borne out against them with cruel expedience. To the Elois, it's academic. No better way, they say, to make an enemy than to put a knife in the hands of a friend. At the moment of the Embrace, all of Caine's childer are frozen in time, their flesh made immutable and unchanging, their bodies suspended precariously on the cusp of life and death. It is this selective stasis that is the source of all the power of Temporis. Even the most trivial exercise in power is like doing a soft-shoe on the brink of oblivion. Each time she wields Temporis, an Elois takes her immortality in her hands. Failure in the use of any Temporis power from the Advanced level on up inflicts an aggravated wound for each consecutive failure after the first. This count resets as soon as the vampire succeeds in one use of Temporis, allowing her two failures before taking damage again. If the sun rises before she succeeds in using Temporis, the count is also reset. Because of the nature of Temporis (each use is like stopping your own heart so you can use the electricity to jump-start your car) and because Fortitude is just another extension of the very same power, wounds gained from one cannot be resisted or reduced by the other. Powers that reduce wound penalties after the wound has been inflicted (Endurance, for instance) however, are still effective. Thus, Resilience and Resistance are ineffective against wounds garnered due to Temporis failures. In the case of Aegis, if the killing wound is caused by a Temporis failure AND it is the only wound taken in the round, Aegis cannot be used to negate
the damage and the character dies. If wounds other than those gained from Temporis failures are taken in the same round before death, Aegis can be used to negate all damage other than that gained from Temporis thereby letting the vampire live to fight again (at least for another round, anyway). By its very nature, the use of Temporis is profoundly linked to the hardiness of the wielder. For that reason, all Traits bid in challenges to invoke the powers of Temporis must be Stamina-related. In rare cases, the Storyteller may allow the use of non-Stamina-related Traits, but this is not suggested. In the case of over-bidding, only the total of the wielder's Stamina Traits may be bid except in those rare cases mentioned above, at the Storyteller's discretion. This power retests using the Occult Ability.
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basic Temporis |
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Time Attunement |
The first step toward controlling time is learning to perceive it. If time is a river, Time Attunement is the equivalent of putting a hand in the water. In addition to granting an extremely accurate time sense (allowing him to keep track of the exact time before the next sunset, down to the second, among other things), this level of Temporis also gifts the vampire with a unique sensitivity to disturbances in the flow of time around him. Whether caused by another of the Elois, a mortal magician or something even less common, the vampire may sense the disturbance by succeeding in a Simple Test. The range of this sensitivity is wholly dependent on the intensity of the disturbance - minor powers (Basic and Intermediate) can be sensed up to a mile away. Advanced and Master-level powers can be perceived from as far as 10 miles away, and use of even more potent abilities can be detected from a hundred to as far as a thousand miles away. Also, any attempt to alter the vampire's internal clock must first succeed in a Static Mental Challenge at a difficulty of the target's level of Temporis, in Traits. (This is only true of powers intended to change the character's perception of time. Abilities that speed or slow the character's body through time affect the character as it would any other.) Time Attunement also allows its practitioners to detect Celerity when used in their immediate vicinity. By succeeding in a Static Mental Challenge with a difficulty equal to seven minus the level of the power being detected, the character may sense the use of Celerity in the round it's activated up to 10 yards for each level of Temporis the character possesses. Time Attunement is always in effect. Characters possessing it can always tell the exact amount of time that has passed between two events, to the second. When given an amount of time, a practitioner of Temporis can count it down as precisely as any clock known to man. Those using Time Attunement can always tell the hour exactly, night or day.
Internal Recursion
With a deft flex of his temporal power, the vampire who's mastered Internal Recursion can knit his victim into a loop of time, forcing the target to relive some small, simple segment of life over and over again. Only the victim's mind is actually affected, body and surroundings chug on through normal time immobilized for lack of intelligent motivation. To initiate the Internal Recursion, the vampire spends a Blood Point and engages the target in a Social Challenge. If successful, the target's mind is trapped in a looping replay of some harmless, commonplace event. Unless the wielder is capable of invasive psychic probing, the event to be replayed must have been physically witnessed by the wielder (and likely will have occurred only shortly before the power was activated). As described above, the event to be relived must be relatively uneventful or commonplace and must require no interaction on the part of the victim. Thus, a patrol of familiar, empty corridors would be a viable subject for replay while a conversation (no matter how banal or boring) would not. Some of the less humane members of the Kindred population may be tempted to inflict painful or horrific recursions on unwitting victims. This simply will not work as the emotional placidity required of the event and target is destroyed by the intensity of such a situation. Once snared in the Internal Recursion, the victim remains motionless and insensible for one minute. Each Blood Trait spent by the wielder after the first will extend this duration by 10 minutes. The victim will be totally unaware of his surroundings and incapable of taking action for the full duration unless disturbed in some way. Anything causing loss of health levels, even if the victim feels no pain, will end the recursion and bring him to his senses. Quiet speech will not rouse the target, but a shout or gunshot, or even a gentle nudge, will break the trance.
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intermediate Temporis |
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Lapse |
At this level, the vampire's mastery over time has progressed far enough that she may physically alter a subject's passage through time, slowing her target's progress by half for a brief moment. Just the feeling of being afflicted by this power can be unsettling to fragile minds as the world rushes past at twice speed, leaving the victim straining to keep up. To invoke Lapse, the vampire first spends two Blood Traits and engages in a Static Physical Challenge with a difficulty equal to the target's Willpower. Each trait successfully risked in this challenge enforces Lapse for one round in combat. In non-combat situations, the duration is one minute per Trait successfully risked. Successive uses of Lapse are cumulative and extend the duration of the effect appropriately. Lapse takes effect in the round immediately following successful application. Those under the sway of Lapse must bid twice the usual Traits in any challenge involving speed of motion or thought. Thus, a Lapsed character must bid at least two Traits to hit an opponent in combat, though a Physical Challenge made to lift a heavy object would be unaffected. Challenges intended to reflect quick thinking (as determined by the Storyteller) are similarly affected. Characters using Celerity for additional actions may sacrifice one half of their actions (round down) to eliminate the penalty for all remaining actions. Thus, a character with five total actions in a turn may sacrifice two of those actions to eliminate the penalty in the remaining three or take five actions and bid at least twice the usual number of Traits for each. This power in no way affects the damage inflicted by attacks. Bullets and arrows, though slowed, retain the full force of their impact.
Subjective Suspension
At this stage in her development, the vampire may actually remove inanimate objects from the flow of time, suspending them for a little while as the rest of the world is carried past in the current. As with Lapse, the benefits of this power are not restricted to combat alone. Subjective suspension could be used to halt a falling object in its descent, suspend a sudden conflagration long enough for a hasty escape, or preserve a fragile artifact from decay. When Subjective Suspension is activated, all processes, whether mechanical, electrical or chemical, are frozen for the duration of the effect. Bullets hang motionless in midair; fires appear as no more than charred logs, falling objects freeze in mid-tumble. To invoke Subjective Suspension, the vampire must first be able to perceive it. In most cases this is automatic, with particularly difficult observations requiring a Static Mental Test at a difficulty determined by the Storyteller. For objects moving too quickly to be seen by mortal eyes, some means of enhancing the senses beyond mortal means is necessary. Most often, the Auspex power of Heightened Senses is sufficient, though the Storyteller may still require a successful Mental challenge to make best use of the power. Once the object is perceived, the vampire must spend two Blood Traits and succeed in a Static Physical Challenge (retest with Occult}. Each Physical Trait spent increases the duration of the Suspension as indicated on the table below. Suspension of an object includes the suspension of all its energy and any chemical processes occurring within it. Thus, a suspended bullet has no kinetic energy with regards to the world around it, chemical reactions are held in stasis, and fires cease to emit heat, light or smoke until such time as the power's duration expires. At the end of Subjective Suspension's duration, all processes, energies and reactions resume activity as though no time had passed. Fires roar to life, chemical reactions run their course, and objects
in motion continue on their original trajectory at the speed they had originally been traveling. Subjective Suspension may never be used on an object larger than the vampire herself and cannot be used to suspend living or unliving thing more complex than a dog.
Blood
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Duration
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0 Traits
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One Round
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1 Trait
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One Minute
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2 Traits
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10 Minutes
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3 Traits
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One Hour
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4 Traits
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One Day
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5 Traits
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One Week
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6+ Traits
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One Additional Week per Trait Spent
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advanced Temporis
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Clotho's Gift | |
By speeding the flow of time through himself, the vampire gains the ability to perform acts of speed normally reserved to uses of Celerity. Unlike Celerity, Clotho's Gift does not simply enhance the user's physical speed and reactions but accelerates him through time, thus allowing the use of Disciplines normally requiring full conscious thought to invoke. There is a price to pay, however, as using vampiric powers while Clotho's Gift is in effect taxes the force that maintains the vampire's immortality to its limits and beyond. Vampires choosing to exercise other Disciplines while under the influence of this power find their bodies withering with the strain as the force that maintains them is consumed by their exertions. True Brujah tell their childer horror stories of unwise vampires made ash-heaps by accelerated use of Dominate. To use Clotho's Gift, the vampire spends three Blood Traits and must succeed in a Static Physical Challenge (retest with Occult). For a number of turns equal to his levels in Temporis divided by two (round down), the vampire gains one extra action for each trait successfully risked in the Physical Challenge. These actions may be used in any way the player wishes, including the use of Disciplines normally forbidden from multiple uses per turn (Dominate and Thaumaturgy, for instance). As said before, however, there is a price. Each use of a Discipline within the duration of Clotho's Gift inflicts one health level of unsoakable lethal damage on the vampire. Uses of accelerated powers occur at normal speed, relative to the victim. Victims of Dominate hear commands as if spoken at normal speed and Temporis in no way eliminates the need for eye contact. Use of lesser Temporis powers is also permitted under the same strictures as those of other Disciplines as listed above. Greater powers (Elder-level and greater), however, cause the immediate destruction of the vampire using them. Similarly, any vampire attempting multiple use of Clotho's Gift immediately collapses in a pile of ash, the force of his unlife instantly dispersed.