The Path of Mars
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| Unlike the Camarilla Tremere, the Tremere antitribu were never at liberty to pursue pure research in blood magic - all of their work was applied toward their sect's goals. This path, one of the first developed after the Sabbat's formation, is a directly martial one, which sets it apart from many utilitarian paths that happen to have martial applications. It is also a highly personal path as its user focuses the effects internally rather than externally, and no two students of the Path of Mars approach it with exactly the same attitude. Practitioners of this path tend to be adept at close combat and often complement it with knowledge of Hands of Destruction (Laws of the Night, p. 183). Path of Mars uses the Occult Ability for retests. |
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basic path of mars | |
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War Cry | |
The first technique you learn is that of focusing your will to fight. This enhances your courage and renders you less susceptible to mind-altering effects. However, this artificial strengthening of your will locks your emotions away from you while it is in effect, rendering you cold and distant. You activate this power with some symbolic gesture or outcry, be it howling a Rebel yell, murmuring a quick meditative chant, donning a stripe of war paint or inflicting superficial cuts on your face and chest. For the duration of the scene, your Courage is increased by one Trait, and you automatically win all ties on Mental Challenges when resisting hostile Discipline effects. However, you are too focused on fighting - and winning - to consider others' feelings, and you gain the Negative Social Trait Tactless while under War Cry's influence.
| Strike True |
Once you have learned to harden your will and subvert all weakness, you begin to gain the unity of purpose necessary to ignore all obstacles. This technique allows you a momentary flash of clarity as you strike an opponent, using your magic to enhance your perceptions and reflexes. Some thaumaturges invoke this power with a martial artist's kiai or a fencer's dramatic flourish, though others attack with perfect silence and no wasted motion. Invoke this power when making a close combat (bare hands or a melee weapon) attack before you make the challenge. You gain one free retest on this attack alone. You may not make any other attacks this turn, though you can use multiple actions normally (to move or to ready a weapon, for instance).
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intermediate path of mars | |
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Wind Dance | |
The clarity of vision that you learned to apply to your own attacks with Strike True can now be used to discern the strikes that others make against you. Though this grants you no supernatural knowledge of attacks that you are not aware of, you are much more able to evade those that you can see coming. If you have a "signature" invocation that you use to activate War Cry, you may well have a corresponding one for this power as well. Once you have activated Wind Dance, you gain two extra Dodge Ability Traits for the duration of the scene (which may exceed your generation limits on Ability Traits in any one Ability). You may only activate Wind Dance once per scene and these Traits disappear if you do not spend them by the end of that scene - you may not "stack" multiple applications of Wind Dance.
Fearless Heart
This technique reaches beyond mere tricks of perception to subtly enhance your physical form. Though not as potent as the combat transformations of Disciplines such as Vicissitude, the advantage of Fearless Heart is that its application is largely undetectable. As with Wind Dance, many thaumaturges who employ this power summon it with more complex variations of the invocations they use for War Cry. Once you have activated Fearless Heart, you gain the Physical Traits Stalwart, Quick and Enduring for the duration of the scene. You may not "stack" multiple applications of Fearless Heart, bur you may employ it in conjunction with Wind Dance or other Discipline powers that give you additional Traits.
advanced path of Mars
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Comrades at Arms | |
Rather than bestowing more complex boons, the pinnacle of the Path of Mars allows you to share your benedictions with your packmates. You may bestow the effects of War Cry, Wind Dance or Fearless Heart upon any willing recipient by touching her and spending the usual Blood Trait to activate the power in question. You may give any combination of these effects to any number of recipients as long as you spend one action and one Blood Trait for each power and each character. Roleplay this appropriately, especially if your unique "style" for this path's lesser powers involves war paint or superficial injuries. All limitations for self-application of these powers also apply when applying them to others (e.g. no multiple Wind Dance applications on the same subject).