The Path of the Father's Vengeance
| This path originated with the first Noddist Tremere antitribu. According to their claims, it is a blood magic method of directly manipulating the curse that God placed upon Caine. However, most non-Noddist scholars of the Path of the Father's Vengeance state that it is simply one more application of blood magic, albeit with trappings that certainly make it look like a primal tie to the vampiric condition and that the path's creators were probably inflating their own importance. This path's study is a hot topic of debate among Sabbat thaumaturges, as some Noddists, Bahari and Unifiers believe that claiming mastery over Caine's curse is dangerously close to heresy - or an aspiration to apotheosis. Most Sabbat thaumaturges teach Path of the Father's Vengeance with a verbal component. Invocation of any power requires the thaumaturge to speak the portion of the Curse (or a related passage from The Book of Nod) that she is applying. There is no actual innate power in the words (though some thaumaturges claim otherwise); rather, they serve as a mnemonic focus to steady the caster's concentration. All powers from this path have a maximum range of the distance at which the caster's voice is audible without mechanical assistance. Apply common sense in determining this range - don't penalize the character if the player has laryngitis. These powers only affect Cainites. They have no effect on Cathayans, mortals, ghouls, Lupines or any other beings. Path of the Father's Vengeance uses the Occult Ability for retests, though it may use the specialized Ability of Vampire Lore if the Storyteller so desires. |
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basic Path of the Father's Vengeance |
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Zillah's Litany |
Your blood, potent as it is now, will bond those who drink it, as you did, once a night for three nights. You will be the master. They will be your thrall, as you are mine.
According to commonly accepted Cainite prehistory, Zillah was Caine's wife. She was the first vampire besides Caine to undergo the blood bond as Caine used the harsh lesson that the Crone taught him to capture Zillah's eternal love.
The passages from The Book of Nod that deal with this incident serve as a mnemonic device to focus your concentration, allowing you hazy impressions of any blood bonds or Vinculi to which your target might be subject. To apply Zillah's Litany, you must speak the passages in question to your target. Make a Simple Test for each vampire to whom your subject is connected by blood bond or Vinculum. On a tie, you gain a hazy impression of the individual's face. If you win, you gain a face and the name by which the subject knows that individual, as well as a hazy psychic impression. A Narrator will most likely have to arbitrate this power's effects as your subject may not be aware of all her Vinculi.
| The Crone's Pride |
And Caine could do nothing but stare into her ancient eyes, desire her leathery skin.
The Crone is the mythic-historic figure who taught Caine the power of the blood bond by subjecting him to it. According to The Book of Nod, she was a creature of loathsome visage, horrifying to gaze upon and undesirable by even the coarsest standards. To apply a similar appearance to your target, you must recite a description of the Crone to her and defeat her in a Mental Challenge. If you win, she receives the Nosferatu clan disadvantage for the rest of the night, including the Negative Social Traits Repugnant x 3. She may not bid the Social Traits that are banned for Nosferatu (Alluring, Gorgeous or Seductive), nor do they count toward her total Social Traits for ties and overbids.
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Intermediate Path of the Father's Vengeance |
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Feast of Ashes |
You will drink only blood. You will eat only ashes. You will be always as you were at death.
With this power, you may invoke the final curse that God laid upon Caine, twisting your subject's hunger so that blood no longer sustains him. For the duration of this power, he gains no sustenance from vitae, but instead must consume ash for nourishment. Make a Mental Challenge against your target. If you win, expend a number of Mental Traits. This is the number of nights during which he gains no Blood Traits from drinking blood. Instead, for every handful of ash he consumes, he gains one Ashen Blood Trait, which he may only expend to heal non-aggravated damage or to satisfy his normal nightly sustenance requirement. This may be any sort of ash: Cigarette butts, the leavings of a campfire or even the remains of a vampire who has met Final Death.
| Uriel's Disfavor |
Then, for as long as you walk this earth, you and your children will fear the dawn, and the sun's rays will seek to burn you like fire where ever you hide always.
Purists argue that this power's proper name should be "Raphael's Disfavor," as it was that angel, not Uriel, who cursed Caine in such a fashion. Nevertheless, the current appellation remains. A victim of this power is afflicted with a vastly heightened sensitivity to any sort of light, even artificial sources that are normally harmless to most Cainites. Make a Mental Challenge against your target. If you win, she gains Uriel's Disfavor for the rest of the scene. You may spend a Willpower Trait after winning the challenge to extend this to the rest of the night. While under the effect of this power, the subject gains the Negative Mental Trait Oblivious when in the presence of any light source brighter than a single candle. Worse yet, she sustains one level of aggravated damage for every turn that she is directly exposed to any bright light, such as a halogen flashlight, automobile high beams or nightclub strobes (Storyteller's discretion; a good rule of thumb is any light that would make you go "ouch!" if you looked directly into it from three yards or less).
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advanced father's vengeance | |
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Valediction | |
Seek not the blood of thine own Elder. Seek not the blood of thy Sire's Sire. Seek not the blood that made thee Kin.
Though many Sabbat consider diablerie a sacrament or a duty, such behavior is in direct opposition to one of the few dictates that Caine supposedly laid down. The mere threat of Valediction is enough to give pause to those who are familiar with it. By invoking Caine's law against diablerie, you can strip all the benefits of that act from your victim. You must spend three turns to speak the entire invocation of this power. On the third turn, make a Mental Challenge against your victim. If you succeed, spend any number of Willpower Traits. For that many nights, the subject returns to the generation she possessed at the time other Embrace. She immediately loses access to all Traits that are in excess of her generation maximum (Storyteller's discretion as to which specific Traits the victim loses in each category). Her Blood Pool likewise shrinks; if she has more Blood Traits in her system than she can currently hold, she is unable to initiate any actions until she has finished vomiting up the excess blood at the rate of one Blood Trait per turn. If this shift in generation changes her access to high-level Disciplines, she is temporarily stripped of those powers.