••• Essentia Diffusion
This intermediate-level power allows the Essentiaphagist to cause frightening, ghost-like effects in a given area. Kindred can use this power to simulate a haunted site, to frighten mortals away or even to attract ghosts to be fed upon.
Effect
Dramatic Failure: The Kindred loses control of the effect. The essentia dissipates harmlessly, and the vampire loses any remaining Ectoplasm she has stored in her body.
Failure: The character fails to invoke the desired effect. She may try again.
Success: The character infuses her immediate area with the echoes of ghostly essentia. The exact effects of the character’s successes depend on the power sparked by the Ectoplasm. The Storyteller decides what specific Numina are mimicked by the Ectoplasm’s power, but they are often reminiscent of the ghost from which the Ectoplasm was taken.
Exceptional Success: The character infuses the area with essentia, but the effects are more potent or difficult to resist. The character may be able to select the Numen to be mimicked, if the Storyteller deems he knows enough about ghostly powers to tell one from another.
Failure: The character fails to invoke the desired effect. She may try again.
Success: The character infuses her immediate area with the echoes of ghostly essentia. The exact effects of the character’s successes depend on the power sparked by the Ectoplasm. The Storyteller decides what specific Numina are mimicked by the Ectoplasm’s power, but they are often reminiscent of the ghost from which the Ectoplasm was taken.
Exceptional Success: The character infuses the area with essentia, but the effects are more potent or difficult to resist. The character may be able to select the Numen to be mimicked, if the Storyteller deems he knows enough about ghostly powers to tell one from another.
Side/Secondary Effects
This power can mimic the effects of the Clairvoyance, Ghost Sign, Magnetic Disruption, Phantasm, Telekinesis and Terrify Numina, described on p. 111–112 of the World of Darkness Rulebook. The Storyteller decides which Numen powers are sparked. This decision may be based on the ghost from which the character’s Ectoplasm was drawn, but Ectoplasm is a strangely reactive substance and may produce altogether different effects when filtered through the curse of vampirism.
The roll to activate this power substitutes for the dice pool normally asked for the manifested Numen. The character may be able to consciously guide the effects of the Numen (to cause a specific message to be written with Ghost Sign, for example), but just as often the effects manifest as a spontaneous reflection of the character’s own psyche. Many Essentiaphagists, therefore, are just as frightened by the effects of this power as an audience might be.
Effects of Essentia Diffusion never cause damage and cannot alter their surroundings in devastating ways. For instance, this power has never been known to cause flammable items to ignite, although it might make candles Flare brightly or turn blue. Sometimes spectral images appear, but they are always hazy and indistinct. All effects of this power, including physical effects such as blood or fog, fade at the end of the scene.
The roll to activate this power substitutes for the dice pool normally asked for the manifested Numen. The character may be able to consciously guide the effects of the Numen (to cause a specific message to be written with Ghost Sign, for example), but just as often the effects manifest as a spontaneous reflection of the character’s own psyche. Many Essentiaphagists, therefore, are just as frightened by the effects of this power as an audience might be.
Effects of Essentia Diffusion never cause damage and cannot alter their surroundings in devastating ways. For instance, this power has never been known to cause flammable items to ignite, although it might make candles Flare brightly or turn blue. Sometimes spectral images appear, but they are always hazy and indistinct. All effects of this power, including physical effects such as blood or fog, fade at the end of the scene.
Dragolescu’s Theory: “A ghost may, if it is so inclined and is powerful enough, wreak great change on the area around it. I have observed ghosts shattering mirrors, coating walls in blood, calling up swarms of flies, dropping the temperature of an area considerably and even terrifying mortals almost to death. These effects, I believe, are nothing more than the result of a ghost’s essentia released from its incorporeal frame and diffused about an area. Indeed, a skilled Essentiaphagist may accomplish the same effects to whatever end, provided he first consumes enough ectoplasm.”
Material Components
Cost: 2 Ectoplasm or 1 Ectoplasm plus 2 Vitae
Gestures & Ritual
Dice Pool: Presence + Occult + Essentiaphagia
Related Discipline
Effect Casting Time
Instant
Level
3
Applied Restriction
Modifier | Situation
+3 | Area is already a haunt.
Special | Any modifier that a ghost would receive to manifest (see p. 210 of the World of Darkness Rulebook) applies to this power.
+3 | Area is already a haunt.
Special | Any modifier that a ghost would receive to manifest (see p. 210 of the World of Darkness Rulebook) applies to this power.