Blood Alchemy {Spoiling}
The Ordo Dracul is a society that blends the archaic and the modern, the mystic and the scientific, with the confidence and cleverness of an enthusiast. The covenant’s pseudo-scientific experiments with the limits of potable power have created at least one unique mixture of mystic powers: blood alchemy.
The foundation of modern blood alchemy lies in the hexing powers of medieval Slavic witches (or perhaps just the legends that surround them). The wild woodland sorcerers of eastern Europe were said to use occult recipes to create magical potions containing powerful curses. In the early 19th Century, a Scottish Dragon residing in Russia claimed to manifest such powers after “draining the blood from a traitorous volkhvy [a peasant sorcerer or priest].” For a time, it was thought that the vampire, Dr. Nicholas Mighall, had founded a new bloodline, but his grandchilder did not inherit his power, and the fledgling lineage died off.
Something else had happened to Dr. Mighall’s blood. His taste of the witch’s blood had stirring something in his own, and, in time, Dr. Mighall cultivated that sensation into a repeatable power. Over the next few decades, Mighall sought out accounts of other Kindred in Hungary, Poland and Russia who might be able to identify the changes in his blood. It seemed he was not the only Kindred to have access to this little-known Discipline. Vampires in Bucharest claimed to have known of the rare power for centuries. It was called Spoiling, and it was an undead manifestation of folk witchery. With it, a Kindred could distill her own ire and malice into a plaguing curse that stained her victim like blood.
Fascinated with the changes happening within him, Dr. Mighall returned to London in the 1880s to confer with what he considered the finest mystic investigative minds in Christendom — the occultists of The Ordo Dracul. Within 10 years, the first handful of so-called Solutions had been mixed from the persistent Vitae of a Spoiling practitioner. A handful of Dragons throughout Western Europe learned to evoke the powers of Spoiling in their own blood. The new vampiric craft of blood alchemy had been founded.
Spoiling allows a vampire to hex a subject or her possessions with a curse of blood. As the vampire’s capability with this blood hex improves, her power becomes more and more refined. A novice vampire needs to brush a handful of blood onto her victim just to impose a hindering curse, but a skilled practitioner of Spoiling can hide a small spot on a subject’s coat or skin and plague her with several nights of misfortune and weakness.
Unlike many Disciplines, Spoiling consists of only a single power that becomes more dangerous as the practitioner’s command of the Discipline increases. Kindred of all clans and covenants may potentially learn this Discipline, if a teacher can be found. In some cases, such as that of Dr. Mighall, the first dot of Spoiling can be learned through happenstance or personal experimentation.
Spoiling is considered an out-of-clan Discipline for all vampires. The experience point cost to learn dots of Spoiling is therefore equal to seven times the number of dots the character will have when the new dot is attained (see Vampire: The Requiem, p. 230).
The character applies a Spoiling curse by placing an amount of Vitae on the subject or her possessions. This Vitae is delivered through the character’s touch, and seem to be nothing more than a mundane bloodstain, though that alone is enough to provoke worry. The size of the stain depends on the character’s dots in Spoiling — more powerful practitioners can reduce their cursed Vitae down to smaller of doses of blood. As a guideline, a character with one dot in Spoiling needs to apply an amount of Vitae roughly equivalent to a handprint, while a character with five dots in Spoiling needs an amount roughly equal to a thumbprint.
The subject of the curse suffers a penalty equal to all dice pools involving a single Attribute for as long as the vampire’s Vitae remains on her body or on any article of clothing she wears, or for a number of nights equal to the vampire’s dots in Spoiling, whichever comes first. The penalty imposed on the subject is equal to the character’s dots in Spoiling. So-called spoiled blood, can be washed away in the same manner as a like amount of mundane blood, and its cursed affects are removed with it. If the subject succeeds on the contested action to resistant the curse when it is applied, the curse is broken before it can begin and the subject is unaffected.
Every time a vampire purchases a new dot in Spoiling, she selects another Attribute that she can potentially affect with this Discipline. A character with multiple dots in Spoiling can curse only one Attribute with each use of this power, and the Attribute to be cursed must be declared when the curse is invoked (not when it is applied).
Example: Victor is a Dragon with three dots in Spoiling, capable of cursing a subject’s Strength, Wits or Resolve. In this case, he believes he’s located the mysterious witch-hunter who’s been prowling about his Haven, and he plans on deterring the mortal from any future investigations. Victor and his mark are on the train together, surrounded with bystanders. First, Victor attempts to curse his Resolve in preparation for other powers. Victor achieves four successes on his activation roll, and spends a Vitae to bring three fingertips’ worth of cursed blood to the surface of his flesh. With a gentle touch, Victor brushes the mortal’s jacket, applying the curse. The Storyteller secretly rolls the mortal’s resistance. If the curse has taken effect, the witch-hunter will suffer a –3 penalty on all Resolve actions whenever he wear that jacket, for up to three nights. If the witch-hunters washes his jacket clean, however, the curse will be broken.
All of the powers of blood alchemy require the practitioner to shed her own Vitae (represented by the Solution’s cost) into the mixture. Vitae is the medium through which the powers of blood alchemy are transmitted. That Vitae may be hidden within other substances, but it is the Vitae that matters.
The subject of a Solution’s power is always the being that consumes it. (A few Solutions may be suffused into solid foods or even capsules, but the vast majority of Solutions are imbibed.) A Solution retains its power for a number of nights equal to the successes achieved on the activation roll to create the mixture. As with this practice’s foundational Discipline, the more dots the blood alchemist has in Spoiling, the more concentrated the Vitae she bestows into the mixture and, so, the easier it is to hide the presence of her blood in the drink.
It is assumed that those who drink a Solution will attempt to resist its effects. All Solutions therefore involve a contested action, pitting the potency of the blood alchemist’s sanguine infusion against the Resolve, Stamina or Composure of the drinker, to determine if a subject is affected. Resistance is always reflexive.
When a Solution is first swallowed, the drinker gets a slight but palpable sensation of the coming effect. For psychic Solutions, this often manifests as little more than a developing wooziness, but for Solutions containing physically altering powers (such as Vigor) the oncoming rush is decidedly clearer. Anyone drinking a Solution may choose to forego resistance and simply allow themselves to be affected by its powers — but they don’t get a second chance to resist later if they change their minds (or have their minds changed).
The foundation of modern blood alchemy lies in the hexing powers of medieval Slavic witches (or perhaps just the legends that surround them). The wild woodland sorcerers of eastern Europe were said to use occult recipes to create magical potions containing powerful curses. In the early 19th Century, a Scottish Dragon residing in Russia claimed to manifest such powers after “draining the blood from a traitorous volkhvy [a peasant sorcerer or priest].” For a time, it was thought that the vampire, Dr. Nicholas Mighall, had founded a new bloodline, but his grandchilder did not inherit his power, and the fledgling lineage died off.
Something else had happened to Dr. Mighall’s blood. His taste of the witch’s blood had stirring something in his own, and, in time, Dr. Mighall cultivated that sensation into a repeatable power. Over the next few decades, Mighall sought out accounts of other Kindred in Hungary, Poland and Russia who might be able to identify the changes in his blood. It seemed he was not the only Kindred to have access to this little-known Discipline. Vampires in Bucharest claimed to have known of the rare power for centuries. It was called Spoiling, and it was an undead manifestation of folk witchery. With it, a Kindred could distill her own ire and malice into a plaguing curse that stained her victim like blood.
Fascinated with the changes happening within him, Dr. Mighall returned to London in the 1880s to confer with what he considered the finest mystic investigative minds in Christendom — the occultists of The Ordo Dracul. Within 10 years, the first handful of so-called Solutions had been mixed from the persistent Vitae of a Spoiling practitioner. A handful of Dragons throughout Western Europe learned to evoke the powers of Spoiling in their own blood. The new vampiric craft of blood alchemy had been founded.
What is Blood Alchemy?
In game terms, blood alchemy is the name for a unique collection of Devotions, called Solutions, that allow a vampire to instill other supernatural powers into elixirs created from her own blood. All Solutions depend on the fringe Discipline called Spoiling to function. In practice, blood alchemy is little more than a new Discipline and associated Devotions, but its existence is noteworthy because of the manner of its, albeit slow, spread throughout the World of Darkness. The Discipline of Spoiling has been known to Kindred in certain corners of Europe for centuries, but within a few decades of its introduction to The Ordo Dracul, its mystic powers had been tested, altered, expanded and modified into a new collection of supernatural effects based on the intersection of chemistry and folklore. Like all good Dragon pursuits, it also has its own jargon.Spoiling
Although it seems that the practice of Spoiling has been in use for centuries, this Discipline went largely unnoticed by Kindred society until the end of the 19th century. Even tonight, most Kindred do not know it exists. Some Kindred blood-scholars speculate that Spoiling is all that remains of a forgotten clan or a dead bloodline that has been diluted back into the larger population of the Damned. It seems fitting, given the Discipline and its uses.Spoiling allows a vampire to hex a subject or her possessions with a curse of blood. As the vampire’s capability with this blood hex improves, her power becomes more and more refined. A novice vampire needs to brush a handful of blood onto her victim just to impose a hindering curse, but a skilled practitioner of Spoiling can hide a small spot on a subject’s coat or skin and plague her with several nights of misfortune and weakness.
Unlike many Disciplines, Spoiling consists of only a single power that becomes more dangerous as the practitioner’s command of the Discipline increases. Kindred of all clans and covenants may potentially learn this Discipline, if a teacher can be found. In some cases, such as that of Dr. Mighall, the first dot of Spoiling can be learned through happenstance or personal experimentation.
Spoiling is considered an out-of-clan Discipline for all vampires. The experience point cost to learn dots of Spoiling is therefore equal to seven times the number of dots the character will have when the new dot is attained (see Vampire: The Requiem, p. 230).
The character applies a Spoiling curse by placing an amount of Vitae on the subject or her possessions. This Vitae is delivered through the character’s touch, and seem to be nothing more than a mundane bloodstain, though that alone is enough to provoke worry. The size of the stain depends on the character’s dots in Spoiling — more powerful practitioners can reduce their cursed Vitae down to smaller of doses of blood. As a guideline, a character with one dot in Spoiling needs to apply an amount of Vitae roughly equivalent to a handprint, while a character with five dots in Spoiling needs an amount roughly equal to a thumbprint.
The subject of the curse suffers a penalty equal to all dice pools involving a single Attribute for as long as the vampire’s Vitae remains on her body or on any article of clothing she wears, or for a number of nights equal to the vampire’s dots in Spoiling, whichever comes first. The penalty imposed on the subject is equal to the character’s dots in Spoiling. So-called spoiled blood, can be washed away in the same manner as a like amount of mundane blood, and its cursed affects are removed with it. If the subject succeeds on the contested action to resistant the curse when it is applied, the curse is broken before it can begin and the subject is unaffected.
Every time a vampire purchases a new dot in Spoiling, she selects another Attribute that she can potentially affect with this Discipline. A character with multiple dots in Spoiling can curse only one Attribute with each use of this power, and the Attribute to be cursed must be declared when the curse is invoked (not when it is applied).
Example: Victor is a Dragon with three dots in Spoiling, capable of cursing a subject’s Strength, Wits or Resolve. In this case, he believes he’s located the mysterious witch-hunter who’s been prowling about his Haven, and he plans on deterring the mortal from any future investigations. Victor and his mark are on the train together, surrounded with bystanders. First, Victor attempts to curse his Resolve in preparation for other powers. Victor achieves four successes on his activation roll, and spends a Vitae to bring three fingertips’ worth of cursed blood to the surface of his flesh. With a gentle touch, Victor brushes the mortal’s jacket, applying the curse. The Storyteller secretly rolls the mortal’s resistance. If the curse has taken effect, the witch-hunter will suffer a –3 penalty on all Resolve actions whenever he wear that jacket, for up to three nights. If the witch-hunters washes his jacket clean, however, the curse will be broken.
Blood Solutions
The Solutions distilled through the techniques of blood alchemy are simply a category of similar Devotions. While the earliest blood alchemists used their knowledge of chemistry to make sense of the changes they were making in their own blood, no knowledge of the physical sciences is actually necessary to create these Solutions. Within The Ordo Dracul, it is a matter of fact that most blood alchemists are also dabblers in chemistry, pharmacology, medieval alchemy or folkloric brews, but only as a result of the practice’s history within the covenant. Tonight’s blood alchemists are descended from the original founders of the practice. Tomorrow night’s blood alchemists may have all but forgotten its roots.All of the powers of blood alchemy require the practitioner to shed her own Vitae (represented by the Solution’s cost) into the mixture. Vitae is the medium through which the powers of blood alchemy are transmitted. That Vitae may be hidden within other substances, but it is the Vitae that matters.
The subject of a Solution’s power is always the being that consumes it. (A few Solutions may be suffused into solid foods or even capsules, but the vast majority of Solutions are imbibed.) A Solution retains its power for a number of nights equal to the successes achieved on the activation roll to create the mixture. As with this practice’s foundational Discipline, the more dots the blood alchemist has in Spoiling, the more concentrated the Vitae she bestows into the mixture and, so, the easier it is to hide the presence of her blood in the drink.
It is assumed that those who drink a Solution will attempt to resist its effects. All Solutions therefore involve a contested action, pitting the potency of the blood alchemist’s sanguine infusion against the Resolve, Stamina or Composure of the drinker, to determine if a subject is affected. Resistance is always reflexive.
When a Solution is first swallowed, the drinker gets a slight but palpable sensation of the coming effect. For psychic Solutions, this often manifests as little more than a developing wooziness, but for Solutions containing physically altering powers (such as Vigor) the oncoming rush is decidedly clearer. Anyone drinking a Solution may choose to forego resistance and simply allow themselves to be affected by its powers — but they don’t get a second chance to resist later if they change their minds (or have their minds changed).
Execution
Dice Pool: Stamina + Occult + Spoiling versus the subject’s Resolve + Blood Potency
Action: Instant and contested; resistance is reflexive. (An instant action is performed first to invoke the curse. When it is applied, the subject is allowed to contest the power with a reflexive action.)
Dramatic Failure: The character loses control of her own hex and its malignant effects interact disastrously with her own Vitae. The character loses a number of Vitae equal to the penalty she was to bestow on the subject.
Failure: The character fails to invoke the curse, and knows it. The Vitae used to activate this power is wasted.
Success: The character achieves one or more success on the activation roll and successfully invokes the curse of Spoiling. Her blood seeps from her hand and sticks there, charged with the malignant curse, until it is applied to a subject. The Vitae carrying the curse retains this charge for the rest of the scene. To touch the subject and deliver the curse, the character may be required to succeed in a close quarters attack (see “Touching an Opponent” on p. 157 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). Such an attack is an action unto itself.
Exceptional Success: Similar to a success. The additional successes achieved on the activation roll make the curse more difficult to resist.
Action: Instant and contested; resistance is reflexive. (An instant action is performed first to invoke the curse. When it is applied, the subject is allowed to contest the power with a reflexive action.)
Dramatic Failure: The character loses control of her own hex and its malignant effects interact disastrously with her own Vitae. The character loses a number of Vitae equal to the penalty she was to bestow on the subject.
Failure: The character fails to invoke the curse, and knows it. The Vitae used to activate this power is wasted.
Success: The character achieves one or more success on the activation roll and successfully invokes the curse of Spoiling. Her blood seeps from her hand and sticks there, charged with the malignant curse, until it is applied to a subject. The Vitae carrying the curse retains this charge for the rest of the scene. To touch the subject and deliver the curse, the character may be required to succeed in a close quarters attack (see “Touching an Opponent” on p. 157 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). Such an attack is an action unto itself.
Exceptional Success: Similar to a success. The additional successes achieved on the activation roll make the curse more difficult to resist.
Components and tools
Cost: 1 Vitae
Related Organizations
Remove these ads. Join the Worldbuilders Guild
Comments