Lock the Gilded Cage
The poetic term that Kindred use to describe their reliance on the city has been one of Masons’ fascinations since the bloodline’s inception. This ritual allows the caster to make a city into a literal cage for a subject. Every way out of the city is blocked. Cars break down, trains derail and roads are cut off by construction. With exceptional success, police barricades, sinkholes and floods may block a subject from leaving.
The action to activate this power is extended and contested, pitting the caster’s Intelligence + Occult + Gilded Cage against the subject’s Resolve + Blood Potency (resistance is reflexive). If the victim acquires four net successes before the caster, the ritual fails. Another attempt cannot be made against the same subject for four nights. If the caster gains those (or more) successes first, each success blocks the victim from leaving the city by mundane means for one day and night. The subject is unaware of the power applied to him, and does not know why her existence has suddenly become so difficult. Superstitious victims may suspect sorcery, of course, but have no proof of it. The power applies to even a vampire whose ghouls seek to escort (or carry) her from town.
If a subject has extraordinary or supernatural means of travel or escape (such as magic), the ritual blocks one use of that power per success accumulated in the activation roll. So, if a subject has the capacity to will herself from a spot in one city to a spot in another city, and four successes are gathered for the vampire in keeping the victim rooted, four attempts at the escape power fail. The fifth allows the subject to leave normally. Use of Celerity to move quickly to escape a city does not apply as “extraordinary.”
The action to activate this power is extended and contested, pitting the caster’s Intelligence + Occult + Gilded Cage against the subject’s Resolve + Blood Potency (resistance is reflexive). If the victim acquires four net successes before the caster, the ritual fails. Another attempt cannot be made against the same subject for four nights. If the caster gains those (or more) successes first, each success blocks the victim from leaving the city by mundane means for one day and night. The subject is unaware of the power applied to him, and does not know why her existence has suddenly become so difficult. Superstitious victims may suspect sorcery, of course, but have no proof of it. The power applies to even a vampire whose ghouls seek to escort (or carry) her from town.
If a subject has extraordinary or supernatural means of travel or escape (such as magic), the ritual blocks one use of that power per success accumulated in the activation roll. So, if a subject has the capacity to will herself from a spot in one city to a spot in another city, and four successes are gathered for the vampire in keeping the victim rooted, four attempts at the escape power fail. The fifth allows the subject to leave normally. Use of Celerity to move quickly to escape a city does not apply as “extraordinary.”
Material Components
Ways and Means: Access to a legal building such as a courthouse or police station, and a picture or belonging of the victim
Related Discipline
Level
4