Sublunario
The unique supernatural properties of a Dead Wolf manifest in a Discipline they call Sublunario. What, exactly, gives Sublunario its power is unclear, even among members of the bloodline. Some say a wolf-spirit sleeps within the vampire’s Vitae, using his hollow heart as a spectral den. Others insist that the power could only be possible through the consumption of a werewolf, and these Lupines must assume that every Bloody Wolf is a predator of the Uratha. This may have been true of the first Dead Wolves, but it is easily disproved by modern Wolf-Bloods like the agents of Prince Castillo (see p. 156).
Sublunario grants a Kindred a degree of power from the influences of Mother Moon, the great spirit that helped to create the Uratha. This power is not bestowed by her, but soaked up from her ambient grace by the power of a Dead Wolf’s blood.
Sublunario grants a Kindred a degree of power from the influences of Mother Moon, the great spirit that helped to create the Uratha. This power is not bestowed by her, but soaked up from her ambient grace by the power of a Dead Wolf’s blood.
Execution
Dice Pool: Most Sublunario powers require no dice rolls to activate. Rather, this unique Discipline augments the vampire’s intuitive understanding of the world and creatures around him. The Discipline grants the following mechanical benefits:
- The mystic resonance of Sublunario in his blood allows him to contribute to the Uratha bond with select spirits. The vampire may contribute dots in the Totem Merit to a werewolf pack (see p. 79 of Werewolf: The Forsaken). Each dot of Sublunario grants the vampire one dot in the Totem Merit, which is only effective when shared with a werewolf pack. The vampire may share in any benefits of the totemspirit’s sponsorship that are not werewolf-specific. For example, the vampire may gain a bonus to Skills or Attributes, but can never use Gifts. According to legend, a vampire’s Sublunario connection to a totem spirit can never be changed unless the spirit is broken from the pack. Thus, if the vampire falls out of favor with his honorary pack, he cannot use his Sublunario-granted Totem dots unless his old totem spirit is either destroyed or driven to abandon the pack.
- The vampire must select one of the five phases of the moon when he purchases this Discipline: full, gibbous, half, crescent or new. Under that phase of the moon, the vampire is able to “ride the wave” (see p. 181 of Vampire: The Requiem) without any cost in Willpower. The vampire’s Sublunario dots serve as a bonus to the Resolve + Composure dice pool to goad the Beast in this way. (At the Storyteller’s discretion, additional phases of the moon may be “purchased” by the character for five experience points each.)
- The vampire may roll his Sublunario dots once per scene to gain a bonus on Empathy, Persuade, Intimidate and Socialize dice pools made with or against werewolves. Each success on this roll grants the vampire a bonus die to dice pools using those Skills. Note that while the vampire’s instinctual behavior is spiritually informed, these bonus dice do not represent any mystic coercion of the werewolves the vampire interacts with — this Discipline affects the vampire, not werewolves.
- The vampire may divide his Sublunario dots as bonus dice between the two “insight Skills” linked with the phase of the moon under which he activates this power. All of the vampire’s Sublunario dots may be placed into a single Skill, if he likes. To re-allocate these bonus dots within the same scene, the vampire must spend another Vitae. As the month progresses and the moon cycles through its phases, the vampire’s insight Skills change.
Components and tools
Cost: 1 Vitae per scene (for most effects)
Related Ethnicities
Insight Skills
Full Moon (Warrior): Intimidation, Survival.
Gibbous Moon (Visionary): Expression, Persuasion.
Half Moon (Walker Between): Empathy, Investigation.
Crescent Moon (Spirit Master): Animal Ken, Occult.
New Moon (Stalker): Stealth, Subterfuge.