Disciplines

Daimonion
Ripped from the whispers of those bound to the earth, a voice torn from the throat of the first sorcerers who called to the Abyss sings through Baali blood. Damionion is a cry across Creation, stretching from this world to a place forsaken, and power comes along the echo that returns. Someday, the Baali bloodline will scream, and that shout will shatter the world. For now, they use Daimonion to softly lull others to sleep and bid them dream of fire and darkness. Characters with True Faith are more resistant to the Baali’s darkness. Subtract a victim’s True Faith rating from all rolls to activate Daimonion powers against her. This includes secondary targeting rolls, such as the roll to hit with  tormented Essence.

Level 1
Sense the Sin

Every jewel has a fault, and every man has a vice. The best way to shatter a jewel is to strike that fault, and the best way to shatter a man is to hammer his vice. This power allows the Baali to find a target’s particular vice and glean their secrets with a glance.
 * Cost: None
 * System: Roll Wits + Daimonion against living or undead beings; the difficulty is equal to the subject’s current Resolve. Success indicates the Baali has gleaned insight into the subject’s weakness. This is information like a low Attribute, weak Willpower, or recent actions that violated the subject’s Humanity. A margin of two might yield a beloved vice or casual secret. A margin of three or more yield a central Derangement or formative trauma from the subject’s past.

Level 2
Fear of the Void

Once you know a subject’s vices, manipulating them is easy. Converting vices of pleasure into waves of existential terror is a greater trick. Speaking in soft tones of primeval horror, the Baali inflames her victim’s traumas.,
 * Cost: None
 * System: The Baali must first successfully use Sense the Sin or another method to learn the target’s secrets or fears. She must then speak to the target, mocking his insecurities with her tone. A successful Wits + Intimidation roll against the target Composure + Resolve, drives the victim into furious fits of terror. A margin of one causes panicked flight similar to Rötschreck, while three causes an inflamed Derangement (Storyteller’s choice) and four or more causes catatonia. All effects last for the remainder of the scene. Mortals and supernatural creatures bound to strong emotions (such as fae or ghosts) may not contest this roll.

Level 3
Tormented Essence

The Baali know their place in the universe and within the hierarchy of their masters. Suffering trickles downward, and the Baali stand within that torrent. Calling on the torment in their blood, the Baali may hurl a blazing bolt of infernal pain at their enemies. Nerves cry out, wood turns to ash, stone melts, and flesh disintegrates utterly. Tainted Touch
 * Cost: One Rouse check
 * System: The character gathers infernal pain into their hands; most commonly this manifests as a bolt of black flame, but sickening-hued lightning or slick black tentacles are just as common. Regardless, the power creates a missile that inflicts aggravated damage. A vampire can Rouse the blood an number of times equal to their Blood potency -2, each extra rouse adds one dice to the final role. The player rolls Dexterity + Daimonion to hit the target, who may dodge as normal. Vampires confronted with this power make Rötschreck checks (at difficulty 2), regardless of the power’s form. Interestingly, this power is doubly effective against demons and other spirits, whose corporeal forms react poorly to the stuff of torment. Against such creatures, each rouse check becomes two dice instead of one.

By calling upon the dark humors infecting his own body, the Baali can now not only infect the minds of his victims but also their bodies. Using his dark powers, tendrils of corruption will leap from his touch to surreptitiously infect the victim touched with terrible disease and bodily decay.
 * Cost: One Rouse check
 * System: The Baali roll a Dex + Daimonion against the targets Stamina + Resolve or Stamina + Athletics, targets choice. Should the Baali succeed the target will suffer under a terrible wasting disease with an immediate onset time. Humans will begin wasting away immediately, losing one dot of permanent health plus one dot of permanent health each day after the first for a number of days equal to the margin of the success. Vampires being far less susceptible to disease than mortals suffer a great deal less too. They take one Health damage per day, which can be healed normally, but due to bursting pustules and open sores Vampires suffer a minus
 * Duration: Special

Level 4
Psychomachia

Prudentius was a Roman poet who wrote the Psychomachia – “the Battle of Souls,” describing the struggle of faith against idolatry and vice. Baali know this game, and they play to win. With this power, the vampire combines the ability to read a victim’s psyche with the ability to rend spiritual matter. Psychomachia breathes infernal life into the target’s vice, forcing the victim to act the hero and literally battle her inner demons.
 * Cost: One rouse check
 * System: After successfully using Sense the Sin, the vampire forces the target to roll the lower of Resolve or Composure at a difficulty equal to the Baali's initial successes achieved on Sense the Sin. Failing this pits the target against a personified apparition of the victim’s own vice summoned from her darker self. A botch indicates the target has been overwhelmed and becomes possessed by his dark passenger. A failure results in a literal fight between the two, though this may take the form of any conflict, such as an abusive argument rather than a physical battle. The assailant is a Storyteller character with traits equivalent or slightly inferior to the victim’s. Targets with a low Humanity score face significantly more powerful opposition (+1 to all traits for every level of Humanity below 5). The wounds inflicted by the dark entity are illusory, though they can force a mortal into catatonia or a vampire into torpor upon a phantom “death.” The phantasm vanishes on their defeat or the Baali’s loss of concentration.
 * Duration: Concentration (Can only do 2 dice worth of actions every turn)

Level 5
Condemnation

The Children of Baal relish the opportunity to importune dark energies into the waking world. With this power, the Baali levies a curse upon her victim, drawing upon the tormented might of their blood to work their will upon fate. Revoke Life
 * Two rouse checks
 * System: An Intelligence + Daimonion roll against the targets Willpower dictates the length and severity of the curse. Successes must be split between both these effects, as per the sidebar below. Curses with zero successes allotted to duration last for one night. The Baali may choose to end the curse at any time, but they rarely do so. Storytellers should feel free to invent creative or story-appropriate curses. At five successes, a Baali may rip a demon out of a mortal host or relic and fling it back to Hell, but they only do so against the most recalcitrant.
 * Duration: Special

It has always been the fear of many a medieval peasant, that a witch would come and steal the life of their children. This Power might be the exact reason for such a fear, as it it allows the Baali to mimic life for a night as he pulls the life from his victim to invest it into his body, strengthening his undead flesh and giving him a reprieve from the curse of Caine if only for a night.
 * Cost: A rouse check
 * System: The Baali must have a helpless sacrifice present for the Ritual, this sacrifice must be a human virgin. The Baali must succeed at an Intelligence + Daimonion roll against a difficulty of the targets Stamina or Resolve, which ever is higher. Upon a success the Baali sucks out the targets remaining life force, this empowers the vampire by it appear completely human, his skin is warm, his blood pumps, he can both eat and digest food, have sex, his hair will grow and in all respects he'll serve as a high powered human till the sun comes up. Should he roll a critical success, the effect lasts throughout the day permitting him to live out a day as a human with no penalty for being awake during the day. However being in the sun is still painful and the Vampire's health pool is halved during time spent in direct sunlight. Performing this vile ritual incurs a minimum of 3 stains, unless the Baali's convictions can cushion the blow. A Baali can enact this ritual upon a virgin child, adding 2 extra dice to the roll, however doing so increases the penalty to 4 stains.
 * Duration: Special

Dementation
Tit

Fluf
 * Cost:
 * Dice Pool:
 * System:
 * Duration:

Level 1
Incubus Passion

The vampire stirs his victim’s emotions, either heightening them to a fevered pitch or blunting them until the target is completely desensitized. The Cainite may not choose which emotion is affected; she may only amplify or dull emotions already present in the target. In this way, a vampire can inflame mild irritation into quivering rage or atrophy true love into casual interest.
 * Cost: Free
 * Dice Pool: Charisma + Dementation
 * System: The character talks to her victim, and the vampire’s player rolls Charisma + Dementation against a targets Composure + Resolve, unprepared mortals get no roll. The margin determines the duration of the altered state of feeling. Effects of this power might include one- or two-point additions or subtractions to difficulties of frenzy rolls, Virtue rolls, rolls to resist Presence powers, etc.
 * Duration: A margin of 1 lasts for 1 minute, margin of 2 has the power lasting for 1 hour, a margin of 3 has the power last for one night, 4 a week, 5 a month and so on.

Level 2
Soul Haunting

A brief speech to a target allows the vampire to touch the sacred or profane within her victim, destroying the banal concerns that keep those urges from making themselves known. These urges manifest as visions, scents, and sounds of divinity revealing themselves in the most mundane of places. Victims report that these images tend to follow a general theme: angels or demons (or a culturally appropriate religious figure, including ancestors) dramatically recounting and reenacting the victim’s greatest fears and repressed secrets. Even if the victim ignores these visions, more insidious is the subtle altering of their senses — a prince’s genuine sympathy can become mocking pity, while the false lust of an Alamut houri ghoul becomes all-consuming passion. Even if visions are ignored, the victim’s trust in their senses is utterly compromised. Tendrils of Madness This subtle power requires nothing more than casual conversation, as the vampire’s insidious influence hides between the lines and inflections employed. The victim finds themselves increasingly agitated as their inner demons bubble to the surface, eventually drowning out all rhyme and reason.
 * Cost: One Rouse check
 * Dice Pool: Manipulation + Insight against the victims willpower
 * System: The vampire spends three turns speaking to the victim, after which the player makes his rouse check and the rolls are made. The margin determines the length of the visions. Precisely when they manifest or what form the visions take is up to the Storyteller, but they inflict a -2 penalty to all dice pools for two turns after manifestation.
 * Duration: Margin of 1 lasts for one night, of 2 is two nights, 3 is a week, 4 is a month, 5 is three months.
 * Amalgam: Obfuscate 2
 * Cost: One rouse check per scene
 * Dice Pool: Manipulation + Dementation vs Composure + Intelligence
 * System: After engaging in conversation with a victim, the user can activate this power. For the duration of the scene, the user may attack a single individual each turn in a Manipulation + Dementation vs Composure + Intelligence conflict, causing Superficial damage to Willpower. A mortal who becomes Impaired by this power experiences a nervous breakdown or psychotic break, the shape and nature of which depends on their personality (and perhaps their blood Resonance). A vampire that becomes Impaired by this power must immediately succumb to a Compulsion, as chosen by the power’s user. If the user wants to affect multiple victims, they need to make a separate Rouse Check for each one.
 * Duration: One scene

Level 3
Eyes of Chaos

Fleeting clarity hides within insanity; a shattered mirror reflects more than one unbroken one. This level of Dementation is responsible for the Malkavians’ reputation of gleaning hidden truths, and their tendency to speak those truths to power. She may scrutinize the “patterns” of personal interaction or even random events in nature itself in order to reveal a hidden truth about the situation she’s in. The character need not ask a question — the patterns are obvious at even a moment’s glance. • What’s the worst choice I could make?
 * Cost: One Rouse check
 * Dice Pool: Dementation
 * System: This power may only be used when scrutinizing a complex pattern or event, such as the interactions of a vampiric court or the clash of an army. Analyzing the blood spatter flicked from one’s fingers or the spill of entrails works just as well, however. Roll; the difficulty varies based on available information and the vampire’s familiarity with the situation. A court in the vampire’s home culture and domain might be difficulty 2, while a foreign court (or the clash of two foreign armies) is difficulty 3. A completely alien encounter (encountering one of the mysterious Cathayan vampires, or even just meeting an Anda) could be difficulty 5. The player asks the Storyteller a direct question about the situation at hand. This can be virtually anything related to hidden truths. The answers are related to the player directly and to the character via metaphors and imagery, with a greater success margin providing a clearer and more complete answer. Failure produces imagery unrelated to the matter at hand, while a bestial failure on the roll relates a completely untrue but nevertheless believable answer, which may explain some of the more radical Malkavian behavior. Viable questions include, but are not limited to:

• What’s the safest choice?

• Is this person being controlled by another?

• What’s the underlying or hidden message here?

• How relevant to our overarching goals is this scene?

Level 4
Fire Voice

Fire is coming. Deep in their dead hearts, every Malkavian knows this. One must be adept at fleeing when it does. By merely addressing a crowd, the vampire can put the fear of fire into them, forcing the listeners to abandon reason and higher thought. The demons of their mind take on a terrifying fiery mien, and they cannot help but run.
 * Cost: One rouse check
 * Dice Pool: Charisma + Intimidation opposed by Willpower
 * System: This power is a focused, more potent Soul Haunting. The vampire still rolls; success on the roll now allows the vampire to affect one target per success, although all potential victims must still be listening to the vampire’s voice for three turns. Affected victims immediately fly into a Rötschreck–like blind fear. Vampires (or other creatures capable of frenzy, such as lupines) may make a Rötschreck test. Mortals are automatically affected and don’t remember their actions while frightened. The frenzy or fear lasts for a scene, with the Soul Haunting effect lasting for an additional night thereafter (and with especially fiery imagery).  vampires and others may test as usual to break their frenzy. The vampire using Fire Voice must also test for Rötschreck upon invoking this power, though one success is enough to overcome his own fear. If the vampire invoking this power rolls a bestial failure, he immediately descends into the red fear himself
 * Duration: One scene, then one night. See text

Level 5
Shedding the Mask

Malkavians learn to hide their insanity, lest it make them a target. Others don’t have that practice. At the apex of Dementation mastery, the vampire may overwhelm their victim with insanity, shattering their conscious mind and warping their personality to serve the whims of madness.
 * Cost: One rouse check
 * Dice Pool: Manipulation + Intimidate vs Willpower
 * System: The vampire must gain her target’s undivided attention for at least one full turn to enact this power. The player makes a rouse check and rolls. If the roll is successful, the victim is afflicted with a terrible Derangement — this impose the victim with a penalty similar to that of the Malkavian madness of a Bane severity equal to the vampires own blood potency, or the victims which ever is higher. This Bane takes effect immediately, additionally the target is subjected to at least one clan compulsion. On a Critical success the target also suffers a general compulsion.
 * Duration: The duration varies, the derangement lasts for a single scene whereas the compulsions last until fulfilled.