Disciplines and Powers

The Blood grants more than immortality. It grants power — supernatural abilities called Disciplines, each a refinement of the curse into something terrible and useful. Your Disciplines define what you can do that mortals cannot. They are your edge in a city full of sharp edges.

The Discipline System

Every Discipline is rated from 1 to 5 dots. At each dot, you choose a specific power — some Disciplines offer multiple options at the same level, letting you customize how your power manifests. Using most powers requires a Rouse Check: roll a single die, and on a 1–5, your Hunger increases by 1.

Your clan determines which Disciplines come naturally to you. Clan Disciplines cost less XP to improve and represent the powers that flow most easily through your blood. Other Disciplines can be learned — if you can find a teacher willing to share their vitae — but they cost more.

The Disciplines

Animalism

The power over beasts. Command animals, summon them to your aid, and eventually meld your consciousness with the animal mind. Gangrel and Nosferatu claim this Discipline as their birthright. At higher levels, you can stampede entire ecosystems or draw the Beast out of your enemies.

Auspex

Supernatural perception. Heightened senses that let you see in perfect darkness, read emotional auras, and glimpse the unseen. Toreador, Tremere, Malkavians, and Hecata all draw on Auspex. At high levels, you can project your consciousness out of your body, read psychic impressions from objects, and see through any lie.

Blood Sorcery

The magic of the Blood. Unlike other Disciplines, Blood Sorcery is learned rather than innate — a hermetic art requiring study, ritual, and sacrifice. The Tremere built an empire on it. The Banu Haqim wield it as divine judgment. Powers range from the physical (making blood boil in a victim's veins) to the ritualistic, with entire grimoires of Blood Sorcery Rituals available to those with the patience and intelligence to master them.

Celerity

Supernatural speed. You move faster than the eye can follow, cross rooms in a heartbeat, and strike before your opponent finishes blinking. Brujah, Toreador, and Banu Haqim are the city's swiftest predators. Celerity makes you untouchable in combat — but it burns blood quickly, and a fast vampire who runs out of vitae is just a vampire cornered.

Dominate

The power to control minds. A single glance, a single word, and your target's will is yours. Ventrue rule through Dominate. Lasombra command with it. The Tremere study it as a science. At low levels, you can issue one-word commands that must be obeyed. At high levels, you can rewrite memories, possess bodies, and shatter minds entirely.

Fortitude

Unearthly resilience. Your undead body becomes nearly immune to harm, shrugging off bullets, blades, and eventually even fire and sunlight. Gangrel, Ventrue, and Hecata rely on Fortitude to survive the nights. At its peak, you can withstand the sun itself — briefly.

Obfuscate

The art of hiding in plain sight. You don't become invisible — you simply convince every mind around you that you aren't there. Nosferatu rely on Obfuscate to move through the mortal world without causing riots. Banu Haqim use it to stalk their prey. Malkavians wear it like a second skin. At high levels, you can vanish from memory, cloak entire groups, and walk unseen through Elysium itself.

Oblivion

The Discipline of darkness, decay, and the restless dead. The Lasombra command shadows as extensions of their will — tangible, suffocating darkness. The Hecata speak with ghosts, command wraiths, and draw power from the boundary between life and death. Oblivion is powerful, but it carries a price: every use draws the attention of things that wait in the dark.

Potence

Supernatural strength. You hit harder than physics should allow, leap impossible distances, and tear steel with your bare hands. Brujah, Lasombra, and Nosferatu are the city's muscle. Potence turns a neonate into a threat that even elders respect. At high levels, your blows ignore the toughness of the dead, striking with the force of a speeding vehicle.

Presence

The power to sway emotions, inspire love or terror, and command attention without a word. Toreador weaponize it into art. Ventrue rule with it. Brujah ignite revolutions. At low levels, you draw every eye in the room. At high levels, your mere presence is an overwhelming force — you can summon crowds, enthrall individuals, and make your enemies worship the ground you walk on.

Protean

Shape-changing. Grow claws from your fingertips. Melt into the earth. Take the form of a wolf or mist. Gangrel are the masters of Protean, merging vampire and beast. The Ministry use it to become whatever their prey desires. At its peak, you can become a living weapon of bone and blood.

Thin-Blood Alchemy

The Duskborn's answer to Disciplines. Thin-bloods cannot channel the Blood the way full Kindred do, but they can learn to distill their vitae into formulae — alchemical concoctions that produce supernatural effects. Each formula requires specific Resonances and ingredients. Thin-Blood Alchemy is unpredictable, unreliable, and capable of effects no other Discipline can replicate. To the Camarilla, it is an abomination. To the Duskborn, it is survival.

Learning and Growing

You begin with two dots in one clan Discipline and one dot in another. As you earn experience, you can raise these or learn new ones — but learning a non-clan Discipline requires you to drink the vitae of a Kindred who possesses it, and finding a willing teacher in Kindred politics is its own adventure.

A Blood Leech predator type feeds from other vampires specifically to steal their powers. The Camarilla officially frowns on this. The Camarilla officially frowns on many things that happen every night, in every city.