CELERITY



Assamite, Brujah, Toreador


The Embrace gifts some vampires with startling speed and reflexes. They can use Celerity to move with amazing swiftness in times of stress. Mortals, and even Kindred lacking this Discipline, move as if in slow motion compared to the astonishing blur the vampire becomes.
Celerity is common among the Assamite, Brujah and Toreador clans. The Assamites use this ability to strike down their foes before the victims are even aware of the attack. Brujah delight in the advantage this Discipline gives them against superior numbers of opponents. Toreador are more likely to use Celerity to lend prenatural grace to live performances such as dance or extraordinary speed when creating sculptures or paintings-however, they can be as terrifying as any Assamite or Brujah when angered.

System: The character spends a single blood point. The next turn, she gains a number of additional full actions equal to her Celerity rating. These additional actions must be physical [e.g., the vampire cannot use a mental Discipline like Dominate multiple times in one turn]. So a vampire with a Celerity 4 that spends a blood point may perform a total of five physical actions in her next turn. The actions occur at the end of the turn [the vampire's regular action still takes place per initiative roll].
Normally, a character without Celerity must apply a dice pool penalty if she wants to take multiple actions in a single turn. A character using Celerity performs his extra actions [including full movement] without penalty, gaining a full dice pool for each seperate action. Extra actions gained through Celerity may not be split into multiple actions.


Level 1:
Alacrity:
Your reflexes are finely honed. Even as you watch others act, you can spring into action, completing movements before they can respond.
By expending a Blood Trait, you gain the ability to preempt any physical actions taken in the same turn, as long as you are aware of them (a face to face mugging, yes- a sniper attack,no). Thus, if someone declares an attempt to pull a hidden weapon and shoot at you, you can preempt that action to pull out your own gun and fire back (instead of being relegated to dodging). Similarly, if someone attacks an ally, you can preempt the action to get in the way and fight against the aggressor instead. If you attempt to preempt someone using Celerity or a similar speed-enhancing power, the character with the highest degree of Celerity acts first.

Level 2:
Swiftness:
With shocking speed, you move faster than humanly possible. Even as others are recovering from events, you are making your next move.
Expend a single Blood Trait to gain one additional action in your turn, in addition to your preemptive Alacrity (the costs are not cumulative). This additional action is taken at the end of the turn, after everyone has resolved single basic actions. If multiple people have additional actions like this, they are all resolved at the same time, after basic actions. You can thus swing a sword, run twice as far as normal in a turn, fire a gun and then duck behind, to otherwise perform multiple feats.


Level 3:
Rapidity:
Even other Cainites are dazzled by your superhuman speed. You routinely catch dropped objects, and the speed of your passing whips clothes and loose debris about.
Invoking all of your Celerity, at the cost of a single Blood Trait, enables you to use the Bomb in all challenges of speed and agility. when performing an action where speed is of the essence, such as dodging an attack, throwing a knife, or grabbing something out of someone's hand, you can declare that you have Rapidity. Once thus declared, you may choose to use the Bomb, a fist with the thumb pointing upward; the Bomb defeats Rock and Paper, but also loses to Scissors (the fuse cut persay) and ties with other Bombs. This symbol is usable in any challenges of speed throughout the turn. However, you are not required to use the Bomb- it is simply another option.
You may use Rapidity in any challenge where you rely on your own speed, even if your opponent attempts to use strength and stamina. Thus, if you try to use your Rapidity to dodge out of the way of someone grabbing at you, you can still use the Bomb. If the opponent possessed Might, you could still use the Bomb for speed, but the opponent would be able to use his Might retest for grappling.

Level 4:
Legerity:
Moving faster than the human eye can track, you blur across the landscape with the seed of a cheetah. Compared to you, bystanders are statues.
You may activate your legerity and all other Celerity Levels for the first turn at the cost of one Blood trait. Your Legerity grants you one additional normal action at the end of the turn, in addition to your action from Swiftness (thus, you have at least three actions, a preempt and the Bomb in challenges of speed). Actions gained from Legerity come after basic and Swiftness actions, at the end of the turn.


Level 5:
Fleetness:
When you call on your blood, you burst into a whirlwind of motion. Your passing extinguishes small flames, whips up flurries of debris and sows confusion among slower-moving entities.
With a single Blood Trait, you activate all of your Celerity powers. You now win all ties in challenges of speed regardless of Traits. If some other consideration would cause you to lose on ties (such as wounds or an enemy's Potence), you compare Traits normally instead of losing automatically. This benefit lasts for the duration of the entire turn in which you use your Celerity. Your Fleetness functions in all challenges where you rely on speed, even if your opponent tries to use strength or stamina. Thus, if you use the speed of Fleetness to challenge an opponent who uses the strength of Puissance, ties are determined normally (since you have both powers that would win all ties). If the opponent only had Might, you would win all ties but till be vulnerable to a Might retest.

The previous levels of Celerity focused on speed. those Kindred who learn superior levels of Celerity, however, become capable of doing far more than simply being faster than their opponents.
Note:Superior levels of Celerity have their own Blood Trait costs. In other words, while you can activate the five normal levels of Celerity by spending a single Blood Trait, you must spend additional Blood to activate the superior levels.

Level 6:
Projectile: The supernatural speed of the Kindred doesn't operate by conventional physics, and thus items or weapons handled by them often have problems keeping up. For example, while the actual firing of a gun can occur in the blink of an eye, the bullet still leaves the barrel of the gun at a normal speed. A thrown rock slows to normal speed at the instant it leaves the vampire's hand. There is no sensible explanation for this; most vampires just shrug and accept this fact. However, some of the more powerful Kindred have managed to work their way around this- objects they throw or fire move at great supernatural speeds and become truly impressive weapons.
To use this power, spend a Blood Trait and decide how many levels of Celerity you wish to give the object being thrown or fired. For example, a character with six levels of Celerity might want to give the object three levels of Celerity. This would mean that the three lowest levels-both Basics and one Intermediate-would be inaccessible to the character for the remainder of the turn.
However, the attack gains one bonus Trait for every level of Celerity given to the object-in this example, this would mean three bonus Traits. Furthermore, bashing attacks [such as throwing a simple rock] become lethal attacks due to the incredible speed the projectile travels at. If the attack is already a lethal attack [such as throwing a knife or a bullet], it will now cause one additional health level of damage.
When you use Projectile, you must always announce your intention to do so as soon as it is your turn to act, and it must always be your first action-for example, actions granted by Swiftness or Legerity can be taken normally [unless said levels have been given to ther object being propelled, of course], but Projectile must always be the first action on any given turn.


Level 7:
Flower of Death:
A vampire with Flower of Death becomes a blur of violence, striking his opponent repeatedly with incredible speed. It is not unknown for a vampire who has attained this level of Celerity to be so quick that his opponents are vanquished before they even know what happened.
Flower of Death costs three Blood Traits to activate. After it is activated, you gain as many extra Traits to all of your attacks as you have powers in Celerity for the duration of the scene. Needless to say this makes you an extremely dangerous opponent. However, there is no damage bonus; your speed merely grants you the ability to strike faster than your foe can defend or dodge. You may use the Bomb in challenge, as per normal rules.
This power cannot be used in concert with other Celerity powers. Flower of Death can only be used with hand-to-hand or melee combat- firearms, bows, thrown objects and other ranged weapons gain no bonuses if used with this power.

Level 8:
Zephyr:
One of the legendary- and rather improbable-comic book usage's of superspeed is the ability to run on water or even up walls. Improbable or not, with Zephyr, you can easily accomplish this-ordinary obstacles cease to matter to you.
Spend a Blood Trait and a Willpower Trait. You automatically gain the ability to run on water, up walls, or even on ceilings-essentially, any relatively flat and open surface will do. you must keep moving at all times to keep from falling off a wall or sinking into the liquid you are running on. You can easily run across most liquids, though you risk losing traction on especially slick substances like oil. A Simple Test to maintain footing may be needed [Storyteller discretion-generally once every several turns, or more often for unusually tricky surfaces like Teflon]. This power remains in effect until you stop running. If you decide you wish to reactivate this power, you must again spend the required Traits.
With Zephyr, you may always declare Fair Escape as long as there is enough space for you to run away and you have enough Blood and Willpower Traits to activate the power, even if the threat is inches away from you. Doorways blocked by others are not a problem, as long as there is enough room for you to fit through; no one will be fast enough to grab you as you dart past. Closed windows can also be used as exits; at such speeds, you simply smash through them and hit the ground running [within reason- falling from a ten story height will cause its own problems].
Navigating at speeds as great as this is no small feat and requires concentration. If you wish to take actions other than running, you must make a Simple Test. On a win, you may take the action normally. On a tie, you may not take the action, but may continue running. If you lose, you immediately lose control of your movement and end up smashing into whatever you were heading for. you may start moving again at the beginning of the next turn. this collision may cause bashing or even lethal damage, depending on the circumstances [Storyteller discretion].

Unfortunately, Zephyr requires such extremes of concentration that it cannot be combined with any form of attack, or indeed, with most any sort of action at all. As this extreme power cannot be used in combat, it imparts no bonus actions per combat round.

LEVEL 9
Blur
Travelling faster than even a very imaginative mortal could envision, the vampire who has invoked the power of Blur moves with such speed even Cainite eyes cannot clearly perceive the vampire at this awesome speed. A literal "blur," the vampire leaves trails of pure flame from friction as she moves, burning up the terrain with her awesome speed. Moving at this mind-boggling speed, a vampire is capable of conducting an additional six physical actions per combat post, at the expense of four Blood Points or Traits.
Velocity This ability, while outstripping the speed of Zephyr, does not require the intense and inhibiting concentration of Zephyr. The vampire capable of attaining this level of Celerity has honed their mind to the point where intense concentration on such speedy efforts is all but second nature. The use of this power imparts seven extra physical actions per combat post, and the speed level is almost double that of Zephyr, making the Cainite all but invisible to mortal eyesight.

LEVEL 10
Dervish
Named for a mythological demon possessed of incredible tornado-like speed, this power lives up to its namesake, allowing the Cainite using it to travel at speeds even the comic book character Superman would be hard pressed to keep up with. By spending five Blood Points or Traits, the Cainite invokes a devilish speed that even the most experienced Cainite eyes cannot behold but in a featureless blur of motion, unable to do much but hopefully survive the onslaught of power. Use of this power gives an incredible ability to perform ten physical actions as though they were but one action during a combat post. No other Discipline, mental or physical, can be invoked as one of these actions, they must be entirely physical actions, but what a way to deliver a hellish attack or defense. The drawback to this power? The Cainite's Celerity is exhausted for a full round, or ten RT minutes, following the use of this power.