DOMINATE



Giovanni, Lasombra, Tremere, Ventrue


LEVEL 1
*Command
Exerting your will against a single individual, you can give a simple command and demand obedience. A single word, even one embedded in a sentence and stressed lightly, becomes an imperative command to your victim. You need only meet your victim’s gaze. AS long as your victim sees your eyes and hears your voice, your command carries the authority of your blood. The command must be simple and easily understood…"Sleep", "Scream", "Follow" and "Silence" are all acceptable examples. The command cannot be blatantly harmful or self-destructive.


Observance of the Spoken Word
By intruding upon a subject's communication with the divine, a Cainite can impose a one word command which must be instantly obeyed. The command must be clear and unambiguous -- run, cough, fall, yawn, laugh, sneeze, burp, follow. If the command is at all confusing, the subject may be slow to respond, or clumsy in his performance. The command may be sown into a sentence and stressed like a prominent stitch, concealing the vampire's intent to the ignorant or the unwary.

LEVEL 2
*Mesmerism
Like a hypnotist, you can impart commands to your subjects, even keying them on specific trigger events. If you can meet your subject’s gaze and speak aloud your commands, you can force the subject to obey your will. Unsuspecting victims can even be given commands that they must carry out. Only one such command may be implanted in a victim at a time.

Murmur of the False Will
The Cainite can impose false thoughts and revelations upon another mind. The False Will requires intense concentration between vampire and victim, and orders or instructions must be precisely and clearly worded to be carried out. The imposed inspiration may be acted upon immediately, or worldly events may recall it later. Eye Contact is required while the command is imposed. The Cainite's command may be clear and unquestionable, such as "reteurn to the refectory" to "drop your sword." Control can also be protracted and much more subversive. Vampire and victim need to look into each other's souls no longer than it takes to make the initial suggestion. Commands issued cannot force the subject to harm herself or defy her innate Nature. Only one idea may be inspired in a subject at a time.


LEVEL 3
*Forgetful Mind
Your considerable powers of mental manipulation allow you to exert your influence in the very memories of your victims. By meeting your target’s gaze, you can draw out answers to questions and even alter the subject’s memory. You can erase entire blocks of the victim’s past, or replace mental recollections with those of your own making.

LEVEL 4
*Conditioning
The depths of your mental influence are frightful and pervasive. With time, you can strip away the defenses of the most determined mind, even removing your victims personality and free will. You must have unrestricted access to your subject for several nights. Should you manage to tear down the victims resistance, the victim’s will is shattered and their mind becomes completely bendable to your will.



LEVEL 5
*Possession
No mortal mind can resist the power of your will. With but a touch, you can move your consciousness into a mortal body, taking complete control of the shell and suppressing the victim’s mind. For the duration of this possession, your own body lies comatose, while the mortal’s mind is unconscious and unaware of what transpires. During the coarse of Possession, you experience everything that happens to the mortal body as you guide its actions. Your Vampire form also suffers any damage sustained by the mortal body. If the mortal body dies before your consciousness can flee, you immediately collapse into torpor.

LEVEL 6
*Loyalty
With this discipline in effect, the elder’s Dominate is so strong that other Vampires find it almost impossible to break with their own commands. Despite the name, Loyalty instills no special feeling in the victim - the Vampire’s commands are simply implanted far more deeply than normal. In other words meaning that the Vampire’s command are tougher for most to break free from. Those whom the Vampire has Dominated are made resistant to Dominate attempts by others.

*Chain the Psyche
Not content with merely commanding their subjects, some elders apply this power to ensure obedience from recalitrant victims. Chain the Psyche is a Dominate technique that inflicts incapacitating pain on a target who attempts to break the vampire's command. This power costs one blood point/trait. Any attempt that the subject makes to go against the vampire's implanted commands or to recover stolen memories causes intense pain. Each application of Chain the Psyche crushes a number of resistance attempts equal to the vampire's rating in Manipulation, after which the effect fades.

*Obedience
While most Kindred must employ Dominate through eye contact, some powerful elders may command loyalty with the lightest brush of the hand. AKA: Touch and Dominate!

LEVEL 7
*Still The Mortal Flesh
A Vampire who has developed this discipline is able to override the victim’s body as his mind in order to cut off his senses or even stop his heart. It is rumored that this discipline once came more easily to the Kindred, but modern medicine has made the bodies and spirits of mortals more resistant to such manipulations. Using this, you can affect any of the body’s involuntary functions; breathing, circulation, perspiration, sight and hearing are viable targets. While Still The Mortal Flesh is in effect, a Vampire can either stop any one of these functions entirely or cause them to fluctuate erratically. Most mortals panic if suddenly struck blind, but only the shutdown of the heart will kill a target instantly. Vampires are unaffected by loss of heartbeat or breathing, but may be rendered deaf and blind as easily as mortals.

*Mass Manipulation
A truly skilled elder may command small crowds through the use of this power. By manipulating the strongest minds within a given group, a gathering may be directed to the vampire's will. Eye contact with the initial target, the one most resistive to the power, needs to be gained before invoking this power.


LEVEL 8
*Far Mastery
Allows the use of Dominate on any subject that the Vampire is familiar with, at any time, over any distance. If the elder knows where his target is, he may issue commands as if he were standing face-to-face with the victim.

LEVEL 9
*Speak Through The Blood
The power structures of methuselahs extends across continents and centuries. This power is a powerful tool by which such ancients wield control over their descendants, even far outside their geographic spheres of influence. Speak Through the Blood allows an elder to issue commands to every vampire whose lineage returns to her -- even if the two have never met. Thus, entire broods act to further the goals of sleepingancients whose existences they are completely unaware of. The vampires affected by this power rarely act directly to pursue the command they were given, but over ten years or so, their priorities slowly shift until the fulfillment of the methuselah's command is among their long-term goals. Speak Through the Blood, because it takes effect so slowly, is rarely recognized as an outside influence, and its victims rationalize their behavior as "growing and changning," or something to that effect. This power costs a permanent Willpower point/trait. Unless the vampire is aware of the locationa nd present agenda of every descendant of his -- a highly unlikely event -- he may only issue general commands, such as "work for the greater glory of House Malkavian" or "destroy all those who seek to extinguish the light of Knowledge." Speak Through the Blood can be used by a vampire in torpor. Commands issued through this power last for one decade per success on the roll. A vampire who has reached Golconda is not affected by this power, and is completely unaware that it has been used. Her chylder, however, are affected normally unless they are also enlightened. ghouls of the vitims of this power are also affected but to a lesser extent than vampires.

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LEVEL 10
Puppet Master
The Vampire is able to Dominate another so completely that the victim will act as if he is the Vampire, taking actions just as the character would. The victim has in fact become the Dominator, and his personality has been infused with that of his master. A link is maintained between the two; thus, the puppet is intuitively aware of what the Master needs and desires.