LEVEL 1
*Shadow Play
You can exert a limited degree of control over existing shadows and darkness. At your mental command, darkness can be made to deepen or retreat, lengthen, move, flicker or undulate disturbingly. Though you can only affect a limited area of shadow, the stuff takes on a hellish quality and bends to your supernatural will.

LEVEL 2
*Shroud of Night
You can evoke a cloud of inky blackness, a blob that absorbs all light and distorts sound. Hovering preternaturally in the air, this globe feels like a heavy morass to all those engulfed within.


LEVEL 3
*Arms of The Abyss (also known as the Arms of Ahriman)
From the shadowy corners of a room or the blackness of night itself, you can summon forth tentacle limbs that flail about, ensnaring or attacking as you desire. These black shadow tentacles animate as you direct, even while you take other actions. You can pull many tentacles from a single source, or generate shades from several locations at once.

The tentacles can grab, whip, hold items and perform other tasks with precision. The tentacles take damage normally from attacks and they suffer from fire and sunlight just like a Vampire, though they are considered to have any Fortitude that you possess. You can add your Potence to the might of the tentacles as well, though not at the same time you are adding your Fortitude…One or the other. You may not combine the effects of Obtenebration with the powers of any other disciplines.

LEVEL 4
*Black Metamorphosis
Spewing forth your own stained inner spirit, you meld your corpselike body with the very stuff of tangible darkness. Your head and limbs seem to fade into shadow, while bands of blackness encircle your body and shadowy limbs sprout from your torso.

Nightshades
The vampire may create a circle of moving shadows. Within such a circle, all adversaries, and even all allies who don’t have Obtenebration, suffer a +3 difficulty to initiative rolls, and lose one die from all pools. With one success, this circle is ten feet in diameter. Each additional success adds five feet to the diameter.


LEVEL 5
*Tenebrous Form
At this level of skill, you no longer summon forth the darkness within yourself - you become it. Your form collapses into a shadowy outline, a pseudo-liquid humanoid shape of utter blackness. While in this form, you can slither about through tiny holes and cracks, and you may see through any normal darkness.

To evoke this discipline, you must first concentrate on this discipline. While in Tenebrous Form, you cannot be harmed by physical attacks, although you still take damage from magic, fire and sunlight. You also cannot affect your surroundings physically, as you have no real solid substance. By enveloping a victim, though you can perform the same functions as the Shroud of Night discipline, causing disorientation, darkness and smothering. You are unaffected by gravity and you can slither along any surface or move like a blob of ambulatory liquid.

You can even use mental Disciplines while in this state though within the limitations of your form - you have no eyes and thus cannot use Dominate, but you could hide your shadowy form with Obfuscate. While in this shadowy form, fire and sunlight are still exceedingly painful to you. While in Tenebrous Form, your blood traits are the same sort of inky darkness, and thus, they are unaffected by the powers of blood-based Thaumaturgy disciplines.

LEVEL 6
Call the Lamprey
The vampire may summon from within herself a large shadowy monster. If it attacks mortals, it may draw blood at one point per turn, and if drawn back into the vampire, she gains half the blood it drew. Other vampires suffer a +3 difficulty to all rolls, and if bitten, must roll Courage, difficulty 8, to avoid Rötschreck. The Lamprey is immune to physical attack, has Stamina 4, and any non-physical damage done to it, or any attack against the vampire, will kill it. The vampire must concentrate solely on the Lamprey; she may not split her dice pool.

The Darkness Within
The Cainite may call forth the darkness contained in her black soul. This enormous, turbulent shadow vomits forth from the Cainite's mouth, though some vampires are said to cut themselves and let the blackness seep from their veins. The shadow-cloud engulfs a chosen target, burnign it with a soul-scarring chill and siphoning its blood away in torrents.

This power imparts no physical damage to the target, but it may strike him with terror. Any who observe this shadow-cloud, either as targets or onlookers, may suffer the shadow Rotschreck unless they are familiar with this Discipline and its power over darkness.

All of the caster's attention must be devoted towards maintaining the cloud. If the vampire is attacked while using this power, the darkness immediately returns to her, through whatever orifice it originated. The Cainite may summon the blackness again at any time, gaining a number of blood points/traits equal to one-half the number the shadow siphoned from its victims, rounded up. Taking blood from another in this fashion is similar to drinking from that vampire -- blood bonds can result if it happens enough. Additionally, The Darkness Within may take blood from only one individual per turn, though it may be in contact with many.

Eyes of the Night
The vampire can see in absolute darkness -- even darkness created by Obtenebration. She gains Gleam of Red Eyes if she did not already have it, and if in a poorly lit area, may close her eyes and concentrate to see anything in a fifty-foot radius.

Shadowstep
The vampire has such fine control over the darkness that he may become it briefly and reform himself from other darkness close by. The vampire may Shadowstep through walls, floors, and even mystical barriers. The Cainite simply steps "into" a shadow and re-emerges from another shadow a short distance away.

The Cainite can Shadowstep up to a distance of not more than 50 feet. If the vampire fails to cast this power properly, he simply cannot step through the shadow realm, while a terminal failure means he has become trapped between shadows. Pulling another individual through the shadows can be done, but requires even more concetration and similar consequences for failure as those of the vampire alone.

LEVEL 7
Shadow Twin (also called Shadow Slave)
By spending a blood point, the vampire may animate her own shadow, which may move up to 150 feet away from her. In the event of a botch, the shadow will be hostile to her. The shadow has no disciplines, except for Obtenebration at half that of the vampire, and its abilities and attributes are half those of the vampire, except for Stealth, which is that of the vampire. If the shadow is destroyed, the vampire loses half of her willpower, must make a Rötschreck roll at difficulty 9, and can not use this power for a month. This power lasts for one hour per success.

LEVEL 8
Oubilette (also called Entombment)
By creating a "chamber" of pure darkness, the vampire may entrap or smother her enemies. No air exists in this shadow-trap, and mortals suffocate within its chilling void. Even vampires have little recourse once trapped -- they may only leave at their captor's whim. The Oubilette appears as a dense patch of shadow, unaffected by ambient light around it.

This costs the Cainite a blood point/trait, although the victim can attempt to dodge the formation of the Oubilette. The chamber need not completely encase their victim, allowing the head, or other body parts to be left accessible to the outside world. Though a vampire, unlike a mortal, does not suffocate within as they do not breathe, they are however suspended impotently in darkness and may not use Disciplines, or other actions. The Oubilette vanishes instantly when touched by sunlight -- which has left more than one vampire under the sun's unforgiving rays -- or when the Cainite chooses to relax it. A vampire may only maintain one of these chambers at a time, which leads some Cainite philosophers to argue that it is a prison created from the caster's very soul, and thus limited to a single incarnation.

Master of the Night
By spending one willpower point, and spilling five blood points on the ground, the vampire may create a shade, and by spending one blood point each, she may summon up to three. These shades obey every command she gives them. The shades have the following traits: Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3, Charisma 0, Manipulation 0, Appearance 0, Perception 4, Intelligence 1, Wits 5, Athletics 1, Brawl 3, Dodge 1, Stealth 8, Celerity 1, Obfuscate 1, Obtenebration 6. Additionally, they do not take wound penalties, and all hand damage that they inflict is aggravated.

LEVEL 9
Ahriman's Demense
This power allows the vampire to summon a darkness so obliviating that it extinguishes the light of life -- or unlife -- of any victim trapped within it. ahriman's Demense creates a 50-foot radius of void that issues from the Cainite's hand and takes away the bodies of those it claims when it vanishes. The overwhelming darkness destroys friend and foe alike, claiming anyone unfortunate enough to be within its circumference.

Summon the Abyss
By spending two willpower points and concentrating for three turns, the vampire may summon a sentient darkness. The number of successes is the amount of damage this darkness does to anyone within fifty feet of the vampire. This darkness remains for one turn, and cleans up after itself; all corpses are removed.

LEVEL 10
Banishment
The vampire may send a victim to the abyss, for the following time periods:
1 suc. one day.
2 suc. one week.
3 suc. one month.
4 suc. one year.
5 suc. forever, until the victim finds the way out herself.