Protean

• Eyes of the Beast

  Level 1

  With but a moment of concentration, you can shift the composition of your eyes to more greatly resemble those of an animal. Your ability to see in darkness increases, but this refraction also gives your eyes an eerie, animalistic glow.

  Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Eyes of the Beast. For the next hour, your eyes glow a soft, feral red. While this effect lasts, you can see perfectly even in pitch darkness. So long as your character is not physically blinded, you can fight in darkness without needing the Fighting Blind combat maneuver.

• Feral Claws

  Level 2

  By activating this power, your fingernails lengthen and harden into sharp, powerful claws. These claws are supernatural and capable of rending flesh, stone, or even thin sheets of metal. You can retract these claws with a mere effort of will, returning your hands to their normal state.

  Spend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Feral Claws. Your fingernails sharpen, harden, and lengthen into clearly visible, bestial claws. Slashing a foe with your Feral Claws inflicts aggravated damage. You may sheath Feral Claws at any time by spending a simple action. A character attacking with Feral Claws uses her Physical attribute + Brawl versus the target’s Physical attribute + Dodge.

  If your claws break, you can regrow them by reactivating this power.

• Earth Meld

  Level 3

  Before the advent of rapid transportation and widespread civilization, the power to meld with the earth in order to sleep safely, hidden from the sun, was absolutely essential for vampires to survive. By using this power, a vampire can mystically meld with the soil at her feet, and remain hidden there until she wills herself to rise.

  Spend 1 Blood and use your simple action to sink into the ground. You must be touching the earth (clay, soil, or any other soft-consistency ground) in order to use Earth Meld. While joined with the earth, the vampire exists in a semisolid form and cannot take actions or use any powers. Earth Melded characters are semi-conscious, but are not aware of their surroundings. Melding with the earth shelters a character from the sunlight during the day, or from fire searing the ground overhead, and further makes the vampire immune to most forms of physical harm.

  Significant disruption to the ground where a character is melded ends this power prematurely. If someone spends three standard actions causing such disruption, the vampire immediately ejects from the ground. An ejected vampire returns to full wakefulness immediately, showering dirt in a wide radius as she erupts violently from the soil. Using tools to disturb the ground can reduce the number of actions needed to disrupt an Earth Meld. For example, a character with a shovel might be able to eject a melded vampire with two standard actions, whereas a character with a pipe bomb could eject her with a single standard action.

  Earth Meld allows a vampire to sink into dirt or substances with similar consistency, such as sand or gravel, but cannot be used to meld with (or pass through) concrete, rock, metal, plastic, wood, or any other ground covering. Earth Meld cannot be combined with transformative powers ; melding with the earth returns a vampire to her native state.

• Shape of the Beast

  Level 4

  One of the most renowned abilities possessed by vampires, this power allows you to take the form of a wolf or bat, literally shifting your flesh and bone into a new state. Although such a beast is no more alive than the vampire, it is capable of flying, running, or using its animal senses just like a living member of its species.

  Spend 1 Blood point and use a standard action to transform into either a bat (your flight form) or a wolf (your fight form). You may end your Shape of the Beast transformation at any time by expending a simple action.

  While in your flight form, you gain a +3 bonus to Dodge-based defensive test pools and can fl y at your normal movement speed. However, due to the bat’s small size, your Physical attribute is reduced to 3 for the purpose of Physical attacks. While in your fight form, you gain a +2 bonus to Brawl based attack test pools, and your brawling attacks, biting or clawing, inflict aggravated damage.

  Both of your animal forms convert and retain the significant physical qualities and notable appearance-related flaws of your humanoid shape, such as one eye, a shock of white hair, or any other distinctive features. Vampires on paths still seem monstrous when in animal form, and Nosferatu or other disfigured vampires make for ugly animals, indeed. Shape of the Beast is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.

• Form of Mist

  Level 5

  Like the vampires of ancient myth, you have achieved such control over your physical form that you can dissolve into a gentle cloud of mist, dispersing throughout a small area. This mist is visible and noticeable (much like fog over the moors), as well as bitingly cold to the touch. You control the cloud’s movements as you would control your own, and you can slip through cracks, small holes, or under closed doors.

  Spend 1 Blood and expend a standard action to transform into a cloud of mist. While in Form of Mist, you cannot spend Blood, talk, activate powers, or physically attack, but you are also immune to Physical attacks from sources other than fire and sunlight. You can be injured by non-Physical attacks, and you can be harmed by flaming weapons, such as a torch or a road flare; however, incendiary ammunition passes through your form too quickly to inflict damage.

  While in Form of Mist, you are a semi-solid, fluctuating cloud. You can pass through any crack, hole, or aperture that mist could normally transverse. You cannot pass through solid objects or airtight passages, nor can you travel through panes of glass, as you do not condense. You also cannot fly, though you can travel along tilted or raised surfaces, such as up a wall. You take no damage from falling, but cannot control the rate of the fall nor the exact location of your landing.

  While in Form of Mist, you move one step per simple action, or two steps per simple action if moving in the same direction as a notable level of wind. If you attempt to move against a notable flow of air, you must make a Physical attribute + Athletics test at a difficulty established by your Storyteller, based on the speed of the wind you are attempting to fight. While in Form of Mist, you are effectively water vapor, and you do have a tangible physical presence. You can be touched by anyone who passes her hand through your form, and you may touch other individuals by flowing in the target’s direction. Touching, or being touched, may require a Brawl attack. Form of Mist is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers.

• Flesh of Marble

  Level 6

  Legends of the Gangrel and their ability to adapt to virtually any environment permeate vampire lore. Some ignorant fools believe the stories of swords shattering and bullets flattening against immortal skin to be exaggerated reports of the effects of Fortitude. The truth is far more insidious. With your mastery of Protean, you can adapt your very skin and flesh to become a flexible armor mirroring stone, marble, or whatever you need to survive.

  To activate Flesh of Marble, spend 1 point of Blood and a simple action. Your skin changes texture and color as it transforms into unnatural armor. You may select any two Protective Gear qualities and apply them to your skin. As a reminder, you may not benefit from the same quality twice. Once these qualities are applied to your Flesh of Marble, they are not affected by the Armor Piercing quality. Flesh of Marble is considered a minor transformation power. The effects of this power lasts for 15 minutes. If you wish to change the Protective Gear qualities, you must reactivate Flesh of Marble. The use of Flesh of Marble is considered a Masquerade breach if witnessed by mortals.

• Earth Control

  Level 6

  By using this power, an elder is no longer constrained to merely slumber beneath the ground. Once melded with the soil, she can move through the earth, changing her location as easily as walking down a windy street.

  While using the power of Earth Meld, you can move underground at normal speeds. You cannot pass through any substance with which you cannot meld, such as rock, water, concrete, or a thick tangle of roots, but you can physically interact with and even attack anything you fi nd underground — including other individuals using Earth Meld. Earth-melded characters cannot fi ght back unless they also possess Earth Control.

  Characters using Earth Control are aware of the underground landscape within 10 steps of their location, but cannot normally perceive the surface. For this reason, long distance navigation with Earth Control is problematic for most users, but Perception-focused characters can perceive their surroundings while within the earth and generally have no trouble navigating while underground.

  You cannot dig or otherwise physically force an individual using Earth Control to leave the shelter of the ground, unless you have some method of determining her current location.

• Shape Mastery

  Level 6

  The Beast within your blood is so fierce that it cows others, forcing their inner rage to retreat from the onslaught of your primitive dominance. With but a gesture, roar, or other primal show of superiority, you can cause someone else’s Beast to draw back and her physical form to revert to its normal state.

  Spend 3 Blood, expend your standard action, roleplay a show of dominance (a roar, a vicious glare, or other predatory gesture) toward your target, and make an opposed challenge using your Social attribute + Survival versus the target’s Social attribute + Willpower. If successful, you force yo ur target to immediately return to her natural form. Further, she cannot change shape for the next hour.

  Shape Mastery reverses the effects of a transformative power , such as Shape of the Beast, Black Metamorphosis, or Horrid Form. It cannot effect powers that alter only a small portion of the body, such as Feral Claws, or powers that alter the body but are not transformative, such as Earth Meld.

• Shattered Fog

  Level 6

  Cunning and opportune timing often trump brute strength and limitless speed. Your knowledge of Protean allows you to rapidly diffuse into a cloud of fog allowing swords and bullets to harmlessly pass through you. When you reform seconds later to strike back your opponents are left befuddled and off balance.

  When successfully attacked by a power that does damage to you, you can reflexively spend 2 Blood to temporarily shift into Form of Mist thereby negating the damage done to you. Once the damage is negated you immediately revert to your previous form. You cannot use this power to avoid damaging attacks that are fire-based, such as Lure of Flames or weapons with the Flaming quality, Mental effects like Psychic Assault, or Social powers that cause damage. In addition, while you have avoided the damage, the attacking character is considered to have touched you for the purposes of activating other powers.

• Ghost Body

  Level 7

  Your mastery of shape-changing has reached its apex: the assumption of a form which is formless. You possess the ability to become completely incorporeal, enabling you to walk through walls, avoid physical attacks, or even take flight as you ignore the bounds of physics.

  Spend 3 points of Blood and your standard action to transform into an incorporeal, though visible, being. This effect persists for one hour unless you elect to end it early. You may extend this effect by spending 2 additional points of Blood each hour. While in Ghost Body, you cannot initiate or be the target of any Physical challenges, though you may still initiate or be targeted by Social or Mental powers. You are also immune to any powers that damage your body, such as Death of the Drum and Horrid Reality (as you are aware your body cannot be damaged); however, you can be harmed by powers that damage your mind, such as Psychic Assault. You cannot physically interact with the world, spirits, ghosts, or even another vampire utilizing Ghost Body; however, you may still speak and be heard by others. While in Ghost Body, you can pass through solid items such as walls or floors. You may ignore gravity though you continue to move at your normal walking speed.

• Mythic Form

  Level 7

  Elders of clan Gangrel have been known to express their cultural roots by adopting mythical beast forms from their homelands and testing their destructive limits. Although a distinct violation of the Camarilla’s Masquerade and the Sabbat’s Silence of the Blood, few who witness your transformation into a creature of myth or legend live long enough to report you.

  When using Shape of the Beast you have the ability to transform into a more powerful Mythic Form. When you activate Shape of the Beast you may spend 2 additional points of Blood to assume a stronger and larger version of your standard fight form or flight form or you may select a new one altogether. Your Mythic Form can be a creature that has become extinct or a creature out of legend. For example, a Megafauna or Cryptid form (such as a Giant Sloth or Chimera) is a viable option for Mythic Form. When you activate Mythic Form, select two of the following qualities that combine with your bonuses from Shape of the Beast:

  As with Shape of the Beast, when in your Mythic Form you may only make Brawl attacks, unless you have chosen the Breath Attack quality. If you have the merit Shape of the Beast’s Wrath, you must choose to either receive the benefits of that merit or use this power. Mythic Form is a major transformative power and cannot be combined with other major transformative powers.