MET LARP SRD
(2013 BNS MET System)
Visceratika
Summary
Atop the marble spires of ancient cathedrals, hunched stone guardians stare down at the city, keeping a watchful eye on the streets. With the power of Visceratika, you can harden your skin and become one with stone, much like the angelic and demonic gargoyle carvings of old. Members of the Gargoyle bloodline were slaves when they first evinced this discipline, as rituals cast repeatedly upon them somehow became permanent, fusing with their magical nature. It is an enigma within the vampiric world — and more so, since the bloodline can teach its proprietary power to others.
Possessing Visceratika notably toughens and hardens a vampire’s skin, tinting it with faint shades of grey. For a Gargoyle, this makes very little difference, as even without learning Visceratika, Gargoyles appear as though they are made of stone. However, when other vampires learn this power, it causes a mild but noticeable alteration of their appearance
Quote
“Why place statues in graveyards? Stone does not mourn.” — Ferox
Skin of the Chameleon
Level 1When you activate this power, you naturally blend in with your surroundings. While not invisible, you become less noticeable, and those around you simply don’t tend to pay attention to you, even though they realize you are there.
Expend 1 Blood and use a simple action to activate Skin of the Chameleon for one hour. You must be currently unobserved by mortals in order to activate Skin of the Chameleon. Thereafter, so long as you draw no attention to yourself, mortals will assume that you are an expected and legitimate part of their surroundings. They assume you have an authentic reason to be there, and they will not question your presence. If asked afterwards, they will describe you in generalities. Even if your appearance is particularly bestial or horrific, like a Gargoyle or a Nosferatu appears, so long as you take simple steps to avoid attention, such as wearing a hat or turning up collar, and do nothing to make people notice you, mortals in your area will ignore you.
You can interact with mortals while under the effect of this power, so long as you do not startle them or give them any reason to scrutinize your appearance. After such a conversation, the mortal will only remember you as a bland-seeming individual with the proper credentials to be present and very little more. If you use another power, threaten, or attack anyone, or otherwise draw attention to yourself, this power immediately ends.
Skin of the Chameleon fails if you attempt to enter a private location. This power might allow you to wander through a crime scene, but it cannot be used to enter a top secret laboratory or walk unnoticed into someone’s home.
Scry the Hearthstone
Level 2Buildings have memories, and stone can carry echoes unperceived by the human ear. By touching any part of a building, such as the wall, ceiling, or floor, you can remotely sense any individuals inside, similar to a bat using sonar.
By spending 1 point of Blood and spending a full turn in concentration, you get a complete sense of a building’s layout and inhabitants at that moment. You receive accurate information about the building’s design — where each room is, whether there are secret passages or hidden chambers, and so forth. You also learn the location, approximate size, and general type (humanoid or animal) of all living (and undead) things within. This building may be as large as a mansion; to acquire detailed information about a massive superstructure or a skyscraper, your Storyteller may require you to activate this power once every few fl oors.
Bond With the Mountain
Level 3You have an innate understanding of earth, stone, concrete, and metal, and can shape and mold even the hardest natural substances as easily as you would a handful of clay.
Spend 1 Blood and expend a standard action. By physically grasping a portion of stone or manufactured stone-like material, such as concrete, brick, or other masonry, you can twist or shape it as though it were soft and malleable. By using this power, you can even shape a safe haven for yourself within such material, sealing any gaps behind you after you crawl inside. You can create corridors or openings and pass through them, leaving no trace of such travel behind. A character using Bond With the Mountain can shape three cubic feet of stone with one standard action, and can move through such material in this manner at one step per round.
Those wishing to notice or locate a Gargoyle who is using Bond With the Mountain to shelter inside a wall or other material must succeed in a challenge, using their Mental attribute + Investigation versus the Visceratika user’s Physical attribute + Stealth. When a character using Heightened Senses comes within two steps of a person hidden by Bond With the Mountain, the character with Heightened Senses automatically realizes that someone is nearby, although she does not know who, or precisely where, to find that someone. A character who has been forewarned by Heightened Senses in this manner receives a +3 bonus to her challenge to notice and locate the Visceratika user.
Armor of Terra
Level 4Where lesser practitioners of Visceratika can alter their skin to gain the appearance of rock, you can actually modify yours to acquire the hardness of stone as well. When you activate this power, your skin takes on the coloration of granite, marble, or another type of stone, hardening your features into sharp lines and rigid planes.
Spend 1 Blood and expend your simple action to toughen your skin to the hardness of stone for one hour. While Armor of Terra is active, your armored skin has the Hardened and Ballistic qualities. While affected by this power, your appearance may be considered a breach of the Masquerade.
Armor of Terra is not mundane armor, and attacks that normally pierce armor do not pierce or ignore the effects of this power.
Stone Strength
Level 5Like stone itself, you become hard and impenetrable. Stone does not burn and cannot be pierced. With the use of this power, you shield yourself from two of the greatest banes of vampiric existence and borrow strength from the earth to provide defense.
By expending 1 Blood and spending a simple action, you transform your body to the hardness of stone. While in this form, you do not take damage from fire, and flaming or incendiary attacks deal normal damage to you. Further, because your organs are as hard as stone, you cannot be staked. While affected by this power, your appearance is a clear breach of the Masquerade. Once activated, this power lasts until the next sunrise.
Stone Strength is a transformative power and cannot be combined with other transformative powers. You can end this transformation at any time by expending a simple action. Stone Strength’s transformation is a rock-like version of a character’s normal (humanoid) form , and characters in this form can use weapons.
Furnace of Steel
Level 6Your capacity to twist stone and shape metal has reached a point where you can do so without using direct physical touch. With a gesture or a roar, you can cause guns to melt, car axles to bend, or any other metal in your presence to lose cohesion.
Spend 1 Blood and use your standard action to target a single metal or stone object within your line of sight that is no larger than 10 cubic feet in size. The target object warps and permanently loses its integrity, as if exposed to extreme heat. Weapons melt and become useless when targeted by this power, and you can easily destroy vehicles and buildings. Even if the item is within someone else’s control, so long as you can see the item, you can target it with Furnace of Steel, without making a test.
Meteor
Level 6While airborne combat is usually about speed, grace, and mobility, for you it is simply about one thing: momentum. Your stony physique gives you additional advantages over fleshy combatants, allowing you to fly faster and hit harder.
Once purchased this power is always active and gives you several advantages when using Aerial Combat Maneuvers.
In addition, if you wish to use an Aerial Combat maneuver but do not possess a means of flight (such as the 1-point Gargoyle merit Flight), you may spend a point of Blood to briefly manifest stony wings which grant you the needed propulsion for the turn.
Bulwark
Level 6By grasping another and holding her close, you can shelter her within the stone bulk of your embrace. In this manner, ancient Gargoyle slaves once protected their Tremere masters; today, this power is more often used against the warlocks rather than on their behalf.
To use Bulwark, you must first succeed in using the Grapple combat maneuver on your target. Remember that willing targets may relent, obviating the need to spend Willpower to perform a combat maneuver. Once you have established a Grapple, you can spend 1 Blood and use your simple action to activate Bulwark.
While within your embrace, your target is protected from all Physical attacks, and cannot physically attack others. Any Physical attacks directed at the individual protected by Bulwark target you instead. Protected individuals can be targeted by Mental and Social attacks that do not require touch. A protected individual can utilize Mental and Social attacks herself, so long as those attacks do not require her to touch her opponent or utilize gestures. Bulwark ends if the target escapes your Grapple or if you let her go. Additionally, Bulwark ends if you have one or more points marked off in your Incapacitated wound track.
Cataclysmic Upheaval
Level 6Your affinity for stone has granted you a devastating control over the earth and everything that stands upon it. Simply by touching the ground you can generate powerful tremors and terrible havoc. The ground, the rocks within the Earth, ancient foundations, and newly planted steel supports all bend to your will, crushing your enemies.
Spend 2 points of Blood and your standard action to touch the ground, calling the earth to rise to you as it carries boulders, pipes, and foundational beams in a crushing attack against your foes. You may make an opposed challenge against everyone within 10 steps. You may exempt a number of allies from the challenge equal to your dots of the Survival skill. Any who lose the challenge suffer 3 points of damage that cannot be reduced or negated as the ground on which they stand crushes them. Should you desire, those affected are dragged and must take up to 5 steps in your direction. You may ignore previous immovable obstacles, such as boulders and support beams when moving your opponents. Should you spend 1 point of Willpower to retest any of these opposed challenges, you also gain that retest for the remainder of the opposed challenges without spending further Willpower. If you spend the Willpower to retest after some challenges are already resolved, you cannot go back to previous challenges you have lost and apply that Willpower retest retroactively.
Rockheart
Level 7You are one of the Created – more stone than vampire. Your heart no longer beats but rests in its stony chamber inside your chest. Stronger than any wood that could pierce it, it has dulled you to the emotional and mental influences of others, including the Beast that sleeps inside you.
Once purchased this power is always active. Your heart becomes solid stone, making you immune to the Pierce Heart Combat Maneuver for as long as your heart remains in your body. Any time you test for frenzy you may spend 1 Blood to automatically win the challenge. Additionally, you may choose to resist any mental or social challenges using your Physical Traits + Survival instead of the normal test pool required. Further whenever you spend a point of Willpower to retest a Social power, you immediately regain the Willpower spent for that challenge. If your heart is removed from your body, this power and all of its benefits end.