by Spider -- revisions by Deadlock (19 Apr 1995)
Simply speaking, this discipline centers around sensory confusion. It is the Razor Children's single most formidable weapon and defense.
[1] Flicker: With this power, the Razor Child may cause a target's senses to "flicker", producing an effect similar to reception of a scrambled television signal. The effect is very short lived, lasting only a turn or two. The Flicker costs one blood point to create, and the user must roll their Int+Subterfuge vs. the targets Wits+Alertness, making the victim lose the next action and lose also dice equal to the number of successes by the Razor.
[2] The Spins: Activation of this power causes the liquid in a target's inner ear to move unnaturally, temporarily ruining their sense of balance and co-ordination, even inducing serious vertigo in situations where the victim might be standing on solid ground. The effects are triggered with a Willpower vs. Willpower roll. The spins last for one scene, taking Dex for balance and movement down to 1.
[3] Snow: This power masks any specific sensory stimulus with a confusing mess of similar stimuli. For example, an individual trying to listen in on a conversation would suddenly find themselves overcome by a cacophany of unintelligable voices, or someone looking at the activator of the power might find themselves suddenly seeing a person whose features are shifting so rapidly that any coherent recognition is impossible. The power requires one blood point to activate. The effects are instantaneous and last only as long as the masked stimulus is present. Needs a Willpower roll vs victim's Per+3.
[4] Discord: A victim of this power finds that their spatial depth perception has become horribly warped. They are completely unable to judge relative distances properly, usually gravely miscalculating them. Anyone who succumbs to Discord has trouble with seemingly the simplest of tasks, such as climbing stairs, pushing buttons, picking up objects and the like. They would have little or no hope of firing a ranged weapon or throwing an object with any accuracy whatsoever. Activation of the power requires a Willpower roll against a difficulty of the target's Wits+3, and the target must be in line-of-sight. The effects last one scene, necessitating a Per+Alertness roll Diff 7 to perform any action; Dex and Per are halved (round down).
[5] Garble: The user of this power reaches directly into the mind of the victim, scrambling all conscious neural pathways connecting the mind and body. While the individual remains completely lucid, they lose the ability to talk, or even move as they wish. When attempting to speak, an uncontrollable torrent of gibberish comes out of their mouth. When attempting to walk, they find their legs responding erratically to their mental commands, making such motion very difficult, if not impossible. At best, any action taken by a victim of "garble" is at 'crippled' level on the damage chart. To activate this power, the user must roll Willpower against the target's Int+3 and touch the target. The number of successes determines the duration of the effect.
1 success - 10 minutes
2 successes - one hour
3 successes - one day
4 successes - one week
5 successes - one month
NB: The user may revoke the Garble at any time by touching the affected victim again and spending a Willpower point. Successes are cumulative, so the Garble may be lumped upon itself to last several months, or even years.
[6] The Jar Trick: Through the use of this discipline, a vampire may "steal" any one of the five senses of an individual (sight, hearing, taste, touch, smell), placing "it" in a jar, where it remains forever until the jar is found and smashed to bits. When the power is used, the victim experiences a peculiar sensation related to the target sense (eg. a low, barely distinguishable sound, or a slight, irritating tickle). When they attempt to concentrate on identifying the stimulus, they suddenly lose the ability to use the related sense. At that moment, the vampire exercising the power must stop up a jar, sealing it tightly. Until the jar is destroyed, the victim will be permanently blind, deaf, numb to touch, or unable to taste or smell anything. Activation of the power requires expediture of three blood points, and a roll of Willpower against the target's Wits+3. Note that the target must also be in the line of sight of the user.
NB: This power becomes harder and harder to use on a single individual more than once. For some reason, someone who has been affected by it in the past can intuitively sense when they are being targeted again, making their resistance to the trigger stimulus a little better. Each consecutive time the power is attempted on the same individual, the difficulty number is raised by one, to a maximum of 10. Also note that there are more than five senses. This gives a wee escape route for victims of a rational mind. This was not a Razors Trick, but was incorporated from some of the dodgier Lasombra rituals.
[6] The Truth Trick: By another stolen set of magics, the Razors have developed the irritating knack of forcing people into telling their perception of the truth without them realising. From the same sort of base as Garble, the subject is asked a question under the influence of this, then blurts out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but, unaware of being asked the question. This has two flaws; it's difficult to hold a line of questioning when the subject doesn't know what has been revealed, and alert subjects will notice they've been away for a while, so the Willpower roll by the Razor is at a difficulty of the victim's Per+Alertness, and the victim opposes with a Will roll, difficulty 9, on spotting the deception. Most successes wins.
[7] Garble Deluxe: This is essentially the same power as Garble, except that it also affects the autonomous functions of the mind. Those who fall victim to it suffer immediate severe heart arrhythmia and dysfunction, respiratory irregularity (most likely dangerous apnoea followed by equally dangerous hyperventilation), digestive malfunction, and an entire host of other problems. To engage the power, the user rolls Willpower vs. a difficulty of the victim's Stamina+3. The power only lasts one turn, but in mortal cases the damage is irreversible, and generally fatal. The affected individual takes damage levels equal to the number of successes rolled X 2. The damage is critical, and the only hope of repair lies in intensive medical treatment. For supernatural creatures, the wounds inflicted are considered to be aggrivated, but since most of the autonomous functions of the Kindred are superfluous or nonexistent, vampires take only the number of successes X 1 in damage levels.
NB this is daft. I tried to amend the functions but they're just not good enough. For any other power to have more point than debilitation, it must have further uses. So, regard the following: Urinary and rectal incontinence, coupled with spasming, will void alot of material, thoughts will be both undirectable and constant, with as much *permanently* hedfuking output as blinding insight. The subject will not be able to function adequately for, say, 12- Will roll successes in hours, until his mind is back together, and even then will be a completely different person, almost certainly with a neurosis at least. I think this level is certainly high enough to have a total destruction power, so I'd include spinal nerves in the target range, which would mean contortions, rigor, fits, catatonia, breath-holding; enteric and autonomic are the other two categories, so...what the hell. Autonomic is in control of gross, low-level bodily functions, hence incontinence, also endocrine disorder (mild in the short term), strange pH balance problems, and other insidious effects; as I've said the the short term effect of these is small. Repeated applications of this power would be *highly* deleterious. Enteric can go in level eight, as its effects are huge but slow.
[8] Snow Crash: Now, boys and girls, here Deadlock leaves his mark on the proceedings. When you mess with higher functions the social scale goes, next level down is intero-extero relationships, next is internal control and the last level is the one dealt with by this. It is both instantaneous and permanent (don't try this at home, kids) and screws with *all* the body's control systems, including the way proteins act on targets, and the way hormones affect the system. The wielder chooses a level of effect for it to hit with, then lets rip, rolling Int+Medicine diff 6 to get the level right (GM chooses which way it goes if they fail), then pitting Willpower against the target's Sta+Selfcontrol (to stay with the control motif), boiling off blood at a fair rate of knots but hey, if you've got this you don't give a shit. I suggest 1 BP per level of effect, which will then subtract one from any given statistic, depending on the function impaired (roll Int+Med diff 8 to get the function right); if it's glucose management then you can take off almost anything. Alternatively, the subject's stats could stay the same, but they could be saddled with a terrible little disorder that's essentially untreatable, and will have very specific unpleasant effects. This is a lovely power because NOBODY can detect its use without fuckin good guesses and a Med roll on diff 8 and 4 successes, or a psychometry and then Med roll as above, and *absolutely* nobody can prove it. "Oh, right, so I disrupted his phosphodiesterase balance so he gets dizzy when he gets more excited than breathing...wha'th'fuk'you on about?" Multiple attacks can kill very shortly indeed or leave a twisted shell of a victim. One final note is that a positive change can be wrought with a Med roll diff 10, for as many stat pts increase (or equivalent in specific side benefits) as the wielder gets successes. Note BPs are spent no matter whether it succeeds or fails.
Accelerated Rectitude. The largest market for the Saliva, where the Razor applies a bandage doused in the fluid and spends only enough blood points to stabilise, and over one hour per wound level up to incapacitated, the wound will heal. Needs only a short incantation. For wounds of only a couple of points, this means no blood is necessary at all.
Damnbuoy. By placing a piece of metal on the ground and saying a short incantation, the Razor will in future be made aware of any unnatural powers used in a radius of ten feet around the metal, which is generally selected to be as obvious as possible to a passer-by. The user of the power can then be affected by Presence, etc. as by association.
Best Worst Bet. The best way to heal Aggravated wounds, involving the use of a vial of saliva spread over otherwise healed areas (ie, with enough blood spent in them to heal it if it were normal) and a wait of a few seconds for each point.
Beacon. Creates a beacon out of any material that can be infused with blood, that will be detected by any selected passers by, if the beacon is charged up. Making the beacon is no problem, but the difficulty of spotting it with a Willpower roll is ten at the edge of the ring, decreasing by one for each factor of ten closer, and the radius of its effect is ten feet, multiplied by ten for each point in it, so a fiver is diff. 10 at 1000000 feet, diff 5 at ten feet.