DarkCraft:Species Talents

Racial Talents

DarkCraft seeks to implement denizens of the World of Darkness such as vampires and werewolves using the fantasy race rules in SpyCraft's Origin of the Species rulebooks. In short, Racial Talents work exactly like normal Talents. You take them character creation.

Vampire

Vampire (near-human): You are a vampire, a night-creature that must feed on the blood of the living to survive. You were once human, until a vampire you now call your Sire drained your blood and then fed you some of his own in an act called the Embrace. Now you are an undead creature apart from humanity, preying upon your former species by night because the sun will destroy you. Although your heart no longer beats, the Vitae in your veins makes you stronger than ever, and you do not age. Your Vitae invigorates and addicts those who drink it, as well as enslaving them to your will. Through discipline, you can also refine the ancient curse in your blood to develop even stranger abilities.

Type: Medium biped humanoid. You are not truly undead, but have a facsimile of life depends only on the vitae in your body. You have no blood pressure and damage to your withered organs won’t hurt you much, so you’re never too worried about having holes poked in you unless it’s a piece of wood through the heart. If you would receive the Critical Injuries: bleeding or internal rupture, you receive no Critical Injury instead. Your blood can also re-knit bone and flesh even after injuries from which no living human could recover. You are not considered dead when your Wound Points drop to -10, unless the killing blow resulted in the Critical Injury: brain damage. Otherwise, you remain in the game until you are reduced to -25 Wound Points and your body is destroyed. You are also immune to most drugs, toxins, and diseases, although you may become an asymptomatic carrier of certain blood diseases, such as HIV. On the other hand, you can only heal by spending Blood Points or Action Dice. Normal medical attention will not help you. You also cannot eat or drink anything but blood without vomiting what you ate within minutes.

A medical examiner will report you as a corpse with fresh brain, muscle, skin, and cardiovascular tissue. Most of the other organs are heavily atrophied, if not turned to mush. However, none of these organs are putrefied, in spite of their wet surroundings. Your heart and arteries only pump blood when you spend it to fuel your vampiric abilities. It seems that through some unholy miracle, blood alone causes your nerves and muscles to behave as if you were alive, and it does this without the need to constantly circulate. Your circulatory system is only necessary for moving your blood into place.

A casual observer can identify you as a vampire by looking for things like lack of normal breathing and pale skin, but since many people won’t notice these things, you are considered disguised as human by default. The DC for someone to see through your “human suit” with a Search/Perception or Notice/Awareness check is (your Charisma + your Blood Pool + the DC to pierce any additional human disguise you are wearing). An observer can see through your additional disguise without recognizing you as inhuman, but not vice-versa.

• You do not get the standard bonus Feat from your chosen Specialty.
• You have a set of retractable fangs about 1.5 inches long. You gain a Caliber II bite attack.
• When you drink blood, your body converts it into a supernatural substance called vitae. Vitae looks the same as blood, but tastes better and is magical. You have a pool of Blood Dice, representing the quantity of vitae currently in your system. You must always have some vitae in order to remain conscious, but you may spend Blood Dice in order to fuel certain vampiric abilities. The maximum number of Blood Dice you may have at one time is equal to (10 + Con modifier). By default, you may never spend more than 1 blood in a round. Spending blood is in itself a free action, but the expenditure may assist in something that is not a free action.
• You must consume fresh blood in order to survive. Feeding on a willing individual requires no roll. Feeding on an unwilling individual is a grapple benefit called “Feed”. Feeding on a live creature is an ecstatic experience for both vampire and victim. Once you begin feeding, a non-vampire victim must make a Will save (DC of the vampire’s Charisma) or the victim becomes dazed until you stop feeding. For each round in which you successfully feed on a human, you gain one Blood Die, and the victim takes 1 temporary Constitution damage. If you feed on a non-human animal, your prey takes the same damage, but you receive one Blood Die for each four points of Constitution damage instead.
• Foraging on behalf of vampires is difficult due to their special needs, such as fresh blood and shelter from sunlight. Add 4 to the DCs of any character's foraging checks for each vampire in the party. When a successful Survival/Foraging check is made by or on behalf of a vampire, the vampire regains 1d4 Blood Dice on a success, or 2d4 Blood Dice on a threat. On a critical success, max out the vampire's Blood Pool. In addition, Survival/Foraging checks are necessary for vampires, even in urban settings. Subtract 5 from the DCs of such checks.
  • Example: if a human is foraging for himself and one vampire, he takes a +5 penalty for foraging for another individual and a +4 penalty because that individual is a vampire, for a total of +9. If a vampire is foraging for himself and one human, he also takes a +5 penalty for foraging for someone else and a +4 penalty for foraging for a vampire.
• To sire a new vampire, you must drain a human of blood until she is at 1 Constitution, and then let her drink one Blood Die's worth of vitae from your own veins. The victim then makes DC 15 Fortitude save. On a failure, the victim dies a natural death. On a success, the victim becomes a vampire. A vampire you embraced is considered your "childe". The childe receives all vampiric racial traits, is Drained by 1, and must immediately make a DC 20 Will save vs. becoming frenzied. A PC embraced in game probably gains a Mentor subplot representing the the new vampire's tutelage under his sire.
• You can feed on other vampires. In this case, you drain the victim of Blood Dice rather than doing Constitution damage until the victim has no more Blood Dice. Then, the victim enters torpor and you begin draining Constitution normally. Once the victim dies, if you have the Thin Blood feat and the victim did not, you lose the Thin Blood Feat. Otherwise, if the victim had taken the Blood Potency feat more times than you have, you gain the Blood Potency Feat.
• You subtract 5 from the DCs of all your checks to identify vampires or ghouls.
• You start with the Night Training feat, even if you lack the prerequisites.
• If you feed a human at least one Blood Die's worth of your vitae (about a pint) they gain the ghoul condition. If you take the Personal Lieutenant or Animal Partner Feats, the associated character is assumed to be ghouled. You can always ghoul any of your human contacts in lieu of upgrading them.
• If you feed someone blood directly from your veins in an intimate act of bonding on 3 separate nights in a given month, they become blood bound to you for the next year. Each time, you must make a successful 1-minute Impress/Persuasion check against the victim, or wait until the next month. You can renew this bond at any time in that year, but if the time runs out, no one can ever create another bond with that person again. If you take the Personal Lieutenant or Animal Partner feats, the associated character is assumed to be blood bound to you. All of your human contacts start one grade higher than they normally would. Reduce your level requirements for the Animal Partner and Personal Lieutenant feats by 2.
• You have the NPC quality: feral.
• When making Will saves, instead of adding your normal Will save bonus, add your normal Will save bonus or the number of Blood Dice you possess, whichever is lower.
• You permanently have the Subplot, Fear: Fire and Sunlight. This Subplot can never be removed and is always active, but does not count toward your maximum Subplots.
• You can always take the skills: Survival and Acrobatics in-class.
• Every day at dawn, you feel an urge to rest in a sleep indistinguishable from death. You may spend one Blood Die to resist this urge and remain awake through the day. While asleep, you can spend Blood to heal yourself, but can take no other action. Every night at sundown, you must spend one Blood Die. If you have no Blood Dice to spend, you enter torpor until someone feeds you.
• You treat any square that is illuminated by sunlight as being on fire, at a temperature of about 900° Fahrenheit.
• You have the NPC quality Achilles Heel: Fire.
• Disciplines are a type of feat that only vampires and ghouls can purchase. If you take a vampire-only Society feat, you have a Discipline Purview, which consists of a set of Discipline feats. If a Discipline is in your Purview, reduce its Attribute requirements by 2, its skill requirements by 2, and its level requirements by 2. If it isn’t in your Purview, raise its Attribute requirements by 2, its skill requirements by 2, and it's level requirements by 2. You can always take any Discipline instead of any bonus feat as long as either it is within your Purview, or you have no Discipline Purview. When you gain a Purview, gain one feat from within that purview.
• You can spend a Blood Die in lieu of an Action Die, but only to heal or augment rolls that add your Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution modifier. You can spend Blood Dice to boost rolls or confirm crits, but only for rolls using Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution.
• You can spend one Blood Die to add 5 to the DCs of all checks to identify you as inhuman for the next scene.
• Favored Classes: If you possess a higher level in any base class than in the Faceman or Intruder classes, your starting Action Dice are reduced by 2.