Merits and Flaws
The following Merits and Flaws may only be taken by Nosferatu
characters, unless permitted by the Storyteller. At your option, certain
vampires who have been subjected to the Tzimisce Discipline of
Vicissitude might also display these physical anomalies.
Lizard Limbs (1pt Merit)
Long Fingers (1pt Merit)
Oversized Fangs (1pt Merit)
Oversized Mouth (1pt Merit)
Disgusting (2pt Merit)
Slimy (2pt Merit)
Swarm Attractor (2pt Merit)
Tough Hide (2pt Merit)
Foul Blood (3pt Merit)
Patagia (4pt Merit)
Blunt Teeth (1pt Flaw)
Club Foot (1pt Flaw)
Nosferatu Caitiff (1pt Flaw)
Stench (1pt Flaw)
Parasitic Infestation (2pt Flaw)
Putrescent (3pt Flaw)
Lizard Limbs (1pt Merit) When
your limbs are restrained or grappled, you may spend a Blood Point and
make a Willpower roll (difficulty 8). If you succeed, you may "shed" a
limb, leaving it in your opponent's grasp while you escape. The limbs
may be regrown normally. If you shed enough limbs, you can escape nearly
any bonds, though it is difficult to flee the scene of captivity when
one has no legs....
Nosferatu with this Merit often use it for practical jokes (Let's shake
on it...).
Long Fingers (1pt Merit)Your
fingers are unnaturally long and spidery. You gain one extra die to Dice
Pools involving digital coordination or grappling.
Oversized Fangs (1pt Merit)
When you grew your fangs, you really grew 'em. Your fangs
are enormous, snaggly things resembling cobra fangs or possibly even
tusks. Your bite does one additional die of damage, and you
may add one to your Intimidation Dice Pool.
Oversized Mouth (1pt Merit)Your
mouth is huge and you are able to open it to prodigious width. You may
drink an additional two Blood Points from your victim each
turn.
Disgusting (2pt Merit) You have
the ability to contort your body and face in all sorts of shocking and
grotesque ways. You can drool blood, pop your eyes out to double their
width, spontaneously grow and burst boils on your flesh, extend your
tongue three feet out of your mouth, etc. In addition, you are an
accomplished practitioner of the fine art of disgusting others, and take
considerable pride in your ability to gross out anyone or anything. By
concentrating for a turn and spending a Blood Point, you may will your
body to do something vile, making a Wits and Intimidation roll
(Difficulty of the opponent's Wits + Self Control). Each success on this
roll subtracts one from the opponent's Dice Pool for any action
taken next turn. (The opponent is so repulsed and horrified by your
antics that concentration is broken.)
Slimy (2pt Merit) Your skin
secretes slime like that of a worm or mollusk. Opponents must score two
more successes than normal to grapple you, and your difficulty to soak
fire damage is reduced by one.
Swarm Attractor (2pt Merit) You
must have at least one dot in Animalism to take this Merit. Your skin
exudes a grease that attracts flies, gnats, bees, and other flying
insects. While these insects normally buzz passively about you in a
thick cloud, you may command them in a limited fashion. The bugs may
travel up to 20 feet from you to sting and distract your foes. The swarm
does no actual damage, but any being caught in the swarm must make a
Willpower roll (difficulty 7). If the roll fails, the victim loses two
dice from her Dice Pool that turn; if it botches, she may take no action
whatsoever.
Tough Hide (2pt Merit) Your skin
is thick and leathery, resembling that of a pachyderm. You gain one
extra die on your soak Dice Pool (though not to soak fire and
sunlight).
Foul Blood (3pt Merit)Your blood
tastes truly awful. Opponents who bite you in combat must make a
Willpower roll (difficulty 6) or spend the next turn retching and
gagging; the idiot who actually tries to commit diablerie upon you must
make a Willpower roll (difficulty 9) and score three successes to
complete the process.
Patagia (4pt Merit)You have
grown large flaps of skin under your arms, like those of a pterodactyl
or flying squirrel. You may use these patagia to glide for short
distances, provided there is an updraft or strong wind.
Blunt Teeth (1pt Flaw)Your teeth
are huge and square, not sharp like those of most other Vampires. You
must score one extra success to do damage with a bite, and once you have
locked your teeth into your prey, you automatically cause the victim one
additional Health Level of damage for every two Blood Points taken (you
have to chew and chew and chew...).
Club Foot (1pt Flaw) One of your
feet is gnarled and deformed. You move at only half normal
speed.
Nosferatu Caitiff (1pt Flaw)
You were Embraced by a Nosferatu, but failed to meet the
standards of even that clan, and were subsequently rejected by your
sire. As you did not complete the Becoming process, you were
not fully transformed, but you still look rather odd. You begin the
game with an appearance rating of 1, and raising your Appearance costs
double the number of experience points.
In addition, you present a tempting target for just about any bully -
other Caitiff may not have much to kick around, but a "Nosferatu reject"
certainly offers possibilities for abuse.
Not all Caitiff sired by Nosferatu have this flaw; nobody knows why some
do and some don't.
Stench (1pt Flaw) Few Nosferatu
smell good, but you reach a new nadir of odiferousness. Even other
Nosferatu are repulsed by your stink, and your Stealth Dice Pools are
reduced by two against any creature that can smell, unless you are
upwind.
Parasitic Infestation (2pt Flaw)
In many ways this Flaw is the negative counterpart to Swarm
Attractor (above). Several species of hemovores - ticks, lice,
mosquitoes, gnats, chiggers, leeches and the like - find your blood
particularly tasty. These creatures crawl and hide among the creases and
folds of your skin despite your best efforts to remove them.
Particularly persistent are those vermin that drink from you three times
and thus become enormous, bloated, Blood Bound ghouls.
You may not command the vermin in any fashion; they are too intoxicated
on your vitae to be of any use (though they do love you, for what it's
worth). The parasites also drink from one to four of your Blood Points
each night (roll a die, and divide by three, rounding up.) This forces
you to hunt more often. Finally, the constant itching and irritation
increase by one the difficulties of all your rolls to avoid
frenzy.
Putrescent (3pt Flaw)The mystic
processes that inhibit the natural decay of the vampiric form were less
effective on you. As a result, you constantly rot, though a day's rest
checks and to some degree heals the effects. Your soak Dice Pool roll is
reduced by one, and if you are jarred or hit violently (more than three
successes after soak) you must make a Stamina roll (difficulty 6). If
you fail, one of your facial features or fingers falls off; if you
botch, one of the levels is aggravated and one of your limbs falls off.
This will regrow when the aggravated wound is healed.