Not all vampires are slow, meticulous creatures. When needed, some vampires can move fast — really fast. Celerity allows Assamites, Brujah, and Toreadors to move with astonishing swiftness, becoming practically a blur. The Assamites use their speed in conjunction with stealth to strike quickly and viciously from the shadows before they are noticed. Brujah, on the other hand, simply like the edge that the power gives them against overwhelming odds. The Toreador are more inclined to use Celerity to provide an air of unnatural grace to live performances or for an extra push to complete a masterpiece on time, but they can be as quick to draw blood as any assassin or punk when angered.
System: Each point of Celerity adds 1 die to every Dexterity-related dice roll. In addition, the player can spend 1 blood point to take an extra action up to the number of dots ze has in Celerity at the beginning of the relevant turn; this expenditure can go beyond zir normal Generation maximum. Any dots used for extra actions, however, are no longer available for Dexterity-related rolls during that turn. These additional actions must be physical (e.g., the vampire cannot use a mental Discipline like Dominate multiple times in 1 turn), and extra actions occur at the end of the turn (the vampire’s regular action still takes place per zir initiative roll).
Normally, a character without Celerity must divide zir dice if ze wants to take multiple actions in a single turn. A character using Celerity performs zir extra actions (including full movement) without penalty, gaining a full dice pool for each separate action. Extra actions gained through Celerity may not in turn be split into multiple actions, however.
Usually, elders progress in Celerity according to the existing progression — more dots mean more dice and potential actions a turn that are available, and levels 6 through 9 have those powers available at each level, as normal. Similar to other Disciplines at level 6 or higher, though, alternative powers exist. If the elder wants to purchase an alternative power instead of the typical progression, ze can, but ze forfeits the capacity for an extra Dexterity die and potential for an extra action to gain the special power instead. Ze can go back later and purchase the “normal” dot of Celerity, as desired.
Note that it isn’t possible to “skip” levels of progression for the normal Discipline — an elder with Celerity 7 that buys Projectile at level 6 needs to go back and buy the normal level 6 power before getting access to zir level 7 power that grants the capacity for up to 7 Dexterity dice or actions in a turn.
Source: V3/Revised Clanbook Assamite
While many elder Cainites simply develop their superhuman reflexes to truly amazing levels, others find new and varied uses for the ability — like Precision. This focused technique allows its wielder to apply all of zir intense energy to the smallest of targets. Ze effectively increases zir fine manipulation capabilities beyond those of the most advanced mechanical lathes by moving so quickly as to disturb absolutely nothing save that which ze actually touches. Cainite sculptors who have mastered Precision are capable of creating works of near-microscopic detail by striking so swiftly as to remove only the tiniest shavings of wood or stone. A certain medical specialist of the Vizier caste is reputed to be capable of wielding surgical tools so deftly as to be able to reattach severed spinal tissue.
System: The player spends 2 blood points and a Willpower point and rolls Dexterity + Crafts (Difficulty 6, substituting an appropriate Ability for Crafts at the Storyteller’s discretion). For each success, the player may add 1 die to all rolls pertaining to precision, fine manipulation, or moving something without disturbing its surroundings. This power lasts for a number of minutes equal to the character’s Celerity rating.
The character is in something of a trance state as ze concentrates on channeling all zir speed into tiny, flickering motions. Any actions that do not involve fine manipulation are at +2 Difficulty. Even conversation is a strain. The character may voluntarily withdraw from Precision before its duration elapses, but all benefits are lost without a subsequent re-invocation of the power. Under no circumstances does Precision give any benefits in combat (though it may allow the preparation of weapons of fiendish intricacy).
Source: V20 Core
Despite the fact that a vampire with Celerity moves at incredible speeds, any bullets ze fires or knives ze throws while in this state don’t move any faster than they normally would. Scientifically-minded Kindred have been baffled by the phenomenon for centuries, but more pragmatic ones have found a way to work around it. Projectile enables a vampire to take zir preternatural speed and transfer it into something ze has thrown, fired, or launched.
System: Projectile requires the expenditure of a blood point. In addition, the player must decide how many levels of zir character’s Celerity they are putting into the speed of the launched object. Thus, a character with Celerity 6 in addition to Projectile could decide to put 3 dots worth of speed into a knife ze is throwing, and use the other 3 dots as dice or potential extra actions as per normal. Each dot of Celerity infused into a thrown object becomes an automatic success to the attack’s damage roll, assuming the weapon or projectile actually hits.
Source: V20 Anarchs Unbound
Much of the initial Anarch Revolt was spent fleeing from unfavorable odds and vengeful elders. This power made some of those escapes possible, enabling the Kindred of those early nights to put far much more ground between themselves and their antagonists than the rest of the world could imagine at the time. As long as the Anarch devoted zirself to escape, ze could cover enormous distances in a single night.
This power has fallen into some disuse, due to the prevalence of modern transportation methods. The most significant benefit it still has, however, is a virtual inability to be traced. Those flying on planes or riding buses require tickets, and even a properly registered car leaves a paper trail or at least bears a license plate. When a Kindred invokes the Tireless Tread, however, the only evidence of zir passing is zirself.
System: This power costs 1 blood point per night. The Kindred “treads” at a rate of 50 miles per hour. This power must be used for at least 8 hours, meaning the Kindred must travel a distance of at least 400 miles. Any less and the power fails to work. The Kindred finds a rhythm and stays in it, as opposed to merely sprinting for 8 hours. If the Kindred tarries too much along zir way, ze will find zirself unable to find that traveler’s pace, and the power will fail entirely.
Source: V20 Core
In combat, speed kills. A proper application of Celerity in combat can turn even the meekest Cainite into a walking abattoir. How much more deadly, then, is a vampire with the ability to utilize zir preternatural speed to the utmost in combat? Flower of Death allows a vampire to take zir Celerity and apply it in full to each hand-to-hand or melee attack ze makes.
System: Flower of Death costs 4 blood points, but the spectacular effect is well worth it. Once the power is in effect, the vampire’s bonus dice for Dexterity rolls get added to every dice pool for attack the character makes (even if the roll doesn’t use Dexterity) until the end of the scene. Further, even if the Kindred uses some of zir Celerity dots for extra actions during the scene, these extra dice are still available. The effect is limited to hand-to-hand or melee weapon attacks — firearms, bows, and other ranged weapons are excluded — but does grant the attacker additional dice for damage rolls.
Flower of Death is not cumulative — it is impossible to “layer” uses of the power over one another to create astronomical dice pools.
Source: V3/Revised Clanbook Brujah
Calling upon zir preternatural speed, a Kindred using this power appears to undertake several actions at once, “flickering” from 1 action to the next. This is particularly useful in combat, as one’s foe cannot guess which of the actions xe perceives is the one with which the character follows through. The character seems to be a dervish while this power is in effect, beginning countless feints, dodges and parries.
System: The player spends a blood point to activate this power. For the turn in which the character calls upon this power, ze may add zir full Celerity rating to zir Dodge, Block, or Parry pool. This pool may be also be distributed among multiple actions — a character with this power can use it in a succession of Dodges, moving too fast for the eye to perceive, much like the fluttering of a hummingbird’s wings.
Source: V20 Core
Zephyr produces an effect vaguely similar to one of the legendary comic book-style uses of enhanced speed, allowing its practitioner to run so fast ze can run across water. Particularly successful applications of Zephyr allow a vampire to go so far as to run up walls and, in at least one recorded instance, across a ceiling.
System: Zephyr requires the expenditure of 1 point of blood and 1 point of Willpower. Unfortunately, Zephyr requires such extremes of concentration that it cannot be combined with any form of attack, or indeed, with most any sort of action at all. If a character using Zephyr feels the need to do something else while moving at such tremendous speeds, a Willpower roll (Difficulty 8) is required. Needless to say, botches at Zephyr speed can be spectacular in all the wrong ways.
Most times, a vampire moving at such a rate of speed is barely visible, appearing more as a vampire-shaped blur than anything else. Observers must succeed on a Perception + Alertness roll (Difficulty 7) to get a decent look at a Kindred zooming past in this fashion.