The True Brujah bloodline claims a peculiar Discipline that allows them some control over the flow of time. Masters of Temporis often grow ever more detached from the passage of ages. This, combined with the natural tendency for Sages to grow emotionally and spiritually distant, makes True Brujah elders exceptionally dangerous. They know that all life is finite, and so they feel no compunction about ending it.
Masters of Temporis value patience and clarity. Time is too complex and dangerous to manipulate incautiously or on a whim. Thus, the first power of Temporis focuses entirely on perception and serves as a permanent alteration of a vampire’s senses.
System: Once learned, this Discipline gives a vampire a perfect sense of time. The vampire knows events to the nearest second or better. Moreover, the Cainite knows whenever the flow of time is mystically disturbed by use of Celerity, greater levels of Temporis, mortal wizardry, or stranger things. Sensing disturbances is instinctive and reflexive, though it requires a successful Perception + Awareness roll (Difficulty 6 for most phenomena, as modified by the Storyteller for distance and intensity).
A vampire with this power may trap a target’s mind into reviewing a set of events over and over until interrupted. This power is extremely subtle and ill-suited to combat or other situations rich in sensory stimuli. However, a cunning vampire can trick a sentry into reliving the tedium of xyr uneventful watch even as the Cainite draws close enough to strike or slip past. Other uses include the maddening infliction of déjà vu to induce paranoia or make a victim question xyr senses and xyr sanity.
System: The vampire concentrates on a single victim in zir line of sight. The player rolls Manipulation + Occult (Difficulty equal to the victim’s current Willpower). With any successes, the victim falls into a light trance and relives the most recent experiences that preceded their fugue. Alternatively, the vampire may evoke another set of specific memories and circumstances from the victim’s past, provided that ze has some means of telepathically drawing them forth. The recurring events must be relatively benign, insofar as nothing noteworthy happens or nothing happens that would demand the victim’s immediate action. Thus, in the example of the sentry, the vampire could entrance xem and walk past unobserved, but not if the sentry spotted zir before invoking the power. Ordinarily, the fugue lasts 1 minute per success. If the vampire’s player spends a blood point to fuel this power, determine the trance’s duration according to the following table:
| Successes | Duration |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 minute |
| 2 | 10 minutes |
| 3 | 1 hour |
| 4 | 6 hours |
| 5+ | 1 day |
Entranced victims are oblivious to their surroundings and the actual flow of time around them. However, the fugue ends immediately if the victim suffers any damage or experiences a sudden jolt to xyr senses, such as a thunderclap or even a gentle nudge. Normal conversation does not break the trance, although shouting does.
With this power, a vampire may begin to alter the flow of time itself rather than mere perception of events. The vampire gestures and slows the desired object almost to a dead stop. This power can slow incoming bullets to the pace of drifting clouds, or cause an enemy warrior to see the battlefield quicken to a blur of dizzying carnage even as xyr every motion slows to a crawl.
System: The player spends 1 blood point and rolls Intelligence + Occult. The Difficulty depends on the size and nature of the target: a single thrown brick is only Difficulty 4, while a crazed ghoul has a Difficulty of 9. Targets larger than an adult human cannot be affected with Leaden Moment. It is possible to affect small, closely grouped inanimate objects of the same nature as a single object, though this increases the Difficulty by 2 or more at the Storyteller’s discretion (a hail of bullets might be Difficulty 9). This power may be activated reflexively as a defensive action against projectiles, but otherwise requires a full action on the vampire’s initiative. Though failure carries no special penalty apart from wasting blood, a botch means the vampire mistakenly slows zirself rather than the target, counting every 1 as a success for that purpose.
If the vampire succeeds, the object slows to 1/2 its true speed. Every 2 successes beyond the first reduce this speed by 1 additional factor, so 3 successes slows the target to 1/3 its speed, 5 successes yields quarter speed, etc. The actual mechanics of such slowing depend on the situation. For projectiles, multiply any successes to hit and final damage by the speed factor, rounded down. Similarly apply the speed modifier to the successes of other actions involving Dexterity, Wits, or Strength for slowed characters. Characters with Celerity may spend 1 blood point to negate 1 factor of speed reduction at the expense of the usual extra action provided — for example, 1 blood point cancels a reduction to 1/2 speed, 2 blood points cancel 1/3, etc. Leaden Moment lasts 1 turn for every 2 successes rolled, rounded up.
The vampire can now suspend an inanimate object in time, keeping it frozen in perfect stasis as time passes at normal speed around it. As with lesser Temporis powers, this stasis has both combat and non-combat applications. True Brujah warriors may halt bullets outright rather than merely slowing their approach or casually sidestep a collapsing building. Higher-level variations on this power preserve precious scrolls and artifacts without risk of mold or decay. If any solid object or nontrivial volume of liquid touches a frozen object that did not touch it at the moment of suspension, the item re-enters time with the same properties and velocity as when it stopped. Thus, touching a suspended object with anything more substantial than a raindrop releases it exactly as it was before it stopped.
System: The player spends 2 blood points and rolls Intelligence + Occult (Difficulty 6). The vampire must be able to perceive the object that ze’s suspending, so the player may need to make a Perception + Alertness roll at a Difficulty determined by the Storyteller in order to freeze fast-moving objects. If an object exceeds the speed of mortal perception, superhuman perception such as Auspex is required in order to see and stop it (as such, bullets can be stopped with this power, but only if the vampire has at least a dot of Auspex). Objects frozen by this power remain halted according to the number of successes rolled:
| Successes | Duration |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 turn |
| 2 | 1 minute |
| 3 | 10 minutes |
| 4 | 1 hour |
| 5 | 1 day |
| 6+ | 1 week per success over 5 |
Suspended objects retain all energy in their suspension, releasing none to the outside universe. A suspended knife has no kinetic energy as far as the rest of the world is concerned and hangs suspended in mid-air until the power is interrupted or the duration expires. Suspended alchemical or chemical processes also halt, including fire. However, any physical contact more substantial than a falling raindrop breaks the suspension.
With this power, a vampire momentarily accelerates time through zirself. In this brief instant, ze moves with the preternatural speed of Celerity. Unlike that Discipline, however, the time dilation of Clotho’s Gift permits any type of action. A vampire may still move or strike faster than the eye can see, but also think, plan, and even invoke other Disciplines that require full concentration. Only the last presents a danger, as it overtaxes the vampire’s unliving stasis.
System: The player spends 3 blood points and rolls Intelligence + Occult (Difficulty 7). For a number of turns equal to half the vampire’s Temporis rating, rounded up, the character may take a number of extra actions at zir full dice pool equal to the number of successes rolled. These actions follow the timing rules associated with Celerity, but may be used to take any action. A vampire may use the actions granted by Clotho’s Gift to activate Disciplines multiple times, even Disciplines that cannot be used more than once in a turn (such as Dominate or Thaumaturgy). However, for every action spent activating a Discipline, the vampire suffers 1 level of unsoakable Lethal damage. One important exception exists: Any attempt to stack extra actions through Celerity, subsequent applications of Clotho’s Gift or other powers results in immediate Final Death, as the vampire collapses into ash as though burned by the sun.
Insight allows the True Brujah to step forward in time a little and see how certain actions are going to play out. This allows zir to return to the present and use this information to perform zir next action with greater skill and ability. As ze returns a moment before ze sets off, the only evidence of this power is a shimmering around the character as ze returns.
System: The character spends a Willpower point and makes a Wits + Alertness roll (Difficulty 8) to see how much ze can remember and understand what ze saw. Each success ze makes grants zir an additional die to zir dice pool for zir next action.
True Brujah with this power gain limited mastery over the physical age of objects and individuals. It is a trivial matter to accelerate time in a compressed rush, aging a target decades or even centuries in the blink of an eye. It is far more difficult to absorb and unweave entropy, lessening time’s hold. This power does not reverse history in any way; it merely reverses or accelerates the effects of time in terms of wear and tear. Moreover, a target cannot regress to an earlier or incomplete state of being. For inanimate objects, this is the point at which they were assembled. For living beings, it is either adult maturity or the time of birth (or its equivalent). For the undead and other corpses, it is the moment of death.
System: In order for the vampire to age a target, the player spends 2 blood points and rolls Manipulation + Occult. The Difficulty equals the target’s true physical age in decades or effective physical age in the case of target’s that have aged unnaturally, such as by means of this power. This Difficulty cannot rise higher than 10 or drop below 4. The vampire touches the target and concentrates for a turn. The Cainite may age the target a maximum number of years as determined by the following table, although ze may choose to apply a lesser effect. The Storyteller remains the final arbiter of time’s effect on an object, but living beings aged past their natural lifespan quickly perish.
| Successes | Elapsed Time |
|---|---|
| 1 | Up to 1 year |
| 2 | Up to 5 years |
| 3 | Up to 10 years |
| 4 | Up to 50 years |
| 5 | Up to 100 years |
| 6+ | Up to 1 century per success over 5 |
Removing the effects of time requires greater effort, increasing the Difficulty of the activation roll by 1. In addition, the vampire suffers 1 level of unsoakable Lethal damage for every success ze chooses to apply. As noted, objects cannot return to an earlier or incomplete state. A silver coin may lose its tarnish and seem newly minted, but it will not revert to an unformed block of metal. Likewise, while an adult may revert to the cusp of their adulthood or a child to a newborn, neither could regress to a prenatal state. Also, this power only accounts for damage and wear due to time. A child amputee reverted to a baby will not regenerate xyr missing arm, nor will a broken sword become anything but finely crafted shards.
In either application, this power does not change a subject’s mental or mystical properties. Sentient beings retain all memories and any Derangements. A vampire regressed to the point of death remains a vampire, not an inanimate corpse — and the regressed Cainite still remembers all Disciplines and keeps any changes in Generation due to diablerie. However, a vampire aged far enough pales considerably or loses any signs of diablerie from their aura.
The True Brujah puts zirself out of sync with time, rendering zirself unable to truly interact with the world whilst also vastly increasing the rate at which ze experiences it.
System: The primary effect of power can be activated reflexively as a defensive action, and the vampire must expend 1 point of Willpower. It functions like Recurring Contemplation, but applies equally to extended actions.
The secondary effect, however, lasts much longer and allows the vampire to cover vast distances in the blink of an eye. The vampire rolls Intelligence + Occult (Difficulty 7) and spends 2 blood points. The power is active for 1 hour or until cancelled. The number of successes rolled determines how quickly the vampire experiences time, and thus how far ze can travel.
| Successes | Time Dialation | Average Distance (Walking, Sprinting) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2x | 10 mph, 39 mph |
| 2 | 4x | 21 mph, 78 mph |
| 3 | 8x | 42 mph, 156 mph |
| 4 | 16x | 84 mph, 312 mph |
| 5+ | 32x | 168 mph, 624 mph |
While travelling using this power, the vampire cannot use Disciplines, expend vitae or interact with the world in any meaningful way. This means that while ze is able to traverse long distances quickly, ze cannot move past obstructions, barriers or obstacles that cannot be avoided by moving around them. Any attempt to do so ends the power, resuming the normal time rate.
Despite the speed achieved by the vampire when using this power, zir trace is very subtle and ze creates no greater disturbance than simply walking. Therefore, movement under this power is very difficult to notice. The Difficulty is equal to [8 + the number of successes rolled - the observer’s Auspex rating], and at least 3 successes are required to even pinpoint the path taken by the vampire, whose movement is more than likely instantaneous.
The power of Clotho’s Gift is mighty, but it can be deadly when used carelessly by younger Kindred. Elder True Brujah have become resistant to the effects of this power from experience and practice.
System: The user, upon purchasing this power, may soak damage incurred by Clotho’s Gift. Ze may not use Fortitude when making this roll, and if ze tries to stack extra actions using Celerity, ze will still collapse into a pile of ash. Any botches rolled to soak damage causes the damage to become Aggravated damage that cannot be soaked.
This power creates an aura around the True Brujah that helps protect zir from attacks.
System: The user spends 2 blood points and 1 point of Willpower before rolling Willpower (Difficulty 8). Each success reduces an attacker’s dice pool by 1 (maximum penalty of 5) for 5 turns. While this power is active it applies to any attempts to attack the user; the penalty only applies to the roll to attack, not the damage roll. This effect works on melee and ranged attacks as well as attacks from multiple sources or from magic.
This power can only be used once per scene.
Where a vampire with Clotho’s Gift may accelerate with respect to the world, a vampire with this power may step outside of time entirely. During this brief sojourn, the Cainite perceives the world frozen at a standstill. Ze can walk about at a leisurely pace to sidestep blows or retreat without being observed. Ze may even exert force, such as by striking a blow, though no damage is resolved until ze re-enters time. However, this power wreaks terrible destruction on a vampire’s unliving body. Used incautiously, a vampire may saunter out of time, only to fall to ash when ze returns.
System: The player spends 1 Willpower point and 3 blood points, and then rolls Wits + Occult (Difficulty 7). This power may be activated reflexively as a defensive action; however, such hasty use reduces the maximum duration to a single turn. Failure does nothing apart from wasting effort and blood, while a botch inflicts 1 level of Aggravated damage for every 1 rolled.
If successful, the vampire steps out of time for a number of turns equal to the successes rolled (outside of combat, a turn still only lasts 3 to 5 seconds for the purposes of this power). These turns occur for the vampire only while the rest of the world stands still. Ze may take any action or actions during this time, as many as desired, but ze has no access to Disciplines — even innate or perpetual Disciplines such as Potence. The vampire must direct every aspect of Caine’s Curse toward holding back time. If the vampire attacks someone in this state, the target cannot dodge or parry. Resolve the attack normally but do not apply damage. However, if the vampire suffers injury, such as by exposure to sunlight or walking through a frozen flame, apply this damage immediately.
The vampire may end zir sojourn at any point or wait until the full duration of the power passes, at which point time resumes. Before anything else happens, including resolution of damage inflicted by the vampire, roll 1 die for every turn the vampire moved out of time. The Difficulty is equal to the vampire’s Temporis rating. For every failure, the Cainite suffers 1 level of unsoakable Aggravated damage. Apply this damage concurrently with damage suffered by halted victims and continue play on the same turn and initiative the vampire stepped out of time.
The master of this power may alter the subjective passage of time within an enclosed space, letting an entire night pass in the space of a moment. This is most often used defensively or socially. The former purpose allows the vampire to enter zir haven at dawn and spend what seems to zir to be a few minutes drowsing and vulnerable, only to emerge fully rested at the following sunset. The latter is used to extend clan gatherings through an interminable night, delaying the need for sleep in the interests of political or social pursuits. However, there are recorded applications of this power for more martial purposes, the most noteworthy being the “adjustment” of a former Malkavian Justicar’s night of gambling and his subsequent demise as he walked out of the casino into a Monaco sunrise.
System: The player spends 1 blood point per hour of normal time that this power will affect and rolls Stamina + Occult (Difficulty is equal to the number of real hours to be compressed or extended; minimum Difficulty 4, maximum 10). The amount of compression or expansion is determined by the number of successes rolled. If time is being compressed, hours in the outside world are experienced as minutes within this power’s area of effect; if it is being extended, an entire night in the vampire’s favorite Elysium may only last an hour in real time. Hall of Hades’ Court may only be applied to a single enclosed space: a cave, a haven or a building up to the size of a high school gymnasium.
| Successes | Time |
|---|---|
| 1 | 2x or 1/2 (1 hour = 30 minutes) |
| 2 | 4x or 1/4 speed (1 hour = 15 minutes) |
| 3 | 6x or 1/6 speed (1 hour = 10 minutes) |
| 4 | 12x or 1/12 speed (1 hour = 5 minutes) |
| 5+ | 60x or 1/60 speed (1 hour = 1 minute) |
One of the most subtle manifestations of Temporis’ higher levels, this power allows a vampire to reach into the past and summon events, objects, or even individuals. Clio’s Kiss, named for the muse of history, is the power to bypass the flow of time and bring something — or someone — forward to the present. Some True Brujah scholars use this to observe history as it truly occurred, while others look to the past for aid or to retrieve lost possessions. At least two coordinated attempts by the True Brujah to summon their Antediluvian progenitor have met with catastrophic failure.
No one knows if a Sage capable of this power remains. The hope is that Clio’s Kiss faded from knowledge — the bloodline cannot afford a third attempt.
System: The player spends half of the character’s current blood pool, rounded up, and rolls Stamina + Occult (Difficulty 8). This power automatically fails if the player spends fewer than 5 blood points. The number of successes determines the maximum amount of time through which the character may reach:
| Successes | Time |
|---|---|
| 1 | 24 hours |
| 2 | 1 month |
| 3 | 1 year |
| 4 | 10 years |
| 5+ | 1 century per success over 4 |
When a vampire uses this power successfully, the scene ze seeks to retrieve materializes around zir, briefly supplanting the current environment. This change extends to a maximum volume of a ballroom or similarly proportioned outdoor space (at Storyteller’s discretion). The power affects everyone inside this area by granting them awareness of the summoned events, but the vampire is the only person who may choose to interact with the scene (though ze may remain invisible and disembodied). All others must remain incorporeal observers until time reasserts itself and the scene fades. They may move about to change their vantage point, but can take no other action.
If the vampire wants to remove an object or individual from the scene, bringing them forward to the present, they must spend a permanent point of Willpower. Once this is done, the conjured scene fades away and present reality returns. Only the summoned object or person remains.
This power can never alter the course of history in any significant manner. Should an object or person have a meaningful role yet to play at the time it is removed, the weight of time crashes upon the vampire and ze vanishes in its current. Whether such folly results in destruction or propels the vampire far into the future remains unknown and likely unknowable. Likewise, any changes the vampire makes to a summoned scene unravel as soon as they depart. Like a play, time may be altered by the removal of extras, but the script stays the same — however cruel a fate, Carthage must be destroyed.
As always, the Storyteller remains the final judge of what this power can achieve and need not reveal all limitations until a vampire attempts a change. It is possible to summon a person from a point close to their death, assuming they perished without observers. Likewise, a manuscript destroyed when the Library of Alexandria burned can be called after it is last read. Calling the very library from Alexandria would be impossible, not only for its size but also the necessity and significance of its ruins. Finally, the previous form of a currently existing object cannot be summoned, if only because its continued existence validates a role in history. Storytellers need not consider every ramification of paradox, but this power has tremendous potential for abuse and should be adjudicated accordingly.
The True Brujah usually use this power to confirm historical events, but many find it useful to discover the secrets of their peers and their enemies. When this power is used, it appears as if time is moving backwards at the character’s command. But in truth the True Brujah is only seeing images of what has happened here before. The ability only works in the area the character is in, and cannot show anything happening through walls. Ghostly images of what occurred in the area can be seen as far as anyone can normally see. So they can look out of the window and see what happened outside, but not see past a wall, even if it wasn’t built until recently. Nothing is taken away, only added to. However, if you made a hole in the wall you could see what was on the other side of it through the hole.
System: To activate this power the True Brujah needs to make a Stamina + Occult roll (Difficulty 9) and spend a blood point. The result of the roll shows the maximum time ze can rewind zir view to.
| Successes | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | 1 week |
| 2 | 1 month |
| 3 | 1 year |
| 4 | 1 century |
| 5+ | 1 millennia |
Within this limit, ze can look at any time ze likes, but ze has to focus on a particular and specific time to go back to. If ze doesn’t know when ze is looking for ze will have to watch the images as they flash past and make a Wits + Alertness roll. The Difficulty is equal to 5 + the amount of successes. It takes an hour to review every 10 years, and after an hour, the character must spend another blood point to maintain the power. To conserve blood when looking into the deep past, the True Brujah might shift zir view back 50 years, for instance, before starting to make Wits + Awareness rolls as ze knows what ze wants to see happened 50-100 years ago. In this way, visions of the ancient past might take several attempts before the True Brujah finds the right area of time to focus on.
With this power, the True Brujah steps further ahead in time to follow the actions and consequences for a lot longer. Thus, when ze returns to the present, ze has a greater understanding of how to best resolve zir actions.
System: This ability works in a similar way to Insight (above). The character spends a Willpower point and makes a Wits + Alertness roll (Difficulty 8) to see how well ze understands what ze saw in the future. Each success grants zir 1 temporary Willpower point. These points can be used in the same way as (and in conjunction with) Willpower points, except more than 1 can be spent on any roll. These points are gone once used, and also vanish at the end of the scene.
This manifestation of Temporis is at once the most flagrant and subtle twist of time — the power of second chances. The existence of such power is only a theory and a fearfully whispered rumor, for who can ever know when or how time itself unraveled and changed?
System: The player spends a dot of Willpower and 3 blood points and rolls Wits + Occult (Difficulty 8). Every additional point of permanent Willpower spent beyond the first adds 1 automatic success to the roll. Use of this power is reflexive and may be done at any moment, even on a turn in which the vampire has used other Disciplines. If successful, the Cainite’s mind flashes back to zir earlier self with full memory of the events that transpired and now only might transpire. This rewind encompasses 1 turn for every success rolled, and inflicts an equal number of levels of unsoakable Aggravated damage. Assuming the vampire does nothing, every event plays out exactly as before. Once the vampire takes a new action of any sort, time shifts to encompass a new future and fate is no longer fixed.