Passed down throughout generations of Gatekeepers, the Discipline of Carrefour grants Kindred the powers of Ghede, the loa of the dead and master of gateways. As part of the bloodline’s bargain with the loa, Apollinaire are granted the ability to converse with the dead, and create and manipulate doorways between life and death, or the fabric of space itself. The Carrefour Discipline represents the magic of Ghede, worked through the Beast of Kindred. Most Gatekeepers practice the Discipline subtly, covering their tracks as they work. All are encouraged to follow the philosophy, “If you open a door, close it behind you, because you never know who or what will come through next.”
On the night of Ghede’s absence, all Carrefour rolls receive a +3 bonus modifier.
According to Vodoun tradition, a govi is a small, earthen bottle used to trap a ghost. In modern nights, any container with a lid may be used (an empty peanut butter jar, medicine bottle, or plastic Tupperware container may serve as a govi). A Gatekeeper can compel a ghost to enter and remain within a govi until such time as it is released.
Cost: —
Dice Pool: Wits + Persuasion + Carrefour versus Finesse + Resistance
Action: Instant and contested
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The attempt fails. Further uses of Govi Trap incur a -1 penalty for the remainder of the scene.
Failure: The attempt fails.
Success: The character succeeds in compelling a specific ghost within range of sight to enter the govi (which may be any small container with a lid), trapping it within. The govi will hold the ghost for a number of hours equal to the Gatekeeper’s dots in Carrefour. If the lid is removed, or the container is broken, the ghost may flee.
Exceptional Success: The attempt succeeds, and the ghost is so intimidated by the Gatekeeper’s power that it agrees to answer one question absolutely honestly, to the best of its knowledge.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
+2 - Discipline is activated is a cemetery or other location related to death.
+1 - The character practices Vodoun, and his patron loa is Ghede.
Gatekeepers of Ghede are able to open any door, despite locks, security systems or barricades. Conversely, they may use the same Discipline power to shut a door, locking it with magic so powerful that nothing short of destroying the door (or using Skeleton Key upon the door again) will open it.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Presence + Larceny + Carrefour
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The attempt fails. Further uses of Skeleton Key incur a -1 penalty for the remainder of the scene.
Failure: The attempt fails.
Success: The character can open or shut one door. If, while using Skeleton Key, the character opens a door protected by an alarm, the alarm does not sound, nor is any equipment connected to the door damaged. If the door is barricaded in any other way, the obstructions immediately fall to the side, allowing complete access to the vampire. If a character chooses to close a door, the door cannot be opened again unless the door itself is destroyed, or Skeleton Key is used upon it again. If the character wishes, he may spend an additional point of Vitae so that no other Gatekeeper but himself may open the door again using Skeleton Key.
Exceptional Success: The Apollinaire may name one person who can or cannot use the door, leaving it locked or unlocked to everyone else. This does not prevent the door being opened by Skeleton Key, however, it just allows the vampire to grant more specific access.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
+1 - The character practices Vodoun, and his patron loa is Ghede.
Using white chalk, a Gatekeeper can draw the image of a door upon a wall, and instantly create a passageway through any barrier to the nearest room or empty space beyond it.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Wits + Craft + Carrefour
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The door opens, but closes in a few seconds, rather than at the end of the scene. If the vampire is crossing through when this happens, the player rolls Dexterity + Athletics reflexively. If this roll fails, the character suffers seven points of lethal damage as the wall solidifies around her. The character can attempt to use Skeleton Key to get out (short of destroying the wall, this is in fact her only hope), but the attempt suffers a -3 modifier.
Failure: The attempt fails, and the chalk drawing remains upon the wall.
Success: The chalk door becomes a real door that opens to the nearest room or empty space (up to a distance of one mile in the direction directly behind the symbolic drawing). If there is no open space behind the drawn door, a real door still materializes, but it opens to the wall behind it, and goes nowhere (unless Shift Threshold is subsequently performed upon it). The door may be opened and closed once, after which the door vanishes. Otherwise, it remains for a number of hours equal to the successes rolled, after which it dissolves. Shift Threshold may be used upon a Vévé Passageway, but the door always disappears after it is closed or its duration has expired, and may therefore not become a part of the Eternal Crossroads.
Exceptional Success: Other than the extra time gained, extra successes have no effect.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
+1 - The character practices Vodoun, and his patron loa is Ghede.
Members of Apollinaire’s bloodline can create a gateway, known as a bayé, to and from the world of the dead, allowing traffic in either direction. Anyone who steps through a bayé is transplanted into Twilight. While in Twilight, they can touch ghosts, pick up ghostly objects or read tomes hidden there. They can also engage in physical or magical combat with ghosts, damaging their Corpus. Conversely, wrathful shades might physically lash out at visitors, causing them harm.
Cost: —
Dice Pool: Wits + Occult + Carrefour
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The gateway opens, but it doesn’t lead to Twilight. The player rolls the vampire’s Wits + Composure as a reflexive action. If the roll succeeds, the vampire realizes what has happened and stops before entering the gate (which leads to somewhere else — the Underworld, perhaps, or even to Hell). The gateway remains open until dawn, however, and if the vampire doesn’t watch it carefully, something could escape. Ghede would certainly be displeased if this were to happen.
Failure: The attempt fails.
Success: The attempt succeeds, and the character opens a gateway to Twilight. One vampire of Size 5 or less can pass through the bayé per turn (larger Kindred can spend two turns squeezing through). Each success allows the Gatekeeper to widen the gate so that one additional vampire can pass through per turn. Only vampires may pass through a bayé opened by an Apollinaire, and the gateway cannot be moved. It is impossible to open a Gateway from within Twilight using Open Bayé, making it difficult to return to the material world should a vampire linger too long in Twilight. While there, vampires are only able to feed upon each other, and sunlight is just as dangerous within Twilight as it is in the material world.
Exceptional Success: Extra successes allow for larger gates, but confer no other benefit.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
+2 - Discipline is activated is a cemetery or other location related to death.
+1 - The character practices Vodoun, and his patron loa is Ghede.
The Apollinaire bloodline has the ability to open any door to any other, linking the two doors together through space, no matter where they both reside. A Gatekeeper may, for example, link a closet door in New York to the door of a flat in London. When the vampire passes through the door in New York, he ends up in the London flat. Gatekeepers have scattered hundreds of these doors across the globe, forming an intricate, secret network across the fabric of space known as the Eternal Crossroads.
The Eternal Crossroads are available for any vampire to use, provided she knows where to look and has been taught the proper way to open the door. A small number of Gatekeepers have taken up the duty of maintaining the Eternal Crossroads, mapping its intricate and ever-shifting passageways, and locking doors (often using Skeleton Key to prevent those outside the bloodline from gaining access) that have been left ajar to prevent the unaware from stumbling through. Maps of the Eternal Crossroads are available for purchase, at a high price, although they are rarely accurate for long, as old passageways are destroyed and new ones are constantly added.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Occult + Carrefour
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The Gatekeeper creates a connection to a random door, rather than to the intended door.
Failure: The attempt fails.
Success: The Gatekeeper links two doors together creating a passageway in space from one to the other. The vampire may only create a connection to a door that he has seen and can clearly visualize, and may not link a door to another that is already a part of the Eternal Crossroads. The link exists for a number of hours equal to the successes rolled, unless the player spends an extra Vitae for the character to mark the door with his blood. If an Apollinaire marks the door, the passageway becomes a part of the Eternal Crossroads, and the link lasts until one (or both) of the doors is physically destroyed. While any vampire can cross through a passageway formed using Shift Threshold, only an Apollinaire can see the mark upon a door designating it as a gateway of the Eternal Crossroads.
When a Gatekeeper creates a door to the Eternal Cross- roads, he also invents a “key,” a special way of accessing the door to cause it to open to the linked destination, rather than to wherever it would usually lead. This “key” is usually a simple ritual: a special knock, a symbol to be drawn on the door or a quick phrase. An Apollinaire who forgets which key goes to which door might be in for embarrassment (at least), but nothing stops the character from using the same key for multiple doors. Then all he has to do is remember where each of the doors goes.
Exceptional Success: The vampire can make the door part of the Eternal Crossroads without further expenditure. All Carrefour rolls for the next hour gain a +1, as Ghede looks upon the intricacy of the Crossroads with pleasure.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
+2 - The vampire is attempting to connect to a door in his haven, or another location with which he is intimately familiar.
+1 - The character practices Vodoun, and his patron loa is Ghede.