In an uncharacteristically pragmatic display, the Geheim named their unique take on Kindred occultism Blut Alchemie (literally “Blood Alchemy”). They consider their processes to possess components both scientific and spiritual, and that through learning to refine and manipulate the blood in the laboratory, a Kindred can do the same to the Vitae within the crucible of the vampire form. Geheim tend to develop a faint obsession with the blood, acclaiming it as the seat of the Kindred soul. By purifying the Vitae, they claim, one can purify the soul. The goal of this work is the sanguine stone, a Kindred equivalent to the philosopher’s stone. Cecilia von Geheim coined this term, but whether she was referring to an actual physical substance or a spiritual state has been lost during her centuries asleep.
Questions of whether or not the effects listed below are a Discipline or an esoteric science inevitably rise in most discussions of the practice. Those who claim the former assert that those outside of the lineage cannot replicate the effects achieved through the procedures practiced by the bloodline. Those on the other side of the fence point to certain experiments by the Ordo Dracul that have produced similar (though never identical) results. Individual members of the Geheim family tend to fall in either camp, but most ultimately dismiss the question as irrelevant.
Each of the abilities below requires access to a laboratory to perform, usually needing either the Merit Haven (Size •+) or Covenant Status (Ordo Dracul •+). Because the procedures of Blut Alchemie require one or more hours to perform, the Discipline is ill suited for tasks requiring immediate results. Additionally, Blut Alchemie only affects blood or Vitae that has been spilled or harvested since the most recent sunset. After that, the blood loses some vital spark and becomes too degraded to be effectively transmuted or examined.
Before Vitae can be utilized, it must be broken down and understood. The first procedure a newly inducted member of the Geheim family learns allows her to do just that. Through Sanguine Analysis, a Kindred garners a great deal of information about a blood sample.
This power renders the blood useless for anything other than further uses of Blut Alchemie.
Cost: —
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Investigation + Blut Alchemie
Action: Extended. Each roll represents one hour of laboratory study.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character not only fails to garner information, she also ruins the sample — rendering it useless to further Blut Alchemie procedures.
Failure: The character gains no insight into the sample.
Success: The character garners one piece of the following information regarding the sample:
The age of the character (if mortal) or time since the character’s Embrace or last torpor, whichever was most recent (if Kindred).
Whether the character suffers from or carries any diseases (one disease per success).
The general health of the character (if mortal)
The amount of blood that was in a human or Kindred’s system at the time the sample was taken.
The presence of animal, human or lupine blood in the sample (the presence or lack thereof of each is garnered per success).
The presence of another Kindred’s Vitae in the sample.
The clan the Kindred who provided the sample hails from (whether or not he originates from a given clan per success).
Whether or not the sample came from a ghoul (one success) and the clan of the ghoul’s regnant (whether or not the regnant is a member of a given clan per success).
Whether or not the Kindred is a member of the Geheim family (the Geheim may be able to test for members of other bloodlines if he has confirmed samples available from a member of said line).
Each success is considered a successful test of the sample, allowing the player of the Geheim to ask the Storyteller one of the above questions and gain an accurate answer. The character is limited to a number of rolls equal to her Blut Alchemie.
Exceptional Success: No benefit, save that additional successes will accumulate.
Example: Cecilia von Geheim surreptitiously takes a small sample of blood from the scene of a ghoul’s murder. Cecilia knows that the ghoul served a stranger to the domain, a Gangrel nomad who calls himself Aaron. The amount of blood she manages to take is small, she knows (and will inflict a -3 penalty on her rolls), and the fact that he is a ghoul will make determining information about the blood more difficult (another -1). Luckily, Cecilia is an elder and her dice pool for Sanguine Analysis is 8 after the penalties. She retires to her laboratory, where she could made five rolls (based on her Blut Alchemie rating), were it not for the fact that the dawn will interrupt her in three hours (allowing her only three rolls). Her player rolls eight dice three times, garnering a total of seven successes, allowing her seven pieces of information. First she makes sure that the servant was actually a ghoul (he was). She then attempts to discern the regnant’s clan, beginning with Gangrel (which, despite his claims, he is not), followed by Ventrue (also false), and Mekhet (this rings positive). She now knows that either Aaron is actually a Mekhet or that his ghoul was a double agent. She checks for another Kindred’s Vitae in the ghoul’s system and finds none. She has spent five of her seven successes. Suspecting that “Aaron” may be a member of the Morbus bloodline, she checks to see if the ghoul was diseased and uses her last two successes to find that he carried both syphilis and cholera. If she had more successes, she could check for more diseases (and if she had a sample of Morbus blood, she could confirm her suspicions), but for now she has enough information to begin a more thorough investigation… assuming that Aaron hasn’t left town by the time she finishes in the lab.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
+1 - Each aspect, of the sample listed above, that the character already knows about the subject prior to beginning work.
-1 - The provider of the sample is a ghoul or otherwise has consumed Kindred Vitae in the last month.
-2 - The provider of the sample has committed diablerie within the last year.
-3 - The character possesses only a small sample of the blood (less than one Vitae).
-5 - The provider of the sample has committed diablerie within the month.
Once a Dilettante has carefully examined a sample of Vitae through Sanguine Analysis above (requiring only a single success), she may transmute it into another liquid substance.
Cost: Varies. The character must utilize a number of pints of blood equal to twice the Resources value of a pint of the liquid being produced. Kindred Vitae counts for twice the value of human blood, and hence an amount of Vitae equal to the Resources value (whereas the amount of gasoline produced by this power would be Resources 1, a fantastically rare wine might be Resources 5) of the produced liquid must be used. The character need not pay this cost herself. Finally, the character can distill three pints of blood into a single point of neutral Kindred Vitae (meaning that it carries no threat of Vinculum).
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Science + Blut Alchemie
Action: Extended. Each roll represents an hour of laboratory work. The character must garner a number of successes equal to the Resources value of the liquid being produced. See p. 116 of the World of Darkness Rulebook for more information on how dots in Resources convert to cost.
The Metaphysical Weight of Expense
The complexity and rarity of a material does not necessarily correlate with its monetary value. Yet, the Geheim have discovered that gold, silver, diamonds and other precious materials seem far more difficult to manufacture than rarer but cheaper substances. The Geheim postulate that the import placed on these precious materials by society somehow imbues them with a mystical weight that impedes the process by which they are created.
Similarly, some blood alchemists claim, the incredible difficulty of achieving enlightenment results from the import that humanity and Kindred society alike put on such a state. By degrading themselves and the search for enlightenment, they attest, they can devalue both, making the goal of transcendence more attainable. Such theories have yet to bear fruit.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character not only fails to transmute the blood, she also ruins the sample, rendering it useless to further Blut Alchemie procedures. If the character was attempting to create an unstable or combustible substance, it explodes or ignites, damaging the laboratory and likely any characters present.
Failure: No successes are added to the total. Success: Successes are added to the total. When the player reaches the target number of successes, the character produces a single pint of a substance whose natural state at room temperature is liquid (or the character can produce a single point of Kindred Vitae for every three pints of blood distilled). The blood used in the procedure is destroyed. The character can create highly unstable liquids (such as nitroglycerin) through this power, though doing so requires the roll of a single die after each hour of work. On a 1, the substance explodes or combusts, with appropriate results to the surrounding environment and characters.
Exceptional Success: Considerable successes are added to the total. If the player reaches the target with five extra successes, the character’s work is particularly fruitful; she produces two pints of the substance rather than one.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
+3 - The character attempts to create purified water.
+1 - The character utilizes Kindred Vitae in the work. Some Geheim claim that the blood of other supernatural creatures grants a similar (or greater) benefit, and it may indeed do so at the Storyteller’s discretion (the blood of creatures full of living energy such as werewolves, mages and changelings are more likely to provide a higher bonus, while that of undead creatures such as zombies may inflict a penalty on the roll).
— The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 1.
-1 - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 2.
-2 - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 3.
-3 - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 4.
-4 - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 5.
Once a Dilettante has carefully examined a sample of her own Vitae through Sanguine Analysis above (requiring the expenditure of at least one Vitae and a single success on the roll), she may unlock the potential of her own blood. Through meditation, a series of carefully ritualized movements and a small expenditure of Vitae, she stokes the internal furnace of her soul, empowering herself by effectively increasing her own Blood Potency.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Resolve + Occult + Blut Alchemie
Action: Instant. The character must have utilized Sanguine Analysis on a sample of her own blood since the most recent sunset, however, necessitating a bare minimum of an hour to fully complete this procedure.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character stokes the inner furnace of her damned soul, but the flame rages out of control. She loses half of her current Vitae pool (round down) and immediately rolls to resist frenzy (three successes required); the frenzy roll may be penalized due to loss of Vitae.
Failure: The character fails to achieve the desired effect. She may attempt the roll again without needing to further utilize Sanguine Analysis.
Success: The character increases her effective Blood Potency by one for the night. Additional successes add to the raised Blood Potency (one per success) or duration (one extra night per success), chosen by the character when the power is used. Once chosen, these cannot be changed. The character can only benefit from one use of this power at any time, and an attempt to activate it again while benefiting from a previous use causes the duration of the previous procedure to immediately end.
The effectively raised Blood Potency determines how much Vitae a Kindred can possess at one time, how much Vitae she can expend per turn and what type of blood the Kindred must consume to garner the benefits of feeding. The increased Blood Potency is used when determining the effects of the Predator’s Taint, and it does add to (or subtract from) appropriate dice pools. It does not have any other effect (including length of torpor).
Exceptional Success: Extra successes are their own reward.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
+1 - Per success garnered through the use of Sanguine Analysis prior to activating Internal Athanor.
-1 - Each dot of Blood Potency the character possesses above 1.
-2 - Character has rolled to resist frenzy (from any source save the Predator’s Taint) during the chapter in which she uses this power. Not cumulative with the penalty below. -5 Character has succumbed to frenzy (of any sort, including the Predator’s Taint) during the chapter in which she uses this power.
Having examined a sample of Kindred Vitae through the Sanguine Analysis procedure above, she may transmute it into a solid substance.
Cost: Varies. The character must use a number of Vitae equal to the Resources value of the produced substance. The character need not pay this cost herself, but it must be Kindred Vitae that is utilized.
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Science + Blut Alchemie
Action: Extended. Each roll represents an hour of laboratory work. The character must garner a number of successes equal to the Resources value of the substance being produced.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character not only fails to transmute the Vitae, she also ruins the sample, rendering it useless to further Blut Alchemie procedures. If the character was attempting to create an unstable or combustible substance, it explodes or ignites, damaging to the laboratory and likely any characters present.
Failure: No successes are added to the total.
Success: The character produces a single pound of a substance whose natural state at room temperature is solid. The blood used in the procedure is destroyed.
The character can create highly unstable or reactive solids (such as phosphorus or sodium) through this power, though doing so requires the roll of a single die after each hour of work. On a 1, the substance explodes or combusts, with appropriate results to the surrounding environment and characters.
Exceptional Success: The character’s work is particularly fruitful; she produces one and one half pounds of the substance rather than one.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier - Situation
— - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 1.
-1 - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 2.
-2 - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 3.
-3 - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 4.
-4 - The character attempts to create a substance with a Resources value of 5.
-5 - The character attempts to create a substance with unusual properties such as radioactivity.
While the sanguine stone remains outside of the Geheim’s reach, she can learn to create a small, translucent bloodred stone with powerful properties. When swallowed by the Geheim who created it, the stone protects her against the predation of other Kindred and even the most virulent poisons of the world. When swallowed by another Kindred, the bezoar sets off a chain reaction that destroys much of his Vitae.
The process of creating the bezoar is somewhat complicated. First the Kindred must break down and analyze five points of her own Vitae via the Sanguine Analysis power above. She feeds the resultant mixture to a mammal (which can range in size from a large rat to a goat); the animal rarely wishes to consume the mixture, so Animalism is often necessary to force the matter. The animal dies during the course of the following day, and the Geheim can harvest the stone from its intestines when she awakes at sunset.
A Geheim can possess a number of bezoars equal to her Blood Potency at any given time. Attempts to create further stones fail for reasons unknown. Bezoars last until consumed.
Cost: 5 Vitae
Dice Pool: No roll is required.
Action: Special
So long as the character follows the appropriate steps, she successfully creates the bezoar. Of course, the steps may involve their own difficulties (such as convincing an animal to drink the putrid Vitae mixture). Once the bezoar has been made, it can be used in one of the four following manners (any of which destroys the stone):