The Khaibit trademark Discipline deals with darkness and shadow, the natural habitat of creatures slain by sunlight. Obtenebration enables its possessor to act more easily in darkness, alter and generate shadows, and to even become a shadow himself. The Discipline has little effect on solid objects, so it requires some ingenuity to use. Obtenebration is as old as the Khaibit themselves. Over the centuries, plenty of Kindred have had opportunity to learn it. The Discipline remains largely confined to the Khaibit, however, since most Kindred don’t see much use for Obtenebration’s basic powers. It’s easier to hire a Khaibit spy who can turn into a shadow than to spend years mastering the Discipline so you can turn into a shadow yourself.
A student of Obtenebration first learns how to see in total darkness. Vampires innately see better than mortals do but Night Sight enables Kindred to see without any light at all. The fainter any ambient light, the stranger the world looks through Night Sight. Under moonlight or equivalent illumination, a user can see as well as he can in a well-lit room with normal color vision. By starlight, colors fade to leave shades of silver and gray. In complete darkness, a vampire sees different shades of black — ebony, jet, sable and hundreds more than mortal language can name, each with its own tint and texture. While using Night Sight, a Kindred’s pupils expand until her eyes are completely black.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: This power requires no roll
Action: Reflexive
The player simply activates the power and explains to the Storyteller what his character does. The vampire suffers no penalties for acting in darkness. He can still be blinded by other means, though. Night Sight does not counteract visual impairment caused by tear gas or the opacity of a dense fog, for example. Nor does it help when a vampire’s eyes have been removed! The effect lasts for the remainder of a scene.
When in complete darkness, a vampire using Night Sight gains one additional minor power: She can see invisible and incorporeal entities such as unmanifested ghosts (World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 208). The slightest hint of light blocks this application of Night Sight.
The user can manipulate shadows that already exist. They can grow, shrink, fade or intensify, change shape or even detach form the objects that cast them and move about. In dark surroundings, the vampire can create whatever shadowy images she wants. All these images remain shadows, though. A person who can see clearly could never mistake figures created through Shadow Play for anything solid or real. (Although, seeing one’s own shadow reach out to strangle the shadow of another person could prove quite disturbing.)
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Wits + Intimidation + Obtenebration
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character fails to manipulate a shadow and cannot use this power again until the next sunset.
Failure: The character cannot manipulate shadows with this attempt, but a successive attempt may be made if another Vitae is spent.
Success: The character can alter shadows cast in a 16-square-yard area, but he may locate that area anywhere within line of sight. The zone of Shadow Play can itself be moved as a reflexive action, if the user so desires.
Exceptional Success: As per a normal success, except the area affected can be up to 25 square yards in size. Shadows can be manipulated for the remainder of the scene, their activities or behavior being modified by the user as a reflexive action. No more than one use of the power may be active at a time. Thus, shadows in two separate areas cannot be affected simultaneously. The user may leave shadows alone whenever he desires. They return to normal if he is knocked unconscious, sent into torpor, destroyed, if he leaves them alone or if he loses direct line of sight to the area of effect.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier Situation
— Moving a shadow in a manner different from what the object casting it would suggest or be capable of (making the shadow of a statue dance, for example)
–1 Causing an object to cast a shadow unlike what its physical shape would suggest
–3 Truly complicated Shadow Plays, such as detaching a shadow from its host or making it undertake elaborate or wholly unnatural actions
As a student of Obtenebration gains skill, he can generate his own darkness to conceal his deeds, to frighten victims or to animate through Shadow Play. Shroud of Night swallows and suppresses light, so a Kindred could darken a brightly lit room to dim twilight, or spread utter darkness throughout a city street at night. Electric lights still work and fires still burn, but they fade and their light doesn’t cast the way it should. So, a 100-watt bulb shines no brighter than a candle. Shroud of Night provides no protection from sunlight. The sun’s direct light instantly burns away such eldritch shadows.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Crafts + Obtenebration
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character fails to create shadow and cannot use this power again until the next sunset.
Failure: The character is unable to manipulate shadows with this attempt, but a successive attempt may be made if another Vitae is spent
Success: The character can darken an area of about 16 square yards (a room) for a scene.
Exceptional Success: As per a normal success, except each success at five and over multiplies the maximum possible area by three. So, five successes darken a 48-square-yard area (3 x 16), and seven successes affect a 144-square-yard area (9 x 16).
The degree of darkness that can be achieved depends on the starting illumination.
Starting Illumination - Limit of Darkness
Bright as day (but not real sunlight) - Shadowy, dim light
Well-lit room - Twilight
Poorly lit room - Moonlight equivalent
Twilight or well-lit city street - Starlight equivalent
Moonlight or poorly lit city street - Complete darkness
The user does not need to reduce lighting as much as the power allows. He could dim a well-lit room merely to poorly lit, instead of going all the way to twilight.
Darkness persists until the remainder of the scene, unless the effect is dispelled early. Brighter light sources introduced once the power is in effect may increase ambient light. The user may dispel darkness whenever he desires, and it fades completely if he is knocked un- conscious, sent into torpor or destroyed. Only one area may be affected by darkness at a time. The user need not be in the area affected. He can dim an area at a range as long as he has direct line of sight to that area. If line of sight is ever broken, normal light returns.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier Situation
+2 Moonlight or poorly lit city street
+1 Twilight or well-lit city street
— Poorly lit room
–1 Well-lit room
–3 Bright as day (but not real sunlight)
An expert practitioner of Obtenebration can step into one shadow and step out of another instantly. This power enables a character to travel very quickly, but only for limited distances.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: This power involves no roll
Action: Instant
The character merely needs to see the shadow where he wants to emerge. (Direct line of sight is required; seeing the spot on TV does not qualify.) The distance between shadows does not count toward the distance the character can move in a turn based on his Speed. So, if he travels his Speed to enter a shadow and dedicates the turn’s action to using this power, he emerges in the other shadow all in the same action.
Clothes and objects that can be carried in one hand can travel with a vampire, but other people and objects that require two hands cannot.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier Situation
+2 Moonlight or poorly lit city street
+1 Twilight or well-lit city street
— Poorly lit room
–1 Well-lit room
Bright as day (but not real sunlight) –3
A master of Obtenebration can literally become a shadow. In this form, a character can slide across walls, through a crack under a door or through a window without breaking the glass. No physical force can harm her because she isn’t solid. She looks just like a shadow of herself (and can use Shadow Play separately to make herself even harder to recognize). The character can also “peel” herself off the floor, wall or ceiling to assume a three-dimensional form of semi-transparent darkness, but doing so demands great concentration.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Wits + Subterfuge + Obtenebration
Action: : Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The character does not become a shadow of herself, but rather “roots” her shadow self to some object in her vicinity, becoming its “shadow” until the scene ends or until a Willpower point is spent as a reflexive action to free herself. Shadow Play can still be used in “trapped” shadow form.
Failure: The character is unable to transubstantiate herself into shadow, but another attempt may be made in a subsequent turn if another Vitae is spent.
Success: The character becomes a shadow-like form, with all of the benefits and only some of the drawbacks.
Exceptional Success: As per a standard success, plus a three-dimensional form can be assumed with a Willpower cost.
The character becomes a two-dimensional shadow, can move at normal or running Speed, and can defy gravity, but must always move across a surface such as the ground, a wall or a ceiling. She can pass through any object which a shadow could be cast through, such as a window, a paper wall or a mesh screen. She cannot exist as a free-standing, two-dimensional shadow.
The character is a shadow-like ephemeral form, existing in the material world but intangible. This state is not unlike that of a ghost anchored to the physical world (a state called “Twilight”) — in fact, a character in Twilight can interact normally only with other creatures in Twilight. She cannot speak or affect anything physically. Punches, bullets, mundane fire and other material attacks cannot harm the shadow-like form of the vampire any more than they could damage a normal shadow. Sunlight, however, remains deadly.
If an exceptional success is rolled when the power is activated, the character can choose to become a freestanding, three-dimensional figure of darkness with visible eyes (whether they appear as flesh, as pinpricks of light or as holes in the shadow is up to the character), but doing so requires significant concentration. (One Willpower point must be spent as a reflexive action; it does not confer a +3 bonus to any roll.) In this form, the character can speak normally into the material world and make use of her other Obtenebration powers. She is still considered an ephemeral form in the state of Twilight, however, and cannot otherwise interact with material things. A vampire in either kind of Shadow Form cannot use any other Disciplines against material targets. She can, however, use Disciplines against ephemeral targets, such as another vampire in Shadow Form or against a ghost or spirit. Surrounding a character in Shadow Form with light, so that no shadows can exist, forces the vampire to resume corporeal form.