In the Middle Ages, objects called memento mori were treasured as memorabilia of the dearly departed. Some mementos were items the dead had owned in life, such as combs, jewelry or tools, which were decorated by beloved survivors. Other mementos, honoring either specific souls or all the dead folk of the land, were created specifically to remind the living of the dead — or of Death itself — and were prominently displayed in churches throughout Europe. Many medieval mementos featured the dead as skeletal shades of their past themselves or depicted Death himself doing his grisly work. More gruesome mementos show the dead as rotting corpses. In Victorian England, the limits of memento mori expanded again to include photographs of the deceased after their death, typically dressed in their Sunday best and often surrounded by flowers and other serene imagery. The phrase “memento mori” has various, subtly different meanings. Most often, it is said to mean “remember thy death,” or “remember that you will die.” (A more sentimental translation would be “remember the dead.”) Although the message of a memento mori is sobering and sad, these grim reminders are also meant to remind the living to “get living.” That the Osites chose to name their mystical tradition of death magic Memento Mori is not surprising, but it does sometimes draw disapproval from Sanctified traditionalists. What is a memento mori to the undead but a reminder of life? What is it to a Sanctified vampire but a temptation to get involved in the affairs of mortals? Such semantic arguments seldom amount to real trouble for Osites, however, as they clearly have little interest in the living. Instead, the semantics of this Discipline’s name reflects the Osite desire for knowledge of death. The Osites, as a whole, don’t seek to spur on death, circumvent it or even master it. Memento Mori is, foremost, a tool for gaining worldly insight through the study of the dead. With it, an Osite can observe the departed, consult with corpses, draw power from the dead and study the effects of death on others.
The intended use of Memento Mori is to open the Osite’s eyes to the insights that can be gleaned through the medium of death. This fundamental power allows the vampire to see the ghosts that haunt the material world. By mingling the lively power of the Blood with his own undead eyes, the Osite gains an insight into the traces of life that linger in the world after death. While using Twilight Sight, the Osite’s eyes seem filled with jagged, blood-shot veins.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: No roll is required to activate this power. To make use of Twilight Sight, the player simply announces to the Storyteller that he is spending Vitae and opening his eyes to the dead. The Osite can then automatically see (but not hear or otherwise sense) any ghosts or other creatures in the state of Twilight with a Power rating inversely proportional to the vampire’s dots in Memento Mori. With one dot in Memento Mori, for example, an Osite can see ghosts with Power 5 only, but with two dots in Memento Mori, an Osite can see ghosts with Power scores of four or five, and so on. (See “Ghosts,” p. 208 of the World of Darkness Rulebook for more information on ghostly traits.)
This power doesn’t grant the character any greater visual acuity outside of the ability to see ghosts. The Storyteller may still require a Wits roll to spot a hiding ghost or a Wits or Intelligence + Occult roll to make sense of strange ghostly forms. The Osite may add his dots in Memento Mori to any such rolls.
An Osite with one or more dots in Memento Mori can also attempt a reflexive Wits + Occult + Memento Mori roll to scrutinize undead creatures such as zombies. A successful roll reveals whether or not the creature is driven by some supernatural power of its own — such as its own spirit or a ghostly echo of vengeance — or whether it is merely the motiveless, animated instrument of some necromancer.
Action: Instant
An Osite with access to suitable remains (a corpse is best, but a head might do) can interview a corpse to learn what secrets it kept for the soul. First the Osite must share some of his Vitae with the body, either by dribbling it into the corpse’s mouth or brushing it onto the corpse’s skin. The Osite must then whisper a question into the corpse’s ear and listen for a quiet reply from the body. The words spoken by a questioned corpse may come from the lungs or the mouth, or might seem to come from nowhere at all. Whatever the source of a given corpse’s voice, all in its presence can hear it — not just the Osite.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Presence + Persuasion + Memento Mori
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The corpse can never be roused. All future attempts to Consult with the Dead on this corpse meet with failure.
Failure: The corpse is not roused, but the Osite can try again.
Success: The remains of the corpse’s mind are roused from death. The Osite persuades the corpse to reply to one question per success. The player of the Osite can now call for rolls to retrieve information from the corpse using dots the deceased had in Intelligence, Wits and Skills while alive. Each roll made on behalf of the corpse constitutes one reply, even if the roll fails. Questions that fail can be asked again, if the corpse still has replies to use. Very basic information, such as the corpse’s name, may be attainable without a roll at the Storyteller’s discretion, but still uses up one of the corpse’s replies.
Exceptional Success: Extra successes grant the Osite access to more information from the corpse being consulted. The Storyteller must be the final judge of what a character (and his corpse) might know and, as a result, what information can be obtained from a given corpse with this power. The Storyteller should strive to give answers that help to further the story while also suggesting something of the deceased’s character.
Example: Grant, an Osite Inquisitor, is investigating a Priest’s recent interactions with mortal cultists and has finally located the body of the cult’s former leader, dumped in the woods. The body is more than one week old (–3 penalty), but in relatively good shape (–1 penalty), and Grant knows it to be the cult leader, John Rice. After all these penalties, Grant has just four dice to roll, which yield two successes. Taking the corpse by the head, he presses his lips to Rice’s ear and asks his first question: “Who killed you, John?” Grants opens the corpse’s mouth and listens, but no answer comes. (The Storyteller knows Rice was shot in the back — he never saw his killer.)
For his second and final question, Grant tries to plumb the depths of Rice’s occult knowledge and follow up on a clue he found the night before, asking “What is the Beast of the Black Sunday?” The player asks the Storyteller to make an Intelligence + Occult roll on Rice’s behalf, and she does. The roll yields just one success. Rice’s body shifts, its chest falling, and it exhales, “You are, vampire.”
To use this power, the Osite needs access to vital portions of the subject corpse. A body that has been mutilated, rotted or partially eaten imposes a penalty (generally –1 for each limb’s worth of flesh missing) on the roll to use this power. A body without a head can be used at a –5 penalty, and a head alone can be used with the same penalty. A severed head in physical contact its body imposes just a –1 penalty, however. At least a head or a torso must remain to be consulted; limbs and shredded flesh are not enough.
An Osite can only use this power once on any given corpse, but multiple Osites may subject a corpse to multiple interviews. Once an Osite has interviewed any one portion of the deceased, he cannot use this power on another portion of the same deceased person.
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier Situation
–1 to –5 The body is mutilated or somehow incomplete.
–1 The character does not know the name of the deceased.
–2 The character does not recognize the deceased.
–3 The character cannot determine the deceased’s occupation, sphere of knowledge or field of experience.
–1 The body is more than 15 minutes old.
–2 The body is more than one night old.
–3 The body is more than one week old.
–4 The body is more than one month old.
–5 The body is more than one year old (only possible if the body has somehow been preserved).
The Osite knows he has made a breakthrough in the study of death when he learns this power. Brush of Death imbues the Osite’s body with a deathly energy that rots flesh and evokes the panic of death. All who touch or are touched by him risk glimpsing a flash of their own bloody end.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: No roll is required to activate this power. The Osite’s effort to transmute his own undead essence into a force of death automatically succeeds, consumes one Vitae and takes his action in a turn to complete. According to the traditional metaphysics of the Osites, the character is tipping his body’s unnatural balance of living and dead energies and attuning his flesh to a state of death, rather than undeath. His flesh takes on a pallid or bloated appearance, damp and sweaty, like a corpse allowed to fester.
The Osite’s flesh is now a conduit for the essence of death. His touch inflicts aggravated damage with an unarmed close combat attack, provided it reaches flesh (this attack does not ignore Armor; see “Touching an Opponent,” on p. 157 of the World of Darkness Rulebook). Any creature whose flesh touches the Osite’s must succeed in a reflexive, contested action against the Osite or lose one Willpower point as grisly images and sensations his own death pulse through his mind in a flash. This contested action pits the touched creature’s Composure + Blood Potency versus the Osite’s Presence + Occult + Memento Mori. If the Osite scores more successes, the creature in contact with him loses a point of Willpower. Otherwise, the frightening flash is unsettling but not enough to shake the creature’s will.
So long as this power is in effect, the Osite’s body looks and feels as if it is dead, even to the Osite himself. He is considered to have a Humanity of 1 for the purposes of relating to mortals (see p. 185 of Vampire: The Requiem) while this power is active. The Osite maintains his deathly state for the rest of the scene, unless he cancels this power prematurely, which takes nothing more than a thought.
Action: Instant
Osites with this power can draw sustenance from the residual mystic power that pools, calcifies and stagnates in a creature’s bones. With this power, the Osite can extract viable Vitae even from rotten corpses or steal an echo of knowledge and experience from the dead.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: No roll is required to activate the most basic use of this power. The player simply spends the necessary Willpower point to enable the character to draw the power of Vitae from bone. Strictly speaking, the Osite is not consuming blood but a residual, mystical essence that clings to the bones after death. This power instantly transmutes that mystical essence into Vitae within the Osite’s body. To an onlooker, the Osite might seem to be sucking the marrow from bones, but the Osite needs bone itself, not marrow, to use this power.
The Osite can draw Vitae equal to the rough Size of the bones consumed. The size of individual bones isn’t relevant; it’s the rough, collected Size of the remains that matters. The mangled and mutilated remains of half a large dog (Size 4 in life) yield two Vitae to the Osite. The Storyteller decides if bones are too few or too far gone to provide sustenance to the Osite, but as a rule of thumb, bones remain viable for a number of weeks equal to the Size of the creature. For example, the remains of an adult human body (Size 5) contains viable energies for up to five weeks after death.
For the purposes of a Kindred’s diet and Blood Potency, Vitae drawn from a corpse retains its human or animal classification, so that a vampire who can no longer feed on animals can likewise no longer feed on animal bones.
With a successful Resolve + Investigation + Memento Mori roll, a character can choose to transmute a human corpse’s mystical essence into an echo of talent or knowledge, rather than Vitae.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The Osite’s attenuation to the energies of death is disrupted. He cannot use an application of Blood From Bone for the rest of the night.
Failure: If the roll to steal knowledge from a person’s remains fails, all of the body’s mystic essence is lost. The Osite gains no bonus dice and the Willpower point spent to use this power is wasted.
Success: The Osite gains no Vitae from the corpse, but may steal dots from any one of the deceased’s Skills in life. (A trucker might yield dots in Drive, for example, while a hiker probably had a dot or two in Survival). The Osite can choose to take the dots from a particular Skill or he can seek out the Skill in which the deceased had the most dots. (If no one Skill had the most dots, the Storyteller breaks the tie by selecting the Skill more often used by the deceased.) The Osite can then add those dots as bonus dice to any one dice pool involving that Skill, at any point in the future. All of the dots must be used on one roll. The Osite can “store” dots from only one corpse at a time.
Exceptional Success: As a success, but the Osite also manages to extract one Vitae from the remains.
Action: Instant
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier Situation
+2 The corpse has not been moved from the spot of its death.
+1 The body died less than an hour ago.
— The remains are mostly whole.
-1 Each week since the body’s death.
-2 The remains are scattered or mostly incomplete.
Osites who have mastered Memento Mori consider themselves to be like Death himself. With this power, the Osite can unbalance the mystic energies of others without disrupting his own Cursed state. With just a look, a victim the Osite can see directly is made to experience the sensation of death as his body rots and decays like a corpse. Living flesh wrinkles, grows soft and bleeds. Kindred Vitae rots in the veins.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Intelligence + Medicine + Memento Mori – the subject’s Stamina
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The Osite’s own energies are thrown out of balance. He loses Vitae equal to his Blood Potency.
Failure: The power has no effect on the chosen victim.
Success: The Osite sends a wave of death and decay through the victim. Mortals and living supernatural creatures suffer a point of lethal damage per success scored. Kindred and ghouls lose one Vitae per success scored, or one point of lethal damage per success scored when their Vitae is gone.
Exceptional Success: No additional effect beyond the staggering damage done.
An Osite must be able to see his victim directly to activate Necrosis. A victim spied through glass is susceptible, but one seen through a CCTV system is not. The damaging effects of this power make the body seem rotten or old-aged, but the appearance gradually returns to normal if the damage is healed.