The Xiao signature Discipline, which derives its name from a distorted transcription of Xiao Jun Jie’s teachings, allows the undead to drain or destroy others’ emotions to the vampire’s benefit. The target of this Discipline will usually feel listless and depressed after being subjected to it, and will tend to lose interest in anything but his vampire tormentor.
Except for Kiss of Oblivion, the Xiao usually needs do nothing more than talk to the victim to activate the Discipline. Kingjan is often used in conjunction with Majesty since it tends to sap defenses the victim’s defenses. The Discipline doesn’t exert any control on the victim the way Majesty and Dominate do, but does make the victim much more susceptible to manipulation.
Before the Xiao can learn to drain his victims, he must perfect the practice of breaking them. When activating this power, the Xiao speaks calmly to the target, flattering her or otherwise expressing approval in an apparent attempt to bolster her confidence. In fact, the power is a subtle attack, designed to weaken the victim’s ability to function without the Xiao. The vampire’s words seem harmless enough, but the mystic undertone delivers a deeper, more insidious message: “You are only at your best when you are with me.”
This power does not multiply in effect if used more than once on a single target during a given scene. Two or more Xiao may hit the same target with it, though, causing her to suffer the effects with respect to all who succeed.
Cost: —
Dice Pool: Presence + Persuasion + Kingjan versus subject’s Composure + Blood Potency
Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The victim is unaffected by the power, reacting to the words of the Xiao only as he would normally. Furthermore, the victim is immune to the user’s Kingjan attempts for the rest of the night.
Failure: The character loses or ties the contested roll. This attempt to Degrade the victim fails, and the target is unaffected.
Success: The character wins the contested roll by getting the most successes. The victim will feel confident in the Xiao’s presence, but will be noticeably shaken if separated from the vampire. If the target is unable to see or hear the Xiao any time during the remainder of the scene, all of his actions will suffer a –1 die penalty caused by a sudden nervousness. The victim may not understand the cause of his anxiety, but he will understand that it fades as soon as the Xiao is nearby.
Exceptional Success: The character wins a contested roll with five or more successes, and the target is deeply affected by the Xiao’s praise. The effect is doubled, imposing a –2 dice penalty instead of the normal one, and lasts for the remainder of the night.
Xiao who have mastered this power create and enforce another unnatural bond with their subjects. By engaging the victim in conversation, the Xiao can warp the nature of the his passions, inspiring twisted feelings of remorse and guilt when they are indulged. The Xiao who invokes this sensation is then free to dispel it at whim, painting herself as a savior.
To activate the power, the Xiao must speak with the victim, encouraging him to talk about one of his favorite activities or sensations.
Cost: —
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Subterfuge + Kingjan versus subject’s Composure + Blood Potency
Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The target experiences his passions with burning, renewed intensity. The target recovers a point of Willpower, if applicable, and is immune to the Xiao’s Kingjan powers for the rest of the night.
Failure: The character loses or ties the contested roll. This attempt to Mortify fails, and the target is unaffected.
Success: The target of the power begins to feel ashamed of his desires while talking with the Xiao, and will suffer potentially crippling doubt when he attempts to engage in the act that he spoke of. To perform it (or enjoy it), he must first succeed at a Resolve + Composure roll, but he will still feel vaguely guilty afterwards.
This mortified guilt only fades when the Xiao chooses to release the target from it, by conversing with him again and reassuring him. At that moment, the guilt fades completely, and the target is free to engage in his passion. Victims will rationalize the power’s effects, associating the guilt they felt with some internal failing (or outside influence unrelated to the Xiao) and viewing the Xiao as a soothing, encouraging influence.
Vampires are free to attempt to override this rationalization by spending a point of Willpower and succeeding on a Composure + Blood Potency roll. This roll is reflexive. If it fails, the Willpower is spent, and the vampire subject rationalizes the experience just as a mortal would. If the roll succeeds, the vampire can clearly see that the feelings inspired were not normal, and is not likely to be as appreciative as a mortal.
This power lasts one night for each success scored on the activation roll in excess of the defender.
Example: Xiao Lian is speaking with one of the new members of her mortal herd, a young musician named Victor. She encourages him to discuss his love of music, which he does with enthusiasm. Lian’s player rolls Manipulation + Subterfuge +Kingjan versus Victor’s Composure. She gains two more successes than he, so he starts feeling a little bit ashamed while he speaks, even though she seems to be perfectly receptive.
The next night, Victor is at a jam session, getting ready to play a song. He feels strangely mortified, looking at the other members of the band and experiencing a vague sensation of disgust. He steels himself, trying to play, but his player must make a Resolve + Composure roll first. The roll is a success, so he plays as skillfully and enthusiastically as ever, but Victor can’t shake the feeling of vague shame.
When he returns to Lian, he confesses his shame to her — and she reassures him, speaking a few words of encouragement and releasing him from the effect of the power. Victor is relieved, and thankful for her apparent kindness.
Exceptional Success: As above.
This much sought-after power allows the user to drain emotions while feeding, stealing the pleasures and pains of life from the victim in addition to Vitae. The experience is almost unparalleled in pleasure, for the vampire.
Xiao who have learned this fearsome power can literally prey on their victims’ souls, tainting them and driving the vampire’s hooks deeper into them.
Kiss of Oblivion can only be used once per night on each victim.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Presence + Intimidation + Kingjan – subject’s Composure + Blood Potency
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The victim’s soul proves too resilient for the user to feed on. The subject is immune to further uses of Kiss of Oblivion by the vampire for the rest of the chapter.
Failure: The user may feed normally but doesn’t gain any other benefits.
Success: Success allows the vampire direct access to the emotional soul of the victim, tapping into the accumulated bank of his experience. She may select one emotion to drain. As long as the vampire continues to feed, she feels the full impact of all the victim’s accumulated experience with respect to this emotion — an intensely enjoyable and stimulating sensation.
Thereafter, the vampire enjoys a special understanding of the victim. Her attempts to manipulate him enjoy a +2 dice bonus for the remainder of the night, until the feelings inspired by the feeding fade from her mind.
For the remainder of the night, the victim’s soul is damaged by the Kiss of Oblivion. The emotional foundation of his spirit is thrown off balance by the drainage, and he cannot depend on his store of experience when confronted by certain stimuli. For the remainder of the night, he cannot gain Willpower by satisfying his Virtue. Those who observe him may note that he seems hollow, as if missing something crucial.
Kindred capable of Aura Perception will note that the victim’s aura seems frayed after this power is used on him, slowly repairing itself until the duration of the power’s effect is ended. The Xiao’s aura will seem a little brighter than normal, and suffused with pleasure.
Exceptional Success: As above. In addition, the vampire retains some of the information gained indefinitely. Anytime afterwards, her attempts to manipulate the victim of this power enjoy a +1 die bonus. Further exceptional successes scored on subsequent attempts do not improve this bonus.
When the Xiao advances her understanding of Kingjan to this level, she gains access to one of the most potent weapons of the line. With a simple wave of the hand or curl of the lip, she can demolish a victim’s sense of self-confidence and determination, crippling him and viciously weakening his defenses.
A Xiao activates this power with a simple, dismissive gesture that the victim must see. By doing so, the vampire suddenly siphons away her target’s passionate strength of mind, drowning it in a wave of apathy. A sense of indifferent sloth strikes the target, leaving him without access to his inner will for the remainder of the current scene.
A victim can only be affected by Wave of Apathy once per night, no matter how many vampires target him.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion + Kingjan versus subject’s Composure + Blood Potency
Action: Contested; resistance is reflexive.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The use of Wave of Apathy fails, and the subject is immune to the Xiao’s Kingjan powers for the rest of the night.
Failure: The character loses or ties the contested roll. The subject is unaffected.
Success: The character wins the contested roll by getting the most successes. The subject finds himself unable to summon his innermost strength. While he may continue to act normally, his inability to tap into his inner reserves prevents the subject from using any Willpower for the remainder of the current scene.
Under the influence of this power, Kindred are unable to use any Discipline power that costs Willpower, and they may not attempt to Ride the Wave in frenzy. Daeva under the influence of Wave of Apathy are incapable of resisting their Vice for the remainder of the scene.
Exceptional Success: The character wins a contested roll with five or more successes. As success above, except that the effect extends until the end of the night.
Vampires who have fully mastered this Discipline wield a dire influence over those who trust them. No emotion, no matter how deeply rooted, is so strong that a Xiao cannot destroy it, eventually. The subject’s psyche becomes as malleable as soft clay to the Xiao, allowing her to completely sever his emotional attachment to a subject of her choice. Unlike Dominate, this power doesn’t allow a Kindred to exert full control over a subject. Since the subject retains part of his free will, he’s able to pursue his goals creatively, and even to take initiative over and above what he’s been ordered to do.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Intimidation + Kingjan versus subject’s Composure + Blood Potency
Action: Contested and Extended
To activate this power, the Kindred needs to engage the subject in conversation for at least a full scene, possibly many times over the course of several consecutive nights. Every roll represents a night’s progress, and only one roll per night is allowed. The Willpower point is spent when first activating this power — no additional Willpower is required when further rolls are made toward accumulating successes unless an individual attempt fails outright.
The vampire needs to accumulate as many successes as the target has in Willpower dots to successfully activate the power. When this happens, the target stops feeling any emotion at all toward a given item (object, person, group or action) of the user’s choice. This power doesn’t force the subject to take any specific action against the chosen item, but the power completely changes his attitude toward it. With regard to the chosen item, the subject acts as if it no longer matters to him at all, but he remains otherwise free willed. Thus, a victim with a high Morality rating who suffers Blessed Detachment with regards to his wife suddenly finds that he no longer cares about her at all, but won’t necessarily go out of his way to make her suffer.
Victims of this power retain all memory of their former emotions — they just no longer feel them. Attempts to encourage the victim to harm or forsake the chosen subject do not suffer the normal penalties. In addition, the chosen subject does not gain any bonus when attempting to influence the victim.
It is possible to target a victim’s feelings about himself with this power, resulting in a temporary loss of ambition and sense of self-worth.
The effect lasts for as many nights as the user rolled successes, and the user can keep influencing the subject to prolong the effect. When the subject snaps out of the power’s effect, he is suddenly overcome by a maddening feeling of guilt over any misdeed he might have done. As long as he’s under the effect of Blessed Detachment, the subject needs not make derangement rolls for lost Morality, but when the effect ends he needs to make one derangement roll with a –2 dice penalty for every point of Morality lost while under the influence of the power.
Xiao who subject a target to Blessed Detachment are engaging in a deeply immoral act themselves and may be subject to degeneration themselves. If a target is detached from anyone he normally loves or feels benevolence toward (or from himself), use of this power is tantamount to willful injury, and will require a degeneration roll if the Xiao activating it has a Humanity rating of 8 or higher. It may well be worse — especially if the victim of the disconnect returns the subject’s love, and use of the power leads to a fundamental betrayal.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The subject’s spirit rises in sudden, powerful rebellion, ruining the vampire’s attempt. All accumulated successes are discarded, and the would-be victim is immune to further uses of Blessed Detachment for the remainder of the chapter.
Failure: The vampire loses or ties the contested roll. All accumulated successes are lost, and the vampire must begin again. If he chooses to do so, the reactivation of the power will cost an additional Willpower point.
Success: The character wins the contested roll by getting the most successes and makes some progress in his attempt to violate the subject’s mind.
Exceptional Success: The character wins a contested roll with five or more successes and makes substantial progress in his attempt to violate the subject’s mind.