The mystic power of the Gorgons takes its name from the Amphisbaena, the serpent with a head at each end of its body, which is said by some to have been spawned from blood that dripped from Medusa’s severed head. Some modern Gorgons claim to have encountered offspring of the Amphisbaena, whose young have spread as far as Delhi and London, if the legends are to be believed. The song of an amphisbaena (as any spawn of the Amphisbaena is called) is supposedly enchanting or maddening, depending on the harmony or disharmony of the two heads. The Gorgons’ unique Discipline of Amphivena grants its user power over serpents and her own body. Some of these powers, when seen by other Kindred, have lead some to mistake Gorgons for an offshoot of the Gangrel clan. But while this Discipline grant a Medusa bestial, shape-shifting abilities, it’s ultimate aim is to empower her use of the other Disciplines inherited from the Ventrue clan.
The fundamental power of the Gorgons opens the vampire’s intuition to the manners and mindset of serpents. Modern Kindred sometimes call this “unlocking the lizard brain.” This base, animal sensibility grants the vampire insight and affinities that improve her abilities with other Disciplines and Skills, all stemming from her rapport with and reverence for the serpentine mind.
Cost: None
Dice Pool: This power requires no roll to activate and is considered always “on.” The basic effect of this power simply augments the dice pools of other actions. In a way, this power might be considered a kind of universal Specialty in snakes of all sorts.
Action: N/A
This grants the vampire several general benefits:
After a Gorgon has attained her supernatural intuition for the serpentine mind she learns to develop a mystic bond with the serpentine form. To gain powers from a snake, she must first enhance its own mystic potency by projecting hers onto it. Through the use of this power, a Gorgon can then absorb the snake into her body, thereby gaining several potential benefits from it.
Cost: 1 Willpower point
Dice Pool: Presence + Animal Ken + Amphivena vs. Composure + Blood Potency (Blood Potency, in this case, is a stand-in for whatever supernatural trait a subject snake might possess as a result of strange magic or other effects)
Action: Instant, contested; resistance is reflexive. If the subject snake is the Gorgon’s thrall, resistance may be waived.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
The Gorgon somehow mis-channels her mystic power. The target snake immediately turns on her, attacking with all its might until it is dead or out of her presence. The snake enjoys a +3 bonus to its initial attack roll from the Gorgon’s spent Willpower point.
Failure:
The Gorgon fails to channel her power into the target snake. Her Willpower point is wasted.
Success:
The Gorgon infuses some of her supernatural might into the body of the subject snake, thereby preparing it for a mystical union with her undead body. The Gorgon gains the benefits described below.
Exceptional Success:
The character gains no special additional benefits above those described below.
Once a snake is prepared with a successful activation roll, the Gorgon swallows it to complete the union. As long as the snake stays within her, she gains a +2 bonus on all perception-related dice pools involving smell or touch; her tongue becomes visibly forked and her skin becomes dry and coarse. The Gorgon may also gain a +2 bonus to vision-based perception dice pools, but her eyes are visibly transformed into those of a snake during such actions. Finally, the Gorgon gains a +1 bonus to either her Dexterity or Strength, as decided when she activates the power.
An absorbed snake can also be transmuted into an amount of Vitae equal to its Size, without any of the usual potency loss associated with animal Vitae (see Vampire: The Requiem, p. 165), regardless of the Gorgon’s Blood Potency. This is an instant action. Once a snake has been consumed for Vitae, it can be transmuted back into a snake (or snakes) equal in Size to the amount of Vitae expended per turn. These conjured snakes are wholly mundane and not under the effects of Serpentine Union, though they may be subjected to any of the Gorgon’s Disciplines on subsequent turns. Transmuted snakes must leave the Gorgon’s body somehow, whether through the mouth or through cuts and slashes on her body.
Because spending Vitae is a reflexive action, the Gorgon can release snakes from her blood as a reflexive action as well. Thus she may loose tiny vipers from her body through a gash made in her gut by a fearsome witch-hunter, the snakes slipping out of her flesh where a mortal woman might bleed.
A Gorgon may only subject one snake to this power at a time. Once a snake has been digested into Vitae, the Gorgon looses any perception or Attribute bonuses derived from it. A Gorgon may only absorb (that is, swollow) snakes of a Size equal to or less than her own minus one.
If this power is used on a snake too large for the Gorgon to absorb, she may instead feed from the snake to gain Vitae on a one-for-one ratio to its Size, without any of the usual potency loss associated with animal Vitae, provided all such feeding is done within the same scene.
Upon activation of this power, the Gorgon’s hands are transformed into grotesque lethal monstrosities like the heads of snakes. The precise effect varies from Gorgon to Gorgon; some grow curved, yellow fangs from the pads of their fingers while others open gaping pink mouths on their palms. Whatever the precise effect, the details are always serpentine. These bizarre transmogrifications evoke the image of the Amphisbaena itself — the two-headed serpent — and enable the vampire to menace foes, feed rapidly through terrible violence and, eventually, deliver perilous venom.
Cost: 1 Vitae per scene
Dice Pool: This power requires no dice pool to activate.
Action: Reflexive.
The Gorgon’s hands transform through a silent act of will. Once transformed, however, her hands may hiss or spit (harmlessly) as if they were angry snakes. A Gorgon that has absorbed a snake using Serpentine Union may even taste the air with flickering tongues from her palms. At the Storyteller’s discretion, this power may grant as much as a +2 bonus to Intimidation dice pools; it should make normal dealings with mortals and unprepared vampires more difficult by a like amount.
These transformed hands can be used to make bite attacks (using the Brawl Skill) that deal lethal damage. Each hand is considered to have a Damage rating of 1. A Gorgon doesn’t have to grab an opponent to bite with her hands if her goal is simply to deal damage. Each hand may be used for separate attacks, though this power doesn’t grant the vampire any special ambidextrous ability or associated fighting styles. If the Gorgon uses both hands in an attack, she gains the benefit of both hands’ Damage.
Should the Gorgon want to feed through her hands, she must achieve a grapple hold on her target first, using both hands. She gains the +2 bonus Damage bonus from her altered hands only to the attack roll, but not to rolls to contest the grapple. A Gorgon with Arms of the Amphisbaena active may draw two Vitae from a target in a single turn — one Vitae through her transformed hands and one through her mouth. (See Vampire: The Requiem, p. 165 for information on biting for damage or Vitae.)
A Gorgon’s transformed hands do not gain any of the benefits of the Kiss. Their bite is ferocious, tearing and terrible; the Amphisbaena’s teeth are not seductive. The wounds caused by transformed hands cannot be closed with the lick of a vampiric tongue.
The effects of this power last for one scene unless the Gorgon transforms her hands back prematurely. Reactivating this power requires the expenditure of another Vitae.
This power cannot be used simultaneously with Claws of the Wild (Protean •••) unless the vampire possesses the Claws of Amphisbaena Devotion, as well.
After she learns to alter her flesh, a Gorgon learns to alter her blood. With this power, the vampire transmutes her Vitae into a mystic toxin, potentially capable of incapacitating or killing kine and Kindred alike. Aged Gorgons are rumored to have no Vitae in their bodies at all — only a vicious mixture of poisons.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Strength + Animal Ken + Amphivena
Action: Reflexive; resistance is reflexive.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure:
The Gorgon fails so utterly to poison her Vitae that she in unable to use this power again for the duration of the scene.
Failure:
The Gorgon fails to transmute her Vitae into poison, but may try again next turn.
Success:
The Gorgon transmutes her blood into a paralytic or lethal toxin, as described below.
Extraordinary Success:
The Gorgon transmutes her blood into toxin without any special benefit.
With a successful roll, this power reflexively transforms one of the Gorgon’s Vitae into poison. The power grants the character no special means to deliver the poison, however. It may be applied to a melee weapon with an instant action or delivered reflexively through a bite attack, however. Any toxin created through the use of this power must come into contact with a target’s blood, however, to be of any use.
When a Gorgon first learns this power, she is capable of afflicting targets only with a paralytic toxin. This toxin has a Toxicity equal to the Gorgon’s dots in Amphivena. This poison is resisted like any mundane toxin, except that it effects Kindred and kine alike. Damage suffered from this toxin is lost from the subject’s Strength, rather than his Health, and heals at a rate of 1 dot every 15 minutes. With the expenditure of three experience points, the Gorgon gains the ability to create a second toxin, which effects Dexterity rather than Strength.
By spending another three experience points, a Gorgon can also learn how to create a necrotizing toxin that deals lethal damage to living targets equal to its Toxicity. Against other vampires, this toxin destroys Vitae in place of causing lethal damage.
No matter how many Vitae a Gorgon can spend per turn, only one application of one type of toxin can be created each turn. A Gorgon can store a number of doses of toxin in her body equal to her Stamina. These toxins decay rapidly, however; each dose reverts to harmless water come dawn, when the Gorgon must vomit it out of her system. There is no way to store Gorgon venom to avoid this disenchantment.
Kindred victims of this power may substitute their Blood Potency for Resolve when resisting the effects of Gorgon venom. See the World of Darkness Rulebook for more information on poisons (p. 180-181) and Attribute damage (p. 43 and p. 167).
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier — Situation
–1 — Each previous attempt to use this power in the same night (successful or not). This penalty is cumulative.
–2 — Character is not in contact with a venomous snake when this power is used.
At the height of her supernatural power, a Gorgon becomes a perilous, inhuman monster. With a bit of blood, her whole form changes, infused with the timeless, dreaded enchantment of the mythic gorgons. Her body is transformed into soft and scaly serpentine coils, her mouth becomes a fanged pit and her eyes cast a profane yellow glow. She becomes dangerous even to behold.
Cost: 1 Vitae per scene (plus 1 Vitae per turn for additional abilities)
Dice Pool: This power requires no roll to invoke.
Action: Instant
The transformation from a human shape to a monstrous one (or back again) takes one turn to complete. The Gorgon cannot take any action or even move during this time.
While in her monstrous form, a Gorgon’s Size increases to 6, including her new tail. Her species factor for Speed becomes 8 (instead of the normal human factor of 5). The Body of the Gorgon spoils the vampire’s ability to interact with anything but snakes and other Gorgons, however. Attempts to use Animalism or Social Skills on subjects other than snakes and other Gorgons suffer a penalty equal to the Gorgon’s dots in Amphivena.
A vampire effected by Body of the Gorgon can attempt to spray Medusa’s Venom at a target with open wounds (meaning, in game terms, a target with one or more points of lethal or aggravated damage currently marked on his Health track.) The Gorgon must be within close-combat range of the target, however, and succeed at a raw Dexterity + Amphivena roll penalized by the target’s Defense and any other appropriate modifiers.
The most profound aspect of the Body of the Gorgon, however, is doubtless its ability to amplify the powers of Dominate through a great and terrible mystic radiance. On her turn, a vampire transmogrified by the Body of the Gorgon can reflexively spend one Vitae to activate the Command or Mesmerize powers of Dominate against all onlookers. This reflexive use of Dominate puts the onus on subjects to look away from the Gorgon, rather than tasking her with achieving eye contact. The Gorgon must issue a single instruction to all onlookers, though each contests the action on his own as usual.
Onlookers must be able to see the Gorgon directly. Reflections and broadcasts do not carry her power, but simple filters like sunglasses offer no protection. At the Storyteller’s discretion, substantial visual interference between the onlooker and the Gorgon such as smoke or a waterfall can grant as much as a +5 bonus to the onlooker’s contested roll to resist these powers.
The Body of the Gorgon persists for the remainder of the scene unless the vampire chooses to transform back to her normal form earlier.