Nephilim’s Discipline: Defiance

The Nephilim are an odd Bloodline, all around. They are not "born" the same way as other Kindred and, in fact, many Kindred feel no affinity for them whatsoever. In times past, there have been various pogroms against them, wherever they were found. It is said that even their alleged mother, the legendary Lilith, was slain by an enraged Second-Generation vampire named Nimrod.

It should come as no surprise, then, that the Children should evolve a Discipline designed to help them survive in a world where they have one foot in the camps of the breathing and the damned: Defiance.

* Warning: A complex form of the Merit Danger Sense, except that it allows you more than a simple sense of foreboding. Instead, associated with it are precognitive flashes of the briefest kind, perhaps enough to identify the source of the danger...if you roll the right dice.

System: Perception + Awareness against a difficulty level assigned by the Storyteller. The higher the number of successes, the longer the flash forwards last.

** Prophet's Unwelcome: "A prophet is never welcome in his homeland..." The Child in question can further extend his precognitive abilities to search the area's immediate future for a trend which might be detrimental to him or her. The idea here is to prevent the problems that decimated the Nephilim ranks earlier on in their existence.

System: Perception + Awareness against a difficulty level assigned by the Storyteller. The higher the number of successes, the greater length the scan will be able to pull out. One-success equals about a day's worth of scrying while six successes indicates a year's worth of trends.

*** Masque: Nephilim needn't run. Often, they simply mask their presence from their vampiric attackers. Masque works against Auspex and Thaumaturgy rather well, though a Garou will still know the difference between a "normal" Kindred and the partially human Nephilim.

System: Manipulation + Intimidation against the pursuers' Perception. The number of successes indicates the number of days a Child can mask his or her presence.

**** Shield of the Archons: When cornered, the Nephilim will fight...and fight hard. Since they are often accosted by large hordes, however, they must have some defensive measures in their repetoir. The Shield is a projection of sheer mental force, telekinetic in nature, which protects the Nephilim on all sides. Physical attacks are its primary targets, though a few Discipline-orientated blows will also be stopped, depending on whether or not their effect is physical in nature.

System: Stamina + Survival against a difficulty level assigned by the Storyteller according the to the following method.

1 opponent a difficulty level between 1-4

2-3 opponents a difficulty level between 5-7

More than 3 opponents a difficulty level between 7-9.

Each success rolled is a Health Level effectively blocked by the Shield.

***** Sanctuary: Where else can a Nephilim be home except at home? When all else fails, and the world has turned against you, you can always flee towards home. Sanctuary is a two-part power. The first part is a spell-like ability to transport the Nephilim to his or her haven at the moment he or she needs it most (this isn't for casual transportation). Secondly, it places a generalized form of the Shield of the Archons about the haven in an attempt to stave off anyone who manages to find out where the Nephilim fled to.

System: The teleport phase requires a Wits + Survival roll against the Nephilim's own Willpower minus two. The idea here is that fright, more than anything else, will cause a 'port to fail. If that happens, the second phase does not fall into place.

The haven shield is identical to the Shield of the Archons except for the fact that it covers the entirety of the Nephilim's haven.

****** Lethe's Touch: The most extreme of the Nephilim's powers, Lethe's Touch is used only in the most urgent of circumstances. It allows the Nephilim to erase all knowledge of the Bloodline from a person or, if the number of successes is high enough, an entire area.

Some say there are many more Nephilim than are currently know...they're just hiding behind the effects of lingering uses of Lethe's Touch.

System: Manipulation + Intimidation against the target's Willpower minus one. Consult the table below:

1 Success: The target's memory of the attacking Child is wiped clean.

2 Successes: The target's memory of the attacking Child is wiped clean and edited for a smooth and seamless interface.

3 Successes: The target now has an edited memory in addition to only a vague recollection of what a Nephilim is in the first place.

4 Successes: All knowledge of the Bloodline is wiped and the target's memory is successfully edited.

5 Successes: A small group (less than 5) is effected in the same manner as a single success.

6 Successes: A small group (less than 50) is effected in the same manner as four successes.

Levels Seven through Ten: There are no known Nephilim above the Seventh Generation. Critics and conspiracists will claim that that's because of the widespread use of Lethe's Touch in the early days but there really is no proof of that.

Of course, there wouldn't be, if that was the case, right?