CELERITY
The Embrace gifts some vampires with startling speed and reflexes. They can use Celerity to move with amazing swiftness. Other beings lacking this ability move as if in slow motion compared to the astonishing blur the vampire becomes.
Celerity is common among Assamites, Brujah and Toreador. The Assamites use this ability to strike down their foes before the victims are even aware of the attack. Brujah delight in the advantege against superior number of opponents. Toreador are more likely to use Celerity to lend preternatural grace to live performances - however, they can be as terrifying as any Assamite or Brujah when angered.
NOTE: The levels 1-5 "format" can be followed after level 5 as well, the vampire must choose if she wishes to take more actions per turn or learn new abilities, that are listed here.
NOTE: Yes, there are fewer alternate Celerity powers listed than there are for any other Discipline (save Potence and Fortitude). No, this is not an oversight - There has been less impetus for practitioners of these three Disciplines to develop variations than there has been an masters of, say, Auspex.
Levels 1-5
System: Spend 1 BP. In the next turn the vampire may take Celerity +1 number of actions, while other "normal" creatures take only one.
Level 6
Flawless Parry (Players' Guide to High Clans)
Make perfect defensive motions at the expense of taking no other action.
Precision (Assamite Clanbook (Revised))
While many elder Cainites simply develop their superhuman reflexes to truly amazing levels, others find new and varied uses for the ability - like Precision. This focused technique allows its wielder to apply all of her intense energy to the smallest of targets She effectively increases her fine manipulation capabilities beyond those of the most advanced mechanical lathes by moving so quickly as to disturb absolutely nothing save that which she actually touches. Cainite sculptors who have mastered Precision are capable of creating works of near-microscopic detail by striking so swiftly as to remove only the tiniest shavings of wood or stone. A certain medical specialist of the vizier caste is reputed to be capable of wielding surgical tools so deftly as to be able to reattach severed spinal tissue.
System: Spend two BPs and a WP and roll Dexterity + Crafts/Ability (6). For each success, the vampire may add one die to all rolls pertaining to precision, fine manipulation or moving something without disturbing its surroundings. This power lasts for a number of minutes equal to the vampire's Celerity rating.
The vampire is in something of a trance as she concentrates on channeling all her speed into tiny, flickering motions. Any actions that do not involve fine manipulation are at +2 difficulty. Even conversation is a strain. The vampire may voluntarily withdraw from Precision before its duration elapses, but all benefits are lost without a sub-sequent re-invocation of the power. Under no circumstances does Precision give any benefits in combat (though it may allow the preparation of weapons to fiendish intricacy).
Projectile (Guide to the Camarilla)
Despite the fact that a vampire with Celerity moves at incredible speeds, by some quirk of metaphysics any bullet she fires or knives she throws while in this state don't move any faster than they normally would. Scientifically minded Kindred have been baffled by the phenomenon for centuries, but more pragmatic ones have found a way to work around it. Projectile enables a vampire to take her preternatural speed and transfer it into something she has thrown, fired or launched.
System: Spend a BP. In addition, decide how many Celerity points are put into the speed of the launched object. Thus, a vampire with Celerity 6 in addition to Projectile could decide to put three dots' worth of speed into a knife she is throwing, and use the other three dots as extra actions as per normal. Each dot of Celerity infused into a thrown object becomes an automatic success on the attack's damage roll, assuming the knife/hatchet/spear/bullet actually hits.
Tireless Tread (Guide to the Anarchs)
Run at 80 kilometers per hour for at least 8 hours.
Level 7
Celerity Refinement (Players' Guide to High Clans)
Spend vitae for Celerity as you need them, rather than declaring them beforehand.
Flower of Death (Guide to the Camarilla)
In combat, as in all things, speed kills. A proper application of Celerity in combat can turn even the meekest Cainite into a walking abattoir. How much more deadly, then, is a vampire with the ability to utilize her preternatural speed to the utmost in combat? The answer to that question is "Rather a lot." Flower of Death allows a vampire to take her Celerity and apply it in full to each hand-to-hand or melee attack she makes.
System: Flower of Death costs 4 BPs, but the spectacular effect is well worth it. Once the power is in effect, a number of dice equal to the vampire's normal Celerity rating gets added to every dice pool for attacks the vampire makes until the end of the scene. The effect is limited to hand-to-hand or melee weapon attacks - firearms, bows and whatnot are excluded - and does not grant the attacker additional dice for damage rolls.
Flower of Death is not cumulative - it is impossible to "layer" uses of the power over one another to create astronomical dice pools.
Stutter-Step (Brujah Clanbook (Revised))
Calling upon her preternatural speed, a Kindred using this power appears to undertake several actions at once, "flickering" from one action to the next. This is particularly useful in combat, as one's foe cannot guess which of the actions he percieves is the one with which the vampire follows through. The vampire seems to be a dervish while this power is in effect, beginning countless feints, dodges and parries.
System: Spend a BP. For the turn in which the vampire calls upon this power, she may add her full Celerity rating to her Dodge, Block or Parry pool. This pool may also be distributed among multiple actions - a vampire with this power can use it in a succession of Dodges, moving too fast for the eye to perceive, much like the flattering of a hummingbird's wings.
Sanguinary Wind (Dark Ages Companion)
Level 8
Resist Earth's Grasp (Dark Ages)
The Unseen Storm (Players' Guide to High Clans)
Move so fast you are truly invisible.
Zephyr (Guide to the Camarilla)
Zephyr produces an effect vaguely similar to one of the legendary comic book-style uses of enhanced speed, allowing its practitioner to run so fast she can run across water (she's moving so fast she doesn't have time to sink). Particularly successful applications of Zephyr allow a vampire to go so far as to run up walls and, in at least one recorded instance, across a ceiling, though the latter is more of a parlor trick than anything else.
System: Zephyr requires the expenditure of each a BP and a WP. Unfortunately, Zephyr requires such extremes of concentration that it cannot be combined with any form of attack, or indeed, with most any sort of action at all. If a vampire using Zephyr feels the need to do something else while moving at such tremendous speeds, a Willpower (8) roll is required. Needless to say, botches at Zephyr speed can be spectacular in all the wrong ways.
Most times, a vampire moving at such a rate of speed is barely visible, appearing more as a vampire-shaped blur than anything else. Observers must succeed on a Perception + Alertness (7) roll to get even a decent look at a Kindred zooming past in this fashion.
Level 9
Paragon of Motion (Players' Guide to High Clans)
Perform most physical acts without fail. |