Daemoinon

* Sense the Sin
The novitiate first learns the art of unmaking where the seeds of chaos are strewn - from within. This power allows the Baali to see into the heart of a person, unearthing his flaws - his shortcomings, his vulnerabilities, his exploitable weaknesses 

 

System: The player rolls perception + empathy against living or undead beings, difficulty equal to the subject's self-control+4. If successful, the Baali can sense the subject's greatest weakness. The depth and significance of this information are dictated by the degree of success; 

one success might determine a low virtue, weak willpower or a poorly defended avenue of approach, whereas two might yield a closely guarded secret or conversational misstep. Three or more yields a central derangement or formative trauma from the subjects past.

 

** Fear of the void below
The disciple's power has progressed from the ephemeral to the tangible. Through the use of this Discipline, she may project into listeners' minds the beginnings of oblivion - the nameless, formless terrors of the night, the unknown and the inevitability of nonbeing.

System: The Baali must first employ Sense the Sin to discern the tragic flaw of the target. She must then speak to the target(s), playing upon his inadequacies, the inescapable consequences of his shortcomings and the certain nothingness that must follow failure. A successful 
wits+intimidation roll (difficulty the subject's courage+4) drives the victim into quavering fits of tremulous terror (one success) mindless panic born flight similar to Rotschreck 

(two successes) or even unconsciousness (three or more successes). All effects last for the remainder of the scene. Kindred subjects may resist with a courage roll (difficulty the baali's willpower) that garners more successes than the baali - they are accustomed to dealing with their beasts.

*** Conflagration
Through focus and force of will, the adept summons forth something of the essence of Beyond... the briefest trickle of otherworldly power. This sinister "black fire" has been known to manifest as an imperceptible distortion of time and space, an incandescent halo of ethereal light, even the semblance of eldritch flame - all of which, of course, leave observers eerily reminded of traditional guises of the infernal.

System: The player spends a blood point. This creates a bolt of black flame that inflicts one die of aggravated damage; more blood points may be spent to increase the size and damage of the flame. Such fires are fleeting and dissipate at the end of the turn in which they are summoned, 
unless the Baali spends blood points over several turns, gradually creating a larger flame. The player also rolls Dexterity + Occult (Difficulty 6) to hit his target, who may dodge as normal, unless circumstances prevent it. Vampires confronted with this black fire make Rotschreck tests 
as if confronted with similar quantity of normal flame.

**** Psychomachia
At length the Baali, having grasped something of the nature of fervor and the frailty of flesh, takes on the power to ravage a victim's unconscious, forcing his innermost passions and perversions into palpable physical form - the stuff of nightmares.

System: The vampire, spinning the nightmare from an individual hell of the victim's own making (after using Sense the Sin), forces the subjects player to roll her lowest Virtue (difficulty 6). 
Failing this roll pits the target against an apparition summoned from her darker self, visible and material to the subject only - for instance, an abusive father, a long dead lover, perhaps a childhood boogeyman or (for Kindred) even the Beast itself. A botch indicates the target has 
been over whelmed and frenzies - or, worse, becomes possessed by her inner demons.

This imaginary antagonist should be wholly narrated, or assigned Traits equivalent or slightly inferior to the victim's. All injuries sustained by the target in such an encounter are illusory (substitute catatonia or torpor for death as appropriate) and vanish upon the phantasm's defeat or the Baali's loss of concentration.

***** Condemnation
Calling upon forbidden pacts, forgotten powers and legacy of blighted ritual dating back to prehistoric times, the Baali may call down a curse upon his enemies. The least of such 
afflictions cripple, disfigure or otherwise hinder their victims; the greatest have become the stuff of legend. 

System: An intelligence + occult (difficulty the subjects willpower) dictates the length and severity of the curse; successes must be split between both these effects as follows.

1 success = up to one week; "no voice shall be lent your lying tongue"
2 successes =  one month; "Sicken and wither, infidel...a babe's weakness is upon you"
3 successes = one year; "Reap this bitter harvest - may your closest friends turn foe"
4 successes = Ten years; "Barren be thy seed and the loins of all your line."
5 successes = Permanent; "The mark of doom - all you touch or love must fail."

At any time, the Baali may choose to end the curse, though few have ever done so. Storytellers should feel free to invent creative story-appropriate curses; similarly, abuse 
(including but not limited to overuse) should be met with automatic failure or distortion beyond the curse's original intent.

***** * Concordance
At this level of master, the Baali takes something of the nature of his true masters into his person, partially transcending his undead condition. The prices exacted by Those Who Wait Beyond, however, can be steep indeed. History depicts the priesthood of Baal as a cabal of hellish creatures - horned, taloned, insectile, possessed of the powers of flight, the ability to withstand open flame and countless other infernal investitures.

System: The most typical manifestation of this power incorporates immunity to the damaging effects of fire, though other equivalently powered assets may be available. Most of these tributes take the form of left-handed "gifts" with unforeseen consequences (a telltale bronze tint to the flame-resistant flesh; an inhuman homunculus that must be fed from a third nipple; a vestigial set of wings; a visible set of talons or horn(s) that cannot be concealed; etch.). 
This discipline may be purchased more than once for concurrent divestments...at still greater cost to body and soul (Indeed, the current shaitan is said to have been so gnarled and twisted by the Masters as to be no longer even remotely mistakable for human.)

Note that certain banes of the Cainite race - piety, dependency on blood for sustenance, etch. 
- may not be overcome by this Discipline under any circumstances.

***** ** Summon the Herald of the Topheth
Only a handful of Baali elders have ever attained this degree of mastery. These select few embody an understanding of the whys and wherefores of the Void sufficient to begin bridging the fissure between worlds, that someone - something - might enter through a momentary rift.

System: Although the names assigned them differ by church and culture (angel, demon, daeva, djinn, efreet, malakim, shedim, and countless others), the end results are the same. Such summoned creatures vary greatly in abilities and form, but are built on approximately the following: Attributes 10/7/3, Abilities 15 points in each, Willpower 8, Disciplines 10 points with a fortitude of at least 3 and the capacity to heal one health level at least every other round. Form can vary wildly; though most celestial beings chafe at the notion of wearing a single shape, many adopt those common to myth and legend. Succubi, reptilian horrors, unearthly beautiful spindly creatures and bat winged monsters are among the most recorded shapes.

The enactment of this rite is frequently accompanied by a blood sacrifice (at least three blood points' worth) and ceremony; in some cases the being summoned may choose to inhabit the baali. 
This phenomenon has led some Follows of Baal to wonder if the ranks of those clanmates are entirely their own....

***** *** Contagion
Not so much a means of directed curse or control as a natural extension of faith, this power infects the very institutions and inhabitants of the Baali's surroundings with a pervading sense of gloom, despair and malaise. Crime and violence soar; pretty angers give rise to seething hatreds; local economies take a downward spiral; marriages end over trivial quarrels and the world as the region's residents know it, becomes a nastier place in general. In the history of the Baali, entire towns and villages have been temporarily enslaved - mindless armies yoked heart, strength and faith to an infernal masters will.

System: Successes garnered on an intelligence + occult roll (difficulty 9) must be divided between the intensity and the area of the desired effect. (Sufficiently high degrees of Auspex may be able to pick up on this vague, malevolent aura; otherwise they will simply assume that times have taken a dire change for the worse).

1 success = Immediate vicinity; ill-tempered/out-of-sorts behavior
2 successes = An office complex; civil/domestic unrest, prejudice
3 successes = a city block; angry (even riotous) dissent
4 successes = an auditorium or apartment complex; bar brawls, hair triggers, hate crimes, blood in the streets
5 successes = an entire city; a throng of blood thirsty single-minded philistines

**** **** Call the Great Beast
No power is so feared as the one that literally awakens the elder gods and begs them journey to the world of men. This power has never been successfully implemented, though its formulae and incantations are known to at least one childe of Baal-Hammon who sleeps beneath the blighted earth. Truly, the powers of the beings summoned by one who must veritably be a god himself to perform the call would tear the land asunder.

System: The preparatory ritual requires a tremendous investment of time and sacrifice; veiled allusions such as "fivescore souls, plucked clean and whole" and "when three times sets the hooded sun" indicate a selective sacrificial rite spanning days, nights and dozens of victims (Deviation or imperfection in this litany may will have unforeseen consequences, ranging from simple failure to unwelcome attention on behalf of the entity being petitioned!)

At this point, the high priest expends all his permanent willpower and releases his consciousness in a final, desperate attempt to breach the gulf beyond, becoming an empty vessel, a once-mortal gateway granting passage into this reality for ... why, for whatever will most effectively end the world as your chronicle knows it, of course. What would the Devil do to Your world?

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