Adze
Adze is a type of vampire native of Africa which lives a normal life during the day but at night slips out of its skin and turns into a vicious blood-drinking monster.
Adze Characteristics:
-Standard Blood Potency: Adze start their unlife with a dot of Blood Potency and can raise and lower this trait trough the same means as Kindred.
-Powers: Adze has access to the three physical Disciplines (bought as Out-of-Clan) and to his special racial power “Wear the Living Skin” described below. While in its skinned form it also has a lethal bite attack (pointed fangs and sharp teeth) and can feed with it as a Kindred does, but the victim isn´t subject to the Kiss and the creature cannot close the bite wounds afterwards.
-Vulnerabilities: Adze shares the same basic vulnerabilities with Kindred: they are subject to Frenzy, Rotchsreck and Wassail for the same reasons; they suffer Aggravated damage from fire and sunlight (except when they are wearing a skin) and enter Torpor if staked. While in its natural skinned form all Social rolls to interact with humans, except Intimidation, fail automatically unless the Storyteller deems otherwise (applying a huge penalty instead, for example).
“Wear the Living Skin”: This special racial power of the Adze is what differentiates them from other similar blood-drinking undead.
The vampire must be skinned to get access to its Disciplines and Vitae uses (including healing and physical augmentation) and to be able to feed. It spends the usual point of Vitae each night and the skin falls out by itself, the vampire cannot prevent this.
The vampire usually wears his own skin, though if that´s destroyed he can find another (see below).
To wear the skin, the vampire must put it on as if it were a suit and then spend as much Vitae as it has Blood Potency. Once this is done, the vampire appears completely normal except for a subtle livid scar either in the chest or back of the creature. This is the only telltale sign of the monster´s real nature, because as long as the skin is worn it appears a living human.
The following benefits and drawbacks apply as long as the monster wears the skin:
Benefits:
-The vampire is immune to sunlight and is therefore not subject to frenzy for that reason, fire still does Aggravated damage and triggers Rotchsreck.
-The vampire is considered to have the Blush of Life active at all times without cost, but it still cannot eat or retain normal food in its system. It can also remain awake during day without any roll or Humanity cap to its actions (except social interaction with humans as usual).
-The vampire heals naturally at the same rate as a normal human.
Drawbacks:
-The vampire cannot use Disciplines or access its Vitae pool, either to spend or replenish it.
-It is as vulnerable to injury as any human. Guns do it lethal damage and it can fall unconscious if the right-most Health box is filled with Bashing damage, but doesn´t bleed to death if filled with Lethal. If it drops to 0 Health due to Aggravated damage from any source, it dies.
-Attributes cannot be higher than the normal human limit even if allowed by Blood Potency. All related stats like Health, Willpower or Speed are recalculated accordingly.
The creature tries to hide its skin during night-time hours as best as it can because if it´s found it could make it highly vulnerable. If the skin is found and some salt is poured over it, it will quickly dry turning into a piece of brittle old vellum. This dried leather is useless to the Adze that can´t wear it. Anyway, the most cautious of hunters usually burn the dried skin just to make things even more difficult to the unholy creature.
If the skin is not burned, the creature can clean and reuse it. Cleaning involves “healing” the skin with Vitae as it had suffered a number of Lethal wounds equal to twice its Size. The skin must be submerged in the Vitae necessary for it to heal; that means the vampire cannot simply burn Vitae, it must pour it along with its skin into a tub or other similar container. The vampire doesn´t need to heal all the damage in a single night but cannot use the skin again until it is completely healed. As long as he is skinned during day, it is as vulnerable, dormant and handicapped as a Kindred would.
If the skin is destroyed, the creature can steal other. It must be fresh, so the victim must be skinned alive (though it will probably die during the process) and be of the same gender and Size of the Adze. This gruesome act counts as torture and requires a check for vampires with Humanity 2 or more.
The new skin takes some time to be wholly functional; the Adze must pay Vitae as if it were healing Aggravated damage equal to the Size of the skin (this healing is done in the same way as if it were cleaning it, as above). Until all the “damage” is healed the vampire suffers a penalty (max. -5) to all Social and Dexterity rolls equal to the Size not yet healed while wearing the skin (as it appears a bit baggy and rambling). It has to heal at least a point of this damage in every 24 hours period, this Vitae cost is in addition to that paid to “wake up” each night and wear the skin each day. If it fails to do so even a single night before the skin is wholly healed, the skin spoils and becomes useless and the vampire must skin another human alive starting all the process again.
Once the skin is fully healed it becomes to all purposes the “natural” skin of the creature. The vampire now looks roughly as the former owner of the skin and could use it to its advantage (stealing some of his Social Merits, for example). An Adze can only possess one skin at a time, it cannot steal a new skin unless the previous one is destroyed utterly (not merely dried). A common tactic among some people (albeit a dangerous and stupid one) is to salt and hide the skin of an Adze to blackmail it.
Destroy its own skin on purpose is considered a Humanity 3 sin for an Adze, for it implies a future act of torture and death (so it’s akin to a planned crime).
C´mon, put your own, either completly new ones or variations of those presented in the book, as some Aswang and Pennanggal I saw in other threads.
Thorbes:I´m working now on a rewriting of the Adze, few mechanical changes, just more fluff and better and clearer (I hope) systems. Also a new creature, this one more ghost-like, that I hope you like. I will post both as soon as I feel satisfied with them.
Thorbes:The guy from hellraiser is a good inspiration, though and one that came to my mind time after time as I was writing the original post.
glamourweaver:I was considering my own version of the Adze that was basically vampiric "Mosquito-Host" ala the host from WtF. Kindred would of course not recognize the spirit world implications of such creatures for the most part - the point is you have a mosquito hive mind that can travel around inside a human meat bag in its never ending quest for blood - spreading mundane & supernaturally enhanced versions of mallaria & other deadly illnesses in the process. A bit further from the actual myths obviously, but still close enough where once could see how human cultures could piece the Adze-stories together from the bits & pieces - and it has an inherent place in the WoD cosmology with broadly applicable cross over potential