Serpentis

Serpentis
Clans	Followers of Set, Nhang, Serpents of the Light
Bloodlines	Children of Damballah, Glyconites, Vipers
Sects	Independents, Laibon, Sabbat
Rituals	None
Combination Disciplines	Serpentis Combination Disciplines
Rarity	Uncommon

Serpentis is primarily known as the secret art of the Followers of Set, and seeing it in action, it's not hard to believe their claim that they alone are descended from a different, ancient serpentine power and are a different breed entirely from all other vampires. Very, very few non-Setite vampires ever learn its secrets, and the Setites themselves claim that this is because it is impossible for those of "lesser" blood to learn, although others would say that it's just the fact that they refuse to share their knowledge that keeps it so rare.

Basic Powers

Eyes of the Serpent

Like a snake fascinating a helpless bird, you may pin another living thing with your gaze, making them helpless to look away or take any other actions, remaining completely paralyzed. They also cannot use any powers of their own, nor dodge any incoming attack. If you look away or break eye contact for any reason, this power ceases to work.

Enchanting Gaze

You can leverage the fascinating power of your gaze to instead become strangely alluring to someone else, who feels drawn to come over and interact with you in spite of themself. This power only works on people who can currently perceive you, and it can only make them decide to come interact with you, not control what they do when they get there or prevent them from leaving again.

Tongue of the Asp

You may horrifically elongate your tongue into a long, forked serpentlike one, which can strike enemies at up to a foot and a half away and drain blood from those it injures. You deal with damage as if it were fire when you do this, although not very much, and may also use the tongue like a true snake to sense vibrations around you and navigate in the dark.

Typhonic Maw

By distending your jaw, you open it into a horrific nightmare maw, which hinges almost all the way down to your chest and sprouts a full mouth of terrible teeth and fangs. These teeth can inflict horrible damage and you can fit much more of any given person or thing into your mouth than before, but you are terrifying to behold and your disjointed mouth is not particularly quick or dextrous.

Intermediate Powers

Mummify

You may intentionally dry yourself out, entering a state of suspended animation in which you need keep only a single drop of blood in your body to remain alive. This state is much like torpor: you are unaware of what is happening around you and can take no actions, but you may awaken at will any time you choose. Your mummy can only be destroyed if the single drop of blood that animates it is found and removed (but normal dangers, like fire and sunlight, will still eventually do the job).

Skin of the Adder

You may partially transform as if you were truly part serpent; in addition to gaining thick, flexible scales all over your body, your mouth grows to twice its normal size, your limbs become long and somewhat bendable, and your flexible spine allows you to fit through any space you can fit your head into. You can turn this power back off at any time if you wish; if you don't, it remains in effect for one hour.

Form of the Cobra

You transform entirely into a gigantic serpent with the same mass and weight as you had as a person. Your bite is now poisonous, and while you do retain your normal mind and personality, too much time spent in this form may cause you to start thinking more and more like a snake. You can remain transformed for as long as you like, but being a giant person-sized snake is generally a very noticeable (and panic-inducing) state to be in. Transforming this way is extremely taxing, and you may be exhausted after doing so.

Typhonic Avatar

Instead of transforming into a serpent, you transform into the "Typhonic Beast" - the colloquial term for a strange, unidentified ancient creature that was the totem of the god Set. You gain an elongated, canine snout, enormous sensitive ears, and pitch-black fur, as well as growing in size and mass so that you hulk over most others. Transforming this way is difficult and exhausting, but you may remain transformed until you are either knocked unconscious or choose to return to normal.

Advanced Powers

Cheat the Scale of Anubis

You may methodically remove any and all of your internal organs that you wish, preserving them outside your body wherever you think they'll be most safe. While these are outside your body, you are rendered much more impervious to harm than usual, since there are few important parts to strike, and can take considerably more damage than anyone without Fortitude should be able to. This power can't remove your heart, since it is needed for pumping blood, but otherwise can take out any other appropriate organ. Organs that have a specific function will still take that function with them, though, so be prepared to go blind if you remove your eyes.

Heart of Darkness

You may completely remove your heart from your body, preserving it (traditionally in a clay jar, but anywhere you think it would be safe) so that it remains undamaged; once you do, you can no longer be rendered immobile with a wooden stake, since there is simply nothing for it to puncture. Being staked still hurts, but otherwise has no ill effect on you as long as your heart remains elsewhere. Your heart can be staked, in which case you are immediately paralyzed wherever you are, and if it is destroyed, you immediately drop dead. You can also use this power to remove and preserve the hearts of other vampires (not mortals, who die if you attempt it), but only if they are willing to allow you to.

Mother of Monsters

You may tear strips of your own flesh away, hurling them to the ground to become writhing serpents that obey your will. The snakes act like gigantic ghouls, loyal only to you, and remain active and alive until you are rendered unconscious (including by daylight), at which point they turn to dust. Tearing your own body up this way still hurts and causes considerable damage, and while the resulting serpents are loyal, they aren't any smarter than normal snakes or any more capable of doing supernatural things (although they are very, very large).

Elder Powers

Aspect of the God

You may briefly assume the terrifying visage of the god Set himself, which arises around you like a sudden looming shape, horrifying and overwhelming everyone who encounters you. It is impossible for anyone to attack you while you are in this state; all mortals and any vampires of lesser power than you simply immediately flee the area in an unreasoning panic.

Breath of the Basilisk

You may exhale a venomous mist, infused with potent serpent's poison. Anyone who breathes in this cloud is afflicted by horrible pain as it corrodes their lungs, as well as affecting anyone whose sensitive tissues such as eyes or mouth are exposed to it.

Breathe the Sandstorm

By opening your mouth and blowing at an enemy, you may exhale a scorching blast of sand, as though a massive sandstorm had been focused down to a single point to attack them. They are blinded for several seconds as well as suffering burning and scourging pain and injury from the superheated sands.

Cobra Fangs

While you normally grow terrible serpent fangs when you transform with Form of the Cobra, this power allows you to grow the same fangs without transforming the rest of your body. The huge, venomous fangs are very obviously not intended for any human mouth, so once you have grown them, it is very obvious that you are some sort of monster. The fangs deal aggravated damage when you bite, and are poisonous enough to kill mortals bitten by you within a matter of minutes.

Echidna's Venom

While your serpentine fangs are usually simply weapons of blunt injury, this power allows you to also fill them with venom. Anyone you bite suffers additional lethal damage at random throughout the evening as they try to fight the poison off; almost all mortals die within a minute or two, and any who live longer than that become permanently paralyzed.

Obsession

By touching another person, you may fill them with an unstoppable, unreasonable lust for something. You may cause your target to be obsessed with any reasonable category of items; common choices are certain drugs, the adrenaline high of thrill-seeking and daredevil actions, or consuming certain kinds of foods or drink. This power lasts for the rest of the night and can be used semi-benevolently to simply distract others into leaving, but it can also be used to inflict harmful lusts, such as making a vampire continually drawn toward eating substances they cannot digest, a mortal to overdose on drugs that will kill them, or developing a consuming bloodthirst that leads to willingly creating multiple blood bonds.

Ophidian Infestation

By touching your victim, you may cause their internal organs to transform into writhing, ravenous serpents that begin to eat them from the inside out. This power is always fatal to non-supernatural beings, who have no prayer of surviving being devoured from within; vampires and other supernatural beings may be able to survive, but only if they have prodigious abilities to heal themselves or avoid injuries. The snakes continue to devour until they escape your victim's body, becoming free-moving serpents you can interact with if you wish, or until the scene ends if they do not manage to escape.

Temptation

If someone refuses to do something because they consider it evil or morally wrong, you may use this power and look them in the eye to tempt them to do it anyway, creating an almost overwhelming compulsion. Your victim can resist if they have especially formidable willpower, but most are unable to hold back for more than a moment or two.

Divine Image

You may choose one of your local deities and take on their divine attributes for a scene, appearing as a shining magical being surrounded by a divine aura. You may appear with any of your chosen deity's most fabulous qualities; traditional Egyptian deities might show an animal head, divine scepters or wings carried our around you, or discs of radiant light above your face, but anything that makes sense is fair game. While in this state, you also gain additional skill in two areas that the diety is known for; a vampire who aligns with the goddess of beauty Hathor, for example, might become much more socially irresistible, while one who draws upon the crocodile goddess Sobek might gain additional hardiness and an affinity for nature.

Form of the Storm

You may transform yourself not into another creature but into a localized storm, turning into an amorphous creature of wind, clouds, and battering force. You tear through the area (and any people therein that you wish to strike) like a small dust storm or tornado, destroying delicate items, ripping things from their moorings, and hurling and injuring people and animals to and from. You may return to your normal form at any time; if you don't, you revert back to your physical body at the end of the scene.

Phobia

By looking into someone's eyes, you may inflict an irrational fear of a certain thing, situation, or person on them, so powerful that they can barely function if confronted with the object of their terror. Anyone who encounters their phobia will attempt to escape at all costs; if they are completely unable to do so, they are likely to try to destroy what frightens them, or to collapse and gibber in terror if they cannot. This power often provokes Frenzy in vampires and ghouls, especially those who are trapped with their phobia.

Seed of Corruption

By touching someone, you may plant a tiny seed of corruption in their mind; although they notice nothing at first, that seed begins to slowly erode their morals and inhibitions, making them increasingly more unstable and prone to acting on impulse as time goes by. Eventually, if no one is able to help them (and you don't choose to show mercy by ending this power), they lose all inhibitions and act purely on instinct, no longer constrained by any concerns for others or philosophies that would normally rein in their behavior. Vampires afflicted by this often fall into Wassail eventually, as their inability to adhere to a moral code makes it impossible for them to stabilize on a morality path.

Set's Curse

Just as you can transform your own body into a monstrous serpent, so you can now do the same to someone else, touching them to cause them to immediately and permanently become a massive snake. You may telepathically control the resulting serpent, which retains its mind and knows who it is but is helpless to resist you or your commands, becoming your faithful (if probably reluctant) servant. Snake servants of this kind are considered comparable to animal ghouls and can be fed your vitae to allow them to survive and gain strength; while they do initially retain their personality, the longer they remain trapped in this form, the more they become to slowly turn into a snake in truth, eventually after many years losing all but the most vestigial portions of their original self.

Apep's Semblance

You may transform yourself into a massive serpent, twice your usual size, and furthermore that serpent can retain features of your humanoid body as you like, creating a truly hideous abomination. Users of this power have appeared as huge snakes with human heads, as serpents with human limbs to grasp and tear at their victims, or snake-headed humanoid giants with mosntrous claws and tails. This power is extremely exhausting to use, and since it lasts until you decide to return to your original form, most who use it remain in this form until they are sure they no longer need it. As with Form of the Cobra, spending too long in this hybrid form is likely to affect your mind, making it become more and more like that of a natural (if unreasonably large) snake.

Body of the Great Lord Set

You may transform yourself into a slightly less divine copy of the dread god Set himself, for the rest of the scene walking as what appears to be a literal god on earth. You grow to approximately twenty feet tall and take on the hideous head of the Typhonic Beast, as well as gaining Set's famous terrible physical power and toughness and minor powers to create and control thunderstorms and sandstorms. Needless to say, most people will be terrified of you and prone to fleeing, and this power shatters the Masquerade instantly on use.

Cerberus's Fury

With this power, you may sprout two more heads from your shoulders on either side of your original one, each the visage of a monstrous, snapping serpent. In addition to having dangerous fangs (and being generally terrifying to those who behold them), the heads are capable of seeing beyond the veil into other realms; they can see and recognize ghosts, fairies, and magic spells that would normally be hidden from you, as well as seeing through the Obfuscate discipline.

Corruption

This power allows you to inflict a permanent, pernicious sadism on another person; from now on, they are addicted to inflicting pain and cruelty, finding it difficult to take pleasure in anything else. They find it almost impossible to pass up any opportunity to cause harm or pain, especially if they can do so especially torturously.

Heart Thief

Even a vampire's powerful physical form is not safe from you; by physically grabbing your victim's chest, you may sink your hand into it and rip their beating heart free, causing massive pain and damage as you do. The heart remains alive (or, in the case of a vampire, undead) and continues to beat, supernaturally doing its job to control the blood in your victim's body, but you can now do whatever you want with it. If the heart is staked, the vampire it belongs to is immediately paralyzed as usual even if they are nowhere near it; if the heart is severely damaged or destroyed, it causes its original owner to fall into torpor or die. Even just causing the heart casual pain with razors, impact, or electricity inflicts terrible pain on its original owner. Most users of this power use it as a sort of insurance, keeping the hearts of those they wish to control or force into something so that they cannot resist them without risking instant death.

Form of Corruption

Instead of needing to personally confront someone you wish to use Corruption on, this power allows you to imbue all the sadism and cruelty you want to instill in them into one physical object, no larger than what you could fit in your hand. Anyone who touches that object later is immediately affected by the Corruption power for the rest of the night, in essence creating a cursed object that drive others to commit horrific acts.

Godhead

You may for a single scene appear as a divine manifestation of one of the great and terrible powers of the universe; whether you choose to be the face of the fathomless ocean, the lord of the unending sky, the terror of the primordial darkness, or any other titanic force of nature, you are awe-inspiring and unstoppable. You may use any powers that make sense for the power you represent with impunity, and your divine appearance is so mind-bending that non-supernatural beings simply collapse at the sight of you, remembering very little afterward.

Pact with Ra

By bleeding sacrificially for an entire evening, you may make an offering to the great sun god that allows you freedom from his curse for a single day. The following day, you may remain awake and walk outside under the sun without fear or pain, just as if you were still alive.

Shadow of Apep

You may use this power to transform into the greatest and most terrible serpent: a minor form of Apep itself, a serpent of pure blackness and shadow the size of a large building, its coils unbelievably strong, its scales impossible to injure, and its poison capable of destroying everyone who comes before it. Mortal minds snap in half when they see it, while even the supernatural know terror they have probably seldom even dreamed of. You may only maintain this form for a single scene, and once you return to your usual form you are too exhausted to attempt it again for a full week.

Mark of Damnation

By touching someone, you may draw all the corruption and evil in their hearts to be drawn up to the surface, infesting their aura and twisting their physical appearance. Although they do not actually physically change, others perceive them as a hideous monster, reading all their evils in their appearance; mortals instantly attempt to attack them in terror whenever they encounter them, while vampires enter Frenzy as soon as they see them and other supernatural beings are similarly driven to destroy the evil they see among them. No one is given actual details on what the person you mark this way did that was so evil; they simply experience an overwhelming sense of how horrible they are and how dark their past deeds have been.

Important Things to Keep in Mind

Serpentis is almost always a massive breach of the Masquerade, and usually carries heavy consequences if used in public. It is also poorly understood and considered somewhat horrifying, so even other vampires may be made easily uncomfortable by it.