Chimerstry

Chimerstry
Clans	Kinyonyi, Ravnos, Ravnos Antitribu
Bloodlines	Phuri Dae, Nephilim
Sects	Independents, Jati, Laibon, Sabbat
Rituals	None
Combination Disciplines	Chimerstry Combination Disciplines
Rarity	Rare

Chimerstry is the secret power of illusions, poorly understood by outsiders and often considered almost to be actual magic by those who have no idea what the smallest and most insular clan and its offshoots are actually capable of. Drawing from the Ravnos' roots in ancient India and centuries of spiritual beliefs honed in the forge of their tribulations, they use it to create illusions that mimic and perhaps even warp reality, confusing and misdirecting their enemies, camouflaging their true intents, and creating a little bit of reality in their own image while they're at it.

Other clans often feel threatened by Chimerstry, since its powers are indistinguishable from the real thing, and use it as another reason to discriminate against the Ravnos, but the wisest outsiders simply mind their own business and hope never to have it pointed in their direction. Kindred with the Auspex Discipline can sometimes recognize Chimerstry illusions for what they are, but this is by no means a sure thing.

Basic Powers

Ignis Fatuus

You may create a single illusion that affects only one of the senses; it could be a static, unmoving image, a single noise, a phantom taste or physical sensation, or a scent with no actual source. It remains for the rest of the scene unless you choose to banish it, and appears completely real to that single sense, although it does not seem to exist to the others (so an illusory rose might look perfectly real, but have no scent and allow hands to pass right through it). You must remain in the same room with the illusion to maintain it at all times. Should anything patently impossible happen that makes it clear that the illusion isn't real, it disappears.

Fata Morgana

Just as in Ignis Fatuus, you can create a single illusion that cannot move, but it now affects all five senses. An illusion of a moving person or playing movie is impossible, but an illusion of a very real-seeming sword, a coat rack that people absently hang their coats on in passing, or even an unmoving, staring butler in the corner are all easily accomplishable. As before, anything that makes it clear that the illusion isn't really there will break it, but this is considerably more unlikely now that all senses are affected, and you still must stay near the illusion to keep it from disappearing. Illusory weapons cannot actually injure anyone, but those struck with them still feel pain and impact as if they were, and will only realize that they weren't injured after the scene ends or the illusion is dispelled.

Intermediate Powers

Apparition

Illusions you create can now have a full range of movement, allowing illusions of people and animals to walk around and talk, illusions of machinery or electronics to appear to function just like real ones, illusiory features in the room to move appropriately with air currents and vibrations, and so on. This makes illusions far more difficult to disbelieve than earlier levels, and may cause even those with powerful Auspex not to realize that they should try to look any closer.

Permanency

You may choose, with some effort, to make your illusions permanent; they no longer vanish at the end of a scene, and continue to exist forever unless successfully dispelled (or something happens that would "destroy" them, such as an illusiory vase being thrown off a building). At this point, Chimerstry users are essentially capable of creating new things; as long as no one is powerful enough to realize that items are illusions, they might as well be as real and permanent as if you had gone out and learned to actually use glass-blowing techniques to craft a vase by hand.

Advanced Powers

Horrid Reality

You may create an alternate reality, as fantastic as you wish, that affects only a specific target; they see whatever illusions you choose to inflict on them, and these phantasms are so realistic that they confuse your victim's mind and body into believing in them so strongly that they suffer real injuries if the illusion "hurts" them. It is extremely difficult to disbelieve in this power, although it is also very taxing to use and you will likely only be able to do it once in a while.

Elder Powers

Army of Apparitions

You may create a large number of independently moving, self-running illusions just as in the Apparition power, making you capable of creating armies of people, forests of plants, or entire events that happen nowhere except in the minds of onlookers. Once created, you can control any of them directly that you wish, but the others will run themselves if ignored.

False Resonance

You may project a skilled illusion even over your mind, making those with supernatural powers misread you with their second sight. You can dictate what your aura looks like (including showing or concealing the signs of derangements, discipline use, or even diablerie, choosing what emotions it shows and whether or not it portrays you as honest in your behavior and statements. Likewise, you can create an illusory version of your very mind that anyone attempting to use Auspex or other telepathic powers encounters instead of your real thoughts, allowing you to pretend to be thinking or feeling something completely different than you actually are.

Fata Amria

You may attach a simple illusion - a haunting melody, a strange smell, a person who appears to be following but just out of sight when they turn around - to another person. Wherever they go, the illusion follows, even if you are nowhere nearby; it continues to plague them for the rest of the night, constantly distracting, upsetting, or frightening them. You may choose to end this power early if you want to show mercy, but you can also make this condition permanent with use of Permanency.

Fatuus Mastery

You have such innate mastery of your illusions that you no longer need to spend blood to create or maintain any illusions you make with Ignis Fatuus, Fata Morgana, or Apparition; simply thinking of your desired effect is enough to bring it into being. Even those powers that are more complex are easier to keep going, requiring less concentration and effort.

Horrid Blade of Demons

You may use this power and a drop of your blood to create a terrifying weapon that deals aggravated damage, as surely deadly even to the supernatural as any real object that already exists. The weapon can be anything designed specifically for violence (from knife to sword to gun to cannon), and it can be wielded by anyone, just as if it were real, for the rest of the night, after which it vanishes, leaving behind only your drying blood.

Shared Nightmare

You can now apply all the terrifying effects of Horrid Reality to anyone in the same scene with you without needing to use it on each individual person. This is often even more effective, since multiple people panicking about the same thing can help them believe in more obviously supernatural or unbelievable events in a sort of mass hysteria.

Subtle Spy

When you create an illusion with Chimerstry, you can invest it with a tiny portion of your consciousness; as long as it remains active, it observes everything around it as if it were truly alive and had senses, storing this information in the pseudo-mind you have created for it. At any time, you may visit and dissolve the illusion to learn everything it has experienced and perceived, the information as detailed as if you had been there yourself.

Truth's Essence

Sometimes there just isn't enough belief to go around, but you can give yourself an advantage with this power, which allows you to make anyone else's use of either Chimerstry or Obfuscate appear as the illusion that it is. The original user does not know who has revealed their trickery or how, and those viewing still see the illusion but are now able to recognize it as unreality and dispel it by behaving accordingly. This power does not affect your own use of any disciplines.

Aid of the Gandharvas

With this power, you may make whatever place you happen to be in right now appear to be the most luxurious, palatial location you can imagine. You are surrounded by luxurious fabrics, expensive drinks, marble, metal, silk, and anything else that is appropriate to the situation, making your location seem like an incredible expression of wealth and comfort. Anyone within the place with you can relax in the lap of luxury, but if you leave, it reverts to its usual state.

Far Fatuus

You may now project your illusions to any place you have previously been that you could perceive well enough to vizualize again later; no matter where in the world you are, your illusion can take shape there. This power does not work if the place in question has been significantly changed since you were last there (for example, a building that was demolished or a pristine beach hit by a meteor), but otherwise has no restrictions on how long ago you visited.

Mirror's Visage

You can effortlessly create a large number of duplicates of yourself, each of them acting exactly like you while they move and make decisions independently. You can direct your clones if you want to, but otherwise they act authentically like you on their own. Obviously, this power can make it impossible for others to find the real you in a crowd, but you can also use it to appear to be in multiple places at the same time if you dispatch your clones to different locations. The clones all automatically disappear at sunrise, and you do not gain any specific information about where they are or what they are doing unless you use other powers that allow it.

Suspension of Disbelief

Not only are even your most improbable illusions much more believable than they would be from others, making it very difficult to disbelieve even bizarre and unreal images, but you can also make what is real seem completely unreal, heavily skewing everyone's perceptions of reality. You can still tell the difference yourself, but others are at your mercy.

Fantasy World

By touching a person, even only slightly, you may place them in an elaborate illusiory mental world that only they can perceive. They are utterly convinced by this world and act as if what is happening there is reality, often appearing to behave nonsensically in the real world, which they are incapable of recognizing while this power is in effect. This power can be used benignly to help others escape from frightening or painful situations to somewhere better, but it can also be a way to trap enemies in terrifying nightmares from which there is no mistake, or to simply walk right off of cliffs or into machinery that they can no longer see is right in front of them. The fantasy remains active, changing organically according to the needs of your victim, for the rest of the scene.

Occlusion

Instead of creating specific illusions, this power allows you to go straight to the source, controlling the senses of everyone around you. You can dull their senses so that they notice much less, inflict overwhelming sensation by turning the gain up far higher than usual, or even rewire things completely, making your victims translate certain colors, scents, tastes, and so on into something other than what everyone else in the world experiences. This power is often used to simply prevent others from noticing things that would be inconvenient, but it is also a potent way of heightening pleasure during good times or pain during combat or torture.

Pseudo Blindness

You are so attuned to illusion and flim-flammery that it is nearly impossible to fool you with them. For the rest of the scene, you automatically recognize lies and misdirections, can tell what shapeshifters look like in their natural forms, and see through any supernatural power that is of lower level than this one.

Sensory Overload

You may instantly incapacitate someone by turning all of their perceptions up to excruciating heights; whispers sound like piercing screams, the dimmest lights are blindingly bright, and even minor aches and pains become screaming agony. Anyone affected by this power can take no actions except for gibbering and trying to avoid all stimuli and gains a derangement for the rest of the night (or, if you use Permanency, permanently), even after the scene ends and their perceptions return to normal.

Visions from the Asura

You may bombard a victim with a succession of bizarre, fully immersive illusions, each more strange than the last, which afflict them at random and continually through the rest of the night. Your victim is unable to tell which episodes are real and which are not, making them likely to act bizarrely to onlookers and putting them in danger of harming themself and others.

Mayaparisatya

With this power, you are so potent that there is no longer any difference between reality and illusion for you, both of them becoming your playthings to be shaped at will. If you create an illusion (or encounter one someone else has created), you may cause it to become completely real for the rest of the night; it can no longer be dispelled or seen through and is in every way as real as anything else in existence. Alternatively, you can turn a real person or thing into an illusion, alter its features as if reality were malleable clay, or even erase it completely for existence as if it had never been; others may remember it, but it has simply completely ceased to be.

Sensory Deprivation

By touching someone, you may completely lock down all of their senses, plunging them into total sensory deprivation; they cannot use any of their normal physical senses, and powers that would normally grant senses completely fail to work. Needless to say, this power is overwhelming and terrifying for anyone it is used on, and victims often gain permanent derangements or severely harm themselves while affected by it.

Truths of the Universe

You may now convert your illusions into true, incontrovertible reality. Any illusion that you choose becomes completely real permanently, allowing you to literally create people, creatures, objects, or structures with the power of your imagination alone.

Reality

You may create an entire permanent alternate reality, as convincing as the real world; it is essentially a pocket universe, separate from the real world and operating according to whatever rules and containing whatever places and beings you choose. You may trap a single victim in this reality permanently; they cannot escape back to the real world (if they even recognize that they are in another reality), and no one can enter that reality without being placed there by you. Anyone trapped in this other universe vanishes completely from the real world, their fate undiscoverable unless you choose to return them.

Important Things to Keep in Mind

Chimerstry works around the power of belief; if an illusion seems legitimate, someone viewing it will reinforce it with their own expectations, but if an illusion seems outlandish or impossible, onlookers may automatically try to disbelieve it. Especially unrealistic or unreasonable illusions - for example, a dragon laying waste to the capitol building, or Kindred suddenly turning into glowing white angels - have a much higher chance of failing than ones that allow their targets the option of perhaps believing in what they see before them.

Because Chimerstry is especially commonly associated with Clan Ravnos, anyone who recognizes it is likely to assume that those who wield these powers are Ravnos by default. This may be especially of concern in Camarilla territories, where the Ravnos are often discriminated against or forcibly ejected from the area.