Dominate

Dominate
Clans	Canda Bhanu, Ceceya, En, Giovanni, Kalku, Lasombra, Lasombra Antitribu, Tremere, Tremere Antitribu, Ventrue, Ventrue Antitribu, Xi Dundu
Bloodlines	Apollinaire, Caitiff, Carriers, Children of Osiris, Danava, Dracul, Gaki, Kiasyd, Kolduns, Malintzin, Nagaraja, Nahualli, Panders, Rosselini, Sotoha
Sects	Anarchs, Ashirra, Camarilla, Cradle of Civilization, Drowned Legacies, Independents, Jati, Laibon, Quiet Nations, Sabbat, Shining Kingdoms, Teteoh
Rituals	None
Combination Disciplines	Dominate Combination Disciplines
Rarity	Common

Dominate is perhaps one of the most terrifying powers a vampire can control; it allows them to overwhelm and control the very will and thoughts of others, using the strength of their determination and the ironclad control of their powers to force those around them to obey their commands, do what they wish, and lose the ability to act on any free will they might still possess. Vampires with Dominate aren't necessarily all immoral puppetmasters, but there's no denying that having the power to easily control others has led many a vampire down the path of least resistance, and that those vampires who are no longer very close to Humanity often have no scruples whatsoever about stripping others of their agency.

All Dominate powers require you to make eye contact with your intended victim unless they say otherwise, and Dominate only works on vampires who are of equivalent or lesser generation than yourself; any Kindred with older blood than yours are immune to your attempts to order them around. Anyone with the same or greater Dominate than you may reverse your commands, but they must know what they are in the first place in order to do so.

Basic Powers

Cloud Memory

You can muddy their memories of the last few minutes, making them foggy and confused. They are still be able to remember the broad strokes of the situation, such as that they spoke to a friend or went to the movies, but they have serious difficulty remembering fine details or recognizing people who were there that they do not already know well.

Command

You may give any mortal or Kindred a single simple command and force them to obey it. This must be a simple command that they can attempt to complete immediately - for example, you could command someone to take off their clothes or punch the person next to them, but not to go open a bank account or travel to a foreign country. The person thus commanded is usually perfectly aware that you have forced them to take this action, especially if it's one they would not normally take, but knowing this does not help them attempt to resist.

Trance

You may place someone into a near-catatonic trance, causing them to become only vaguely aware of what is going on around them. They do nothing and notice very little while in this state, making it easy to do things around or even to them without them noticing. The trance breaks automatically if anything happens to directly threaten the trancing person's life or causes them more than trivial pain or harm.

Brainwipe

You may completely remove the last thirty seconds of a person's memories, allowing you to wipe away a recent event as soon as it happens. The person affected simply remembers nothing, and if there were no major events being interrupted to give them a clue, they may not even realize that they have forgotten anything.

Domitor's Favor

Although all ghouls are devoted to their domitors and unlikely to be able to (or even want to) upset or disobey them, you are able to make it nearly impossible for your own with this power, which prevents them from even thinking in opposition to you. Any ghoul affected by this power must spend Willpower to even attempt to even consider disobedience or disapproval toward you.

Mesmerize

You may implant triggers and images in their mind, setting up elaborate scenarios and code words in order to accomplish your goals. If you choose to set a trigger, you may give the person a single command, just as with the Command power, that they immediately fulfill when that trigger occurs; for example, you could implant a command that causes your target to immediately run and hide when they see your greatest enemy, even if they've never met that person before and have no idea why they're suddenly frightened.

Murmur of the False Will

You may implant foreign thoughts into someone that they believe are their own, affecting what they like, dislike, or even believe. This could include instilling the concepts of a religion in someone, convincing them that they are attracted to someone, or giving them an image of themself as a powerful warrior or pitiful coward. Once you have done so, they believe this as if they had thought it themself for the rest of the night; although this power ends when this sun rises, it may sometimes have lingering effects, as the person affected remembers believing strongly in these ideas and may decide to adopt them for themself.

Slavish Devotion

You can claim partial ownership over the minds of those you mentally overpower, preventing others from doing the same to countermand your orders. When you use any other Dominate powers, you can use this one as well to make it much more difficult for anyone but yourself to use Dominate on that person until either that power ceases to affect them or you voluntarily remove its effects.

Sleepwalker

You may implant triggers into your victims that specifically activate only during sleep; you may set any of your Dominate powers to activate while your victim is dreaming, making it appear to them (and others) that they simply awoke with that idea, plan, or compulsion.

Intermediate Powers

The Forgetful Mind

You may choose to erase, rewrite, or replace one person's memories, as long as you hold eye contact with them while you do so. They don't remember your meddling once you finish, and if you erased or replaced a memory, believe it to be part of their own experience as much as anything else they've been through (although anyone fishing in their minds with the Auspex Discipline might notice if the story doesn't seem to add up quite right). This power doesn't give you any information about their memories that you didn't already have, so you need to know what happened to a person before you can alter their recollection of an event. You may only meddle in the minds of Kindred of equal or higher generation than your own.

Ancestral Dominion

You may command your vampiric descendents (childer, grandchilder, and so on) without the need to make eye contact or tell them your desires out loud, relying on the power of your blood link to them to direct them instead. Your descendents are still able to tell that they are not acting under their own power, but they are unable to resist your commands until they complete them or you let them off the hook.

Conditioning

This power gives you the frightening ability to slowly brainwash someone into becoming a willing servant to you. By using it consistently over time on someone who cannot resist you, you can eventually condition them to obey your commands even when they would prefer not to, and they believe that they do so for whatever good reason they can rationalize, rather than understanding that you have altered their thoughts. Exactly how long it takes to condition someone and how thorough your control over them eventually is depends on the person and the situation, and should be agreed upon between players if you use this power on another character.

Lure of Subtle Whispers

Similar to Conditioning, this power allows you to so thoroughly condition someone that they become unable to even attempt to resist your Dominate powers. They can no longer be Dominated by anyone else, even if that person is more powerful than yourself, as long as you remain alive and out of torpor.

Rationalize

When you use another Dominate power, you can use this one to cause those you affect to believe that whatever action they take was their own idea, completely forgetting that it was you who forced them to do it. They go on to construct a mental explanation for themselves to explain what they have done, rationalizing whatever reasons they can come up with for their brief moment of madness.

Advanced Powers

Consumption

You may use this power to hollow out the very personality and soul of someone you have inhabited with Possession, destroying their free will and making them extremely easy to possess again in the future. Once you have used this power on a mortal (or animal, if you have Subsume the Beast), you may possess them again in the future without needing to pay blood to do so, as long as they can see your eyes or hear your voice. This power not only makes them easier for you to possess your victim but for others, too; everyone else who attempts to use a supernatural power to possess your victim finds it just as easy to do so.

Possession

Controlling Kindred is perfectly possible for you, but controlling mortals is child's play. You may possess and completely control any normal human being, perceiving everything they do and completely controlling all actions they take. While you do, the mortal whose body you inhabit is able to perceive what is going on but helpless to take actions of their own, and your own body is empty and vulnerable wherever you left it, and you have no knowledge or perceptions to tell you what is going on at its location. If your body is killed while you possess a mortal, you may remain in their body, although it may be difficult for you to retain a grip on your original personality while within another being's body on a permanent basis.

Terminal Decree

While most Dominate powers cannot force someone to actually harm themself, you can directly command someone to do something that will cause injury or even risk death. While most vampires use this power to force their thralls to do risky or painful things they they otherwise wouldn't, you can also directly order someone to hurt themself or even to commit suicide.

Elder Powers

Autonomic Mastery

You may command the very unconscious functions of another being's body, demanding that they fall asleep, start or stop breathing, pause blood flow, or anything else that is technically physically possible. Obviously, because your victim cannot consciously control these functions, they cannot fight against you; however, you can use this power for positive gains, such as stopping a heart attack or restoring blood flow to an injury, as well as using it to stop or harm other parts of the body.

Blinkers

Those you Dominate with this power become completely incapable of believing that you control them; no matter what evidence they are shown, they permanently believe that their actions and thoughts are their own and categorically deny that you have anything to do with them. They cannot be convinced or change their minds in any way unless this power is removed.

Chain the Psyche

While victims of Dominate can normally attempt to disobey or break free of your orders by spending Willpower, this power allows you to make it even more difficult to do so by filling them with overwhelming pain whenever they try. Those affected by this power are not actually physically injured, but they suffer hideously torturous pain anyway for as long as they try to resist you.

Command Obedience

You may now use Dominate powers by touching your victim or speaking to them, as well as by making eye contact. Doing so costs additional blood, but gives you the ability to command others who are normally immune to Dominate (for example, blind people).

Fealty

You may use this power whenever someone makes a promise to you in order to directly enforce it, making it impossible to break that promise. No matter how they try, they are simply incapable of taking any action (or failing to take an appropriate action) that would result in breaking their promise to you. Keep in mind that although your victim cannot break their word, they are only bound by the specific terms of the promise, and they can still do other adjacent things that don't technically break them.

Implanted Opinion

Just as in Murmur of the False Will, you may implant foreign thoughts into someone that they believe are their own, now permanently giving them new personality features or deeply-held beliefs. Although your victim can certainly remember that these traits or ideas are new to them, they are likely to think that they simply changed their mind or discovered something new about themself rather than suspecting the implant unless there is a good reason to believe otherwise.

Loyalty

Your Dominate commands are so powerful that even other vampires of similar skill cannot easily countermand them. Anyone trying to oppose or overturn one of your Dominate powers must spend Willpower, and if they want to stop a Dominate power with permanent effects, they have to spend permanent Willpower to do it.

Memory Block

Instead of erasing someone's memory, you can simply remove their ability to talk about or share it in any way. Your victim still remembers the incident, which can be a memory that lasts for up to one full scene, but they are completely incapable of telling anyone else about what they remember in any way.

Oberon's Grail

You may completely wipe someone's memory of all the events of an entire night, leaving behind nothing but a blank. Your victim has no idea what happened during that time, and no amount of evidence or information about it will bring any of it back. You may use this power multiple times to erase multiple nights of memories, and you don't need to know what happened on a given night to unilaterally erase all of it.

Tranquility

You may command a vampire to leave Frenzy, shutting their panic or rage down instantly. They immediately return to their normal state, although their Beast is still as active as usual and they can still Frenzy again if a powerful enough stimulus occurs.

Chain of Command

If someone you have Dominated to do something becomes incapable of doing so for any reason - for example, they are injured or incapacitated, confined, or even killed - your command immediately passes from them to another person in the same room who is capable to fulfilling it. This new person is immediately affected exactly the same as the original one and will do their best to carry out your orders (although unless you have used a power to prevent it, they are also aware that they are being controlled by an outside force). If there is no one in the same scene with your original victim who can take over their assigned duties (or no one who your Dominate could normally work on), this power fails.

Dynastic Power

You may effortlessly command all your mortal descendants, no matter how many generations removed, from a distance, using any Dominate powers that you have on them no matter where they are or how impossible to contact. You must know that a given descendant exists and have either their name or a picture of them in order to command them, and they are aware that they are acting against their will unless you use specific powers to prevent it, but they have no idea why or where these commands are coming from.

Mass Manipulation

You may use your Dominate powers on entire groups of people at once. You can still only use one power or issue one command at a time, so this power is mostly useful for causing large groups of people to act in concert rather than for ordering individuals to do different things.

Repression of the Obvious

You may force the subconscious minds of your victims to respond to you even when their very owners do not; whatever thought or memory your victim is repressing most strongly at this moment, you force them to blurt it out loud for all to hear. Since this is something that they are repressing, they are likely to be at least as shocked (if not more so) as anyone else who hears it.

Still the Mortal Flesh

You can simply order someone to die, shutting down their organs and causing their body to stop functioning on command. This obviously does not kill vampires, although it may cause them serious hindrances if they are unable to use their heart to pump blood, but it can easily murder mortals, Changelings, shapeshifters, and others who rely on their bodies to remain alive.

Strings of the Marionette

You are able to control others even when they should be helpless and unable to follow your orders; any vampire who is staked or in torpor rises up and obeys your Dominate commands in spite of being completely unable to do anything else. The vampire in question is still incapacitated and only as conscious as they would normally be, so they may not understand or remember what they are doing on your orders. This power is dangerous to use on vampires in such a state, since they are already vulnerable and can be killed more easily than usual.

Tyrant's Gaze

You may reduce the skills and effectiveness of your victim with a command, making them clumsier, more foolish, or less capable of whatever they might normally be able to do. This often manifests in your victim having difficulty in social situations, being physically weaker, and having trouble thinking their way through situations; they do not lose any memories or experience when it comes to what they usually do, but have become inexplicably less capable than they were before. They remain diminished until the sun rises.

Carry the Master's Voice

You may now issue your Dominate commands through anyone who is bloodbound to you or anyone who you are currently controlling with Dominate, allowing you to send your minions to spread your influence even when you are miles away. You must tell your thrall what message to pass on ahead of time, but once they do, it takes effect just as if you had personally been in the room using your powers.

Empowering the Puppet King

You may use this power to enforce someone else's decrees instead of your own, making it appear that they are the one whose commands are being obeyed. You must be in the same scene with someone who is giving an order to empower them, but you need not speak or make eye contact as long as they do, and if you do it subtly enough, even the person you are empowering may believe that the command came from them instead of from you.

Far Mastery

As long as you have met and communicated with a person, you may use Dominate on them no matter where or how far away in the world they are. As with most powers, your victim is aware that they are being controlled or acting out of character, but may not know anything else if they are unaware that you have this power.

Best Intentions

You may affect someone so subtly that you no longer have to give them direct orders. For the rest of the night, they act with your best interests in mind at all times, proactively doing things on your behalf and avoiding anything they suspect might upset or harm you in some way. This power does not give anyone additional information about you, so even though they do their best to act for you, they can still make mistakes if they do not realize that they are interfering in your plans or that you wouldn't like something.

Speak Through the Blood

You may exert a subtle but permanent influence over all of your vampiric descendants, no matter how many generations removed from you they are; even ghouls created by you or your childer or other descendants are susceptible. Rather than giving them direct commands or controlling their actions, you influence their thoughts from within, making them naturally act in your best interests and put your wishes first on a subconscious level, even if they have never met you. Most will have no idea that you have any control over them, although some may suspect your influence if they have similar powers themselves (although this will not help them resist you or identify what ideas did not come from their own minds).

Puppet Master

You may fully take over a person's mind, making them nothing but a permanent avatar of yourself. Their original personality is fully supressed and written over with your own; they think and behave exactly like you and under your orders, essentially giving you a permanent second body to do whatever you wish with. Puppets created this way are permanently under your absolute control, but you can only create one puppet per year due to the enormous mental strain; even ancient elders often have only a few puppets to their name, as having their consciousness split between too many different bodies can become disorienting or difficult to manage.

Important Things to Keep in Mind

Dominate literally allows players to take control of other players' characters, so always talk about using it with another player before doing so. It should never be used to ruin another player's plan or enjoyment (although ruining life for a character is totally fine). You may not always know what generation another Kindred character is, and neither does your own character, so sometimes uses of Dominate may simply fizzle if used against someone with blood too old to be affected.