Valeren

Valeran

Valeren
Clans	Salubri, Salubri Antitribu
Bloodlines	Kin-Slayers, Wu Zao
Sects	Ashirra, Independents, Sabbat, Shining Kingdoms
Rituals	None
Combination Disciplines	Valeren Combination Disciplines
Rarity	Rare

Basic Powers

Sense Death

You may sense how healthy a person is simply by being near them; you can tell if they are hungry, injured, distressed, ill, or anything else that might explain how well they are and what their problems are. You sense these things foggily, like sensations on your own body, although they do not truly affect or harm you.

Morphean Blow

You may knock an enemy unconscious for a brief period of time by striking them with a hand or other body part; they instantly collapse to the ground as if peacefully asleep when you do. Your victim remains asleep for the rest of the scene, after which they awaken refreshed (if probably confused); however, if they are hurt in any way, or if a sufficient noise or catastrophe such as an air raid siren or an earthquake occurs, they awaken immediately.

Peaceful Touch

You may quiet an enemy's hostility with a touch, making it difficult for them to remain angry or violent. They are unable to attack or attempt to harm you for the next minute until they work their nerve back up again.

Intermediate Powers

Burning Touch

By touching your victim, you can inflict a sensation of sudden, burning agony that sweeps across their skin and cannot be escaped. The feeling is similar to being burned and lasts for only a moment, but that is usually more than enough to briefly incapacitate mortals or cause vampires to enter Rötschreck as they feel their undead flesh seem to burn.

Pariah's Caress

By placing a bit of your blood on someone's skin, you cause it to sink indelibly into their skin; this might be anything from a noticeable painted mark to a single freckle-like dot. For the rest of the night, your marked victim becomes a pariah to others, who respond to them as if there were something unsettling or uncomfortable about them; while there is nothing they can quite put their finger on, they do not like interacting with your victim and may even become hostile if they cannot avoid them. Your victim cannot prevent this effect, not even by hiding the mark from sight (if they know it is there in the first place).

Armor of Caine's Fury

You may externalize your essence to create a spiritual armor that surrounds you, protecting you from harm and keeping your emotions on an even keel. You have a much easier time avoiding entering Frenzy while in this state than usual, and you cannot be harmed by mortal means; only supernatural powers can hurt you.

Advanced Powers

Soul's Breath

You may draw out nourishment from the very breaths of your victims. By breathing in someone's breath, you may steal their blood, drawn up into your own mouth in a fine mist; not only can you feed easily from mortals in this way without having to bite them, you can also steal the blood of other supernatural creatures, allowing you to briefly use any basic disciplines or simple powers they possess. Of course, using this power on another vampire will result in a blood bond.

Vengeance of Samiel

You may concentrate, doing else nothing for at least thirty seconds as you focus all your strength and power into a single moment; at the end of this time, you may strike at your enemy in a physical attack that is devastatingly powerful and cannot be avoided, dodged, or ignored by anything, even other supernatural powers.

Elder Powers

Blissful Agony

You may touch someone and inflict immediate, systemic agony on them. The pain is overwhelming and has no apparent cause, and while it does not actually injure your victim, the longer it lasts, the more likely they are to harm themself in their struggle or, if they are a vampire, enter a fear Frenzy. You must continue to touch your victim for the entire time you wish them to remain in pain (which may prove challenging since they are likely to be doing their absolute best to escape).

Dream Combat

Instead of fighting in the physical world, where your enemy may call up allies or use familiarity with the landscape to their advantage, you may drag them into a dreamscape of your own making, an arena with no purpose except to serve as your battlefield. This dreamscape has no real defining features except for a completely even playing field for both combatants. Your opponent cannot escape the dreamworld without either killing or being released by you. During this time, you exist on a spiritual plane; no one in the physical world can perceive or interact with you or your opponent unless they have powers that allow them to cross over to where you are.

Watching the Passage

With this power, those you defeat become a part of you, making you more powerful with each enemy you destroy. When you personally kill someone, you may spend a minute meditating with their body at the moment of death; if you do, you gain permanent knowledge and skills that they possessed, whatever you are currently least skilled in. You also regain energy from this process, swallowing a little of your victim's life energy to regain Willpower.

Aversion

You may mark a victim with your blood, just as in Pariah's Caress, but when you do you cause much widerspread dislike and horror of that person to all who encounter them. They become seriously endangered in any large group of people, which is likely to turn on them with the ferocity of an angry mob, and even one-on-one interactions become almost impossible as even those who normally like or love your victim are severely distressed by their presence.

Fiery Agony

You may now touch someone to cause them incredible pain, just as in Burning Touch, except that once you have done so you no longer need to remain in physical contact with them. All you need to continue to torture them is to keep your gaze on them; if you stop looking at them at any point, they are released from the hellish pain. In addition, vampires now automatically enter Rötschreck, although this unfortunately does not save them from their suffering.

Sword of the Righteous

By coating a blade with some of your blood, you may turn it into a weapon of heavenly authority and righteousness; it lights with heavenly flame as soon as you draw it against an enemy, and deals aggravated damage to anyone it strikes.

Shadow of Taint

You may touch a person to purge them of all unholy influences. If they are affected by any demonic powers, those effects are immediately and permanently destroyed; if they are actually possessed by a demon, that demon is ejected from their body. You may choose where the demon goes, binding it into a nearby object, animal, or other person, who becomes its new host for at least the rest of the night before it is able to attempt to move elsewhere.

Song of the Blooded

You may enter a trance, becoming focused on nothing except for impending battle: for the rest of the scene, you are an unbelievable physical dynamo, extremely dangerous even to other elder vampires, and you are surrounded with an almost unbearable glowing halo of light, blinding any onlookers less powerful than yourself. You are immune to any disciplines that would affect your mind (such as Auspex or Dominate) while in this state, but you are also unable to concentrate on anything but violence; if you try to do anything except for fighting during this scene, you are ineffective and unskilled at it.

Soul Exchange

By touching two living or undead beings, you may exchange the most important features of their souls between their bodies; while they do not actually switch bodies themselves, they exchange Natures, Virtues, and mortality paths. While they retain all their original memories and personality, they are likely to drastically change in the future as they discover that they have brand-new and unfamiliar personal drives and values.

Heaven's Gate

You may touch a mortal who has died in the last half hour and prevent them from fully departing this world; instead, you raise them back up again as a Revenant. The returned revenant remembers everything, including their death, and is automatically bloodbound to you, remaining permanently in this state unless they are killed again.

Important Things to Keep in Mind

Valeren is a very rare discipline, but even more importantly it is also one that many vampires consider anathema to their very existence as damned creatures who belong to the darkness. Since it was developed primarily to combat the depredations of demons, it marks its users as potential targets of those powers, which are generally highly dangerous even to vampires; flashy or frequent use of Valeren is practically begging for demonic entities to set up shop in the area and start trying to hunt you down.