Auspex

Auspex

Auspex
Clans	Bak-Ra, Baykosh, Canda Bhanu, Cappadocians, Iltani Jharana, Kinnaree, Lëpweokàn, Lostundo, Lygos, Malkavians, Malkavian Antitribu, Naglopers, Osebo, Salubri, Salubri Antitribu, Titlacauan, Toreador, Toreador Antitribu, Tremere, Tremere Antitribu, Tzimisce, Tzimisce Antitribu
Bloodlines	Ananke, Caitiff, Calacas, Carriers, Children of Damballah, Coconeh Pochtli, Dracul, Dunsirns, Harbingers of Skulls, Khaibit, Kin-Slayers, Kolduns, Kuufukuji, Mla Watu, Naditu, Nagaraja, Nepheshim, Nephilim, Nictuku, Nkulu Zao, Noiades, Panders, Phuri Dae, Pisanobs, Putanesca, Qedeshah, Sta-Au, Telyavs, Usiri, Viziers, Volgirre, Wu Zao
Sects	Anarchs, Ashirra, Camarilla, Cradle of Civilization, Drowned Legacies, Independents, Jati, Laibon, Quiet Nations, Sabbat, Shining Kingdoms, Teteoh
Rituals	None
Combination Disciplines	Auspex Combination Disciplines
Rarity	Common

Auspex allows Kindred to tap into secret senses undreamt of by mortals, perceiving and interacting with realms hidden to all others. Whether it's subtle emotional maneuvering, supernatural powers, or realms beyond normal mortal ken, a Kindred with Auspex may be able to see into their secrets and take that information with them. When a vampire uses Auspex, they extend their senses beyond the limits of mortality. Not only can they sense minute details and hear thoughts as if spoken aloud, but they may be able to find even subtler traces of the supernatural that others - even other vampires - are not aware exist.

Some vampires with Auspex are venerated as wise seers, while others might be thought of as distracted dreamers or ranting lunatics. No matter what anyone thinks of them, all of them know and see more than anyone else could hope to do.

Basic Powers

Ancestors' Vigilance

You may perceive ghosts, including Wraiths and Spectres, in your vicinity for the remainder of the scene, should there be any nearby. This does not necessarily make them friendly or inclined to talk to you, although less aggressive spirits may be curious about a corporeal being that can perceive and speak to them.

City Attunement

You may become one with your city, attuning yourself to a certain area so that you experience what happens there as if you were present. By choosing a building, lot, or up to one block of a street, you become permanently tied to it; you gain an additional sense, mentally experiencing activity in that area as if you were the street or building yourself. This may become traumatic if you are linked to an area that is damaged or destroyed, and you may end this power if you wish, although you must use this power again if you wish to regain a connection to the place later. You may be attuned to only one area at a time; if you choose a new one, any previous ones simply vanish. You must be in a town or city with a population of at least a thousand people to use this power.

Heightened Senses

You may elevate one sense of your choice to superhuman heights; doing so might allow you to hear sounds normally beyond human range, see colors and spectrums hidden from mortal eyes, follow a scent trail that would be lost to most, or raise a touch sensation to exquisite heights. The sense remains heightened for the rest of the scene, although you may turn it off early (which you may need to do if especially overpowering stimuli begin to cause sensory overload).

An Ear for Lies

You may instinctively sense when someone lies to you, recognizing the subtle signs in others' behavior and spirit. This does not necessarily tell you what the truth of a matter is, but you will be able to tell what exactly is not true. You remain able to sense lies for the rest of the scene.

Aura Perception

You may perceive the aura of one living being near you for the rest of the scene, learning secret information that even they may not be aware of. Vampires, fairies, and shapeshifters are easily distinguishable from mortals due to their differing auras, and you may read their emotional state, including whether or not they are currently lying about something, in the colors of their aura. Any Kindred who has committed diablerie will also be visible by way of black veins in their aura, and any magical being (such as a fairy or magical construct) will light up in your second sight as well.

Sense Vibrations

You can tell what a person's most intense emotion is at the moment, identifying who is furious, delighted, or miserable. This does not give you any insight into why they feel that way, but you may be able to investigate or encourage the emotion once you have identified it.

Intermediate Powers

Annals of Death

You may instinctively sense the cycles of history itself, reading the most significant and bloody history of your location by learning who died and how in this place, all the way back to ancient times. This includes the Embrace of any vampires as well as true deaths. Furthermore, you can then extrapolate who is likely to die here next - whether in general terms such as "a young girl who is targeted by a serial killer" or specific ones such as "the Ventrue Primogen".

Artist's Intent

By examining a piece of art or a performance, you may learn the emotional state of the artists when they created it, and discover any specific intentions they had in doing so. This does not give you any information about the artist's current whereabouts or thoughts, only those that were present when they were working on their masterpiece.

Incriminating Evidence

You may use this power to seek out especially secret or hidden knowledge, ignoring unimportant and common information in your quest for the truth. By choosing one living or undead being and attempting to read their Beast, you gain several clues that lead you toward a secret that they are attempting to hide. You do not gain knowledge of the secret unless you successfully manage to investigate these clues, and you have no way of knowing which secrets are benign (for example, a trans person who is closeted from fear of reprisal) and which are malignant (for example, a serial killer who has commiteed murders) until you find out more. Secrets discovered with this power are always significant; minor secrets such as birthday surprises or dyed hair do not qualify. You can only use this power on a given person to discover the same secret once; using it again will not yield more clues (although it might turn up evidence of a different secret).

Share the Senses

You may link yourself to another person by touching them, allowing you to perceive through their senses as well as your own for the rest or the scene. This does not allow you to read any other information about them or control their actions.

Spirit Ties

You may learn information about a corporeal being by touching some of their body - skin cells, hair, bodily fluids, or anything else you can come into contact with. You may learn the state of their health, their general location, how well-fed they are if they are Kindred, and what their species or supernatural type is.

The Spirit's Touch

By touching an object, you may see brief flashes of the most emotionally-laden events that have occurred around it over the course of its existence, potentially seeing its involvement in events that you otherwise could not know about. This does not necessarily give you information about the scenes you want it to if there are other more important ones in the object's history, and once you have read an item's history, you may not do so for the same object again.

Ancestors' Insight

You may implant a foreign thought into someone's mind, making them believe that they thought it themself (although you have no control over what they do next or why they believe the idea came to them). This thought must be short enough to be completed within a few seconds, and although it does not have to be understandable to the person who receives, it the stranger it is, the more likely they will be to ignore or suspect it.

Telepathy

You may eavesdrop on another person's thoughts, "hearing" anything that they think on an idle surface level. If you are stronger of mind than they are, you may also seek out certain information that they know, or replay their memories and watch them like a movie. You may directly communicate only a brief thought or sentence, although they may feel vague thoughts or emotions from you while you are scanning their minds; those who also have this power may recognize that you are in their minds, and attempt to shut you out if they do. You may not view any situations through your target's perceptions, so while their surface thoughts may tell you what they're doing, they also may only contain obscure clues.

Advanced Powers

Mother's Mind

You may leave your body as with Psychic Projection, spiritually traveling through the city; when you do, you are led unerringly to a threat to the city's safety, allowing you to psychically identify dangerous people and incoming disasters before they happen. Although you are spiritually drawn to the person or situation that is dangerous to the city as a whole, you are still in an astrally projected state and cannot directly interact with them unless you have additional powers that allow you to do so. You must actually be in a village, town, or city with at least a thousand inhabitants to use this power, and if there is nothing that threatens the city as a whole, this power simply fails to work.

Psychic Projection

You may leave your body and travel as a spirit to any place you have been before at the speed of thought, perceiving all events at that location in real-time. You may remain in this state as long as you wish, but while you do your body is unconscious and vulnerable wherever it has been left, and you can perceive nothing happening there in any way (unless you place your projection there, of course). If your body is killed while you are not in it, your spirit may remain free to wander, but it is unlikely that it will survive long, especially since the world of the Wraiths will begin to exert pressure to pull it into the shadows forever.

Spirit Travel

You may leave your body in order to explore other spiritual worlds, including the Umbra, the Spirit Wilds, and the Astral Planes. Doing so leaves your body vulnerable as in the Psychic Projection power, and while you may be able to learn incredible knowledge in such far realms from humanity, there are also strange, incomprehensible dwellers on these planes that make venturing too far into them perilous in the extreme.

Elder Powers

Babble

You may telepathically contact someone you have met before even if they are too far away for Telepathy, and may include multiple people in the conversation, allowing them to all speak to one another as well as to you; however, this manifests as an audible conversation around every person involved, whether the other participants are near them or not. Since you all actually hear one another audibly, this power can be difficult to use for those who are hearing impaired, and secrets may be overheard by others who are close enough to hear the babble surrounding you.

Celestial Harmony

You may open your mind to the thoughts of a crowd of people, reading the mass of emotions and surface thoughts that surround you all at once. This power can only read the thoughts of others who are in the same scene with you, and lasts for the rest of the scene, although you may end it early if you choose to.

Cipher

You are able to read a single language or code automatically, drawing the knowledge of its construction from deep in your shared subconscious. This language cannot be magical in nature (for example, Thaumaturgical runes) and must actually mean something (gibberish will still be gibberish). You may read a single line, sentence, or section of code each time you use this power.

Clairvoyance

You may scry upon a distant location, perceiving everything that is happening there as if you were present yourself. You must have been to this location before and be conscious in order to use this power, and while you do, your senses at your current location are severely dulled, making it difficult to understand or concentrate on anything happening around your physical body. You may continue to perceive this location at a distance for the rest of the scene, unless you choose to end the power early; if you want to perceive a different location, you must use this power again. Although you are not actually projected to this distant location, others there who also have Auspex may be able to sense that someone is watching, even if they don't know who or how.

Crocodile's Tongue

You know exactly what others want to hear, reading all their subtle psychic signals. You automatically know what one other person wants to hear from you at this exact moment as well as how to deliver it to maximum effect.

Discern the Aura

You may simultaneously read the auras of a group of people, searching for a single element such as an emotion, truthfulness, or pain or injury. You must choose which element you are looking for ahead of time, and although you will be able to identify anyone who has that element, you do not gain any additional information about it.

The Dreaming

You may distantly sense events around your body even while in torpor. You are still unable to move or interact, but you can perceive especially notable events, movements, or people who may be in the same scene with your body.

Eagle's Sight

You may extend your senses upward, becoming able to perceive the area around you from a bird's-eye view instead of your usual limited vantage point. Much like a real eagle, you are still unable to see through obstacles such as tree cover or roofs, and your area of perception moves with you, centering on your body and extending as far in every direction as you could normally perceive.

Genius Loci

You are able to tap into the spiritual vibrations and residue of a place, drawing information and mental power as you do. As long as you meditate in a place with especially high resonance or in which powerful or emotional events took place, you can witness those events play back around you as if you were there when they occurred.

Ghost Skin

While most vampires, even with powerful Auspex, can only travel the mortal spiritual plane, you can actually slip past the veil and into the realm of the truly dead, becoming in essence a Wraith. You have the same physical capabilities as your usual body does, and if anything damages your makeshift corpus enough to kill you, your real body is destroyed as well. While you are in the world of the dead, you can communicate and interact with all kinds of ghosts, who are likely to perceive you as one of their own (similarly, anyone who can perceive ghosts will probably assume that you are one). Your body remains inactive and vulnerable while you are no longer in it, and you risk the same dangers (such as the Maelstrom) that any ghost does until you return to it. If you remain outside of your body too long, you may become permanently trapped as a true Wraith.

Horoscopic Forecast

You may glimpse a tiny sliver of another person's future by touching them. The glimpse lasts for onle about thirty seconds to a minute of time and centers on the person you are touching, although you may see others who are involved if relevant. You have no control over what part of their future or how far away it is, nor do you gain insight into how those events came to pass beyond what you can guess on your own.

Insight of the Talespinner

You are a master storyteller and may create a flawlessly compelling story with detailed characters and a complex plot on the spot, tailoring it to the psychic wants of your audience so that it has maximum impact. The story must be one that draws from your personal experience or knowledge, but can be anything else that you can imagine.

The Mind Revealed

You may attach your mind to another person's, continuously monitoring their active thoughts and emotions as if they were spoken aloud. You may continue to perceive their thoughts for the rest of the scene; if you wish to switch to another person, you must use this power again.

Prediction

You may read someone else's next planned sentence or action in a social situation a split second before they say it, allowing you to socially outwit them by always being one step ahead. This power only lets you know their very next reaction or statement, and only in social situations; if they cease to interact or violence erupts, this power cannot be used.

Sense Emotion

You may sense the emotions of everyone you touch for the rest of the scene, instinctively recognizing how they feel no matter how complex their feelings or how they attempt to disguise them. You do not gain any specific information about why they feel that way, simply that they do. If you wish to stop sensing emotions early, you may do so.

Spirit Bond

You may create a spiritual bond with an item, investing a little of your consciousness into it so that you can always sense what direction it is in and where to go in order to find it. You do not necessarily know exactly where it is or what is happening to it, but you can always home in on it as if directed by an inbuilt compass.

Telepathic Communication

You may speak telepathically with someone you have previously met even if they would normally be too far away for you to use Telepathy on them. As with all telepathic communication, they cannot necessarily answer you without Auspex of their own, although you may be able to communicate rudimentarily by reading their surface thoughts and emotions.

Anima Gathering

When you use Psychic Projection or Spirit Travel, you may pull the spirits of others free to travel with you, keeping them connected to you for as long as you are outside of your body. You may travel any distance or to any realm you normally can with others in tow; they may split off from you only if they possess Psychic Projection or Spirit Travel themselves. Once you return to your body, they are automatically returned as well (as long as nothing prevents them). You may only take willing travelers along with you; this power cannot force anyone to leave their body.

Ecstatic Agony

You may heighten your ability to feel pain, granting yourself a powerful adrenaline surge that allows you to become stronger, faster, and more overall physically capable. The more pain you are in, the stronger you become, although this does not prevent you from eventually falling into incapacitation or torpor if you are too severely wounded. This power lasts for the rest of the scene and may not be shut off early.

Karmic Sight

You may read all of a single person's karmic landscape by touching them, allowing you to read their aura, sense details of their personality, recognize their Humanity or other morality path, and any other related information. You do not learn personal details of the person's past or how they came to be this way, just who they are now.

Melange

You may read the truth of any conversation through the attempts of those discussing to hide, obscure, lie, or cloak it in metaphor. Those speaking are unaware that you are perceiving their true intentions and thoughts. This power lasts for the space of a single conversation or a single scene, whichever ends first.

Mirror Reflex

You may read an enemy's intentions in combat, spying their next move in their mind a moment before they make it in order to pre-emptively dodge or counterstrike. This power only allows you to see their very next action, and only in a violent situation; if they stop struggling and begin to think about things other than fighting, you may no longer read their thoughts without using a different power.

Personality Metamorph

You may flawlessly substitute a fictional personality for your own for one scene; you legitimately think and feel the way that person would, as well as reading as that person to anyone who looks at your aura and having any applicable false memories that might be appropriate. Once this power ends, your original personality resurfaces and takes control.

Pluck the Secret

You may pull a specific secret out of the mind of another person, who is unaware of your interference except for thinking that they suddenly thought about the answer as if it had occurred to them naturally. You may only gain the answer to one specific question, and this power has no effect if the person you use it on does not actually know the answer.

Spirit Link

You may link multiple people into a single telepathic conversation, allowing even others who do not have Auspex to speak mind to mind with your help. All those you wish to connect must be in the same scene together; they may speak among one another and with you, but not to anyone you did not use this power on, and as soon as you choose to break the link, they are no longer able to converse unless they use their own Auspex powers.

Stealing the Mind's Eye

You may embed your consciousness within another person's, becoming able to use all their senses as if they were your own. If you share any Disciplines with them, you may even use them through them, spending their blood to do so, but this runs the risk of being noticed if you are trying to remain undercover within them. Your consciousness remains within theirs for the rest of the scene, or until you (or they, if they have appropriate powers) choose to withdraw.

Supernal Awareness

You may sense major events from great distances, becoming instantly alerted to natural disasters, major political coups, and magical events even if they happen on the other side of the world. You are not able to focus and pick and choose what to become aware of, nor do you notice anything with this power that is not of large-scale importance.

The Call

You may call a clan gathering of all vampires who are connected to the Madness Network, provided that you are connected to it yourself. Vampires who do not have a connection to the Network are automatically unable to hear or use this power.

Omniscience

You may absorb the personalities and identities of every living or undead creature around you, gaining instant, comprehensive, and intimate knowledge of who they are, how they think and feel, and how they are likely to react to things. This power can only read the current state of the beings around you, not their long-term or permanent features, although there may be significant overlap.

The Oracle's Sight

You may automatically eavesdrop on the thoughts of every other living or undead being in the scene with you, hearing all surface thoughts as if spoken aloud for the rest of the scene. This power can be overwhelming in large groups, where the sheer number of thoughts may have an effect similar to a large crowd all speaking at once.

Psychic Assault

You may batter at another person's psyche with a powerful mental pulse, dealing them significant pain and distress without laying a finger on them. Although it is possible to kill a mortal in this way, you can only knock a supernatural creature into unconsciousness or torpor, regardless of how much pain you inflict on them.

False Slumber

You may use the Psychic Projection or Spirit Travel power while in torpor, allowing you to leave your body behind to rest without actually succumbing to unconsciousness. Others inspecting your body will find it to appear inert as usual unless they have enough Auspex themselves to tell that your aura no longer surrounds it.

Master of the Dom

You may merge your spirit with the very landscape around you, leaving your body behind as you do. Once you have inhabited the area, you may perceive everything that happens in a several-mile radius from your body with clarity as well as being able to read and subtly influence the minds and auras of all living and undead creatures within that area. Your body remains unconscious and vulnerable while you are inhabiting the land; as with other powers in which you leave your body, you may remain inhabiting the landscape for as long as you wish, but the longer you are out of your body, the harder it is to return and the more likely it is that you may become a permanent ghost haunting the area.

Precognition

You may gain a glimpse of the future in a specific time and place, seeing thirty seconds to a minute of events that will take place later. You must be present in the place whose future you want to see, and you only gain knowledge of a very short window of time, which may actually take place anywhere from a few days from now to years in the future.

Sight of the Oracle

You may extend your senses to a massive level, allowing you to sense the surface thoughts and emotions of everyone in the scene with you, extending your senses as if using the Heightened Senses power, and becoming prone to glimpses of both past and future events occurring in the area or around the people who are near you. This power is often considered extremely overwhelming even for skilled elders, and is usually used only carefully and occasionally to gather large amounts of information very quickly.

Pulse of the Canaille

You may read the attitudes and intentions of large groups of mortals, divining what they are likely to do in the near future and why. In addition to learning about the crowd's mood and intentions, you may also learn whether any supernatural beings are controlling or influencing it and what their intentions are (although not specifically who they are).

Important Things to Keep in Mind

Auspex only provides information, not action, and cannot be used to force anyone to do anything (outside of good old-fashioned blackmail, of course). Information gleaned from Auspex is often biased based on from whom it was taken and what they were thinking or feeling at the time, so although it can provide important insight, it is not always fully reliable and can also feed a Kindred misinformation.