The Bone Path

The Bone Path is concerned primarily with corpses and the methods by which dead souls can be restored to the living world - temporarily or otherwise.

Basic:

1: Tremens:
The Necromancer can instill a corpse with a brief jolt of life. Though this power is insufficient to actually animate or control bodies, you can make them start or twitch spasmodically. Naturally, this sight frightens those unaccustomed to the mobile dead. The body then twitches or moves briefly in a fashion that you dictate, from sitting up and blinking to flailing an arm momentarily. With a little extra concentration, the Necromancer can implant a command into the corpse instead, causing it to move (once only) as you direct when a certain event comes to pass. Corpses twitching in this fashion cannot actually attack or inflict damage, but they can certainly startle the unwary.


2: Apprentices Brooms:
This level of Skill in the Bone Path allow the Necromancer to animate the dead, bringing ambulatory motion and a semblance of understanding to a cold corpse. Though they cannot fight, these zombies follow simple instruction, performing tasks that are set to them. Corpses animated with this discipline cannot fight, but perform the single task as directed until they complete the job or until time or damage destroys them. Cadavers continue to rot, slowly, even after beings imbued with this energy.


Intermediate:


3: Shambling Hordes:
When you raise the dead to do your bidding, they come in skeletal hordes and withered masses that obey your every command, working and fighting until destroyed. Any body, no matter how decomposed, can be raised to serve your will. As long as the skeleton is reasonably intact, the corpse rises to do your bidding. Such guardians can perform tasks or fight for you with no regard to their own welfare. They can be given orders to attack people or to guard an area, and they wait tirelessly until destroyed. Decomposition will continue for corpses in varying states of decay, although completely skeletal guardians will be unaffected.


4: Soul Stealing:
Your mastery of animated flesh and spirit allows you to pull the soul from a living or undead body. With Soul Stealing, you draw out the victim's soul, drawing it into yourself harmlessly (for you), or turning it temporarily into a wraith while leaving the body as an empty husk.


Advanced:


5: Daemonic Possession:
Daemonic Possession lets a vampire insert a soul into a freshly dead body and inhabit it for the duration. This does not turn the reanimated corpse into anything other than a reanimated corpse, and one that will irrevocably decay after a week, but it does give either a wraith or a free-floating soul (say, that of a vampire using Psychic Projection) a temporary home in the physical world.The body in question must be no more than 30 minutes dead, and the new tenant must agree to inhabit it. Should the vampire, for whatever reason, wish to insert a soul into another vampire's corpse (before it crumbles to ash), this takes 5 turns. The soul can use whatever physical abilities (Dodge, Brawl, Potence) his new home possesses, and whatever mental abilities (Computer, Law, Presence) he possesses in his current existence. He cannot use the physical abilities of his old form, or the mental abilities of his new one.

The Ash Path

Basic:

1: Shroudsight:
With minimal effort, you can see the Shroud that separates the world of the living from the lands of the dead. The Underworld appears as a decaying and ghastly reflection of the mortal world, sometimes with structures lost to the past or unusual spirits flying about. You can see (though not hear or feel) anything that transpires in the Underworld within your normal visual range, with a sort of “double sight” that does not hinder your normal vision.


2: Lifeless Tongues:
The babble of restless spirits is clear to you. By concentrating for a moment, you attune your senses to the Underworld, making yourself capable of both seeing and hearing all that transpires there around you. Furthermore, you can understand the language of the dead, so unless a ghost goes out of the way to use a language that you do not know, you can comprehend the words of any wraith.


Intermediate:


3: Dead Hand:
The structures and entities of the Underworld are very real to you. In a bizarre sort of half-life, you can stretch your physical form across the Shroud, interacting with beings and scenery there even as your physical body remains partially in the living world. During this time, you do not actually pierce the Shroud, but your actions affect both worlds. Thus, you can climb a ghostly rope, then turn and step onto a real-world roof. You can also lash out physically and strike or grapple with ghosts, though they can return the attacks. However, you cannot push or pull objects from one world to the next. Effectively, you exist in both realms simultaneously, which can be very disturbing to those watching you climb invisible ropes or grapple unseen opponents.


4: Ex Nihilo:
Tearing through the Shroud between worlds, you can cross into the land of the dead. This journey is a harrowing one, for many spirits wait to take vengeance on necromancers, and the Underworld is full of hazards unknown to most Vampires. Furthermore, there is no way to gather blood or sustenance in the Underworld and you can become lost in the storms and seas of the deadlands. Still, this discipline allows for direct contact with shades of the restless and it serves as an unusual means of travel. While you are in the Underworld, you still see everything that transpires in the mortal world, but your physical form exists in the realm of the dead.


Advanced:


5: Shroud Mastery:
Your control over the barrier between the living and dead worlds is nearly absolute. Instead of stepping across or watching the events of the Underworld, you can actually manipulate the fabric of the Shroud. By changing the strength of the web between worlds, you can make it easier to cross, or bar wraiths from exerting their influence on the material world.

The Cenotaph Path

A necromancer using this art, created by the African branch of the family, the Ghiberti, finds it much easier to deal with wraiths, as he can find their fetters rather effectively, and also create new, temporary ones. He may also detect the recent influence of wraiths in an area.

Basic:

1: Touch of Death:
Just as a Necromancer may exert mastery over the Shadowlands, so too can some ghosts exert themselves in the mortal world. Whereas obvious displays of wraithly powers such as bleeding walls or disembodied moans certainly won't be mistaken, some ghostly abilities exert subtle effects that aren't easily recognised. A Necromancer sensitized to the residue of the dead, though, can feel whether an object has been touched by a ghost or sense the recent passage of a wraith. This path was, like some others, was pilfered by the Nagaraja from Giovanni souls and tomes.


2: Reveal the Catene:
Necromantic compulsions function much more effectively when the caster uses an object of significance to the ghost in question. With this power the Necromancer is able to determine a fetter with just a simple run of his or her fingers over the object and concentrates on it. He or She quickly recieves an impression of the items importance to wraiths, if any; should the wraith be one known to the Necromancer, he or she immediately recognises the object as a fetter to that wraith.


Intermediate:


3: Tread Upon the Grave:
The extended awareness granted with the Cenotaph Path allows the Necromancer to sense the vagaries and subtle nuances of the of the Shroud within the area and to find locations where the shadowlands and the living world come close. Often the Necromancer experiences a chill or shiver when stepping into a area where the underworld lies near the land of the living.


4: Death Knell:
Not all who die move on to become ghosts- many lack the drive needed to move to that stage in life. The use of this power forces ones soul to step into the shadowlands and become one with the true dead. For example, if a person had just passed on in the presence of a Necromancer with this power, instead of the soul wandering off to Oblivion they would linger above the scene watching as the Necromancer does as he will with the corpse. This new Wraith is covered in a plasmic goo called a Caul, that clouds and mind the binds the body until cleared away by another wraith or the Necromancer themselves. Afterwards the wraith has no real purpose other than to serve their new master.


Advanced:


5: Ephemeral Binding:
The most powerful Necromancer learns not only to sense the ties between the living and the dead but also to create those ties themselves. The Master of Ephemeral Binding turns an otherwise mundane object or person into a repository for his own mephitic energy, undying curse transforming the subject into a sort of linkage between living and the dead. The Necromancer smears his blood on the item in question, which mystically absorbs the vitae and, in doing so, becomes either a Fetter to a Wraith, enabling the Necromancer to harm them, bargain with them, or whatever, or as a vessel to bind a spirit.