Thin-blood alchemy

This formula allows the alchemist to use their mind to grab, hold, and push objects or people without touching them. While few can employ enough mental force to actually cause direct harm, a clever applicant can find many ways to get an opponent into, or themselves out of, harm’s way.

Ingredients: The alchemist’s Blood, choleric human blood, melted nylon fibers or a grated refrigerator magnet or weird nootropics ordered off the internet

Dice Pools: Resolve + Thin-blood alchemy

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist can lift, push, or pull a physical object or person under 100 kg, within their sight and closer than 10 meters. The object moves swiftly, but not rapidly enough to injure a person with the blow; the object may break if it is fragile. The exception: knives or other small metal tools, which the alchemist can wield with a Resolve + Alchemy test, at a two-dice penalty because of the need for precision. A knife used this way does only one point of extra damage. Trying to move someone actively resisting requires a contest of Resolve + Alchemy vs Strength + Athletics. On a win, the alchemist can pull the victim within grabbing or clawing range, or throw them one meter for each point of margin on the contest, doing an equal amount of Superficial damage. They land prone. Keeping someone or something floating in mid-air requires a Resolve + Thin-Blood Alchemy (Difficulty 3) roll every turn. Fine manipulation (such as pulling the pin of a grenade) requires a Wits + Alchemy roll at a suitable Difficulty, as determined by the Storyteller.

Duration: One turn unless held

This formula creates a field of mist that follows the user, rendering them more difficult to target with ranged weapons and concealing their identity.

Ingredients: In addition to the alchemist’s Blood and phlegmatic human blood, dry ice or cigar smoke or auto exhaust

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: Upon activation a cloud of mist-like vapor surrounds the alchemist, masking their features and obscuring their silhouette. Anyone attempting to identify the user or hit them with ranged weapons suffers a two-dice penalty to their pool. The user can extend the cloud to encompass a group of up to five people by making another Rouse check.

Duration: One scene or until voluntarily ended.

Alchemical texts speak of the Great Hermaphrodite, the union of contrasts. Day and night, male and female, life and death. Alchemists who master the worldly aspect of the Hieros Gamos use the fluid nature of their condition to change their gender. It is a messy process and requires great dedication and conviction, but it is a power that many Kindred secretly envy in their unchanging form. It is also a great way to change identity or adopt a new mask.

Ingredients: The alchemist’s Blood, blood from five different vessels identifying fully as the desired gender

Dice Pools: Stamina + Thin-blood alchemy

Cost:

System: After brewing the formula , the Alchemist performs self-castration and / or mastectomy before falling into daysleep. Upon awakening they find themselves a perfectly formed specimen of the desired gender. In essence it is as if they had been born that way. There are even stories of selfmade Duskborn women giving birth to children. If desired, a modified procedure can create any configuration of gender or agender imaginable.

Duration: Permanent until performed again.

The alchemist can speak the native language of the mortal whose blood they used in the formula, and the native languages of those they feed from until they next sleep.

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist can speak the native language of the mortal whose blood they used in the formula. By spending a Willpower point and feeding from a mortal, they can switch their new language to that mortal’s native language.

Duration: One night, or until the alchemist feeds from someone with the same native language as the alchemist.

The alchemist is able to produce a low-level electrical current from their body, powering lights, chargers, or other devices.

Dice Pools: Resolve + Alchemy

Cost: One Rouse check

System: The alchemist’s blood, sanguine blood, liquid nitrogen, tungsten shavings, and a broken battery.
Make a Resolve + Alchemy test (Difficulty 2). On a success, the alchemist fills with electrical currents that can be used to power small devices, such as a smartphone, a personal computer, or a light bulb. These currents power the item by touch; it loses power when contact stops.

Duration: If lighting a room: one scene. If powering a device, until it reaches half battery charge.

This formula creates a mist that clings to a victim, blinding it and (in the case of mortals) causing suffocation.

Ingredients: The alchemist’s Blood, melancholic and phlegmatic human blood, potassium chlorate, smog or halon gas

Dice Pools: Wits + Thin-blood alchemy

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist activates the power and chooses a target within sight. A swirling mist envelops the target, obscuring their sight and penalizing them three dice from all sight-based detection and ranged attack dice pools. In addition, the alchemist can make the mist suffocate a mortal with a contest of Wits + Alchemy vs. Stamina + Survival. On a win, the target can take no action except coughing and choking; on a critical win, the target loses consciousness. The alchemist can only employ Envelop on single targets, and only on one at a time.

Duration: Until scene ends or the alchemist ends the effect voluntarily.

This formula allows the alchemist to see the connections between mortals and Kindred. This shows as a thin, silver thread that connects between them, giving the alchemist an idea of whom a mortal may have a connection to.

Dice Pools: Intelligence + Alchemy

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist’s Blood, phlegmatic blood, the eyes of a whippoorwill or owl or other nocturnal bird, and a silver thread.
Upon activating this power, the alchemist makes an Intelligence + Alchemy test to see a thin, silver thread connecting a mortal to a vampire they have some sort of connection with. (Obviously, no thread is shown if the mortal isn’t connected to Kindred.) If the vampire is not physically close the alchemist can follow the thread. Stronger connections require fewer successes to see – a ghoul might only require one success, but a distant contact or ally up to five. A mortal with multiple vampire relationships displays the strongest thread first, but the alchemist can see all of them with enough successes.

Duration: One scene

This formula results in a homeopathic elixir. When added to fractionated medical-supply blood, the elixir returns it to freshness, allowing vampires without the Iron Gullet merit to obtain nutrition from it.

Ingredients: The alchemist’s Blood, sanguine and melancholic human blood, O-negative human blood (only a few ml), moldy spinach, hot black coffee, sodium octanoate

Cost:

System: The alchemist taps their vessel (Calcinatio), or their own vein (Athanor Corporis) to get the Defractionate elixir if they do not use Fixatio. For each success on the distillation roll, they get enough elixir to turn one blood bag (slakes 1 Hunger) from fractionated to unfractionated blood. Any vampire can consume this blood and slake Hunger with it.

Athanor Corporis : The alchemist can tap their own vein once per night for this elixir until their next feeding, or until they reach Hunger 5. They need not pay the distillation cost again.

Calcinatio : If the vessel survives the tap, the alchemist can tap them again in a week for more elixir. They need not pay the distillation cost again, but the vessel pays the Health cost (3 Aggravated damage) each time they are tapped.

Duration:

The process of creating the Ashe drug is a form of Blood Alchemy in itself, and generally takes place in a laboratory or workshop due to the need for an open flame and metal filings.

Ingredients: A destroyed vampire’s ashes, an open flame reaching 1,500°C, aluminum filings.

Dice Pools: Intelligence + Thin-blood alchemy

Cost: The vampire’s ashes are contained in a vessel heated by an open flame and then mixed with aluminum filings. Each success on the distillation roll [calculde] produces a single Ashe dose. On a total failure, the sample is ruined and a Beast Shard emerges in the area.
When consumed, all Ashe allows a thin-blood to access more of the power in vitae and ash than is usually within their grasp. Their Blood Potency counts as 1 for the purposes of Blood Surges and Discipline Rouse Check re-rolls until the end of the chapter. The drug is far from lacking in downsides however, see Ashe Addiction

Every time a thin-blood takes Ashe, they suffer one Superficial Willpower damage and make a Rouse Check. If they take any Aggravated Willpower damage while experiencing the effects of Ashe, they must roll to resist a hunger frenzy (Difficulty 2) as they suddenly crave the vitae, experiences, and powers of other vampires. This frenzy is pointed at other Kindred. If the vampire ingests any vitae as a result of their frenzy, they recover a point of Aggravated Willpower damage but their Hunger rating increases by one. Addiction to Ashe can be a paralyzing circle of needing more and more blood to survive and Ashe to continue experiencing the buzz of power.

System: One chapter

Duration:

By melting down a vampire’s possessions (the more important the better) during Ashe creation, an alchemist infuses the drug with memories from the destroyed vampire.

Prerequisite: Concoct Ashe

Ingredients: A melted-down object belonging to the destroyed vampire.

Cost: One Rouse Check in addition to the cost of using Ashe

System: When using Concoct Ashe, this formula may be used to imbue remains with the memories of the vampire they once formed. When consumed, this altered Ashe provokes a Willpower test at a Difficulty of 1 + the destroyed vampire’s Blood Potency. On a win the user immediately enters a Memoriam (see Vampire: The Masquerade p. 311), reliving an important memory of the destroyed vampire’s past rather than their own. This scene is resolved normally using their own stats, but the shifted perspective will be valuable. If they are meditating in a place of calm at the time they consume the Ashe, the thin-blood adds a one-die bonus to all dice pools during the Memoriam.

Duration:

Also called “The Funk” by alchemists who copy and adjust the formula. The alchemist is able to make their blood emit a noxious gas that causes a rigid paralysis to mortals and supernatural creatures alike.

Dice Pools: Stamina + Alchemy

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist’s blood, phlegmatic blood, human fat, candle wax, ether, sesame oil, iron sulfate or verdigris, and borax.
Tapping the athanor’s vein emits a pungent stench when spilled that fills a room (or a house on a critical win). Mortals who fail to resist enter a full-body paralysis state, a waking coma, for the rest of the scene. Supernatural creatures who fail feel the effects of rigor mortis: a two-dice penalty on all Physical rolls from intense cramping.
Fixatio: The potion can be slipped into a drink or meal as a poison, or burned to act as a paralyzing fragrance, above.

Duration: Three turns

Alchemists frequently use this formula during negotiations to try and sway at least one person to their side; however, it can be easy to spot if anyone is paying close enough attention. Rumor allows the alchemist to make a statement and convince one person to agree with them on that statement.

Dice Pools: Manipulation + Alchemy

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist’s blood, phlegmatic blood, pepper, oil, and graphite or mercury.
Upon activation, the alchemist makes a statement and invites the target to agree, e.g. “I heard you plan to invest in the new mortuary downtown. Is that true?” On a win, the target agrees and continues to believe they agreed to the statement of their own free will. To get the target to actually act on their agreement (e.g., sign investment papers) usually requires a further Manipulation + Subterfuge (or similar) contest, but the alchemist can add their margin on the Alchemy contest to their pool in that contest.

Duration: One scene, and thereafter until something (or someone) persuasively contradicts the target’s agreement (“I would never have agreed to that! I must have been drugged!”).

The alchemist can use this formula to help strengthen their resistance against damage, albeit only temporarily.

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist’s Blood, choleric blood, oaked wine or bourbon, and Kevlar fibers or cement or ground tortoiseshell.
The first time the alchemist sustains damage in a scene, reduce the damage by five. The formula then expires.

Duration: Until the alchemist takes damage or the scene ends.

This formula enables the alchemist to lift themselves from the ground, achieving a state of swift flight or floating. They can fly in any direction, including up or down, though their carrying capacity is limited.

Ingredients: The alchemist’s Blood, choleric and sanguine human blood, champagne, bird blood, helium, scopolamine or belladonna extract

Dice Pools: Strength + Thin-blood alchemy

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The potion enables the alchemist (and only them) to fly or hover at approximately running speed. The flier can carry a human-sized mass, though their speed drops to walking speed. Grabbing and carrying aloft an unwilling subject or pulling the flier to the ground both require a contest between the alchemist’s Strength + Alchemy and the other’s Strength + Athletics.

Duration: One scene

Prerequisite: Concoct Ashe

Counterfeiting Disciplines is part and parcel of Thin-Blood Alchemy’s use, but the ability to channel a Discipline from the ashes of a deceased vampire is a form of necromantic Alchemy, at least according to Dr. Mortius and the Duskborn who practice it. Those who practice this Alchemy find themselves able to use any one of the destroyed vampire’s Discipline powers, even if they typically wouldn’t have access to powers of this level.

Prerequisite: Concoct Ashe

Ingredients: Crushed leaves from the indigo plant.

Cost: The same as the channeled power

System: When using Concoct Ashe, this formula may be used to imbue remains with the abilities of the vampire they once formed. When consumed, this altered Ashe provokes a Willpower test at a Difficulty of the destroyed vampire’s highest Discipline rating. On a win, the thin-blood gains the use of a single Discipline power that the destroyed vampire possessed, until the end of the chapter. Use the destroyed vampire’s Discipline rating whenever a channeled power calls for one. The Storyteller may state the Disciplines and specific powers the deceased vampire held so the alchemist can choose from a list, or if the alchemist has a power in mind they can request it from the Storyteller. The Storyteller has final say. On a critical win the thin-blood gains the use of two Discipline powers that the destroyed vampire possessed.

Duration:

An alchemist can use this formula to overload the batteries in any electronic or electrical equipment, including car batteries or the fuses of a building.

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist’s Blood, battery acid, melancholy blood, and salt water.
By making a Rouse Check and touching the equipment (or metal connected to it) the alchemist automatically and silently shorts it out. This allows an alchemist to, for example, cause a blackout of an entire building by touching a power outlet, or a car by brushing against its body.

Duration: N/A

The alchemist secretes powerful, caustic bile from their pores and orifices, corroding metals, wood, and living tissue. The alchemist activating this ability may touch and manipulate the bile while not being affected by it.

Dice Pools: Strength + Alchemy

Cost: One or two Rouse Checks

System: The alchemist’s Blood, choleric blood, potash or lye, animal spleen, cheesecloth, and iodine.
When active, the power allows the alchemist to corrode any material in seconds by simply making contact with it and gains +2 damage on brawl attacks as their mere touch becomes acid. (As the alchemist controls how and where they excrete the acid their own clothes are usually unaffected.) The Storyteller is the final arbiter on the extent of damage caused but the acid is supernaturally strong and far more potent than that produced by Corrosive Vitae (see Vampire: The Masquerade, p. 273).
The alchemist may make a second Rouse check to projectile vomit the bile as an attack (Strength + Alchemy during melee, Dexterity + Alchemy for a ranged spitting attack). On a win, the bile does the margin +3 in Superficial Health damage (Aggravated to mortals).

Athanor Corporis or Calcinatio: The alchemist or vessel can only hold this formula after distillation for a week before they begin to look sickly: blue veins popping against their pale skin, and the skin itself sagging low on their bodies. After a month, the bile corrodes the Calcinatio vessel if not tapped.

Fixatio: The container of the bile slowly corrodes, falling completely apart in Alchemy + 4 weeks.

Duration: One scene

This formula results in an elixir which, when added to human blood, can awaken a vampire from Torpor.

Ingredients: The alchemist’s Blood, choleric or sanguine human blood, adrenaline, ammonium carbonate, hartshorn, caffeine or benzedrine, melatonin

Cost:

System: The alchemist taps their vessel (Calcinatio), or their own vein (Athanor Corporis) to get the Awaken the Sleeper elixir if they do not use Fixatio. They then mix the elixir into human blood. For each success above 2 on the distillation roll, the elixir can awaken a vampire of that Blood Potency. Example: Hari gets 5 successes on his Awaken the Sleeper distillation roll: this elixir can awaken a torpid vampire of Blood Potency 3 or less (5 – 3 = 2).

Athanor Corporis : The alchemist can tap their own vein once per night for this elixir until their next feeding, or until they reach Hunger 5. They need not pay the distillation cost again.

Calcinatio : If the vessel survives the tap, the alchemist can tap them again in a week for more elixir. They need not pay the distillation cost again, but the vessel pays the Health cost (5 Aggravated damage) each time they are tapped. The Alchemist can also simply feed the vessel’s blood to the sleeper directly

Duration:

This form of shared diablerie draws virtue from the vitae of a full-blooded Kindred into the alchemist and their assistants.

Dice Pools: Resolve + Alchemy

Cost: Everyone participating must roll one Rouse Check

System: Blood from the alchemist and participating thin-bloods (up to three thin-bloods total), juice of red amaranth flowers from a plant fertilized with blood, pulverized leeches, hydrogen sulfide, and neon.

The alchemist and up to two other participants tie a silk cord around their wrists, connecting them in a triangle surrounding a full- blooded Kindred target, also so bound. The alchemist rolls Resolve + Alchemy; each additional thin-blood participant can add one die to the pool by spending 2 Willpower. If the full-blood resists, they use their Willpower pool + Blood Potency. On a win, the participating thin-bloods gain one dot in one of the target’s core clan Disciplines, determined randomly. (On a critical win, the alchemist can choose the Discipline.) They cannot learn or purchase this Discipline higher than the first dot, but in other respects can use it as though they were full-blooded Kindred. They do not gain generation, but still lose 1 Humanity and gain the black-veined aura of diablerie.

Duration: N/A

The alchemist is able to temporarily submerge their vampiric instincts, harnessing the power of the Beast to support, rather than disturb, their mental acumen. For a short while they can reach superhuman levels of intellect and concentration while also avoiding bestial interference in their actions.

Cost: One Rouse Check

System: The alchemist’s Blood, phlegmatic blood, cadmium, nootropics, and ash from burned pages of a meaningful text to the alchemist (scripture, favorite childhood novel).

Upon activation, the alchemist gains mental clarity, their wits sharpen, and the Beast is temporarily sated. They add four dice to Mental or Discipline Skill pools, and can add four dice to Mental resistance checks against Disciplines requiring them: Dominate, Animalism, Presence, Auspex, and their amalgams. They are also immune to Messy Criticals and frenzy, if susceptible to the latter.

Duration: One scene