Anna Demirovna (
indiscreet) wrote2012-12-08 05:42 pm
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General Information: Vampire and Fae abilities
Because she is a (Vampire: The Requiem) vampire who, due to events of the LARP she is taken from, also has a True Fae title, Anna has a number of powers, some of which have the potential to affect other characters in short and long-term ways. Here I will tl;dr a whole lot about what that means.
This list is mostly to provide as much clarification as possible for her powers as she is currently being played (some changes have been made over time in an effort to more closely adhere to Changeling: The Lost canon). Depending on from when in her personal timeline she's taken from, Anna might have access to only her vampire abilities, or both her vampire and fae abilities.
Vampire abilities:
True Fae and Huntress-specific abilities:
In general, these powers are more potent (not better, just more potent) than Anna's vampire powers — simply put because the Huntress is a more powerful entity than Anna is.
Weaknesses, Banes, and things Anna cannot do:
Vampiric
Fae
This list is mostly to provide as much clarification as possible for her powers as she is currently being played (some changes have been made over time in an effort to more closely adhere to Changeling: The Lost canon). Depending on from when in her personal timeline she's taken from, Anna might have access to only her vampire abilities, or both her vampire and fae abilities.
Vampire abilities:
- Healing: Anna can instantly heal from bruises and cuts (worth noting is that gunshots only bruise her), and even regrow missing limbs (though extremely severe injuries like that would take her several days at minimum to heal). However, this always costs her blood, and she can't heal naturally at all.
- Boosting physical abilities: By spending blood, Anna can briefly improve her strength, dexterity, or stamina by a modest amount.
- Biting and The Kiss: Vampires in Anna's setting call the act of biting/feeding on another "the Kiss" for a reason: because it feels really, really good to the person getting bitten — better than sex-good. Yep, that sure is a thing. After she is done feeding, closing the wound can be done with a lick. Additionally, if she manages to get a hold of someone in combat (easier said than done, since she isn't physically strong), Anna can also use her fangs offensively, doing nasty, supernaturally-potent "aggravated" damage. (Bites of this kind do not impose the Kiss.)
- Mimicking life: Expending blood allows Anna to, for several hours, pinken her skin like a normal, living human; otherwise she's unhealthily pale. She also can spend blood to allow herself to consume normal food and drink, but she'll throw it back up after about an hour.
- Addictive blood: Vampire blood, called vitae, tastes amazing, and is highly addictive. The more you taste it, the harder it becomes to resist the opportunities to taste it again. It's worse (better?) than heroin.
- Blood-binding: Furthermore, drinking Anna's blood (even in tiny quantities) produces something called a "vinculum," or blood-bond. Just one or two drinks will only make the drinker slightly more positively inclined toward her and slightly more susceptible to unnatural mental influence from her; however, the third drink creates a full vinculum. Being fully blood-bound creates obsessive, devoted love towards one's "regnant." However, the bond can be acted against if poor treatment causes feelings of hate to conflict with that love. Only decades apart or the death of the regnant can end a full vinculum, so I'll only pursue something like this with a lot of planning and discussion. Some supernatural creatures, and some rare humans, are immune to being blood-bound; I'm perfectly fine with you using this to exempt your character.
- Creating ghouls: By feeding a baseline mortal a dose of her vitae (this never works on anyone with more than extremely minor supernatural abilities) and expending some of her will (or if the mortal expends will), Anna can transform the mortal into a ghoul — a kind of pseudo-vampiric thrall — for one month. Ghouls do not age and can, with very hard work, learn vampiric powers (super strength, super speed, super resilience, as well Anna's Daeva-signature power of Majesty, and even more if other vampires are around to teach them). They can also, like vampires, heal and boost their physical abilities using blood. (Because of the former, it's not uncommon to ghoul someone to save their life.) Meanwhile, they suffer from none of a vampire's weaknesses. However, ghouls, if they remain ghouls for longer than a month, inevitably become blood-bound to the vampire providing them vitae (unless they have enough vampires around to vary their source), and are bound to suffer from vitae-addiction.
- Majesty: In general, Majesty is a form of emotion-based mind-whammy at which Anna is very skilled — enough to get through most defenses (though supernatural beings, depending on their own power level, have much better odds of resisting). Its effects are very subtle and usually go unnoticed; however, she can't force anyone to put themselves in direct harm. In increasing order of strength, she can: slightly increase how charming she seems to those with whom she interacts/for whom she performs; make herself seem to be worthy of trusting as a close friend when it comes to revealing secrets (the conversation has to be carefully managed, or she'll be there for hours hearing every detail of the target's life); "entrance" a person into adoring and/or desiring her utterly (lasts a few hours or longer if she's very lucky, but difficult to do more than once a week to the same person); summon someone to her presence (costs blood); and, with the expenditure of will, cause herself to be so awe-inspiringly impressive to all who perceive her that they cannot conceive of acting against her...unless she acts violently against them first.
- Celerity: Vampire super-speed! By spending blood, Anna can run about twice as fast as a human being, as well as improve her reaction time in combat.
True Fae and Huntress-specific abilities:
In general, these powers are more potent (not better, just more potent) than Anna's vampire powers — simply put because the Huntress is a more powerful entity than Anna is.
- Pledges: Don't make promises you can't keep. Anna can enter into binding formal agreements with others. These agreements can be used to get herself glamour (magic) in exchange for her performing a regular favor and receiving a small token of appreciation, to cement an alliance, to allow herself easy access into the dreams of another, and to grant someone the ability to see through fae illusion. In exchange, the person receives some benefit — whether the favor or ability itself, or some other empowerment, like improved wealth, beauty, or ability. However, breaking the pledge calls down a penalty: the benefit disappears or sours, and some form of curse may be called down on the pledge-breaker.
- Bedlam: Once per "story arc" (so, once in a long while, basically), Anna can induce a powerful emotion of desire, wrath, fear, or sorrow in a crowd.
- Dream manipulation: Anna is unpracticed in this ability, but she could theoretically learn how to enter others' dreams and shape them, so long as she has permission.
- Hedge navigation: The nature of most jam jars prevents her from using the power, but Anna theoretically knows how to navigate the Hedge, the dangerous in-between realm dividing Arcadia from the mortal world.
- Lightning bow: Anna can instantly summon a magical longbow — and the arrows that she fires from it are lightning. MAGIC lightning. (The bow is actually a manifestation of the Huntress, hence its ability to be summoned this way – it's on some level always already there.) Being hit by a lightning arrow is more or less exactly the same as getting struck by lightning; however, because of the magical nature of the lightning, it can also harm creatures that would normally not be bothered by lightning, like vampires (albeit not nearly as severely as a mortal would be harmed).
- Separation: Anna can distance herself from reality, allowing her to walk on any solid surface, whether or not it should support her weight, and falling from any distance only bruises her while this power is active. The Huntress is particularly adept at this ability, and has used it to find footholds on seemingly sheer surfaces, like the sides of buildings. Over time, Anna may become more adept at this power, gaining the ability to evade shackles, breach barriers, perform impossible-seeming dodges, and even become intangible — but she can't do any of that yet.
- Speed: Same as Celerity, but without spending blood. Yay.
- Mist: From the Huntress, Anna gains a small degree of control over mist, and she can summon or dismiss it at will.
- Hunting pack: Anna/The Huntress can summon a small pack (up to ~6) of dogs that assist on her hunts. They can go wherever the Huntress can.
- Magic bell: Anna has brought with her a silver bell on a red string which the Huntress created centuries ago. (Anna still doesn't understand how to reproduce whatever power the Huntress used to do so.) Whoever wears the bell is bound to the Huntress — metaphysically marked as "hers" and bound to assist in her hunts should she demand it. Only the Huntress can remove the bell.
Weaknesses, Banes, and things Anna cannot do:
Vampiric
- Normal senses: This isn't so much a weakness as a strength that Anna doesn't have, but since most people assume that vampires have at the very least heightened senses of sight and smell, it bears mentioning that Anna's senses are only as good as a human's. The Huntress's instincts can partially compensate for this if she taps into them while on a hunt, but that's about it.
- Fire: Fire hurts Anna badly — it does "aggravated" damage, which takes her a minimum of several days and extra blood to heal. She also has an instinctive fear of it, and even the tiniest spark has the potential to cause her to frenzy (more below). I'd appreciate a heads up if fire is going to be involved in a scene!
- Daytime: Like fire, sunlight does aggravated damage to vampires, and also produces instinctive fear. Worse still, it is next to impossible for Anna to be awake while the sun is in the sky, and even if she does manage it (like if danger forces her awake — and it might not! — or she's trying really, really hard), she finds even the simplest tasks difficult.
- Staking: A wooden stake through the heart won't kill Anna, but it will but her in a stasis ("torpor"), rendering her 100% helpless until/unless the stake is removed. (This leaves ample time for something more truly Final Death-inducing, like beheading.) If staked for a lengthy period of time, her body would appear to desiccate and look increasingly mummified/corpselike.
- Crosses: This isn't a standard vampire weakness in Anna's setting, but rather a flaw she happens to have. Crosses do aggravated damage like fire and sunlight, and Anna finds it distressing to be very close to them.
- Frenzy and the Beast: The "Beast" is what vampires call their predatory instincts, that which makes them vampires. Vampires can generally sense it in each other, but it puts humans somewhat on edge around them, which sometimes makes interaction more difficult. If a vampire loses control of her Beast due to anger, fear, or hunger, she will go into frenzy, a dangerous berserker state (more physically powerful, un-bothered by wounds) that usually cannot be controlled.
- Animals: Unless vampires specifically develop skills working with animals (and Anna has not), animals instinctively revile them. Though they probably wouldn't attack on her on sight, animals find Anna disturbing or even frightening, and react accordingly.
- Mirrors and Cameras: Vampires show up blurred on film and in mirrors, though Anna can temporarily avoid this with the expenditure of will.
Fae
- Not a weakness so much as an imperfection, but Anna's fae "mask" cannot conceal the fact that she smells slightly of rain and ozone. Beyond that—
- Cold Iron: Hand-forged iron cuts through Anna's fae magic, and does aggravated damage to her. She also really doesn't like being around it.
- Church Bells: Anna really got the short end of the stick, religion-wise. Because of the Huntress, she is repelled by the sound of church bells, and at close range they can actually cause her physical harm.
- Hunting compulsions: The Huntress is compelled to chase after anyone who runs from her in fear. Conversely, scattered bread crumbs throw her off the trail.