These are my ideas, take them

You fucking know where this is from. No lore because I can't be bothered, this is mostly a demonstration of how you could adapt 5e Monk stuff for this (hence the generally lower effort here).

The Clear Mind

Focus : While channelling the Clear Mind, any attempt to divine your intentions returns nothing.

Surge : Immediately shake off a mental effect affecting you.

Ordeal : Adventure for a month and a day, always accepting whatever circumstances surround you - and doing nothing to change them.

The Burden of Strength

Focus : While channeling the Burden of Strength, you can carry twice as much.

Surge : Palm-strike someone with the strength of a charging bull (3d6 damage and appropriate knock-back if you hit).

Ordeal : Burden yourself as much as you physically can, and adventure unarmed for a month and a day.

The Statute of Peace

Focus : While channeling the Statute of Peace, you are always the least desirable target unless you attack someone yourself.

Surge : With a single word, you stop all violence within earshot for a single turn.

This comes from The Magnus Archives, which is a great horror anthology podcast that I love.

DIG

'DIG. DIG. DIG. DIG…' Skill : Spelunking. Stuff : A shovel.

The Center

Focus : As long as your hands are clasped you cannot be pushed, shoved, or moved.

Surge : Something you touch behaves as if it is encased in rock for the next 2d4 rounds.

Ordeal : Find the bowels of the earth, and keep digging. Keep digging until you can dig no more.

Forever Deep

Focus : You can go through any passage large enough for your head, with enough time.

Surge : You can do the above instantly, and take someone willing with you. They may take damage, depending on circumstances.

Ordeal : Fit yourself, without help, through something you shouldn’t be able to. You need not do so intact.

Choke

Focus : As long as you stay perfectly still and breathless, one creature you can see must do the same.

Surge : You and one creature you just grabbed treat the ground as neck-deep mud for the next 2d4 turns, or until you decide for it to stop.

This comes from Cultist Simulator, which is a great video game that I love.

Twenty-Six Enticements, Seven Torments

'The Enticements of the Grail outnumber its Torments, but its Torments are its final nature. Birth is the First Torment, and Thirst the Seventh'. Skill : Fertility. Stuff : Five doses of a drug of your choice (Here are some fun ones).

A) The Never Ending Feast

Focus : While channeling the Never Ending Feast, there is always more of whatever you are partaking in at hand.

Surge : Ritually feed someone an appropriate piece of your flesh (for 1D6 damage) to heal them (for twice the number rolled). This takes a few minutes - the dying rarely make for great guests.

Ordeal : Hold a feast for seven days and nights, to which you will invite and entertain either seven hundred and seventy seven guests of no import, seventy seven notable guests, or the seven Guests of the Feast - who will surely bring their own.

B) The Shameful Desire.

Focus : While channeling the Shameful Desire, you automatically learn what someone wants most right now if they truthfully answer answer three of your questions in a single conversation. 

Surge : Make someone in sight desperately pursue what they want most right now for 1D6+1 hours. When the fugue ends, they suspect that they have been the victim of something otherworldly - take care not to draw their attention.

Ordeal : For seven days and seven nights, do only what you wish whenever you wish it, without heed of risk or consequence. You may use carousing tables, or play it out.

C) The Unslakable Thirst.

Focus : While channeling the Unslakable Thirst you may hold one dose of any liquid you drink, receiving its effects continuously until you either swallow it or spit it out, as if you took another dose whenever the effects of the first would have ran out. Be careful : ‘too much of a good thing…’

Surge : Kiss someone, or something, to affect them with 1D4 doses of a liquid currently affecting you.

I am making GLOG stuff now. Comments in [Brackets] are my best attempt at making this system-neutral. Comments in italics are my personnal comments. If you don't know what the GLOG is you should probably go ask someone else.

Mystics

A Monk-equivalent stolen from Meandering Banter’s Pscion. You peer into the veil behind reality, beholding Truths beyond your understanding. Then you use it to punch people in the face.

A : Disciplines B : Contemplation C : Understanding D : Mastery

Skills (D4) : 1 - Meditation, 2 - Hallucinogens, 3 - Occultism, 4- Prayer, and one more determined by your starting scroll.

Stuff : || A burlap robe || Incense || Five candles || An ancient scroll containing three Disciplines (There are two : Twenty-Six Enticements, Seven Torments | DIG | and a third, half-baked one : The Way of the Open Hand) || One more item determined by your starting scroll.

Disciplines :

Disciplines are the strange, otherworldly applications of a Mystic's understanding of the hidden workings of the world. Every Discipline is made up of a Focus, a Surge and an Ordeal.

You may Focus on any Discipline you know by succeeding on a Willpower [or system-equivalent] test (DC [Average]). This counts as an action during combat. While Focused on a Discipline, you bring a small part of its Truth into the world, and receive the corresponding benefit.

Becoming part of a greater whole is a careful balance to maintain. While Focusing, you must make a Willpower [or system-equivalent] check (DC [Average]) whenever you are hurt, witness horror or are similarly bothered. If you fail, you lose your Focus. This is a little bit like losing a lover and a little bit like a quiet death : you gain Stress whenever it happens. [if you don't have a stress system, every point is -1 to mental rolls and you do something panicky whenever it causes you to fail]

As an action during your turn, you may end your Focus and perform the Surge of that Discipline as you let out your small piece of Truth into the world. Doing so means you’re not Focused on that Discipline anymore - you held the Truth, and you let it go (you have trained to accept the loss, and Surging doesn't cause you to gain Stress). You may not Focus on more than a single Discipline at a time.

Anyone can learn Disciplines, and anyone can use them. To Focus on a Discipline, other people need to spend five minutes meditating on its Truth - they simply don't have the training you do.

To learn a Discipline, find the way to its particular enlightenment through ancient scrolls or wise masters, and accomplish the appropriate Ordeal (the Ordeals provided here are meant to serve as examples : you can't simply perform them whenever and gain the associated Discipline unless you have some sort of guidance).

A learned Discipline takes a Spiritual slot : you are not only holding the knowledge in your mind, but the Truth itself in your being. As a Mystic, you get "free" Spiritual slots to hold Disciplines in equal to your number of Mystic Templates. [If your game doesn't have Spiritual slots, make them take off a Charisma point or something]

You start with a single Discipline of your choice from your scroll, and that scroll counts as a source of guidance for the other Disciplines contained inside.

Contemplation :

You may choose a favoured Discipline among those you have learned : when Focusing on another Discipline, you still gain its Focus effect (but may not Surge with it unless you're specifically Focusing on it). You have mastered that Truth, and Focusing on it is second nature to you.

Understanding :

You may Surge with any Discipline while Focusing on your favoured Discipline (meaning that you didn't get that Focus by choosing another Discipline; this doesn't synergize with your 3rd level bonus). You are starting to piece together how to reconcile these disparate and sometime contradictory Truths.

Mastery :

You may Surge with any Discipline while Focused on any Discipline. True understanding is yours, and you may now teach Disciplines to those willing to pass the Ordeals.

Δ Domain Feature :

If you have a stronghold capable of housing them and have all four Templates of Mystic, your knowledge of mystical secrets can attract :

+ d4 Stupefied Scholars (each with a subject of expertise), desperately trying to reconcile your teachings with the observable nature of the universe.

+ 6d6 monks, free-folk and lost souls that believe your Truths will lead them to a better life.

These people will generally help around and be willing to work for you, as long as you are ready to house them, protect their homes and be an overall decent ruler. In addition, every Domain turn [a month or something] the referee will roll 2d6 : on a double, some sort of mystical trouble brews up - it might be a rival after your secrets, a runaway fragment of Truth causing chaos, or a greater danger threatening the local fabric of reality. It's not that these things didn't happen before ; they simply were way above your pay grade - now that you've proven yourself, your peers expect you to step in and handle it.

Disciplines : the only meaningful change I've made is adding the Ordeals. I think they're neat for two reasons :

It gives players an incentive to do extremely weird shit, and concrete goals to follow to gain power beyond generic adventuring.

Monks should be doing weird shit in their eternal quest for Enlightenment. If you're going to give them something boring like Flurry of Blows at least make the lore surrounding it interesting.

The scrolls exist because lore should either impact gameplay or go into your fanfic writing where it belongs (not dissing, just... lore for sake of lore has no place at a gaming table). This should make players investigate tales of long-dead hermits because now they have a reason to care.

The Domain feature exists because they are both optional and extremely easy to make. You're only rolling 2d6 because I assume that if one of your PCs is doing something with Domains, then they all are, making doubles more frequent.

Every single time a player of mine rolls to remember relevant information or lie to someone, I die a little bit inside.

That's because both of those things are incredibly stupid - not in a "haha, your 20 charisma bard can roll a 1 to charm the barmaid" kind of way, but in a "Oh wow you did everything absolutely right and yet the dice fucked you over when it should have worked" kind of way.

TTRPGs, at their core, are about making interesting choices. In that light, you want to minimise dice rolls as much as possible. Dice rolls are bad, they mean you can't arbitrate what's happening through simple logic. They're a last resort.

And the truth of the matter is, there is rarely any reason to actually roll charisma. There just isn't. You know the character, you heard the PC's arguments, you can decide whether the NPC is convinced or not. No dice roll necessary. This is a good thing. It means social puzzles and encounter provide meaningful, impactful choices to your party.

The problem, of course, is that this method relies completely on player skill, as opposed to character skill. If your PC isn't really good at improvising arguments, then they can't really play a bard.

So social rolls suck, but you still want players to be able to use the game's rules to impact social situations. This has been a thorn in my side for quite a while, until a friend came up with the solution for me : Just Use Tokens lolz.

Here's the rules : you get a number of tokens equal to your charisma, or social score, or 5 + Charisma modifier, or one token per point in the social stat, whatever. You can spend those tokens for the following effects :

Make someone reconsider an argument they've dismissed

Make someone give you one more chance to argue your case

Force a subordinate to obey an order

Momentarily get a crowd's attention

Get a general idea of someone's mood

Immediately learn if someone lied to you or not

Block the above effect. If you choose to, you can both keep spending tokens until one of you gives up, at which point the truth is either revealed or left in limbo.

If you're unfortunate enough to be using a system that has a social skill system, just split these possibilities between the appropriate skills and distribute specialised tokens, or use the skill as the maximum amount of instances tokens can be spent in a single conversation or whatever. It's dirt simple to implement and won't make your rules more complicated in any way that matters.

Here's the thing : none of the above effects replace or supersede player skill. They only either give them a chance to actually play out the social puzzle or give them more information to solve it with. This gives socially bad players a chance to play socially good characters without making it all about dice rolls and eliminating choice : their role as the party face is to buy them time to convince the other party and weasel out enough information to actually do so - they barely have to talk at all except to beg the local bigwig to reconsider and give them a moment of their time.

If you can't see just how much better this is in every single way, I don't have the words to explain it to you. It increases player knowledge, give them tools to play with and preserves player choice. This is the holy grail of game dev right there.

The exception is the insight/deception bidding minigame. But that's just cool. Imagine, for a moment, a player taking a risk a lying to a dragon or something :

Dragon puts down an insight token. Player puts down a lie token. Dragon puts down another. Player. Dragon. Player, sweating. Dragon, smiling. And this uber-powerful entity just keeps putting down tokens. Imagine them sweat ! This is just good gameplay.

And like okay, there's probably some fine-tuning to be done. I haven't actually given you any rules for a concrete system yet. But in the broad strokes, this just… solves social rules forever. There are no possible drawbacks to using this system over dice rolls.

Notice the title change :/

Yeah, turns out I can only summon limited energy for things I'm not going to use in a game soon. Oh, well. I guess I'll just leave it at two until motivation strikes back.

Characters : Two local Toreadors ('Abby' and 'Breta'), two local human surgeons, a nonlocal Tzimisce ('Carl'). Note : the clock gets wonky if you have a Tzimisce just... on hand.

Plot : Two Toreadors enter into a one-upmanship contest of fashion and sexiness. They do that by mutilating themselves into smaller waistlines or apparent abs, and then just... not healing that damage. Obvious TWs are obvious, but you know. Trigger warning for self-harm and body image issues.

1' : Scandal ! Breta finally managed to upstage Abby during the latest Kindred social event - and by a lot, at that. Abby is presumably seething, and Breta incredibly smug.

Advance when the next Kindred social event happens.

2' : Abby and Breta keep one-upping each other. They do so through crude surgery - Abby does it first, but Breta follows suit. They have each ghouled a surgeon in order to "work on" their body before every social event, and only heal the damage afterward. To be perfectly clear : they are cutting bits out of themselves in order to better fit into their designer pants, or sculpt themselves a perfect ass.

Anyone who spends some time in their company will notice the changes with a D3 roll - they are discreet, but vampire bodies just don't change normally. It stands out. Any local Toreador elder knows exactly what's happening : they have seen this before. They treat it like a rerun of a good but not beloved movie.

If the coterie has nothing to do with either Abby or Breta, consider using the surgeons as an 'in' instead - they're keeping strange hours, are restless and moody... human friends and family are getting worried.

Advance this plot when they have had this little back-and-forth a couple of times.

4' : If the PCs have any rapport with either Abby or Breta, they are hired by them to go find a Tzimisce : it's time for a more permanent solution. For something daring. If the PCs come into contact with one of them by investigating the surgeons, then they are asked to do so in exchange for freeing them from the blood bond. If the PCs are in contact with both Toreadors, then they are hired by both.

Advance this clock when either Carl is found by the coterie, or some weeks have passed (they have been found without their help).

6' : Carl has the bright idea to launch a bidding war between the two clients - they have heard of their kind being used for these purposes, and are confident they can deliver, but are looking to have some fun in the meantime. Tensions between Abby and Breta escalate further.

Advance this clock when this information has reached your players.

8' : If the PCs have any rapport with either Abby or Breta, they are hired to go take photos of the other being cut up before the next social occasion (both of them realized quickly that the other was doing the same thing). If the PCs have rapport with both, they are hired by both. If they weren't contacted for the photos, or refused, or whatever : roll a dice for both Breta and Abby. On a 6+, that one obtained photos of the other (if the PCs warn one, then getting the photos becomes impossible and you'll only make one/no roll).

Advance this clock when the next social event happens.

10' : Abby and Breta enter in open conflict over Carl. Unless the PCs have contrived to make this impossible, it starts with the circulation of the photos (of both sets if both have been collected). No physical violence is yet involved - they use blackmail and scandal. Both may hire the PCs once again to dig up dirt on the other.

If the coterie isn't involved, just seed rumors of scandal and blackmail.

Advance this clock whenever you feel either Abby or Breta has been pushed to their breaking point, or whenever you need something distracting to happen if the PCs aren't involved.

12' : One of the two Toreadors flips out and attacks the other during the next public gathering. If nothing is done to prevent it, they will be executed the following night. Carl will fulfill their end of the bargain and leave having had a jolly good time. Whichever Toreador survived probably still ends up with a ruined reputation. The greater Kindred community moves on, bored once again.

Your players meet a local bigwig, or attend an important event in Kindred society :

Whoever sent them there, or got them the invitation, they visibly did not have their best interest in mind :

1) It is structured like a charity gala. The host is visiting everyone, complimenting their dress, talking passionately about the chance to do some *real* good here. The hostess is only playing the hostess because she owed the host a favor, and is playing the part of the perfect wife impeccably. The help is visibly terrified, silver collars sewed into their necks - they'll survive the night, but will not remember it. Feel free to sample, but don't kill them. The players will have to figure out what exactly the "cause" is before the host gets to them, and find a way to meaningfully contribuate (otherwise how did they get invited ?). 2) It is structured like a dinner between long-time (and rich) friends. There is an actual, seven-course dinner. Everyone is using the Blush of Life and eating, discreetely excusing themselves to vomit copious ammounts of blood. Everyone is pretending to still be alive - vampire business is discussed through code and suggestion, and any "special" vocabulary is taboo. The host cooked the food themselves and simply insists that you tell them what you thought of the prawns. There's like half an hour between each course, over the entire night - the players will have to figure out how to repeatedly quit a conversation (gracefully and discreetly) to vomit and probably find where the blood is hidden (1 hunger check per vomit, surely the Harpy must have found some blood, she must have powedered her nose a dozen times already !). 3) It is the "birthday" of a new Kindred - they are human, but will be embraced at the end of the night. The Sire is terribly proud. Everyone must (in front of the sire) give the future neonate a present, their well-wishes, and a compliment over the course of the night, all without breaking the Masquerade (they're still human, after all). The Sire will grant their favor to the most "cheeky" gifts / wishes / compliments (as in, the neonate won't be able to believe they didn't immediately clocked this was about vampires all along). As per tradition, the neonate-to-be will be presented with three dire warnings and three occasions to bow out - those that manage to deliver those without making them take the out will receive favor. If you need more drama, the prospective vamp brought a human +1 along, an interloper is aware that the human will be embraced, or a rival will try to embrace them first (or all three).

Thank you ! that's very kind. Honestly i was pretty half-hearted on it but the ask motivated me to finish it right after work

I feel like the rules were actually well done in the book, it's just that they're presented in like a single paragraph of tiny text that takes a quarter of the page. Most of V5 is excellent rules-wise really, I feel like not enough people praise the alterations from V20 to where we ended up.

Here I am, back again with my bullshit. I am honestly stunned by the rythm I've been able to put these out, don't expect me to be that quick about it in the future (I have like, three clan clocks ideas languishing in a text file). I'd make Ravnos use Animalism / Chimerstry / Obfuscate for maximum "trickster" energy, but you can swap Obfuscate out for Fortitude and get back to their old spread.

As usual, commentary is in italics for copy-pasting convenience.

Chimerstry

These are not illusions, but hallucinations : they cannot be recorded, and will not deafen or otherwise overwhelm the senses of a victim. Hallucinations cannot appear to affect the surrounding reality - a flood won’t wash away cars parked in the street or pedestrians, and an explosion created with Fata Morgana will not cause any damage, hallucinatory or otherwise. A collapsing staircase won’t tumble anyone currently descending the staircase. A hallucination cannot make an existing thing disappear (like an hallucination of "silence" somehow covering your footsteps) although it may cover something up (a roar covering the sound of said footsteps). This means that in the event of an hallucination covering something up moving, the thing covered up by it must move with it or be revealed.

Vampires and other supernatural creatures have a chance to disbelieve the hallucination, but mortals can only do this if they have reason to suspect it to be fake. In both cases they roll Intelligence + Awareness against a Difficulty equal to the user's Chimerstry rating. A success means that the individual in question is no longer affected by the hallucination, and it effectively disappears for them. 

If affecting a large crowd, roll a single dice per person instead : for every dice that shows a result equal or superior to the user's Manipulation + Chimerstry, a single individual disbelieves the illusion. Remember that such a crowd roll only happens if too many victims get a chance to disbelieve than can be comfortably (or quickly) rolled for - for four or five people, simply ask every player to roll for a given character.

Any attempt to interact with the hallucination will also cause it to lapse entirely, as everyone present will become aware of its unreal nature (as with the collapsing staircase example, if someone is using the staircase). Note that the use of this Discipline is not overt : even if the hallucination is revealed, it is not obvious from whom it originated. These hallucinations can never be recorded or transmitted (such as by using Ghost in the Machine). 

Other rolls (such as Manipulation + Subterfuge) might become necessary in order to prevent victims from realizing something is wrong, like if for example the user is pretending to be someone they are not under a hallucinatory disguise.

By default, the five senses available for use by Chimerstry are Sight, Hearing, Smell, Touch and Taste. More "niche" senses, such as proprioception, can be unlocked by specific powers - such senses are considered too complex a manipulation for beginners to pull off otherwise.

A neat thing about making this a Discipline is that I can move all of this in the Discipline's description, rather than crowding out Fata Morgana's. 

About removing the "no covering things up" aspect : if the player can see the victim, the victim might have already seen what the player wishes to hide. If it hasn't, then the PC could still hide it by other means anyway.

About "no making things disappear" : that's Obfuscate, get off the nosferatu's lawn. You can use distractions to sneak, or pretend to be a cardboard box, etc. but straight-up invisibility is not your turf. You can take Obfuscate anyway.

About making disbelief roll against Difficulty (Chimerstry level) : a single roll is twice as fast as making two. Keeping things fast and simple is really important, especially with a discipline as complicated as this one.

The crowd rule : this Discipline desperately needs a way to handle crowds easely. Putting this in the rules lets the player know in advance that they'll always have an easier time fooling one or a few people than a dozen, as in all things vampiric. The numbers might be fucky but I'd rather have something unbalanced or weird than something that takes fifteen hours.  You could change it to Charisma + Chimerstry if a player wants to be a charismatic Ravnos rather than a tricksy one - it doesn't really matter, the player should just be able to reach a 5 or 6 pretty easily at character creation and max out at 10.

Parlor Trick (•)

The vampire is able to create brief but vivid hallucinations, distracting and drawing the attention of those affected. A hallucination can affect any single sense — it can be visual, audial, tactile, etc. — occurring long enough to make an impression before ceasing. The user decides on the specifics of the hallucination, though due to its brief nature it cannot convey more than something glimpsed for a moment or a voice heard for a couple of seconds (it cannot be employed to create a fake ID, for example, if the vampire intends to do more than flashing it at someone).

Is good power, won't touch it. The only change is clarifying the text to allow for more than distractions, in case someone wants to do a one-level dip into it - they should still be able to pull off shenanigans. Rules are in the V5 Companion, p. 25 under "chimerstry".

Fata Morgana (••)

The vampire can craft an elaborate hallucination, making any victims in their vicinity see, hear, and feel whatever the user can devise. From seeing and tasting a takeout container filled with maggots and rice to a thunderous torrent of reeking, rancid blood boiling out of the sewers, Fata Morgana causes witnesses to experience circumstances that just aren’t real. 

Fata Morgana's hallucinations can affect up to the user's Chimerstry level senses at a time (so a vampire with Chimerstry 4 may choose up to four senses to affect every time they use this power).

Cost : One Rouse Check.

Dice Pool : Manipulation + Chimerstry vs (Believability)

System :  The user makes a Manipulation + Chimerstry test against a Difficulty dependant on the believability of the hallucination - it might be 1 for innocuous or expected happenings, 3 for a sudden or surprising turn of events, and 5 for the utterly unbelievable or ridiculously unlikely. The vampire must be able to perceive any would-be victims directly.

These hallucinations otherwise behave as described by the Discipline's description, and can be disbelieved as ordinary.

Duration : One scene, or until disbelieved.

First off, making it level 2 : I feel that the combined limitations of # of senses, believability and number of victims is large enough of a nerf that it could be level one, except you couldn't do a lot with it and Parlor Trick is better in line with V5's general design of 'neat trick you can pull at level one'. So it's level two. Getting the thing early is always good, give your players more tools.

Number of senses equal to Chimerstry : it's better to have a fixed number for the player to toy around with. Given that you get more niche "senses" as Chimerstry progresses, it should make for interesting choices even at Chimerstry 5.

Making it about believability : the measuring stick of "not weird / very strange / ridiculous" for Difficulty 1 / 3 / 5 makes ruling this at the table convenient. Alongside already knowing how many senses the hallucination covers it should make FM use at the table quick and easy. It's also a neat thing where some hallucinations would be easier for a vamp to believe in than for a mortal - like, say, making it appear like an explosion didn't hurt you (one sense, visual, to overlay an image over yours, and then D1 or 2 for a vamp and D4 or 5 for a mortal).

Vertigo (•••)

The character learns the particular trick of affecting the brain's interpretation of the vestibular system : the often overlooked part of our brain that tells us that up is up and down is down. Being told by your own mind that you should be falling right now is often a disorienting experience.

Dice Pools : Charisma + Chimerstry vs Composure + Wits

Cost : One Rouse check per turn

System : When using this power, a vampire must choose one of the options below :

The vampire provoques a sudden lurch in the gut of anyone they can see, as if they were falling - their sense of balance is scrambled, and while simply standing is only a matter of continuing to do so, anyone running or balancing in a precarious spot must succeed on a roll of Dexterity + Composure vs the Ravnos's Charisma + Chimerstry or immediately fall. This effect entirely bypasses the effects of the Cat's Grace Celerity Discipline, although vampires that know it gain a bonus of two dice on their roll. A character that has fallen down may spend their action getting up and moving some, but any other action may suffer a one- or two-dice penalty accordingly.

The vampire may now affect a victim's balance when using Fata Morgana, in order to (for example) make a victim feel as if they were falling along with any other sensory hallucination of such. Doing so counts as adding a sense to the Fata Morgana hallucination, and is adjudicated using Fata Morgana's rules.

The vampire continually affects a single victim's sense of balance, giving them the impression of being thrown around by some invisible, intangible hand. Any Physical roll performed by the victim that would benefit from not being subjected to that particular experience is penalized by the Chimerstry rating of the user. The effect lasts a single turn by default, but it can be prolonged by spending another action manipulating the target.

Duration : Immediate or a single turn.

So this is the opening afforded by Chimerstry being retconned into hallucinations rather than illusions (hallucinations also play better with folklore, since mind tricks have been associated with vampires in a way that illusions just haven't). Gameplay-wise it's either niche (make people fall), a boring sidegrade (more FM creative use) or a debuff. Not great overall, but let's be honest the meat of this Discipline is Fata Morgana anyway - the rest is just bonus. It's also mostly me putting down rules for the two most common uses I can see coming from this power (making people fall or otherwise fucking with them) while keeping things relatively balanced and simple (single check or dice penalty). The debuff might be too strong (it can max out to minus 5 dice), but I feel that making it take your whole action just to inconvenience somebody makes it OK. ymmv.

Turn-about (•••)

While the more dramatic manipulations of someone's sense of balance have their place, Ravnos with a more delicate touch might find their interest drifting to this discipline : while there is not, properly speaking, a "sense of orientation", careful manipulation of the vestibular system's signals can lead to much the same result than affecting such a sense would.

Dice Pools : Manipulation + Chimerstry vs Composure + Awareness

Cost : One Rouse check

System : The vampire subtly manipulates the victims' sense of orientation, making sure that they become - and remain - hopelessly lost. The character must maintain awareness of their victims' position directly : they must be able to hear, see or even smell them by their own means, and not through cameras (or some sort of science-fiction smell replicator). Victims must succeed on a roll of Composure + Awareness vs the vampire's Manipulation + Chimerstry or be endlessly turned around, no matter how familiar they may be with their surroundings.

The vampire may attempt to lead any victim to a particular spot by constantly turning them towards it : doing so may impose a one- or two-dice penalty on the vampire's roll, depending on how convoluted the way there is.

The effect lasts for a scene, during which the vampire must maintain direct awareness of their victims, as described above.

Duration : One scene.

This is just fun. The truth is that there's only two situations where this discipline can be useful : either you're isolating someone, or you need to stall a group. But like... it's just fun. It can make the Ravnos really threatening in a subtle way : even if you know you're being fucked with, you can't really do much about it except stop moving and get ready for the inevitable ambush or reinforcements. It's a really good defensive measure if nothing else, and I imagine the Ravnos have a need for those.

The Monster Inside (••••)

Some Ravnos turn their particular talents towards more tricky senses : here, proprioception. While the knowledge of that particular sense is now widely spread, the Ravnos Clan has been affecting it for centuries. Affecting someone's somatosensory system to that extent is difficult, but its effects can be impressive.

Dice Pools : Charisma + Chimerstry vs Composure + Resolve

Cost : One Rouse check.

System : While an ordinary illusion can make the target believe they are being affected by something that doesn't exist, this power allows the vampire to make someone feel as if they are something that they are not. The target must succeed on a Composure + Resolve roll against the user's Charisma + Chimerstry or suffer a penalty to any physical action they undertake for the scene equal to the difference between the two rolls, as they - for instance - reach towards a weapon with a hand that simply does not exist.

This Discipline allows the vampire to affect a victim's proprioception when using Fata Morgana, in order to (for example) make a victim feel as if they had turned into a toad along with any other sensory hallucination of such. Doing so counts as adding a sense to the Fata Morgana hallucination. It may allow the hallucination to inflict "illusory" damage, in that the subject will feel hurt but won't be otherwise affected. This effect is adjudicated by Fata Morgana's rules, and does not inflict a dice penalty as described above - the effect is found only in the victim's reaction to the hallucination.

Duration : One scene.

Another kinda boring power that only shines in the way it affects Fata Morgana. Depending on your table there might be a conversation to be had around how they feel about having a dysphoria button in play - like it seems obvious to me so I didn't put it in the rules themselves but idk your life. Clearly separating FM and the dice penalty is important to maintain flow at the table : doing otherwise will create an endless drag of "oh and then there's this bonus and this penalty and..." that grinds play to a halt. The dice penalty might be unbalanced, in which case you can just take it out. Making someone believe you just ripped out their arm or grew them a tail is powerful enough.

Hall of Mirrors (•••••)

Dice Pool : Composure + Chimerstry.

Cost : Two Rouse checks.

System : Composure + Chimerstry vs Difficulty.

As per Fata Morgana, but without some of the restrictions. The Discipline can now affect subjects that are neither perceived by the vampire nor perceiving the vampire, and the hallucination may appear to affect the surrounding reality as the user wishes.

The "illusion" can be constructed as an area of effect hallucination that grows every time someone becomes aware of the area the "illusion" exists in - it is, in effect, a disease of the mind that is transmitted by becoming aware of the area the "illusion" covers. 

Hall of Mirrors otherwise functions exactly like Fata Morgana does.

The vampire can maintain the "illusion" for a number of turns equal to their margin of success on a Composure + Chimerstry roll against a Difficulty determined by the believability of the events, after which the illusion falls apart. Every victim must be perceiving the same thing.

Remember that this is still a hallucination : none of this is really happening, and it may not cause the impossible. Utterly unbelievable events (not falling despite the ground disappearing, bumping into an object that you saw being washed away...) may still cause a victim to realize what is happening.

Duration : One turn per success (I recommend just making a pile of the dice showing a success and taking one out of the pile each turn).

Heck yeah. Become the master of their reality. So this is once again incredibly broken, with the limiting factors here being time and "disbelief". But hey, I've stated before that I'm fine with level 5 powers being very (too ?) strong. Victims still roll to disbelieve, so... feels fine to me. Another win for the "just remove limiters lol" school of design.

Final thoughts : a resounding "meh". So much text to read. Seven variants on "and they get a dice penalty". The only really fun power is Turn-about. That's the risk you take when you make something with the sheer versatility of "illusion spell", I suppose. Once again : not playtested, run at your own risks. If anyone ever plays using one of those I'd love to learn how it went.

thank you <3

Chimerstry's coming, it's just a really hard one to do. I don't want to just nerf it by a thousand cuts so to speak, becuse that's a lot of text to read to play a vampire illusionist, but it's hard to make a short illusion spell that both allow for creativity and doesn't break the game on its kness

Again, love v5, except how entire Disciplines were subsumed into like, two amalgams. So I'm making my own. I did Dementation, here's Vicissitude.

Notes are in Italics, so you can dodge them while copy-pasting into your docs. I'll be making Tzimisce use Animalism / Dominate / Vicissitude because I feel Dominate works better thematically (the V5 designers just keep on giving) but you can swap it for Auspex if you really want to go back to the old way the clan worked (you shouldn't, V5 was right about this). If you wanna do something with Dracula's bloodline just swap out Vicissitude for Protean.

The obvious first step is to take out the Vicissitude 'tree' from the V5 Companion (p. 27-28) from Protean and make them into their own Discipline. You'll need to strike out One With the Land (•••••), because as cool as it is you can't really make it work since Tzimisce don't have access to Protean anymore (I mean they could bargain for it, but at that point you should really just let your players research their own Amalgams, because that's a cool thing to let your players do).

So now all we're missing are some • and ••••• powers, which is easy enough to do.

Malleable Visage (•)

A vampire with this power may alter their own bodily parameters : height, build, voice, facial features, and skin tone, among other things. Such changes are cosmetic and minor in scope — no more than a foot (30 cm) of height gained or lost, for example. They must physically mold the alteration, literally shaping their flesh into the desired result. Dice Pool : Resolve + Vicissitude Cost : One Rouse Check System : The user can change their appearance, either for the sake of hiding their identity, enhancing their Looks Merit, or to mimic someone else. Roll Resolve + Vicissitude. Every success on the roll allows a single cosmetic change to be made to the user. This is a time-consuming affair, taking an entire scene to perform, and requires a Dexterity + Craft test in order to succeed. Difficulty is 2 to hide one’s identity, 3 to increase Looks (each level of the Merit counts as one change and increases the Difficulty by 2) and 5 to mimic a specific person. A failure on the test yields no result while a total failure causes the Looks Merit to drop one level, potentially turning into a Flaw if at baseline. Nosferatu are unable to benefit from this power. Duration : Permanent.

Yes this is supposed to be part of the Vicissitude •• power. But like... why though. Taking it out to give it early changes nothing substantial, it makes sense as an early application, and maintains V5's throughline of • powers being nice-to-haves, if not really powerful. It's just a good solution. Yes this is just me making excuses for it being very very boring, leave me alone.

Vicissitude is now called Shape the Vessel and doesn't include the 'Appearance' option because it's covered by Malleable Visage.

I'd give you a write-up of what that looks like but at that point I would just be copy-pasting from the book which is, you know, a crime - and more importantly, kinda dickish to the people who spent time working on this. By the way, those people are named Justin Achilli, Alison Cybe, Erykah Fassett, and Karim Muammar. This post already spends a lot of time reproducing part of their rules, so I thought it was important to have their names in there.

Fleshcrafting stays exactly the same.

Actually now it kinda feels like they had a complete Vicissitude discipline ready to go but chose to convert it into Amalgams (probably a good decision since it's one of V5's big design commitments). But fear not ! We now come to some actual original Content !

Subsume the Flesh (•••)

Through perfect mastery over the body, a vampire may take the flesh of another onto themselves. Perhaps the most sought-after Discipline by Tzimisce eager to increase their own power, the secret of this Discipline is carefully guarded by the elders of the Clan, who know to fear the ambitions of their lessers. While an independant vampire might stumble into such secrets by themselves, they should fear the reaction of their betters, should they learn of it. Dice Pool : Resolve + Vicissitude vs Stamina + Resolve Cost : Two Rouse checks. System : In order to use this power, the user must be able to work undisturbed on the subject, who thus either needs to be willing or restrained. An unwilling subject can resist with their Stamina + Resolve, with the user’s margin counting as Vicissitude successes. Each use of this power takes a full scene to perform. Each success allows the vampire to graft the flesh of another onto themselves, allowing them "free" Shape the Vessel charges, up to half their Vicissitude rating (round up). The change does not cost them an Attribute dot, as it is performed with the flesh (and cartilage, fat, bones…) of another. Again, the total number of Shape the Vessel changes cannot exceed the vampire’s Vicissitude rating. Each 'charge' thus taken inflicts 3 aggravated damage to the victim, alongside the loss of a Physical Attribute dot, and can never be healed. Should the victim perish at any point, the flesh the vampire took dies with them, and any changes made are lost (yes, the Embrace counts as death). A vampire who posesses both Fleshcrafting and Subsume the Flesh may use them to return any stolen flesh to the subject, or transfer it between two different victims. Duration : Until the death of the subject.

So you know how the book had those awesome Vozhd thingies ? They're made by grafting multiple victims together, and I felt like making it a power was probably necessary. And that power implies the ability to make 'grafts', so here we are. As written a PC would probably have to grab Fleshcrafting when they hit Vicissitude 3, then Subsume the Flesh at 4 *and then* Desecrate the Temple at 5 to make some, which to me feels like an appropriate level of commitment to create monstrous horrors from people. It also creates two big 'trees' in the Discipline, by either going that route or taking Subsume the Flesh at 3 and Horrid Form at 4 instead, and try to make *yourself* into a monstrous horror. So if for some forsaken reason you go for having two Tzimisce fleshcrafting players at the same table, they can distinguish themselves ! Yayyy ! There's probably some concern to be had about a player using this to become a combat monster, but uhhhh... You're playing Vampire. Like... this should not be a concern. Fights are either laughably easy (against mortals), a genuine risk (in which case having only one player be invulnerable is not a problem) or straight up impossible (in which case it doesn't matter how good you are at combat, the Elder wins, fuck you).

Horrid Form stays mostly the same, with one change : the player now has to use Shape the Vessel (and potentially Subsume the Flesh) to 'prepare' their form, and the power just unleashes it.

I prefer it that way because it builds in some limitation and forethought into the power (you can't just grow wings at the drop of a hat, you have to prepare for it) and limits how long it takes to use that power at the table : if a player uses Horrid Form, then shit is going down, and the last thing you want is for them to spend three minutes juggling Attribute points and counting possible changes like pennies. That way they'll have their Form all prepared and ready to go, and they can just pop it and keep going without interrupting combat.

Desecrate the Temple (•••••)

This terrifying power finally allows the Cainite absolute mastery over their own body : no limits may not be broken, no doors may be barred, no thresholds cannot be crossed in their pursuit of perfection. Dice Pools : None. Cost : Add one Rouse check to the power's cost. System : By making an additional Rouse check, the vampire may now reduce an Attribute to 0 while using Shape the Vessel, Fleshcrafting, Subsume the Flesh and Horrid Form. A subject with an attribute of 0 is incapable of movement (or indeed much of anything), and mortals must be put in intensive care if they want to have any hope to survive (Intelligence + Medicine extended check of 20 per day, with a roll every six hours, in a fully equipped hospital). Outlandish changes such as a network of skin and exposed nerve spread over a Haven are now in the realm of the possible, so long as a subject's vital organs are preserved (in kindred, the only such organ is the heart). Such projects are created with extended checks of both Intelligence + Medecine and Dexterity + Craft, and may require numerous test subjects before one survives the procedure - and some, like the terrifying Vozhd, may only be created by reducing a "donor" 's Attributes to 0. Consider if the desired change would require more bones, flesh or muscles than a single subject could reasonably provide : if it would, then reducing an Attribute to 0 is necessary. The total number of Vicissitude changes made to a subject may still not surpass the vampire's Vicissitude rating, unless such changes are made using a subject's last Attribute point (in which case the user may add up to 3 "free" changes, as per Subsume the Flesh). How many charges it takes to turn a child into a chair is up to the referee's discretion. Duration : Passive.

When trying to make something powerful, always consider simply removing limitations from something middling. This is... probably broken ? But like, Dominate 5 allows you to control an entire room full of mortals, or commit public masquerade breaches and have the whole street forget about it. So y'know. It's also clunky and involves too much bean-counting to my liking, but eh. I'd just have a player discuss their horrifying experiments with me outside of play sessions, so we can hammer out the rules before they roll for the attempt at the table.

To conclude : this is probably not my best work, and it certainly isn't on par with V5's stuff, but it'll do. You can hammer out kinks as they come up, and I won't get the chance to playtest this in the foreseeable future, so this is the best you're going to get.

Start every session briefly narrating the last night of an NPC a player killed last session. End with something like "Adeline will not see the sun set again. But when it does, from her death... you live again."

Let this go on for like, 4-5 sessions. Get them comfortable. As soon as a non-coterie kindred feeds on screen, start the next session with a brief narration of that kindred's victim's last night.

If your players don't suck NPCs to death then start right away with the other kindred's victims, it'll make it all the more dramatic when a human dies from blood loss because they risked losing one more hunger.

Let some sessions pass again.