Vicissitude

Flesh and bone sculpting. In-Clan for Tzimisce.

Vicissitude is flesh made clay — the Tzimisce Discipline of reshaping living and dead matter. Bone, muscle, skin, and organ can be sculpted, rearranged, or completely restructured. The Tzimisce consider this an art form. Their work ranges from practical disguise to architectural horror to the creation of the war-ghouls called Szlachta.

Origin controversy: Vicissitude has been called the most alien Discipline in Kindred society. Some Nosferatu scholars argue it is not a Discipline at all but a parasite — something living in Tzimisce blood that slowly transforms its host’s psychology alongside their body. The Tzimisce find this analysis tedious and unoriginal.

Permanent changes: Modifications made with Vicissitude are permanent unless deliberately reversed. The subject does not revert at sunrise, cannot shake off the changes, and experiences them as their new normal physical state.

Powers

● Malleable Visage

Cost: 1 Blood Point | Pool: Manipulation + Body Crafts (or Medicine), difficulty 6 | Duration: Permanent

Sculpt the vampire’s own face and superficial features — alter nose, ears, jaw, hair texture, skin tone, apparent age. Fine work (specific person’s face) requires Body Crafts skill; rough work (unrecognizable from original face) does not.

Cannot alter height or overall body mass at this level. Cannot change gender presentation beyond surface features.

●● Fleshcraft

Cost: 1 Blood Point | Pool: Manipulation + Body Crafts, difficulty 6 | Duration: Permanent

Reshape flesh — the vampire’s own or another’s with physical contact. Move muscle and fat tissue, reshape ears and features, alter body mass distribution, create unusual structures. With sufficient skill, permanently disguise an individual by redistributing their physical characteristics.

On others: Requires touch. Target must be restrained or willing; the process is not painful to other vampires but is deeply unsettling to mortals.

Partial uses: Flatten someone’s face enough that they cannot speak clearly; enlarge hands for grip strength; create unusual body modifications.

●●● Bonecraft

Cost: 1 Blood Point | Pool: Manipulation + Body Crafts, difficulty 7 | Duration: Permanent

Extend reshaping to the skeletal structure. Alter bone density and shape: create natural weapons (bone spurs through the skin, elongated fingers with bone blades), alter the skeleton for functional changes (extra joints for enhanced flexibility), or create grotesque structural modifications.

Natural weapons: Bone weapons deal Lethal damage and count as reinforced weapons for breakage purposes. Combined with Fleshcraft, the Tzimisce can create functional natural armor (add 1-2 Armor rating by rerouting bone to the skin’s underside).

Damage on others: Bonecraft used aggressively on an unwilling target (crushing, deforming) deals Aggravated damage.

●●●● Horrid Form

Cost: 2 Blood Points | Pool: Automatic | Duration: Scene

Transform into a Tzimisce war-form — an 8-foot, massively altered creature of resculpted flesh optimized for destruction:

  • +3 Strength
  • +3 Stamina (and soak dice)
  • Natural weapons deal Aggravated damage
  • Intimidating beyond rational processing (Courage roll difficulty 8 to engage without fleeing)
  • Immune to the pain of the transformation itself

The form is the Tzimisce’s ideal of predatory functionality — different for each vampire based on their aesthetic preferences and Body Crafts skill, but always monstrous.

●●●●● Bloodform

Cost: 1 Blood Point per turn | Pool: Automatic | Duration: Sustained

Dissolve entirely into a mass of living blood. The vampire becomes a roughly person-sized pool or spray of vitae:

  • Immune to all physical attacks
  • Can flow through any opening
  • Can reform from the blood into full physical form as a free action
  • Can use Vicissitude and Auspex while in blood form
  • Other vampires in the area must resist frenzy (difficulty 7) in the presence of so much blood

Vulnerability: Blood form can be diluted (water), evaporated (heat), or collected. If significantly diluted, the vampire must spend additional blood to reform completely.

Szlachta and War Ghouls

At Bonecraft + Fleshcraft level (●●●), the Tzimisce can create the Szlachta — heavily modified war ghouls whose bodies have been restructured for combat. These are not vampires but blood-bound mortals or ghouls resculpted into something functional.

Common Szlachta modifications:

  • Limb extension: Additional arm-reach for grappling
  • Skull reinforcement: Head structure optimized to protect the brain
  • Musculature redistribution: +2 Strength at the cost of grace
  • Weapon integration: Bone weapons that cannot be disarmed

Full Tzimisce architecture — the vozhd war-ghouls that can exceed human scale — requires Vicissitude ●●●●● and months of work.

Elder Powers

Ecstatic Agony (●●●●● ●)

Cost: 2 Willpower | Pool: Automatic | Duration: Scene

Tzimisce elder power.

The Fiend transmutes pain into physical empowerment. After spending 2 Willpower, the vampire adds their current wound penalties as bonus dice to all non-reflexive physical actions and Discipline use for the scene. A vampire at Wounded (–1) gains +1 die; at Mauled (–2) gains +2 dice. As the character heals, the bonus diminishes accordingly.

Incapacitated and Final Death are still applied normally. This power is a mark of the extreme Tzimisce relationship with pain as a transformative force.

Kraken’s Kiss (●●●●● ●●)

Cost: 1 Willpower | Pool: Stamina + Medicine, difficulty 8 | Duration: Scene

Tzimisce elder power.

The Fiend’s face erupts into a mass of foot-long tentacles studded not with suckers but with rows of tiny fanged mouths. On success, the tentacles form without loss of other sensory abilities.

The tentacle mass is used in melee (difficulty 5; Strength + 2 damage). A successful hit indicates a grapple. On the same turn as the initial grab, feeding begins: for each success on the attack roll, one additional blood point is drained per turn as dozens of mouths bite and drain. To break the grip, the victim must score three more successes than the vampire in an extended Strength contest.

Save the Rack (●●●●● ●)

Cost: 1 Willpower | Pool: Automatic | Duration: Permanent

Create a permanent physical storage body — a resculpted corpse or vampire form that the Tzimisce’s consciousness can inhabit. Not possession; more like a prepared vessel. If the primary body is destroyed, the consciousness may transfer to the rack body within 24 hours if it is within the same domain.

Create Gargoyle (●●●●● ●●●)

Cost: 3 Willpower + 10 Blood Points | Pool: Extended Manipulation + Body Crafts (20 successes) | Duration: Permanent

The original Tremere-Tzimisce creation: merge three ghouls (Gangrel, Nosferatu, Tzimisce bloodlines preferred) into a single war-creature. The Gargoyle is a fully functional supernatural being with its own Blood Pool, Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence at 2. The creation process takes three nights.