Jona Heart

FAR REACH
Is that name too on-the-nose? Well, it'll have to do. Like something out of a comic book, this formula gives me the ability to grab, hold, and push objects or people without even touching them, seemingly with my mind. I think that's how it works, anyway. I mean, we all thought animated, bloodsucking corpses were mere fiction, so who's to say Jean Grey is out of the question? That said, from what I've gathered, not many can apply enough mental (I'm pretty sure it's mental) force to actually cause direct harm, so maybe the comics overindulge just a bit. Still, a clever "mentalist" could think of other ways to nudge an adversary into harm’s way. In self-defense, of course. I suppose "moving the harm out of the way" would be more appropriate. Or moving oneself away from harm.

■ Ingredients:

• The blood of the alchemist (that's me).
• Choleric (feeling) human blood.
• Melted nylon fibers or a grated refrigerator magnet or weird nootropics ordered off the internet.

■ Cost: Rouse once.

■ Details: The alchemist (me again) can lift, push, or pull a person or object below 220 lbs (100 kg) within their (my) sight, provided that they're within 33 feet (10 meters). A thrown object can be flung swiftly, but not rapidly enough to really injure someone on impact, though the object itself may end up worse for wear if it's fragile. Naturally, it's a whole other story if we're flinging knives or other small metal tools, which the alchemist can wield by putting steeling their resolve and putting their skill in alchemy to the test, though they can expect a two-degree penalty because of the need to be precise. A knife used this way would probably do only a bit of extra damage next to other improvised weapons.

Trying to move someone actively resisting once again calls for a contest of the alchemist's resolve and their alchemical proficiency against the target's physical strength and athleticism. If the alchemist succeeds, they can either draw the victim within grabbing or clobbering range or throw them one meter for each point of margin on the contest, doing an equal amount of superficial injury. They land flat on their backside. Or frontside. Or just their side. You get the idea.

Keeping someone or something suspended in mid-air once again requires a test of the alchemist's resolve and their skill in Thin-Blood Alchemy (with a difficulty of the third degree) for each passing moment.

Fine manipulation (like, say... pulling the pin of a grenade) requires the alchemist to flex their wits and alchemical prowess at a suitable standard of difficulty, though how difficult depends on how generous the universe is feeling towards you, I suppose.

■ Duration: One moment unless held.

HAZE
This formula creates a field of mist that follows the user, concealing their identity and rendering them about 20% more difficult to target with ranged weapons.

■ Ingredients:

• My blood, [super]naturally.
• Phlegmatic (intuition) human blood.
• Dry ice or cigar smoke or auto exhaust.

■ Cost: One rouse of the blood.

■ Details: 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 20% penalty to their aim. The user can extend the cloud to encompass a group of up to five people by making an additional Rouse check.

■ Duration: The duration of the instance or until voluntarily ended.

At this stage in my alchemical research, I've figured out how to develop formulae to counterfeit the tier-one powers of other vampiric disciplines. Each of these formulae demand at least a week's research.

I've come up with a means of developing formulae to counterfeit the second-tier powers of other disciplines. Each of these formulae take at least a night to distill and at least one month's research.

DEFRACTIONATE
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 (sensation) and melancholic (thinking) human blood + O-negative human blood (only a few ml) + moldy spinach + hot black coffee + sodium octanoate.

Sodium octanoate (C8H15NaO2), also known as sodium caprylate (NaC8H15O2): In the pharmaceutical industry, it may be used for the protection, separation, and precipitation of proteins and is frequently used in blood fractionation as a stabilizer to retain biological activity of pharmaceutical proteins such as human albumin solutions during pasteurization. Caprylic acid is a medium-chain fatty acid that is found in palm oil, coconut oil, and the milk of humans and bovines.

■ 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.

PROFANE HIEROS GAMOS

Alchemical texts and practicing Wiccans like our friend, Catherine, speak of the Great Hermaphrodite—the union of contrasts. Day, night. Male, female. Life, death. If I'm understanding this right, alchemists who master the worldly aspect of the Hieros Gamos can actually use the fluid nature of their condition to change their gender. A messy process in need of great zeal and conviction, it's a power that many of our kin secretly covet in their eternally static form. It's not bad if you need to do away with the old unlife and start anew, either, or just need to infiltrate someplace where everybody knows your name (or—more to the point—your face, body, nethers, etc.).

■ Ingredients:

• The alchemist’s blood, as always.
• Blood from five different vessels (though I prefer to call them "donors") who fully identify as the desired gender.

■ Details: After mixing this bloody cocktail, 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 self-made 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.

To be updated to match the V5 Errata:

profane hieros gamos
To the alchemist, rebirth and renewal are not locked behind the ritual of sacred union between two opposites. Through the power of their mercurial vitae, the alchemist can help shape a human body to match the mental self-image or desired shape held by the consciousness within it. With the help of rare reagents, the alchemist can even defy one of the fundamental curses of the vampiric condition by altering the unchanging state to which the undead revert to in their day sleep. This specific formula can be imbibed by mortals or vampires other than the alchemist after their ritual purification and deep meditation on their own idealized—or desired—form.

This knowledge makes the expertise of the alchemist a valuable and desired commodity even to those Kindred who loathe their very existence. Duskborn openly offering services like these are more likely to be coerced to work or kidnapped than paid handsomely.

■ Ingredients: The alchemist’s Blood + melancholic and phlegmatic human blood + entheogenic substances.

■ Activation Cost: One Rouse Check or one point of Aggravated health damage for mortals.

■ Dice Pools: Stamina + Resolve.

■ System: Whoever imbibes the formula mixed with a Rouse Check worth of their own blood instantly falls into a catatonic fever dream until the following night, the depths of their psyche plumbed for their personal idealized form or a form strongly desired. The effects of Profane Hieros Gamos are limited to the external morphology of the human form—the body refusing transformations too outlandish and fantastical to be without the wondrous spectrum of human anatomy.

The imbiber makes a Stamina + Resolve roll against a difficulty of 8 minus the successes on the distillation roll. If the imbiber is a vampire, they add their Bane Severity to the difficulty of the check.

On a win, the transformation process is successful and their physical body molds to the desired shape. A critical win can grant and remove Merits and Flaws of the Looks category, though, like all Advantages, they need to be paid for with Experience points (p. 180). A messy critical or a bestial failure might cause a new Flaw to manifest, ranging from Repulsive, Obvious Predator, Stigmata, or even Organovore as the Beast interferes with the transformation.

Not even the blood of the Duskborn can spare the Nosferatu from their Bane, the process incorporating the clan’s hideous affliction despite the user’s mental image.

■ Duration: Permanent until performed again.

Dice Pools: In-character, dice are represented in percentages. Every ten percent is equal to one die (instead of "add two dice," it reads "increases chances of success by 20%"). If a dice pool exceeds ten, the percentage will simply be raised to 110% and so on.

Stats: Combinations and contests of attributes, skills, and disciplines are presented in language that can more or less be understood in-character. Instead of "Strength + Brawl," it might be phrased as "his physical prowess combined with his unarmed fighting skill."

Hunger Tiers:

• Hungry (Hunger 2).
• Really hungry (Hunger 3).
• Starving (Hunger 4).
• Ravenous (Hunger 5).

Roll: When referring to a roll or round, Jona might instead say "moment." Or "round" if it actually fits in the context of the story. "Turn" might be swapped out for "move" or "maneuver."

Scene: Sequence; instance; incident; event. This one's a little hard to define in-character, since a scene can last as long as the Storyteller deems fit and the character's don't know when their story is moving on or cutting away.