Shadows of Austin

Camouflage
By altering her skin tone and even her clothes to blend into her surroundings, the Kindred becomes more difficult to notice, granting a bonus to rolls to go unnoticed equal to her Protean dots.

Projectile Blood
Spitting blood like a Cobra, the Kindred can temporarily render their opponents blind. Spend 1 additional Vitae beyond the activation cost of this power, the Vitae is expelled from the Kindreds mouth up to a distance of Strength x 3 yards. Roll Dexterity + Athletics - Defense, with the usual targeted attack penalty, but reduce this penalty by the character’s Protean dots. Success inflicts the Blind tilt on the opponent. The tilt is resolved if the victim of this power spends an Instant action wiping away the viscous fluid. Vitae so expelled from the body is considered inert, and does not cause Vitae Addiction or any increase in the steps of a Blood Bond.

Rodent’s Anatomy
Much like a Mouse or Rat caught in a Predators grasp, you know just how to move and wiggle to make an escape. If you have this power activated while in a grapple, you may add your dots in Protean to any roll to Break Free or Escape an Immobilize. Dots granted by this power may not be applied to Take Down, Damage, or the Disarm Maneuver. This power may allow the Kindred to attempt to escape an Immobilize caused by an item such as a Zip Tie or Handcuffs, make a Dexterity + Athletics roll with a penalty depending on how advanced the equipment is. Standard Rope levies a −1 penalty while Police Issue Handcuffs impose a −3. Success frees the character from the restraint.

Unnatural Maw
Though vampires are skilled predators, human physiology means their mouths aren’t their greatest weapon. Via Protean, the vampire increases the useful radius of their bite, whether by ‘unhinging’ their jaw in the manner of snakes, growing circular rows of lamprey-like teeth or some other animalistic method. When feeding ‘Violently’, they increase their effective ‘blood taken per turn’ maximum in grappling and other situations by their Protean dots. Used outside combat, this effectively turns any feeding into ‘The Assault’ instead of The Kiss.

Venom
The Kindred can produce powerful venom glands, like a spider or a snake, that they may excrete when they bite someone or hit them with a natural weapon granted by Protean. This counts as a Poison with a Toxicity equal to the Kindred’s Protean dots. In combat it inflicts the (Moderate) Poison Tilt.

Viper’s Gift
Vipers have the ability to track their prey through proteins in their bites. This Protean modification grants a similar ability. For the purposes of tracking a bitten victim by scent (p91, Vampire), the Kindred gains a dice bonus equal to their Protean until the end of the scene. This ability also allows other vampires to be tracked in a similar fashion to mortals. If the Kindred has other natural weapons granted by Protean, they can elect to cause this effect on a successful strike.

Wolf’s Hide
Adapting his flesh to that of a Predatory Animal like a Wolf or Lion, the Kindred becomes unnaturally resilient to damage. He enjoys an armor rating of 2/0 against any bashing attacks and a rating of 1/0 against incoming lethal damage (after downgrading). This armor does not apply to banes that the Kindred suffers from, but stacks with any armor worn.

Long Death
The Kindred produces a powerful hemotoxin as the Beast devours the subject’s blood from within them. This poison is delivered through the Kindred’s bite, or through any natural weapons created by Protean. This poison deals Lethal damage and has a Toxicity of their Blood Potency. The damage happens once per hour up to Protean times, but never during the day. In Combat this produces the (Grave) Poison Tilt, except that the victim takes a penalty to their Stamina + Resolve roll each turn equal to the Kindred’s Protean. Vampire victims lose Vitae instead of taking damage while Ghouls lose Vitae before health levels.

Monstrous Hide
The Kindred transmutes their bones and flesh, forming layers of tough leathery skin, carapace, or other natural armor. This counts as 3/5 armor with a −2 penalty to defense and a −1 penalty to speed, which does not stack with other armor (but note Resilience is NOT armor).

Hush, now you shouldn’t struggle so. This is for your own good.

In the back of every Melissid’s undead brain, she feels an itch, a chittering, rustling presence: the beginning of a hive-mind. Hungry, it needs to grow, it needs to control, it needs to surround itself with drones and workers, so that it can find comfort. To be alone in her own head fills a Melissid with a sense of panic. This panic drives the Melissadae.

The Queen Bees don’t just want control, they need it. They have no choice. A few Melissidae, repelled by a realization of what they’ve become, try to escape. For those who have their powers, though, it’s too easy to use them, to give in to temptation. A little push there, a twist here. One thing leads to another, and soon the Kindred finds herself surrounded by slaves. She’s become the slave master.

Nickname: Queen Bees

Bloodline Bane: If separated by 1 mile or more for more than an hour from an individual who has tasted her Royal Jelly, she gains the Frightened Condition.
Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Resilience, Dominate, Auspex


Bloodline Gift: Hive Mind

A Melissid starts to develop a hive-mind that grants her a telepathic link with those with who have tasted her Royal Jelly, this allows her to send telepathic signals way more specifically than the ones from Blood Sympathy. Through the hive-mind, she can send short telepathic signals, such as: “Danger approaching,” “In need of help,” “Prince is dead” and others short signals. She does not need to talk when sending the signals. She needs only to spend a point of Willpower and roll Intelligence + Expression. The maximum distance this signal can reach is 100 miles. Some penalties may apply based on distance.

More than 1 mile away -1 die
More than 5 miles away -2 dice
More than 10 miles away -3 dice
More than 20 miles away -4 dice
More than 50 miles away -5 dice

The Melissid can convert Vitae to Royal Jelly at a 1:1 ratio by spending a single Willpower point per point converted.

Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The Melissid loses connection with her entire hive-mind for the remainder of the scene. If she is not within line of sight of a member of her hive-mind, she gains the Frightened Condition, as her mind enters in panic from the lost connection.
Failure: The signal is not sent.
Success: A short signal is sent, the signal can be a short sentence.
Exceptional Success: The signal is so strong that even a complex sentence can be sent; Dominate commands can be issued thusly.

Devotions:

Swarm Communion (Animalism •, Dominate •••)
Cost: 1 Willpower to initiate the communion plus 1 Vitae for each people affected
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy + Animalism vs Composure + Blood Potency.
This power creates a temporary hive-mind affinity on targets affected by the vampire Mesmerized condition. This extends the duration of the Mesmerized condition to the next sunrise and allows the vampire, for the duration of this power, to use the Dominate, Auspex, Nightmare, Majesty and similar powers on one of the Mesmerized subjects and affect all of them at once.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The Melissid is unable to maintain control over the Communion, breaking the Mesmerized Condition on all targets affected by this power and he also gets the Distracted Condition for the remainder of the scene.
Failure: The Melissid fails to create a communion between the targets.
Success: The target is added to the Swarm, experiencing a rudimentary hive-mind. They're disoriented and giddy, suffering the Distracted condition while in communion with the Swarm. All psychic Discipline powers used by the Melissid on them work as if on one individual, using the highest available trait or dice pool for resistance if one is applicable.
Exceptional Success: As a success, except that the Swarm uses the lowest available trait or dice pool for resistance.
This power cost 2 Experience point.

Conditioning (Dominate ••••)
For the Hive Induction power, Melissidae need to develop this Devotion first.
Vampire the Requiem 2nd Edition page 143
This power cost 2 Experience point.

Hive Induction (Swarm Communion, Conditioning)
Cost: 3 Vitae and 3 Willpower to create the initial hive-mind and 2 Vitae and 1 Willpower for each subsequent member introduced.
Dice pool: Presence + Intimidation + Dominate vs Composure
This power strips away any vestiges of individual personality. The targets need to be affected by the Subservient condition, but not the Enslaved condition. For every night, you make a roll as if you were Conditioning the target, but when the Willpower is fully marked, the target gains the Drone-Mind condition instead of the Enslaved one. This power, different from Conditioning, can be used once per night per target. Once the initial cost of Willpower and Royal Jelly has been paid, the Melissid only needs to pay it again if something disturbs his work. A Melissid can maintain a hive with a number of drones equal to the square of her Blood Potency plus one. To turn a mortal into a mindless drone is monstrous: Kindred will be required to make degeneration checks of Humanity 3 every time they use this power. This power only works on ordinary mortals (non-template) and ghouls.
This power cost 3 Experience point.

Mock Mind (Dominate •••, Hive Induction)
Cost: 2 Vitae, 1 Willpower
Dice pool: Intelligence + Empathy + Dominate
This power enables the Melissid to imbue a drone with an entirely fake but wholly convincing personality, constructed from lingering fragments of identity subsumed by the hive-mind. This false personality can, once installed, be activated or de-activated with a telepathic cue from the drone’s queen or from another Melissid with this power attached to the hive (such as one of the queen’s childer). When activated, the drone’s Social and Mental Attributes and Skills return to the levels they held before his induction into the hive-mind. The mask personality fools mortals, but has no aura; attempts at telepathic scanning, Auspex or similar powers find that beneath the surface, there is literally nothing. A failure to activate this power causes the personality created to take hold of the drone. If this happens, the drone, believing himself always to have been this new person, won’t actually know what’s happened to him and is not considered a part of the hive-mind anymore. It loses the Drone-Mind condition and acquires the False Memories condition. Such ex-drones are dangerous and promptly hunted to be reintroduced on the hive-mind.
This power cost 2 Experience point.

New Condition: Drone-Mind
You’ve become a drone. Your memories and individual personality has been erased by a process, you are now sharing one mind with other drones under a Melissid direction. You can't exist too far away from other drones without panicking. When in peril, you can raise a telepathic alarm signal. Any other drones, their Melissid sire or any other Melissidae associated with the hive (such as childer of the Melissid queen) can perceive the alarm. If such an alarm is made during the day, when the hive-queen sleeps, the queen’s player may roll Humanity to awaken. The Melissid, as queen of the hive, has the power to contact any member of the hive telepathically and can use Possession on any member of the hive-mind without making eye contact, as long as one member of the hive is within the Melissid’s line of sight. Social and Mental Skills for hive drones are reduced to 1, unless working with other drones; Social and Mental attributes are reduced to 1, unless the target is a Ghoul, they reduce this attributes to 2 instead, acting as royal guards and scouts. When seen working in concert, the silent co-operation of members of the hive disturbs and offends, a successful Wits + Empathy roll shows that the drones are plainly, terribly wrong.
The player should only continue playing a character with this Condition if there’s a chance of removing this condition. A former hive member would, in all likelihood, suffer from severe psychiatric trauma, and is unlikely to be able to function again in society, since much of his memory has vanished or been subsumed.
Possible Sources: Hive-Induction
Resolution: Kill the vampire who controls you. Keep isolated by more than a mile from the rest of the hive for more than one week.

Sting (Dominate ••, Animalism •)
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Wits + Brawl + Dominate vs Resolve + Blood Potency
With a brush of her lips, or a kiss or a lick, a Queen Bee stings her victim, causing him to experience a brief epiphany of pain so intense he’s unable to do anything other than writhe and gasp. To activate this power, a Melissid must first be in a position in which she can touch her victim with her mouth. Successful activation of the power causes the victim to be unable to take any action, even to speak or scream.

Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The target proves too resilient to be affected, he is immune from futher attempts for the next three nights.
Failure: The Melissid fails to sting its target.
Success: The target is overcome with a intense sensation of pain, he cannot act unless he spend a point of Willpower for a number of turns equal the number of sucess.
Exceptional Success: No additional effects.

Honeycomb Heart (Animalism ••, Resilience ••)
Cost: 3 Vitae
Dice Pool: Strength + Survival + Animalism
A Melissid can learn how to use her useless lungs and digestive apparatus as a beehive or a wasps’ nest.
The activation of this power does not require any rollings, just the expenditure of Vitae. After 3 nights, the Melissid develops the beehive inside his body. It can be maintained expending 1 point of Vitae per week. At any time during this period, the Vampire can vomit a swarm on its targets, using the dice pool. It causes the Distracted Condition for a number of turns equal the number of successes. For every turn the victim also receives a point of bashing damage. The Melissid can call the swarm back at any moment, but after 3 uses of the swarm, the colony dies and the Queen Bee needs to use this power again to develop a new colony.