Editing Vampire: The Masquerade (section)

===Blood Magic===
Technically disciplines, but they have versatility and applications on par with magical paths from the ''Sorcerer'' [[splatbook]]. Almost all of them have unique powers on a 1-5 dot scale, allowing them to learn all sorts of terrible powers. Unlike actual disciplines, however, Blood magic is not an innate part of the Beast but an acquired skill similar to the linear magic of unawakened human warlocks modified to run on blood rather than willpower (although some paths use both). As a result when the Beast takes over control it cannot use Blood Magic, which puts practitioners at a major disadvantage in fights if they happen to lose control; which is quite easy given even ''insults'' can trigger Frenzy, and taking damage have a decent chance of frenzying even steel-willed kindred. Speaking of acquired skills, in case a mage is embraced and his Avatar is shunted to next incarnation, the currently dead vampire ex-mage can spend half of his former life's XP points to Blood Magic. Types include:

====Necromancy====
Many different clans and bloodlines practice this, often with their own ethnic variations. The masters are, of course, the Cappadocians and Giovanni.

* The Ash Path interacts with the land of the dead, allowing the Necromancer to peer inside, touch stuff there, visit the place or make it difficult for ghosts to visit the material world.
* The Bone Path is that of zombies: make the dead move, turn them into (shitty) servants or warriors, rip the souls out of people or stick a soul into a recently deceased body. Sure, it'll still decay as normal but the soul can use the body for a week or so.
* The Centaph Path interacts with the Shadowlands, the place between the worlds of the living and the dead. This allows them to interact with the recently deceased and generally fuck up the shit of Wraiths.
* The Corpse in the Monster grants mastery of the undead form, allowing a Necromancer to make themselves more dead for a while or avoid damage, make an undead target a bit more alive (like for example needing to shit) and the most powerful ability allows for the temporary suppression of their status as a Vampire. This requires a staggering 12 points to be spent in one go, and you do NOT want to botch this roll lest you die.
* The Grave's Decay weaponizes the physical entropy that Vampires are immune to. It allows the Necromancer to decay bodies, decay the limbs of enemies, cause diseases on otherwise immune Vampires or even rot a Vampire's body away where he stands.
* The Path of the Four Humors can do all sorts of nasty stuff with these old classics: damage becomes a lot more potent, soak more damage and exhale a cloud melancholy that makes mortals try to kill themselves and sinks Vampires into torpor.
* The Sepulchre Path allows the Necromancer to see, summon and command the undead. The five-dot version allows them to bitchslap ghosts without being attacked back.
* The Vitreous Path command the energies of death. This involves entropy, decay, allows the Necromancer to eat ghosts and has a potent cry that deals aggravated damage to mortals, Vampires and ghosts alike.

====Thaumaturgy====
What clan Tremere took with them when they split from [[Mage: The Ascension|the Order of Hermes]]. The various paths are:

* Elemental Mastery deals with inanimate objects: speak with the spirits of inanimate objects, animate objects to whoop some ass or outright summon [[Elemental]]s... who then tear you to shreds, because as nature spirits they hate unnatural undead abominations like you.
* Green Path is plant magic, simple as that. Learn from plants, make stuff grow, manipulate vines, create a powerful Haven or command the trees to go forth and whoop some Kindred ass.
* Hands of Destruction is rumored to be demonic in origin. Whether this is true or not, it is still a potent Path capable of rotting things with a touch, create acid or age mortals into dust, ''Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'' style. As the name indicates, all powers on this Path require a physical touch.
* Lure of the Flames is rightfully feared by many Vampires because of its ability to permanently kill them. It deals damage over time however, so while it cannot kill a Kindred in one go up to three levels of aggravated damage per turn is nothing to scoff at. Above all, however the Lure of Flames is scary because any uncontrollable fire scares the shit out of the Beast inside every vampire, causing Rötschreck. Do note that Thaumaturgist casting the Lure is not immune to Rötschreck either, nor are his kindred allies, which can lead to some hilarious shenanigans. Good thing there are rituals that can reduce or even outright suppress the fear of fire for a time, but none of those rituals are easy or even safe.
* Mastery of the Mortal Shell grants you the ability to mess with the bodies of your enemies and even control them.
* Movement of the Mind is telekinesis, simple as that. You can move stuff around, with the more powerful versions being able to throw things around. Three dots should be enough to lift a fair number of Vampires, though picking up that bulky Brujah dude (>100 kg/200 pounds) requires four. Oh, and at three dots you can use it to fly.
* Neptune's Might is an odd duck given the general lack of connections to water that Vampires have. Still, this is a potent Path capable of seeing into the past, create prisons or walls, mess with the blood of people (by turning it into water) or at five dots just rip the water out of someone's body. [[Wat|That last one is also really useful for drying your clothes.]] Upon reaching third level a practitioner may opt to specialize in either salt or fresh water, lowering the difficulty of one while raising that of the other.
* Path of Blood manipulates Vitae. It is one of the most fundamental paths for the Tremere and the most commonly studied one.
* Path of Conjuring allows you to summon stuff. Unusually the power remains the same throughout the levels, instead increasing the scope of the one dot ability. You start out with simple stuff (lead pipes, stakes, rocks), but as you level you can make objects permanent (always start with at least two dots in this Path unless you like spending large amounts of Willpower on things), summon complex stuff like weapons and vehicles, banish it back and even summon living (if mindless) things like animals and even people. To stop it from being completely OP you have to know how to create something ''without'' conjuring to make it with conjuring, so no rocket launchers out of thin air, unless you're a professional gunsmith with a military clearance. There's also a key limitation that you cannot conjure things bigger or heavier than you, although there's a ritual that let you bypass it in case you want to [[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure|squash your enemies with road-rollers]] (it's really the only justifiable way of using it).
* Path of Corruption does just that. It fucks with the minds of its victims, turn people gainst one another and create potent addiction.
* Path of Mars cries havoc and lets slip the dogs of war. This makes their attacks a lot more powerful, increases their stats and conveys the powers of this Path on allies.
* Path of Mercury lets you teleport safely within your sight, unsafely to the distant places you're familiar with and telefrag yourself into distant places you're not familiar with.
* Path of Shadowcrafting is a blood magic version of Obtenebration that reaches into the Abyss to summon and manipulate shadows with less tentacles and more spooky scary focus. Notable for being specifically designed to troll Lasombra.
* Path of Spirit Manipulation is the [[Mage: The Ascension|Sphere of Spirit]] but for a Hermetic wizard.
* Path of Technomancy is a rather new one, but with a badass concept: CYBER VAMPIRES. With this Path they can figure out technology, destroy devices, encrypt data to supernatural degrees (Vampire DRM!), access devices without touching them and at the five-dot capstone SEND THEIR MINDS THROUGH THE INTERNETS and engage in PSYCHIC VAMPIRE HACKING. [[Shadowrun]]ners wish they were this awesome.
* Path of the Father's Vengeance is Vampire Bible Magic. Taking from the Book of Nod this Path is primary used to punish Vampires when they get out of line. It reveals blood bonds, reduces someone's Appearance to 0 for a night (for Toreador this might as well be the Final Death), forces a Vampire to live on ash instead of blood for a week or makes them extremely susceptible to light to the point where [[flashlight]]s can kill them. But the most dreaded of all is Valediction, which returns a Vampire to their original Generation for a week. This greatly reduces their power and makes them a lot easier to kill for a high-Generation Vampire and steal their powers.
* Path of the Focussed Mind has a number of magic Zen powers, allowing you to focus and think better.
* Path of the Levinbolt is a collection of lightning powers, from shutting down electrical devices and giving small shocks to commanding the power of Thor, tossing around lightning bolts that are difficult to soak.
* Weather Control is... well, what do you think? This can conjure up weather from fog, breezes and temperature changes all the way to major temperature changes, storms and lightning strikes (10 dice of lethal damage, bitch!)

====Dark Thaumaturgy====
Regular Thaumaturgy is blood magic given form by experimentation and research. Dark Thaumaturgy is instead granted by demons that vampires can make pacts with in exchange for these Paths. This is a shortcut to power, one that leads to the dark side and makes one a Infernalist. As such, employing Dark Thaumaturgy is risky as just about any Kindred: in the Camarilla the Tremere have the monopoly on magic and don't like it when someone treads on their turf: to the Sabbat Infernalism is a very big no-no and the Anarchs lack the resources and knowledge for Dark Thaumaturgy. As part of the pact to obtain it, all of the Paths have a price to pay that affects either the Infernalist or limits the usefulness of the Path under certain conditions. Like its normal counterpart, Dark Thaumaturgy has a number of paths that each do something different:

*'''Fires of the Inferno''' is more or less the Lure of Flames, except the flames are a sickly green. Said green flames taint the user's aura, making them even easier to identify as an Infernalist.
*'''Path of Evil Revelations''' or by its original name, Video Nefas, lets you see the future, into the spirit world and the souls of mortals and use this knowledge to shape demons.
*'''Path of Phobos''' has to do with inflicting fear upon others in increasingly horrible ways to the point where said fear can be feasted upon as if it were Vitae. This also makes the user suffer horrific nightmares.
*'''Path of Pain''' inflicts pain, shields the user from pain and can even make a vampire's blood rip them apart from the inside. As a price the user becomes addicted to pain.
*'''Path of Pleasure''' lets you inflict great pleasure on a target, eventually rendering them stunned and even catatonic.
*'''Path of Spirit''' allows for the conjuring of demons and damaging all kinds of spirits.
*'''Path of Summoning ''' grants the ability to summon powerful demons, but this taints the area in which one is summoned.
*'''Path of the Defiler''' spreads corruption of the spirit, playing to the fears and inadequacies of people to the point where you turn someone's self-loathing into a deformity. This does make one jealous and possessive of their victims.
*'''Path of the Unspoken''' grants access to knowledge: you can learn it from books, the voices of entropy, talk to peoples' shadows and evne make someone drop from the collective consciousness at the cost of memory lapses.
*'''Taking of the Spirit''' allows for the draining of Willpower: the higher the rank the more Willpower you drain. This makes the user an arrogant magalomaniac.
*'''Tyranny of the Wyrm''' or by its original and far more badass German name, '''Die Herrschaft Des Wyrm''', is a unique Path that does not traffic with normal demons. Instead it parlays with the three-headed dragon himself. And no, this is not ''Azhi Dahaka'' that the [[Tzimisce]] seek: this is none other than the Triatic [[Wyrm]] of [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]]. Created by a Hessian [[Malkavian]] cabal, it serves a power greater than even the most potent demons: the very essence of the Universe's destructive third. After the Path's creation all of its practitioners were betrayed to the Wyrm by Harold the Engraver, one of the members of the cabal, who later disappeared. His writings are remarkably well-conserved, allowing for the creation of many new Infernalists in the area. This Path allows for the manipulation of Malfean demons, letting them possess either the Infernalist's targets of the thaumaturgist themselves, granting anything from constant pain and suffering to a massive boost due to being possessed by an aspect of a Maeljin, which for those of you not vested in the ways of Werewolf is both a REALLY BAD IDEA as well as REALLY BAD FOR ANYONE FACING THE POSSESSED. The Path does have one big weakness: its instability. If the victim understands that it's being played they get a Wits + Occult roll against the Infernalist's Willpower and dots in the Path: if the victim wins the curse bounces onto the Infernalist. On top of that, a blessing from someone with True Faith immediately removes any ill effects caused by the Discipline. As for what became of Harold the Engraver? Nobody knows, but there is a powerful Malkavian (probably a Malkavian [[Baali|Apostate]]) on the [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse#Pentex: Evil Incorporated|Pentex Board of Directors]], making him a servant to the Wyrm. He happens to have the name Harold Zettler, <s>which gets a lot more ominous when you realize what the German word for engraver is...(Ja, Zettler bedeutet "Engraver" auf Englisch)</s> (Actually, Zettler seems to be an outdated term for a job performed in a weaving mill: someone who transfers threads onto another machine so they get incorporated into a larger weave. Whether this is a piece intentional or accidental irony is up for debate.)

====Sadhana====
''Sadhana'' is a Hindi word meaning ''Thaumaturgy''; it is basically just Thaumaturgy as practiced by the [[Danava]] and other Hindu bloodlines such as the [[Nagaraja]], [[Daitya]], [[Ravnos]], and even the [[Salubri]] of the Watcher bloodline who remained in India after [[Saulot]] departed from there.  As ''rakta-sadhus'' ("blood-workers") primarily worship [[Shiva]], Sadhana also includes some Dark Thaumaturgy paths and rituals.

====Sorcery====
A bunch of groups have their own "Insert-Name-Here Sorcery", even the Anarchs.

* '''Assamite Sorcery:''' Used exclusively by the Assamites, this brand of magic grants them [[Weeaboo Fightan Magic]].
* '''Koldunic Sorcery:''' Practiced by the Tzimisce, this brand of magic demands not just mastery, but perfection. It grants you mastery over one of the elements like you're the Avatar. No [[Avatar|not that one]] [[/v/|or that one]]: [[Avatar: The Last Airbender|it's the bald monk child one]]. Five dots per element, each with both utility and potent possibly Masquerade-shattering powers. This type of magic is mainly used by the Old Tzimisce, who have a distaste for making meat toys.

====Rituals====
Vampire ritualistic magic that requires incantations, ingredients and preparation rather than vitae and the force of will (although blood is a very common ingredient). Technically speaking anyone can use it, but in practice Blood Magic users keep it to themselves (although they do often share rituals between schools, so having Tremere using necromantic rituals or Assamite sorcerer performing Koldunic ritual is not that unusual). There's literally thousands of rituals pretty much anything - from finding your lost keys to imbuing the blade with a green fires that eat through anything, to emulating pretty much any discipline effect, to avoiding tax collectors (or siccing them on someone you don't like), to creating Frankenstein monsters. Generally speaking the more powerful the ritual is the more exotic and/or immoral are the actions and ingredients required, down to self-mutilation and mass human/kindred sacrifices, although some necromantic rituals manage to break through the morality event horizon even at level one. Notable for creating "Vampire Batman" archetype that relies on a deep bag of tricks a few dozens of rituals and a ''lot'' of preparation can provide. Especially infuriating when Storyteller makes an antagonist of this type.