Valeren

Nicknames: Obeah, Path of the healer, Path of the warrior, Path of the watcher, soul-devouring, tertius oculus.

Valeren is the mystical Discipline of the Salubri. At its most basic, Valeren provides control over pain and increased martial ability, seemingly allowing warriors to draw on the power of heaven to vanquish their foes and healer to judge and even improve a subject’s health. As the vampire grows more powerful, Valeren lets her heal a target’s soul directly. It is this power that forms the basis of the “soulsucker” charge that dogs the bloodline these nights.

The discipline originated with Saulot in his travels in the East learning from the Kuei-jin the use of the Dragon Pearl.

Learning Valeren causes a third eye to develop in the middle of one's forehead. The third eye is said to bestow "sight beyond sight" and enable the Salubri to see the threads of life and death around them. Once their abilities to restore lost vitality and cleanse individuals of taints of both the body and the soul earned the Salubri awe and respect, but after years of Tremere propaganda the use of Valeren became more associated with soul-stealing and infernalism.

It has long remained a closely guarded secret of the once-proud clan, and is all but forgotten in the Modern Nights by vampiric society. Recently the discipline reemerged with the Salubri Antitribu, but these warriors put it to decidedly more vicious ends. The Sabbat accepts into its ranks the childer of Adonai. They are consumed by the need for vengeance, and are creatures of rage, dubbed Furies by their Sabbat compatriots. They are not honorable creatures, but rather bitter knights driven to destroy the Tremere and seeking vengeance for their founder's destruction.

Characteristics

Learning Valeren causes a physical change in Cainites: a bump or nodule developing in the center of the forehead, eventually cracking open into a fully-developed third eye when the character learns the third dot of Valeren. Cainites with high Humanity rating manifest a human-looking or angelic-seeming eye; those with a low Humanity develop freakish or demonic third eyes. The eye is sensitive; attempting to cover it results in a penalty of one die to all rolls, though obscuring it under a hood is fine. In all cases, the eye may be retracted into the skull and perfectly hidden for the scene with a Stamina + Stealth roll (difficulty 1), but using any level of Valeren brings it forth once more.

• Type: Mental
  
• Masquerade threat: Low-High
  
• Blood resonance: Phlegmatic (healer), Choleric (warrior), Melancholy (watcher).
  

Level 1

Sense vitality

With a touch, the vampire can instantaneously read a target’s injuries. A healer learns a subject’s illnesses to cure them. A warrior, however, learn how close to death a target is so that they may hasten the process.

• Cost: free
  
• Dice pools: Wits + Valeren
  
• System: The user must choose between two paths before rolling the dices: sense life or sense death. Then the user must touch the target and make a Wits + Valeren roll (difficulty 2). A win allows the user to sense the nature of the target’s flesh (a corpse is a valid target): living, dead, undead, immortal, ghoulish. It also reveals how many health levels of damage the subject has suffered and the origin of the injuries and impairments. On a win, a critical tells the subject’s hunger level (if a vampire) or how many blood points she has left in her system (if a mortal or other blood-bearing form of life) and moreover it reveals any diseases in the subject’s bloodstream. If the user had chosen to sense life, he gains one die to heal the subject (this action may incur one stain when his convictions are more warrior inclined). If the user had chosen to sense death, he gains one die to harm the subject (this action may incur one stain when his convictions are more healer inclined).
  

Level 2

Gift of sleep

The vampire can ease a mortal’s pain with nothing but a touch. This power is intended to heal the pain or to bolster a ghoul’s effectiveness in combat. This power can also place a mortal into a deep, soothing sleep, which has obvious applications for escaping human scrutiny. The warriors tend to name the power “morphean blow”.

• Cost: free or one rouse check
  
• Dice pools: Resolve + Valeren vs Composure + Resolve
  
• System: No rouse check is required against a willing target. The user must touch the target and make a Resolve + Valeren roll (difficulty 1). A win allows the target to ignore all health damage penalties and physical impairments for one turn plus a number of turns equal to the test margin. To put a mortal to sleep, the user makes a contested roll against the target’s Composure + Resolve. The mortal sleeps for five to ten hours (whatever his normal sleep cycle is) and removes one aggravated or superficial Willpower damage upon awakening. He sleeps peacefully and does not suffer nightmares or the effects of any derangements while asleep. Kindred, including the user herself, are unaffected by this power, their corpselike bodies are too tied to death.
  

WORK IN PROGRESS