Mind's Eye Theatre - Vampire The Requiem.pdf - RoseRed

dominate
••• THE FORGETFUL MIND
A vampire with this power can literally delve into a subject’s mind, stealing or reshaping memories
at whim. The power, as with all uses of Dominate, requires eye contact. The Forgetful Mind
does not allow for telepathic contact. Instead, the vampire acts much like a hypnotist, asking direct
questions to draw answers from the subject, and then describing in detail any new memories she
wishes to impose on the victim. Simple alterations, such as blurring brief and recent memories,
are easy enough (and very effective for eliminating evidence of feeding or other Masquerade
breaches). More comprehensive alterations, up to and including a complete reconstruction of
the victim’s past and even identity, are possible albeit substantially more diffi cult.
The victim’s subconscious struggles to resist false implanted memories, so the degree to
which the vampire details new memories has direct bearing on how fully the subject assimilates
them. An incomplete or simplistic false memory shatters much more swiftly and easily than
does one with more attention to detail. For instance, “You drove home after work and had
a very bad evening” is not likely to hold up. Far more effective would be an account such as,
“You left work late, due to a last-minute change ordered by the client. You still managed to
get stuck in rush hour for an extra 25 minutes, and you were seriously frustrated by the time
you pulled off the freeway. There weren’t even any good songs on the radio. Three blocks
from home, a cop pulled you over for coasting through a stop sign. At least he only gave you
a warning, but it was still just one more hassle. The frozen dinner you microwaved was awful,
the TV movie starred some has-been you didn’t like, and the news was depressing. You fi nally
turned off the TV in disgust and went to bed.”
Truly effective use of The Forgetful Mind, then, requires substantial fi nesse and patience,
as well as the ability to carefully and thoroughly think things through ahead of time. It’s fairly
simple to sift through a victim’s memories and strip out recent events without even knowing
precisely what happened, but doing so leaves a gap in the memory that can lead to further
problems. Most people aren’t comfortable realizing they’ve lost a few hours or a night’s worth
of memories, and they’re likely to try to fi nd out what happened. Even new memories that
the character imposes rarely have the same strength as the originals, and they can be broken
or at least contradicted through investigation. For instance, a victim might not recall that she
was attacked by a vampire, but she might remember being bitten, chalking it up to an animal
attack or a spider. More vivid memories can return as snippets in dreams or be triggered by
an unusual olfactory stimulus or spoken phrase. The process might take weeks or even years
before the victim can begin to make sense of these fl ashes, but even the most effective memory
manipulation is far from perfect — or truly permanent.
A vampire may also use The Forgetful Mind to sense whether someone has had her memories
altered in this fashion, and he can sometimes use his own power to draw forth and restore
the original thoughts. No Kindred may use The Forgetful Mind to restore his own lost or
altered memories, however.
Cost: —
Test Pool: Wits + Persuasion + Dominate – Resolve
Action: Extended (1-100+ successes, based on the detail and complexity of memory; each
draw requires one minute of conversation with the subject)
Draw Results
Failure: The attempt fails.
Success: The character makes headway toward altering a block of memories.
Even a single success pacifi es the victim for the length of time it takes to complete the
process. Both vampire and subject must be safe and relatively composed when this power is
used; it cannot be used to calm someone already in combat, for example.
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