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This power, similar to Steal the Mind, allows the vampire to absorb Abilities from her victim. These traits are transferred permanently; the victim loses the knowledge, and the Kindred gains it. Absorb the Mind is an extremely invasive and insidious power, and fortunately only a bare handful of Kindred in the world know of it.

System: The player rolls Perception + Empathy (difficulty equal to the target’s current Willpower). The target may resist with a Willpower roll (difficulty equal to the Kiasyd’s current Willpower). The difference between the two determines the effect. If the target gets more successes, he resists completely and the Kiasyd may never use Absorb the Mind on this target again. The Kiasyd, if successful, may select a combination of Abilities to her satisfaction.

Taking some of a victim’s Ability dots may leave a remainder — the Kiasyd need not take all of a subject’s dots in a given Ability. For example, a character with three dots in Occult, from whom a Kiasyd steals one, retains an Occult of 2. If a Kiasyd takes fewer dots than she already has in a given Ability, these points do not serve to raise her own rating. (In the previous example, the Kiasyd would not increase his Occult rating if he already had a rating of one or more, as he took only one dot.) If the Kiasyd fails in an attempt to use this power on a target, no subsequent attempt can be made on that target for a year and a day.

In all cases, the maximum to which the Kiasyd can raise an Ability is the level the target has in that Ability, so if a victim has only one dot in Law and the Kiasyd gets 2 successes, she can’t gain 2 dots in Law. Generational restrictions do apply: a Sixth-Generation Kiasyd can have a maximum of seven dots in an Ability, for example. All losses of Abilities on the part of the victim are permanent, though they may be returned to their original levels via experience-point expenditure.