Everything

Through sustained manipulation, the vampire can make a subject more pliant to the Kindred’s will. Over time, the victim becomes increasingly susceptible to the vampire’s influence while simultaneously growing more resistant to the corrupting efforts of other Kindred. Gaining complete control over a subject’s mind is no small task, taking weeks or even months to accomplish.

Kindred often fill their retainers’ heads with subtle whispers and veiled urges, thereby ensuring these mortals’ loyalty. Yet vampires must pay a high price for the minds they ensnare. Servants Dominated in this way lose much of their passion and individuality. They follow the vampire’s orders quite literally, seldom taking initiative or showing any imagination. In the end, such retainers become like automatons or the walking dead.

System: The player rolls Charisma + Leadership (difficulty equal to the target’s current Willpower points) once per scene. Conditioning is an extended action, for which the Storyteller secretly determines the number of successes required. It typically requires between five and 10 times the subject’s Self-Control/Instinct rating. Targets with more empathic Natures may require a lower number of successes, while those with willful Natures require a higher total. Only through roleplaying may a character discern whether his subject is conditioned successfully.

A target may become more tractable even before becoming fully conditioned. Once the vampire accumulates half the required number of successes, the Storyteller may apply a lower difficulty to the vampire’s subsequent uses of Dominate. After being conditioned, the target falls so far under the vampire’s influence that the Kindred need not make eye contact or even be present to retain absolute control. The subject does exactly as she is told (including taking actions that would injure herself), as long as her master can communicate with her verbally. No command roll is necessary unless the subject is totally isolated from the vampire’s presence (in a different room, over the phone). Even if a command roll fails, the target will still likely carry out part of the orders given, simply because her master wishes it.

After the subject is fully conditioned, other Kindred find her more difficult to Dominate. Such conditioning raises others’ difficulties by two (to a maximum of 10).

It is possible, though difficult, to shake Conditioning. The subject must be separated entirely from the vampire to whom she was in thrall. This period of separation varies depending on the individual, but the Storyteller may set it at six months, less a number of weeks equal to the subject’s permanent Willpower rating (so a person with 5 Willpower must stay away from the vampire for just under five months). The subject regains her personality slowly during this time, though she may still lapse into brief spells of listless-ness, despair, or even anger. If the vampire encounters the target before that time passes, a single successful Charisma + Leadership roll (difficulty of the target’s current Willpower points) on the part of the vampire completely reasserts the dominance.

If the subject makes it through the time period without intervention by her master, the target regains her former individuality. Even so, the vampire may rees-tablish conditioning more easily than the first time, since the subject is now predisposed to falling under the Kindred’s mental control. New attempts require half the total number of successes than the last bout of conditioning did (which means the subject reaches the threshold for reduced difficulties sooner, as well).