Everything

Using this versatile Thaumaturgy power, a Kindred can create a temporary version of certain other Discipline powers he possesses and transmit it (via file attachment, text e-mails, text message, private social media message, or any other user-to-user delivery method of a personal computer or device). These “data Disciplines” serve as a form of digital amulet, transferring the ability to use the encoded power one single time to a proxy. After the proxy uses the power, the message or file containing the amulet and all instances of it (duplicate copies, messages stored

on servers, etc.) delete themselves, leaving no record of their existence.

The vampire creating the buffer can do so for any level of the following Disciplines he has mastered: Auspex, Chimerstry, Dementation, Dominate, Obfuscate, and Presence.

Some Anarchs fear that this power may have unforeseen side effects. They worry that the power is actually a Trojan horse, allowing for the “remote access” use of the power they don’t have, while also exposing them to a hidden application of a different Discipline — likely Dominate, given the Tremere acumen with it. They note that the pioneer of the Path of Technomancy, Masika St. John, has no formal connection to the Anarch Movement. These Anarchs don’t want to risk becoming Tremere sleeper agents. What if the power allows the original “programmer” to activate, through clever obscured Conditioning, an impulse that allows the Kindred to remotely Dominate them? Of course, other Anarchs consider all of this paranoid fear-mongering — which is itself wholly apropos to the Jyhad. After all, why can’t this power be used to buffer Thaumaturgy? And what will happen once some enterprising individual finds a way to hack the file degradation process, allowing the file to be copied and backed up with no loss once it’s activated?

The very idea of this power terrifies elders and members of other sects. What if the Anarchs have whole servers or e-mail accounts out there full of these buffered powers, and all it takes is a smartphone to call them down inside the domain? With such fears in mind, many tyrants swiftly repress or punish those whom they know to have the ability to encode Disciplines in this manner. It’s a disaster waiting to happen, and probably a Masquerade breach under any sensible interpretation of the Tradition.

Over the course of a scene, the Kindred creating the buffer pays the costs for whatever individual power he wishes to buffer, plus one blood point per level of that power squared in order to suspend the effect. So, for example, a fourth-level power would cost whatever it normally costs to activate the power, plus 16 blood points to store. However, because the Kindred creates the buffered power over the course of the scene, the amount of blood he can spend per turn isn’t important (though access to that much blood is).

The Kindred sends the buffered power via some digital format, such as e-mail or a text message. He can even send it to multiple individuals or share it on a server, but the power will work only for the first proxy to invoke it, and then delete itself as normal. Thereafter, so long as the proxy has a device or computer on his person that contains the buffered power, he can invoke it. The device or computer doesn’t even have to be on or running an application that can view it, it simply needs to be in memory or storage. This does mean that a Kindred would have to copy it to a local drive from a cloud, though. Simple access to the file on the cloud isn’t enough. Still, that’s a very minor distinction, but one that can prove critical in a WiFi dead zone.

Only Kindred may be proxies, even though others may see the file and its contents (though it’s not evident what the file actually includes or performs — it’s raw data).

The proxy makes any dice rolls for the buffered power using her own Traits as a basis when she invokes the power.

It costs 30 experience points to learn this power.