When someone handles an object for any length of time, he leaves a psychic impression on the item. A vampire with this level of Auspex can “read” these sensations, learning who handled the object, when he last held it, and what was done with it recently. (For

Aura Colors

Condition Aura Colors

Afraid Orange

Aggressive Purple

Angry Red

Bitter Brown

Calm Light Blue

Compassionate Pink

Conservative Lavender

Depressed Gray

Desirous or Lustful Deep Red

Distrustful Light Green

Envious Dark Green

Excited Violet

Generous Rose

Happy Vermilion

Hateful Black

Idealistic Yellow

Innocent White

Lovestruck Blue

Obsessed Green

Sad Silver

Spiritual Gold

Suspicious Dark Blue

Anxious Auras appear scrambled like static or white noise

Confused Mottled, shifting colors

Diablerist Black veins in aura

Daydreaming Sharp flickering colors

Frenzied Rapidly rippling colors

Psychotic Hypnotic, swirling colors

Vampire Aura colors are pale

Ghoul Pale blotches in the aura

Magic Use Myriad sparkles in aura

Werebeast Bright, vibrant aura

Ghost Weak, intermittent aura

Faerie Rainbow highlights in aura

these purposes, a corpse counts as an “object” and can be read accordingly.) These visions are seldom clear and detailed, registering more like a kind of “psychic snapshot.” Still, the Kindred can learn much even from such a glimpse. Although most visions concern the last person to handle the item, a long-time owner leaves a stronger impression than someone who held the object briefly.

Gleaning information from the spiritual residue requires the vampire to hold the object and enter a shallow trance. She is only marginally aware of her surroundings while using The Spirit’s Touch, but a loud noise or jarring physical sensation breaks the trance instantly.

System: The player rolls Perception + Empathy. The difficulty is determined by the age of the impressions and the mental and spiritual strength of the person or event that left them. Sensing information from a pistol used for a murder hours ago may require a 4, while learning who owned a bloodstained puppet fashioned a century ago might be a 9.

The greater the individual’s emotional connection to the object, the stronger the impression he leaves on it — and the more information the Kindred can glean from it. Events involving strong emotions (a gift-giving, a torture, a long family history) likewise leave stronger impressions than short or casual contact do. Assume that each success offers one piece of information, as per the chart below.

Successes Information

Botch The character is overwhelmed by psychic impressions for the next 30 minutes and unable to act.

Failure No information of value.

1 success Very basic information: the last owner’s gender or hair color, for instance.

2 successes A second piece of basic information.

3 successes More useful information about the last owner, such as age and state of mind the last time he used the item.

4 successes The person’s name.

5+ successes A wealth of information: nearly anything you want to know about the person’s relationship with that object is available.

At the Storyteller’s discretion, some impressions on objects may be so strong — a knife plunged into Caesar’s breast, the tip of the Spear of Destiny, a fang pulled from the maw of Dracula — that any use of this power may be deemed a success.