Masters of Temporis value patience and clarity. Time is too complex and dangerous to manipulate incau- tiously or on a whim. Thus, the first power of Temporis focuses entirely on perception and serves as a perma- nent alteration of a vampire’s senses.

System: Once purchased, this Discipline gives a vampire a perfect sense of time. The vampire knows events to the nearest second or better. Moreover, the Cainite knows whenever the flow of time is mystically disturbed by use of Celerity, greater levels of Tempo- ris, mortal wizardry, or stranger things. Sensing distur- bances is instinctive and reflexive, though it requires a successful Perception + Awareness roll (difficulty 6 for most phenomena, as modified by the Storyteller for distance and intensity).

A vampire with this power may trap a target’s mind into reviewing a set of events over and over until inter- rupted. This power is extremely subtle and ill-suited to combat or other situations rich in sensory stimuli. However, a cunning vampire can trick a sentry into reliving the tedium of his uneventful watch even as the Cainite draws close enough to strike or slip past. Other uses include the maddening infliction of déjà vu to induce paranoia or make a victim question her senses and her sanity.

System: The vampire concentrates on a single vic- tim in his line of sight. The player rolls Manipula- tion + Occult (difficulty equal to the victim’s current Willpower). With any successes, the victim falls into a light trance and relives the most recent experiences that preceded her fugue. Alternately, the vampire may evoke another set of specific memories and circum- stances from the victim’s past, provided that he has some means of telepathically drawing them forth. The recurring events must be relatively benign, insofar as nothing noteworthy happens or nothing happens that would demand the victim’s immediate action. Thus, in the example of the sentry, the vampire could entrance him and walk past unobserved, but not if the sentry spotted him before invoking the power. Ordinarily, the fugue lasts one minute per success. If the vampire’s player spends a blood point to fuel this power, deter- mine the trance’s duration according to the following chart:

Entranced victims are oblivious to their surroundings and the actual flow of time around them. However, the fugue ends immediately if the victim suffers any dam- age or experiences a sudden jolt to her senses, such as a thunderclap or even a gentle nudge. Normal conversa- tion does not break the trance, although shouting does.

With this power, a vampire may begin to alter the flow of time itself rather than mere perception of events. The vampire gestures and slows the desired object almost to a dead stop. This power can slow incoming bullets to the pace of drifting clouds, or cause an enemy warrior to see the battlefield quicken to a blur of dizzying carnage even as his every motion slows to a crawl.

System: The player spends one blood point and rolls Intelligence + Occult. The difficulty depends on the size and nature of the target: a single thrown brick is only difficulty 4, while a crazed ghoul has a difficulty of 9. Targets larger than an adult human cannot be affected with Leaden Moment. It is possible to affect small, closely grouped inanimate objects of the same nature as a single object, though this increases the dif- ficulty by two or more at the Storyteller’s discretion (a hail of bullets might be difficulty 9). This power may be activated reflexively as a defensive action against projectiles, but otherwise requires a full action on the vampire’s initiative. Though failure carries no special penalty apart from wasting blood, a botch means the vampire mistakenly slows himself rather than the tar- get, counting every 1 as a success for that purpose.

If the vampire succeeds, the object slows to one-half its true speed. Every two successes beyond the first reduce this speed by one additional factor, so three successes slows the target to one third its speed, five successes yields quarter speed, etc. The actual mechanics of such slowing depend on the situation. For projectiles, multi- ply any successes to hit and final damage by the speed factor, rounded down. Similarly apply the speed modi- fier to the successes of other actions involving Dexter- ity, Wits, or Strength for slowed characters. Characters with Celerity may spend one blood point to negate one factor of speed reduction at the expense of the usual extra action provided – for example, one blood point cancels a reduction to one half speed, two blood points cancel one third, etc. Leaden Moment lasts one turn for every two successes rolled, rounded up.

System: The player rolls Manipulation + Intimida- tion (difficulty 8). Every success allows her to regain a point of Willpower, but each use of this power destroys another spirit.

The vampire can now suspend an inanimate object in time, keeping it frozen in perfect stasis as time passes at normal speed around it. As with lesser Temporis pow- ers, this stasis has both combat and non-combat appli- cations. True Brujah warriors may halt bullets outright rather than merely slowing their approach or casually sidestep a collapsing building. Higher-level variations on this power preserve precious scrolls and artifacts without risk of mold or decay. If any solid object or nontrivial volume of liquid touches a frozen object that did not touch it at the moment of suspension, the item re-enters time with the same properties and velocity as when it stopped. Thus, touching a suspended object with anything more substantial than a raindrop releas- es it exactly as it was before it stopped.

System:The player spends two blood points and rolls Intelligence + Occult (difficulty 6). The vampire must be able to perceive the object that he’s suspending, so the player may need to make a Perception + Alertness roll at a difficulty determined by the Storyteller in or- der to freeze fast-moving objects. If an object exceeds the speed of mortal perception, superhuman percep- tion such as Auspex is required in order to see and stop it (as such, bullets can be stopped with this power, but only if the vampire has at least a dot of Auspex). Ob- jects frozen by this power remain halted according to the number of successes rolled:

Suspended objects retain all energy in their suspen- sion, releasing none to the outside universe. A sus- pended knife has no kinetic energy as far as the rest of the world is concerned and hangs suspended in mid-air until the power is interrupted or the duration expires. Suspended alchemical or chemical processes also halt, including fire. However, any physical contact more sub- stantial than a falling raindrop breaks the suspension.