The secret origins of this legendary and fearsome Discipline have been lost, but its purpose is well known: Suikast was devised to destroy Dracula. The Turkish bloodline known as “the Dragonslayers” has been described more than once as little more than a delivery system for this dreaded power. How was Suikast created? How did the Turkish enemies of the Impaler manage to transform their fateful plans into a manifestation of vampire blood? Rarely has such an immediate goal been made manifest so quickly in the vampiric form. Many Kindred scholars speculate that the mystic qualities of the blood take many generations to coagulate into cogent and repeatable powers, but history suggests the Azerkatil manifested and refined the power of their blood in less than 20 years. In the modern Ordo Dracul — where the Dragonslayers are held up as magnificent examples of a vampire’s ability to change her fate — a simpler, if less satisfying, theory is often offered: the Azerkatil simply wanted it bad enough. Many of the rumored powers of Suikast are mythical. Whereas tales of the Dragonslayers — in those few domains where the bloodline is known — suggest they can turn a vampire to fire or grow swords from their bones, the majority of this Discipline’s powers do not eliminate enemies, but aid the Azerkatil. Most of the original Turkish vampire-hunters who became the Azerkatil were already masterful combatants when they were Embraced; Suikast was only a tool for them to use in their quest to destroy the Impaler.
The basic power of Suikast helps the Azerkatil to maintain his wits in the face of a savage foe. With this power, the Dragonslayer refines his resistance against the most hindering weakness of a killer: fear. The Azerkatil strive to overcome the Red Fear so that they can retain their cunning while wielding fire, the most terrible weapon in the arsenal of any vampire-hunter.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Unlike most Disciplines, this power is not actively rolled. Rather, this power augments the character’s dice pool when resisting frenzy. The character is better able to maintain his calm in the presence of other predators. When encountering another vampire, the character adds his dots in Suikast on rolls to resist the frenzy that stems from the confrontation of Beasts — the Predator’s Taint. The character also adds his Suikast dots to all rolls to resist Rötschreck. The character cannot suspend this power, however, and dots in Suikast are not added to any attempts to “ride the wave” of frenzy.
Action: N/A
Did the Turks know about the Coils of the Dragon? This power suggests they did — it bears some resemblance the second tier of the Coil of the Beast. Suikast, however, aids the character when relying on the Beast to do battle with other Kindred. A character with this power seems bred with an instinctual ability to battle the Damned. Even when given over to the Beast, the character is able to manage some cunning.
Cost: —
Dice Pool: This power involves no roll to activate and is considered “always on.” The character no longer needs to spend a Willpower point to “ride the wave” of frenzy. Although Kindred in the midst of frenzy are typically unable to perform any action that requires much thought, the character suffers no frenzy-based penalties on dice pools to perceive his environment, track his enemies or make use of the Stealth Skill.
The character’s dice pool to “ride the wave” is further modified in the situations described below.
Action: N/A
Suggested Modifiers
Modifier Situation
+1 The target of the Dragonslayer’s frenzy is another vampire.
+1 The target of his frenzy smells of shed blood (i.e., has at least one unhealed lethal wound).
+1 The user has suffered at least one lethal or aggravated wound in an attack made by the target.
A Kindred with this power has a formidable ability to draw insight from the mere scent and taste of another Kindred’s blood. By drinking the Vitae of another vampire — and risking all the associated effects — the character gains a kind of mystical connection to the subject. As long as this connection persists, the Dragonslayer can mystically discern the location and condition of the subject, and even anticipate his actions.
Cost: 1 Vitae (for some effects)
Dice Pool: No roll is necessary to activate this power, and it is considered “always on.” Some of the following effects made possible with this power do require a roll, however, to employ effectively.
The character adds his Suikast dots as a bonus to dice pools to track, pursue or otherwise locate any nearby vampire or ghoul with unhealed lethal or aggravated wounds, by smelling the scent of blood in the air or licking a blood trail. The Storyteller determines whether or not a subject is close enough to be detected by the Dragonslayer in this way, based on the successes achieved on the tracking roll. This power does not grant any ability to penetrate supernatural effects, such as with Obfuscate (for that, the Dragonslayer needs Auspex).
The character gains a mystical connection to the last vampire from whom he has fed. This connection shares all the qualities of blood sympathy (see Vampire: The Requiem, p. 163), except that the character may add his Suikast dots to dice pools involving the subject’s blood. The character can spend one of the subject’s Vitae in his system to make a Wits + Occult + Suikast roll as an instant action; each success on this roll reveals one of the subject’s Disciplines or Coils of the Dragon — beginning with the most advanced or powerful — followed by the subject’s Blood Potency and clan. More specific details on the powers (the exact dots in each power, the specific Crúac rituals the character knows) cannot be determined in this way.
The character may also spend one of the subject’s Vitae in his system to gain a +2 bonus to Defense against attacks from the subject for one turn. The mystic connection of the Blood gives the Dragonslayer an intuitive sense of the subject’s movements.
This power does not enable the character to store more Vitae or spend more Vitae per turn than is normally allowed by his Blood Potency.
This power’s mystic connection persists until the character feeds from another vampire or uses the last of the Vitae he drank from the subject. For the purposes of this power, it’s important to record how much Vitae the character has left from the current subject.
Action: N/A
The name of this power comes from an apocryphal Dracula legend that the first of the Azerkatil seemed to think was true. Among the Kindred of Constantinople, it was rumored that the blood of Dracula was caustic, capable of burning flesh and bone like a chemical acid. It was said to be a kind of “dragon’s breath,” and Dracula was thought to be capable of spraying his lethal blood from his mouth.
This power resulted from the attempts of the first Azerkatil vampires to change their blood into a similarly threatening substance. The name of this power was meant as a sort of jab at their hated enemy, a suggestion that the Azerkatil had learned the Dragon’s secrets and replicated his power. Of course, in truth, the Ordo Dracul had no such power until the Azerkatil brought it to them.
With this power, a Dragonslayer with Vitae in his system is never without a weapon — his blood is his weapon. The touch of his blood-slick palm burns flesh. A wave of his slashed arm sprays out an arc of searing blood. To sip his Vitae is to taste pain.
This is the most commonly seen hostile power of the Azerkatil. Most of the first Dragonslayers were even dispatched on their mission to slay Dracula without learning the power beyond this one.
Cost: 1 Vitae per scene
Dice Pool: This power requires no roll. By spending the Vitae to activate this power, the character’s blood is instantly transmuted into a potent acid capable of burning flesh, bone, metal and stone with aggravated damage. The character can will this blood out of his body through his pores, so that any part of his flesh becomes a dangerous weapon in close combat. Attacks can be made with the blood using either Strength or Dexterity + Brawl.
Successful close combat attacks against the character cause attackers to suffer one point of aggravated damage from blood spatter. Any attempt to consume blood from the character while this power is active inflicts one point of aggravated damage on the drinker for each Vitae taken from the Dragonslayer.
The character is immune to the damage caused by his own blood, but his clothing and equipment are not. The character’s blood becomes inert shortly after leaving his body; spilled blood is dangerous only in the turn when it is shed.
This power persists for the rest of the scene, unless the vampire chooses to return his blood to its inert state prematurely.
Action: Reflexive
This power enables the Azerkatil to infect the Vitae of other Kindred with a withering supernatural curse. The character doesn’t even need to make direct physical contact with his opponent — he only needs to open a gash in his foe and expose her vulnerable Vitae to the Azerkatil’s venomous will. The curse of the Dragonslayers turns blood into soot, robbing other vampires of their ability to heal and spark the supernatural powers of their own Vitae.
Cost: 1 Willpower
Dice Pool: Stamina + Brawl + Suikast – the subject’s Stamina
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The transformation of Vitae occurs in the character’s body, rather than the subject’s. An amount of the character’s own Vitae equal to the subject’s Stamina is instantly turned to ash in his veins as the curse is rebounded.
Failure: The character either physically misses his target or fails to spark the fatal reaction in the blood that would curse the subject. There is no effect.
Success: The character starts a terrible change in the victim’s blood. The victim continues to lose one Vitae per turn for a number of turns equal to the successes scored on the activation roll, unless she runs out of Vitae or consumes at least two new Vitae, in which case the plague is ended. A second application of this power on a subject still suffering from the effects of a previous application “resets the clock” on the duration of Vitae loss.
Exceptional Success: Additional successes cause the subject to suffer longer.
Each Vitae the subject loses is transmuted into a choking soot that clogs and cakes the vampire’s insides. It takes two Vitae to replace every Vitae transmuted through this power. (Imagine that each affected Vitae box on the character sheet is clogged by this power. It takes one new Vitae to clear a box of bloody soot. The second new Vitae fills that box with usable Blood, as normal.)