Every thief needs a con to keep their lifestyle going, and with it, their unending life. With practice and time, a good thief is able to manipulate the feelings of others around them. Time, conversation, or just sheer forces of personality are all tools to manipulate the feelings of others. In a blink of an eye or possibly a wink, the thief can push on the mild feelings of fear or passion and feed them, strengthen and empower them. Of course, this manipulation is not total. The thief cannot create emotions that are not already being felt by the target, but he can take those light feelings lurking and turn them to full blown wild fires. A body thief can’t simply focus his attention and force a strange woman to be instantly in love with him. However, over a romantic dinner with quiet music and dim lights, a thief could talk his target into the faintest flutter of a crush and then use this Merit to build that flutter into a rushing heartbeat. Similarly, a Club member hoping to push her quarry to give up on life entirely can’t just wish for it and have her quarry leap from a window. Rather, she’d have to wait until he was already feeling morose over a lousy test grade before using Emotional Urging to amplify the suffering to dangerous levels. The caster must be able to either speak to or touch the target or have a sympathetic connection in order to manipulate the target’s emotions.

Dice Pool: Manipulation + Persuasion versus Composure
Duration: One day

Suggested Equipment: An item of emotional significance to the victim (+1 to +5, depending on relative importance)

Possible Modifiers: Target fulfilled Virtue within last week (–3), target fulfilled Vice within last week (+1 per, up to +3)

Roll Results

Dramatic Failure: The power backfires; the caster suffers the full effects of a normal success.

Failure: The power fails. The target is immune to this effect for one day.

Success: The caster achieves more successes than the target. For the remainder of the night, the target’s most powerful emotion at the time of casting amplifies dramatically, becoming a driving force in the subject’s mind. If an opportunity to indulge in the emotion pres- ents itself, the victim must reflexively spend one Will- power point and succeed in a Resolve + Composure roll to avoid indulgence. If this indulgence would result in lethal or aggravated damage, the subject need not spend the Willpower point and can avoid indulgence with the successful roll. Each time the victim resists temptation, she gains a cumulative +1 bonus to her next roll to resist indulgence, up to a maximum bonus of +5.

Exceptional Success: As above, however, the victim must spend Willpower to avoid harm in their indulgence.