Supernatural Creature Flaws

Many supernatural creatures have one or more weaknesses. These sometimes harm you, and other times only cause only. For example, some vampires are turned by crosses; some vampires even burn at the touch of a cross. Some weaknesses are a condition which stymies you. You can have several separate weaknesses of the same type.

The gamemaster is free to create whatever weakness he wants for any supernatural creatures of his own creation, or to create new weaknesses for old supernatural creatures. Player character supernatural creatures should have at least one Weakness, usually Dark Form, and can have several.

Optional Rule: For each extra weakness you have beyond the first, mandatory weakness, you get one free Creature Power schtick.

Addictive

You leave at least some of your victims alive, and to them, your powers are highly erotic and addictive. They seek you out to get more; those with a Magic attribute actually have a mystic, intuitive sense of how to find you. When they find you, they may desire more of your attention, or they may decide that you are a perversion, to evil to exist, but still be highly attracted to you. They may also lead hunters and other enemies to your door.

Alien

You have a hard time understanding and communicating with normal people; you are either too strange, too animalistic, too bestial or too stupid to understand human speech and behavior. Sorcerers with Summoning can speak to you, and other appropriate powers may work, but otherwise you are entirely incommunicado. Naturally, you can speak to others of your kind, but if 'your kind' is common in the campaign, this is not really a flaw at all.

Attrition

There is a way in which your powers (or most of them, anyway) can be taken away from you, one at a time. This is a relatively easy stunt (like cutting of the eyestalks of a Beholder), and generally requires only simple success on a stunt, but only negates one of your powers, and only for a session.

Dark Form

You simply look terrible, monstrous and frightening. You are obviously unusual and anyone versed in such things can spot that you are a supernatural creature. Examples include walking corpses, ogres, spectral ghosts and so on. You cannot use any social skills except to frighten. This is the standard weakness, that almost all supernatural creatures have. The standard solution is to have the transformation schtick.

There is a bonus to Dark Form; you can scare people even if you lack the Intimidation skill, using your Creature Powers action value. This only works once, and not against people used to having monsters around, such as other supernatural creatures.

Dependency

You need some unusual or exotic substance to survive. This can be a continuous need, like the vampires blood-thirst, or you can be something you must keep, such as dirt from your grave or a fetish where your soul is kept. If denied this substance, you cannot recover Wound, Magic or Fortune Points and will become more and more agitated.

Dormancy

You have some condition that induces dormancy. During this time, you will always seek out a safe place to rest and cannot awaken once you has fallen into dormancy. The conditions are almost always predictable and regular, something no group of investigators can induce. Vampires commonly have dormancy weakness during the day, ghosts may have a dormancy weakness at all times except the hour after midnight etc. You always know ahead of time that you will become dormant, giving you time to seek shelter.

When forcibly awakened (such as by an attack), you suffer four points of impairment. For each sequence after that in which you were awakened, this penalty is reduced by one, but never to less than one point of impairment

Fear

You have an irrational fear of something. This can be a type of item, certain people, or just about anything. When facing your fear, you suffer four points of impairment. For each sequence after that in which you were first subject to your Fear, this penalty is reduced by one, but never to less than one point of impairment.

A creature subjected to something it fears often tries to talk it's way out or otherwise stall to regain it's composure.

Geas

This kind of weakness absolutely prevents you from or forces you into doing certain things. Some vampires cannot enter a dwelling unless invited inside, devils cannot go onto holy ground and few succubi can seduce virgins. It is absolutely impossible for you to break this geas on your own, but if forced to break it by the weakness yourself or a force representing you (a succubus raped by a virgin) the geas is broken. If you are fooled into breaking your geas, you lose the use of all your Chi-powers and take a Wound Point each Sequence until you has somehow atoned, which may not be possible.

Haunt

You are bound to a specific domain or locale, perhaps even an item. You cannot go far from your haunt. If it is an item, you cannot move or otherwise affect that item in any way. This is common in spirits of all kinds, is in many ways similar to Geas, and has the same consequences.

Hunt

You have strong hunting instincts that manifest in a particular situation of in the presence of a certain type of victim. A werewolf hunts under the light of the full moon, some ripper murderers cannot resist killing beautiful maidens walking alone. If you have a very strong reason not to follow your instincts you may make a Willpower total against your own Magic or the attribute of your victim you is seeking (the Charisma of the maiden above), but if this fails you is overcome by instinct and will hunt, no matter the cost.

Paralysis

There is some way to in which you can be paralyzed, totally preventing any action on your part. It is generally quite difficult to achieve, but a setback on interaction or a specific attack causing Wound points equal to your Constitution will do the trick. Examples include the classic staking of a vampire.

Power

You cannot use your supernatural creature powers under certain circumstances. Any sort of circumstance can trigger this weakness, but it is commonly tied to your origin or other weaknesses. Examples include a zombie that cannot use it's powers when tied up in gold thread or an invisible supernatural creature that cannot use it's powers once it has been spotted. Supernatural creatures with many powers can sometimes still use some of them when under this weakness.

Rage

Under certain conditions, such as the smell of blood, under the light of the full moon or when wounded enough to suffer impairments, you go berserk. You will go absolutely mad, killing indiscriminately and heedless of your own wounds. This means you will not try to escape and won't use tactics beyond a mindless charge against the most obvious opponent, thus taking extraordinary risks. The rage ends at the end of the fight, but you may have to make Willpower rolls to avoid attacking friends.

Spirit

Spirits are extradimensional creatures. They can be invoked through the powers of Summoning, and all but the most powerful of them also have the Supernatural Creature flaw.

Supernatural Creature

Supernatural creatures are filled with the essence of their power, and this makes them vulnerable to magical control. They are not automatically spirits, and cannot be Invoked, but are otherwise subject to all the powers of Summoning.

Tool Ignorant

You lack the ability and/or understanding to use human tools, machines, and other devices. It can be a matter of physical form, but also a mindset; technology and magic devices are simply beyond your comprehension, and your bestial nature prevents the use of most types of schticks except creature powers. Depending on your type, some abilities, schticks or types of tools may be excepted; a werewolf could still use Animal schticks (if he has them), and a construction robot may still be able to use elevators and other heavy machinery. Neither of them could use a Fu schtick, sword, cellular phone, or magic wand.

Transformation Trauma

This flaw is only applicable for monsters with a strong human identity, that transformations between human and monster form. It implies a strong opposition between the monstrous and human side of the personality. Whenever you lay off your "wolves clothing", you suffer some trauma. You tend to fall asleep or collapse, and your memories of what transpired wen you were in monster form are often hazy and uncertain. In many cases, they will be mistaken for dreams.

Unliving

You are not a mundane creature with a natural chi flow or mundane healing ability. You will never recover Wound Points naturally, and cannot be healed with the Medicine skill. You can still use a simple Constitution roll, and magical healing will work normally. You do not regain Chi points in the normal fashion either, though if you lack Blood Drain, you have some alternate method of restoring these values, that you somehow manage to use between most sessions anyway. You will not recover Fu each sequence, making Fu powers mostly pointless to you.

Vulnerability

A certain item or material causes damage if placed against your flesh. If the item is normally used to cause damage, such as silver bullets, use the normal damage value. Otherwise the damage value of the touch is the wielder's Magic +2. No damage-reducing powers (such as Damage Immunity, Armor or Regeneration) will work, and your soak attribute (usually Toughness) is ignored when resisting this attack.

Against natural phenomena that are not used by a certain character such as sunlight or sea water, the damage value is based on your own Magic attribute. If you are vulnerable to interaction, any successful interaction of the type you are vulnerable to causes an automatic setback.

Examples of substances to which you might be vulnerable:

1. Holy symbols.
2. Some metal (e.g. silver, gold, cold steel).
3. Specific flowers or herbs (wolvesbane, garlic).
4. Types of wood (ash, jew et. al.).
5. Certain books (bible, koran, torah, pulp novels).
6. Certain weapons.
7. Specific words.
8. A portrait of an old love.
9. The bones of a victim.
10. Direct sunlight.
11. Running water.
12. Dogs with angel eyes (dark circles around the iris).