New Devotions: Ventrue Way of the Philosopher King (nWOD VTR)

The greatest strength of rulership is to use every tool to its utmost. The ancient and lordly have always had a love of beasts of all types. However, for the greatest among them, power over these creatures was neither an enjoyable excess nor demonstration of the abundance of their power. While their country cousins or classical forebears might enjoy running with the beasts, all Kindred can, at the height of their strength, move more swiftly, powerfully, and tirelessly than a team of horses. How, then, have the rightful lords of the night used their power over beasts to bolster their claim to dominion? By deep reflection and fuller understanding than their lessers.

While the simplest student of Animalism can see its immediate and dramatic effects on the beasts of the field and birds of the air, a true student of the art sees that all of its powers are rooted in a synthesis and symbiosis with the Kindred's own Beast and that of those around them. Any question of this must be set aside by those who reach the advanced levels of the discipline and discover that, at its fullest flowering, the discipline no longer applies at all to the lesser animals they might once have thought they were directly controlling.

Once this understanding is reached, that the power of Animalism is truly power over the lower (animal) mind, present in all creatures new avenues of exploration become available, especially through the blending of this power with the Clan's signature control over the higher mind.

These collections of Devotions have been divided into different groups, or Ways, by the scholars of the Clan. Each group is collected by their overarching theme, and a Ventrue who finds one power in a Way useful is likely to be interested in others from that group. However, these are not Disciplines, and there is no strict hierarchy to what powers can be learned in what order, nor is there a limitation to how many Ways a student can learn powers from.

The Way of the Philosopher King is sometimes referred to as the "Royal Road." Focused on dominion over self, this Way provides greater inner resources, and ability to martial those resources, in their struggle to gain ascendancy.

Break the Beast
(Animalism •, Dominate •)
Action: Reflexive
Cost: Special
Ventrue who have learned to focus their will on dominion of others and using their Beast to commune with lesser creatures can seek to dominate their own Beast.
When the character spends a willpower to improve their Resolve or Composure pool for resisting Frenzy, or attempting to Ride the Wave, they automatically receive a single success. This success can be countered by a 1 normally.
(LARP)When the character spends a willpower to improve their Resolve or Composure pool for resisting Frenzy, or attempting to Ride the Wave, the character does not suffer an automatic failure on a draw of an ace. It is treated simply as a one.
This power costs 6 experience points to learn.

Dominion of Man
(Animalism •, Dominate ••)

Action: Reflexive.
Cost: Special
When the character spends a point of Willpower to boost their Resolve or Composure for a roll to resist Frenzy or Ride the Wave they also add their ranks in Animalism to the roll.
This power costs 9 experience points to learn.

Feed the Beast
(Animalism •, Dominate •••)

Action: Instant
Cost: 1 Vitae + an additional Vitae per time this power has been used in the same night.
By communing with their Beast, the kindred can generate greater resolve and self determination. Each time this power is used the kindred regains a point of Willpower. This power does not allow a character to have more willpower than their normal maximum, however.
This power costs 12 experience points to learn.

Reflection
(Animalism •, Dominate •••••)

Action: Reflexive, contested
Cost: Special
The greatest strength of the philosopher king is the insight he possesses into his own base instincts and higher mind. It is only through this self-examination that they rule wisely, rejecting the selfish impulse and unfit action or recognizing them in another.
A character spending a willpower to improve their Resolve or Composure may instead substitute their dots in Intelligence for that ability on the roll.
This power costs 18 experience points to learn.

~~*~~

The presence of Animalism in the Ventrue clan disciplines has always bothered me. As a historical oddity it makes sense. Like the anatomical oddity of the appendix in modern humans. But that seemed out of place in a race of hyper-competitive predators. If nothing else, someone should have looked for a way to make it useful again. This ground on me for ages. I was similarly annoyed by the disconnection between the fifth level Animalism power's control over the Beast and the wildlife focused rest of the Discipline.

Ironically, however, these two things were completely separate until one day I had an epiphany. I was considering a Ventrue LARP character with essentially maximum Resolve and Composure that was frustrated by the fact that a bad draw could put them in Frenzy without recourse. A flip suggestion by another player that buying all five levels of the Animalism Discipline would provide recourse lead to my much rehashed annoyance about how little use a thoroughly modern Ventrue really has for the first four levels and an offhand remark that there should be a "baby leash" available at lower levels.

From there, development of the idea that the fifth level power is, in fact, what the remainder is working towards was a relatively natural way to resolve my long-seated pet-peeves. Moreover, development of other alternate lower level abilities was clear. While these sorts of substitution abilities appear in White Wolf creations, I much prefer the plug and play nature of the Devotion system.

Once I was creating Devotions, the immediate question was what to use for the second Discipline. I quickly settled on Dominate as making the most sense for three reasons. First, it reinforced the intended feeling of the powers; melding control over the higher and lower minds to generate effects. Second, as the Ventrue clan prime Discipline, it made these powers signature to sort of characters that fit best in that clan; leaders, rulers, those who control themselves and the world around them. Third, it limited access to these abilities from the Gangrel, the other clan with Animalism as an in-clan discipline. While it is listed last because it was the least concern, especially given the intimate tie Dominate gives to the Ventrue, I have found that Gangrel in LARP have a disproportionate level of power simply due to their physical ability (read; Protean; Claws of the Wild). Thus, giving power that springs from one of their strengths without them getting some aspect of it was a concern.