As a Discipline rooted in tainted elemental magic, the actual mechanics of Koldunic Sorcery differ from the Hermetic arts of the Usurpers. Simple knowledge of one form of blood sorcery does not permit the learning or casting of another form’s paths and rituals, though it is theoretically possible for a Cainite to learn both arts if he separately learns both Disciplines. Given the unremitting state of hostilities between the Tzimisce and the Tremere, however, such a feat will likely remain theoretical for the indefinite future.

Like Thaumaturgy, Koldunic Sorcery divides into paths and rituals. Koldun speak of their paths as ways, five of which form the core of all their magic. Though not unknown, obscure ways are rare in the extreme and usually build on a specific aspect of a core way. Most koldun who have fought the Tremere dismiss the debased sorceries of the Usurpers as nothing more than fragmented Obscure ways distilled through lies and misconceptions.

The actual casting of Koldunic ways requires more than a clumsy exertion of will. Such magic demands perfection of form and mastery of the appropriate lore. In effect, the ways of the Discipline more closely resemble a cascade of dependent rituals than paths as understood by Thaumaturgy.

Koldunic Sorcery also requires the koldun at least a passing relationship with local spirits, making most Koldun with a distaste for travel. For each grade that a koldun is outside of his domain he incurs a penalty equating to the distance he is from his home. If he leaves the City but is within the same state he incurs a one-trait penalty, if he leaves the state but is still within his home Region, it becomes a two-trait penalty, beyond that but remains within the nation, he incurs a three-trait penalty, and outside of that he incurs a four-trait penalty for the purposes of comparing ties and challenges using the Ways or any koldunic ritual.

The caster’s player spends one Blood Trait and engages his victims in a challenge determined by each path. Owing to the Discipline’s dependence on ritualized knowledge, characters with the Occult specialty “Koldunism” may add an extra trait as normal. Characters without this specialized lore take a one-trait penalty when enacting koldunic sorcery.

The rules for koldunic rituals duplicate those for ways, save that the challenge is always a Mental Challenge and use the same durations and difficulties as Thaumaturgy. Each koldun must select one of the ways listed below as his primary one.

Koldunic sorcerers may learn either Way of Earth or Way of Water and either Way of Fire or Way of Wind depending on what better suits the features of their home Domain. Koldunic Sorcery retests will Occult.

Capable of great destruction and great healing, the earth is the womb of life and the sepulcher of death. It drinks all blood spilled upon its soil and so mirrors the vampire. It is by association with the earth as a source of strength that a koldun enacts his will.

Challenge Type: Physical

A koldun invoking this power may command earth to rise in a spray of dirt and crawl up a victim’s legs. Depending on the will and temperament of the sorcerer, the soil may appear as heaped mounds or sculpted to a parody of clutching arms. Regardless, the end result is the victim’s sudden immobility. This power can command only soil, not stone, and may target only victims standing on the earth.

The koldun may direct any patch of earth within a 100-foot radius to ensnare a target. Animated dirt ascends and constricts midway between the victim’s knees and hips, holding her fast unless her player can overcome a Physical challenge equal to the koldun's physical traits, retests with Athletics. It is also possible to use this power as an attack, in which case the grasping earth crushes once and then releases. Used in this manner, the attack deals one level of lethal damage. Such damage manifests exclusively as broken legs and crushed feet.

Drawing the essence of earth into himself, a koldun may gain a measure of its preternatural resilience. Under the effects of this power, a Cainite’s skin resembles a horrid fusion of flesh and stone that cracks and flows impossibly with every movement.

The koldun gains two extra Health levels as if from armor for the rest of the scene and gains 2 trait bonus to all Physical challenges (including Way of Earth).

Expanding on the power of Grasping Soil, a koldun may use this power to drag a victim into the earth and crush her with its pitiless grip. He need only gesture and the soil beneath his victim opens like the maw of a great beast. Tongues of cold mud lash forth to drag the victim into the closing pit, leaving her buried to the neck. This power may ensnare any victim who stands upon the earth within 100 feet of the koldun.

Like Grasping Soil, the victim must overcome a physical Challenge to break free from the earth, retest Athletics. The koldun may continue to concentrate on the victim, spending their turn causing the earth to shift and grasp. So long as the kolduun spends their entire turn to actively command the earth, beings trapped in the crushing pit suffer one level of lethal damage unless they can escape. Alternately, the koldun may dismiss the power, causing the earth to yawn once more and release the victim.

As with Hungry Earth, the koldun may direct the land to bury any target standing on the earth within a 100-foot radius. Yet this power is far more benevolent in its intent, if no less disturbing in its manifestation. The soil ripples, parting and closing like some obscene womb as it draws the target a full yard beneath the surface. Living beings entombed in this fashion do not suffocate, as the enchanted soil pumps air from above in undulating breaths. Better still, the fertile essence of the earth presses upon her flesh and restores it to new health. Still, the process is highly disturbing and unnatural, especially as targets remain wholly aware in silent, helpless immobility for the full duration. It is possible for a koldun to heal himself with this power.

Koldun spends as many blood points as desired (which may require multiple turns depending on generation). While interred within the earth the blood pool created by the koldun may be used to heal, the cost to heal bashing and lethal damage is halved, and aggravated damage may be healed by spending a Willpower Trait and 2 Blood Traits. The actual healing process takes one turn per bashing level, one minute per lethal level and one hour per aggravated level. Once the healing is complete or the power is interrupted through determined excavation, the earth pushes the target back to the surface.

Mortals pray in fear when the mountains shake. They fear the wrath of the Old Gods, and rightfully so. With this power, a koldun may rouse the taint of Kupala with his blood so that the eldritch force may gnaw at the roots of mountains and thrash beneath the land like the great dragon of Tzimisce heraldry. It is not a power used lightly or capriciously, but it represents one of the greatest weapons available to Koldunic Sorcery. As such, the koldun must wait a full day after using the power to use it once more.

By spending a Willpower in addition to the usual cost, the koldun smites the earth with his fist or stamps angrily, and his anger flows invisibly through the soil to any target in his line of sight. The quake erupts outward from that point up to 20 feet in diameter, making a mass challenge against against everyone within the area affect, but you only have to bid one trait. Anyone who fails the challenge takes 4 bashing damage. Anyone without a recourse to escape the area of affect (because they are trapped in a dead end, or because they cannot move) take the damage automatically without recourse to a challenge. Most wooden structures collapse entirely and even stone buildings may grow cracked and pitted with superficial damage from the shaking earth. This tremor lasts one turn.

Subtler than mastery over earth, this way evokes the air in the breath of the living and the last rattle of a dying man. In stillness or motion, koldun turn all aspects of air to their unliving design.

Challenge Type: Mental

Even in their absence, koldun instill deep fear in their boyars. This power carries the vampire’s words on a light breeze to the target and returns with their reply. The vampire need only address the target by name and forcibly mimic a deep exhalation of breath as he speaks his message.

The player need only spend blood the first time the power is used during a given scene. After the vampire concludes the message, swift winds carry it to its destination. Within a minute, the target hears the koldun as if the vampire had whispered in his ear. He may reply or remain silent, but anything he says within a number of turns equal to the length of the vampire’s message flies back to the koldun. This power may bring words to anyone within a mile who is not in a sealed room. While using this power, a koldun must concentrate fully. Any disturbance breaks the communication.

Vengeful koldun sought to invoke a wind as chill as air atop the Carpathian Mountains. This power achieves that end, unleashing a cutting wind that can freeze a man’s blood in his veins as it swirls through an area of his choosing. Besides its obvious combat applications, this power also facilitates a dramatic entrance for those so inclined.

The koldun summons a freezing wind to harass a victim within a maximum of a 100-yards of the koldun. The victim caught in this frigid blast suffers one bashing damage each turn the koldun maintains concentration and takes a 2 Trait penalty on all Challenges relating to Dexterity and may only take 1 step each round. The winds last as long as the koldun wills, provided he maintains concentration. Any non-reflexive actions on the part of the vampire cause the winds to still and dissipate. This includes any movement.

Although they cannot induce immediate sleep, the winds evoked by this power bring growing exhaustion and numbing weariness through every muscle. Victims of this power often smell a hint of bittersweet smoke before they fall entranced.

The koldun creates a wind inflicting extreme lethargy within a 200-foot radius on a single victim. The victim of this wind loses on ties on all Physical Challenges (if the victim normally would win on ties, then he compares Traits as normal) and her speed is reduced to 1 step and may not use Celerity as a Fair Escape. Ride the Tempest

A koldun employing this power moves at incredible speeds riding along the winds. Such voivodes may appear in each of their boyar’s homes and the villages of their lands in a single night, instilling fear among the peasants and terrorizing all to fealty. Few mortals of any class dare risk the wrath of a koldun who may arrive to administer punishment. While traveling with this power, a vampire assumes a blurred form that coalesces as he reaches his destination.

After paying the usual cost the koldun fades into the wind and flies at 250 mph to his destination. This power cannot function effectively in caves, buildings or other firmly enclosed areas, and any vampire foolish enough to try suffers 10 bashing damage for his trouble from crashing into walls. Outside, the vampire’s flight navigates all obstacles. Once the koldun arrives at his destination or the scene ends, the vampire descends to earth and fully solidifies. Such an arrival is quite impressive, heralded by a flurry of sudden gusts that extinguish candles and blow leaves about.

Applying fury magnified by blood and will, a koldun may project the full measure of his anger into the night sky. Churning gray clouds blot out stars and moon, unleashing spiraling gusts and a driving downpour of freezing rain. Lightning arcs overhead, each thunderous flash casting jagged shadows.

With a successful casting and expending a point of Willpower (in addition to the usual blood), a koldun may conjure a terrible storm. It takes six hours for the clouds to gather and thicken overhead, minus one hour for every Mental Traits expended. If this results in a duration less than one, the clouds blossom outward from directly overhead like a black canopy, filling the sky in mere minutes. Once the clouds form, the rain begins to fall in torrents and the lightning begins.

During the peak of its fury, the storm may cause flooding and certainly chills any exposed mortal to the bone (one bashing damage every five minutes of full exposure). Those attempting to spot anything with normal senses must bid four extra Traits, those with Auspex need only bid two extra Traits. Anyone attempting to use a gun must bid two extra Traits when attacking; characters attempting to use bows or thrown weapons must bid three extra Traits.

Lightning strikes regularly — far more than a usual storm. Indeed, a koldun may direct lightning at a foe. This requires the player to spend one Willpower point and make a Mental Chellenge against the target. The target uses Physical traits to doge and he must bid an additional Physical trait while attempting to do so. A successful strike inflicts 3 bashing damage. Only one such attack may be made each turn.

Largely practiced by koldun with havens near large water sources such as the Black Sea or Plain Lakes, this way can raise watery spirit slaves and dash a ship to splinters. More subtly, the vampire may lurk in the depths or conjure illusions to confound and bedazzle his foes.

Challenge Type: Social

This versatile power creates three-dimensional illusions along the surface of a water source. How a koldun uses such illusions depends on temperament and intent. It is just as easy to feign a divine visitation as a cunning seduction leading to drowning.

The koldun may project an illusion on any water surface in line of sight. The illusion may speak and move however the vampire wishes, though it has no substance and cannot step beyond the bounds of the water. The phantom lasts for the duration of he scene.

As the feral Gangrel meld with the earth, so may a koldun with this power gracefully sink beneath the water to escape the sun. The vampire does not so much submerge as merge with the water. Though his slumbering form may be visible at odd angles from above, not even the most determined splashing can disturb his rest.

This power requires no blood. A body of water must be at least two feet deep and as large in other dimensions as the vampire’s body to contain him. Catching a glimpse of a hidden koldun in the water requires a successful Mental Challenge against the koldun's Social Traits.

Moving with the unnatural grace of a ghost, a koldun employing this power may stride across water as readily as land, leaving nary a ripple to mark his passing. Some vampires delight in using this power in conjunction with Pool of Lies to conjure panoplies of phantasms to attend them.

The koldun may walk on water for one scene or one hour, whichever is longer. A koldun may choose to drop the effects of this power in order to submerge or swim, but he may not walk on water again unless he reactivates the power.

By dripping his blood into a body of water, a koldun may summon or rouse embodied water elementals to serve him for a night. Such minions are infallibly loyal, if not especially clever. Despite their liquid form, they are solid enough to grab a man and drag him to a watery grave or pummel him as the crashing surf.

The player spends one Willpower point beyond the normal cost. The player may spend additional blood to summon elemental minions. This blood must be dripped or flung into a body of water, which may require multiple turns depending on generational limits for blood expenditure. Once the last drop of blood falls, the water rises into whatever form(s) the koldun desires. The caster may create as many minions as blood points spent, though not more than half his total Social Traits.

Regardless of their form or the mastery of the koldun all such elementals are considered have the following traits: 10 Physical Traits, no Mental or Social Traits, Alacrity and Swiftness (Celerity), Endurance and Mettle (Fortitude) and Prowess and Might (Potence). These elementals deal two levels of lethal damage. They possess the equivalent of four levels each of Brawl and Dodge for retest purposes. Water elementals suffer damage as vampires, including from the boiling rays of sunlight. Fire harms them less, inflicting bashing damage only. Moreover, the watery creatures may certainly extinguish flames with their liquid bodies, though not without suffering injury. An elemental that leaves the body of water that spawned it suffers one level of aggravated damage per hour.

Minions regenerate one level of damage each turn they remain in contact with the body of water that spawned them. Unless destroyed, summoned minions last until the next dawn before collapsing into inanimate puddles.

Many Turkish ships lie at the bottom of the Black Sea, shattered by the whirlpools of the koldun. Victims of this power must fight with every ounce of their strength or fall into the whirling airless depths below.

By spending a Willpower in addition to the usual cost and expending a number of Social Traits the koldun causes a whirlpool to appear. For every Social Trait expended the resulting whirlpool has a radius of five feet, centered anywhere in the vampire’s line of sight. Whirlpools have a base 15 Physical Traits plus five for each Social Trait expended. Victims must successfully oppose the whirlpool with a Physical Challenge (retest Survival) in order to break free. Those who fail are sucked into the depths and pounded with crushing currents. Living beings drown normally, while vampires and other nonbreathing creatures simply remain trapped helplessly in the vortex. This power lasts for one scene.

The ancient anathema of vampires, the element of fire offers the most powerful and dangerous tool available to koldun. The Way of Fire shares aspects with the Way of Earth in that it focuses more on burning pyroclast of volcanic activity rather than a naked flame. Koldun never risk Rötschreck from fire and pyroclast they conjure, though any secondary fires may engender the Red Fear.

Challenge Type: Social

No vampire can master an element he fears, so this power dims that fear to a mere ember of its former intensity.

Once learned, this power is permanent and requires no activation roll or blood. The koldun adds his overall rating in the Way of Fire (1 for Basic, 2 for Intermediate, 3 for Advanced) to his Courage to resist Rötschreck from exposure or proximity to flame. This power does not aid in resisting the panic that accompanies sunlight or any other causes apart from actual fire.

The Cainite’s eyes flash vivid orange with sorcerous power as superheated air coils around the target. In moments, the target bursts into spontaneous flame.

After a successful challenge pitting the koldun's Social Traits against the Physical Traits of his victim the target suffers one level of aggravated damage. This attack may be dodged, but not blocked, and can affect living (or unliving) beings.

The koldun raises his hand and waves of heat begin encircling the koldun, picking up burning embers and molten ash, creating a flowing wall of pyroclastic debris 10 feet high. Normally, this wall forms a 10-foot radius circle around the vampire.

The wall of magma summoned with this power lasts until you decide to extinguish it, move more tan 50 feet away or are knocked unconscious. Characters cannot approach a wall of molten rock without a Courage check. Individuals who move within three paces of the wall suffer a level of aggravated damage automatically each turn that they are within its confines.

The koldun acts as a conduit for steam geysers and channels a blast of desiccating air at a victim within line of sight. This fiery wind appears as a rippling heat wave enveloping the victim. Individuals slain with this gruesome power appear as withered, mummified husks.

You must make a challenge against the target's Physical Traits. The victim of Heat Wave suffers 2 levels of lethal damage and vampire targets also lose 2 blood points.

At the final mastery of Way of Fire, a koldun commands a miasma of heat and ash to explode from around the koldun. Searing bricks of ash spew across a wide swath before crashing to earth exploding in fiery heat. Anything in the path of the ash and heat rock burns, melts or vaporizes within moments. The caster may direct the miasma to erupt anywhere in his line of sight.

With the expenditure of a Willpower Trait in addition to the usual cost a koldun causes Volcanic Blast to fill an area up to 20 feet in diameter. You may a mass challenge against everyone within the area of effect, pitting your Social Traits against their Physical Traits. Victims who cannot reasonably escape may not have the benefit of a challenge. Everyone who fails the Challenge immediately takes one level of aggravated damage. All flammable materials in the are ignite immediately, through people or vampires fleeing the space do not necessarily remain lit.

Volcanic Blast lasts until you stop it, or until you move out of range. Anyone who remains in the area of the Firestorm suffers one level of aggravated damage at the end of every turn after its creation and suffers a two-trait penalty to all actions other than escaping from the burning ash.

The element of Spirit binds and transcends the four elements of the material world. Spirit is life in all its purest and most debased forms. It flows sluggishly in the blood of vampires and dances in the currents of wind and water. It burns in every flame and shakes the foundations of the earth. Ancient koldun learned to extend the spirit of their blood into the world around them, joining and dominating the ambient living essence for a brief time.

Unto itself, the Way of Spirit grants preternatural awareness over a wide area. The true power of the art, however, lies in channeling other manifestations of Koldunic Sorcery. A master koldun may whisper his thoughts to the edge of his domain and strike down intruders with tempest, fire and devouring earth. His mystical will is law unto the very edge of his bloated spirit.

Characters without the Koldunism Occult specialty may not learn any levels of this path.

Attribute: Mental

No distinct powers exist for each level of the Way of Spirit. Instead, greater mastery widens the domain a koldun may claim.

To activate the Way of Spirit, the player spends one Willpower in place of the usual blood expenditure. Characters may not attempt a range greater than their current mastery of the way permits. The koldun is granted sensory omniscience in the area of effect, lasting for the remainder of the scene. Within this territory, the koldun sees, hears, smells and even tastes everything at once. His touch flows through the dominion as on a breeze or a ripple in the soil, invisible and so capable of perceiving the invisible and spiritual realm. While such wide-reaching senses can immediately detect the presence and rough locations of intruders and spirits, the koldun must concentrate to focus on specific objects or individuals, pitting his Mental traits against any attempting to keep their presence hidden. As with Auspex, the mystical senses conferred by the Way of Spirit may confound Obfuscate and other forms of illusion or concealment.

Once a koldun extends his senses with this path, he may evoke powers of other Koldunic Sorcery paths anywhere within the territory. Apart from their extended range, such powers operate as normal. No power may be used that has a level exceeding the vampire’s rating in the Way of Spirit. For example, it is not possible to create earthquakes many miles distant without a rating of 5 in both the Way of Earth and the Way of Spirit.

Rating Radius of Effect

• 50 feet

•• 100 yards

••• Quarter-mile

•••• 1 mile

••••• 5 miles