Celerity (VTM)

Name:	Celerity
Pronunciation:
Clans:	Brujah, Toreador.
Bloodlines:	Assamite Viziers, Assamite Warriors, City Gangrel, Ishtarri, Nictuku, Osebo, Shango

Celerity is a Discipline that grants vampires supernatural quickness and reflexes.

Overview

For some Cainites, the mortal world moves in slow motion. In times of stress, vampires with Celerity can move with amazing speed, becoming blurs of motion to anyone, mortal or immortal, who does not possess the Discipline. Celerity is common to the Assamite, Brujah and Toreador clans. The Assamites utilize the Discipline to strike down their foes before they can mount a counterattack. Toreador are more likely to use the Discipline to lend supernatural grace to live performances such as a dance, but can be as terrifying as Assamites if they are angered.

Normally each dot provides an additional action that can be used for movement, attacking, or other physical feats in a single round without penalties for multiple actions. This extraordinary speed violates the laws of physics in that the Cainite doesn't experience any change in momentum, friction, etc. A knife thrown by someone using Celerity isn't any faster, and a vampire moving at incredible speeds will never catch fire no matter how fast they move.

Although Celerity is a common discipline, its similarity to Temporis seems to place its origin with Clan Brujah. Any vampire who learns Temporis (and any True Brujah, who have an affiliation in the blood for it) may never learn or use Celerity.

As part of the Curse upon Caine, heavy reliance on Celerity can lead to impatience with the slow pace of nightly life, leaving the vampire hungry and exhausted after each use. To great accustomization to the slow world that a vampire sees when Celerity is active, can lead to disorientation when the world “speeds up” as the Discipline ends.

Official Abilities

There are generally no individual powers for Celerity in the tabletop version until level 6. At that point characters may choose to gain additional Celerity actions or choose a unique power. Included below are the official powers described in supplements for Vampire: The Masquerade and Dark Ages: Vampire. Sources are described below in the order they were printed.

Advanced Powers

• ^[1]
  • Flawless Parry: Make perfect defensive motions at the expense of taking no other action
  • Precision: Enter a trance where you can operate with exceptionally fine manipulation
  • Projectile: Throw objects with the speed of your Celerity
  • Tireless Tread: Run at 50 miles per hour for at least eight hours
  • Quickness: Expend a blood and gain yet another additional turn. All previous celerity levels are activated
  • Projectile: Expend a blood point and choose how many levels of Celerity you wish to grant the object that is being thrown or fired. The object gets an additional trait for each level of Celerity given to it, however you can no longer use those levels of Celerity. If the object did bashing damage it now becomes lethal, if the object inflicts lethal damage it now does an additional level of damage.
  • Momentum: Focus your Celerity into one instant, increasing her strength

• ^[2]
  • Celerity Refinement: Choose to spend vitae for Celerity as you need them, rather than declaring them beforehand
  • Flower of Death: Use your Celerity to gain bonuses to attacking
  • Quickness: Expend extra blood points to gain extra actions, at the cost of an unsoakable lethal damage level per action
  • Stutter-Step: Use your Celerity to gain bonuses to defense

• ^[3]
  • The Unseen Storm: Move so fast you are truly invisible
  • Zephyr: Move so fast that you seem to defy gravity
  • Time out of Time: React instantly to anything and move before anyone realizes what you've done

• ^[4]
  • Paragon of Motion: Perform most physical acts without fail
  • Between the Ticks: Expend a blood and a willpower, you gain an automatic success on all attacks delivered to an opponent with less than advanced celerity. You have an extra action against those with advanced celerity. All attacks delivered by those with less than advanced celerity are considered to be automatic failures. You can declare fair escape at any time

• Plot Device ^[5]

Version differences

Celerity underwent several mechanical revisions between edition, making some changes in how the discipline is viewed. While all versions have Celerity give extra actions, they differ heavily in reaction time before it may be used, the amount of blood required for levels higher than one, and whenever it grants increased Dexterity or not.

In Second Edition one blood point is spent to gain one extra action per dot in the discipline in the same turn. In Revised the blood point must be spent in the turn before taking the extra actions.

In Vampire: the Dark Ages, and Dark Ages: Vampire instead one blood point per extra action must be spent (up to the number of dots in the discipline), in the same turn.

In Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, each dot in the discipline gives one bonus die to Dexterity, but each such bonus die may be transformed into one extra action in the turn at the cost of one blood point.

In Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition, each dot of Celerity gives one bonus dice to Dexterity and the character can add their Celerity rating to the number of yards/meters moved per turn. Additionaly, a blood point can be spent to ignore penalties for multiple actions up to the characters Celerity rating. Lastly the character can spend a blood point to multiply her movement speed by 1 plus her Celerity rating.

References

^  Level 1

Alacrity	cMET: Laws of the Night Revised Edition	Pg. 141
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 142

^  Level 2

Swiftness	cMET: Laws of the Night Revised Edition	Pg. 141
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 142

^  Level 3

Rapidity	cMET: Laws of the Night Revised Edition	Pg. 141
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 142

^  Level 4

Legerity	cMET: Laws of the Night Revised Edition	Pg. 141
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 142

^  Level 5

Fleetness	cMET: Laws of the Night Revised Edition	Pg. 141
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines
Celerity	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 142

^  Level 6

Mercury's Arrow	VTDA: Dark Ages Companion	Pg. 80
Projectile	VTM: Guide to the Camarilla	Pg. 87
Projectile	cMET: Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide	Pg. 46
Quickness	cMET: Faith and Fire	Pg. 161
Precision	VTM: Clanbook: Assamite Revised	Pg. 64
Tireless Tread	VTM: Guide to the Anarchs	Pg. 164
Flawless Parry	DAV: Players Guide to High Clans	Pg. 152
Projectile	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 143
Momentum	VTDA: Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 202

^  Level 7

Sanguinary Wind	VTDA: Dark Ages Companion	Pg. 80
Flower of Death	VTM: Guide to the Camarilla	Pg. 87
Flower of Death	cMET: Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide	Pg. 47
Stutter-Step	VTM: Clanbook: Brujah Revised	Pg. 68
Celerity Refinement	DAV: Players Guide to High Clans	Pg. 152
Flower of Death	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 143
Quickness	VTDA: Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 203

^  Level 8

Resist Earth's Grasp	VTDA: Dark Ages Companion	Pg. 80
Zephyr	VTM: Guide to the Camarilla	Pg. 88
Zephyr	cMET: Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide	Pg. 47
The Unseen Storm	DAV: Players Guide to High Clans	Pg. 153
Zephyr	VTM: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition	Pg. 144
Time out of Time	VTDA: Vampire: The Dark Ages 20th Anniversary Edition, p. 203	Pg. 203

^  Level 9

Paragon of Motion	DAV: Players Guide to High Clans	Pg. 153
Between the Ticks	cMET: Laws of the Night: Camarilla Guide	Pg. 48

^  Level 10

Plot Device

VTM: Gehenna (book)

Pg. 182

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