“That’s what I love about the masses: they’re so easily led. It’s almost like they NEED someone to tell them what to do!”

– Vedic St. Claire, Ventrue Primogen

The powers of Dominate grant immediate control of the actions of another person. This can shape how they behave, what they remember, or even what they believe. A vampire might make an innocent passerby forget being fed on. They might even convince a mortal that it was their idea to jump behind the wheel of the blood donation truck and drive off.

Characteristics

All Dominate powers have the following limitations:

• Gaze and Focus: Unless otherwise stated, to use any Dominate power on a target, that individual must have her gaze or her attention focused on the Dominate user. For more information on Gaze and Focus, see page xx.
• Dominate cannot be used to force a target to do something physically self-destructive. Commands akin to “walk in front of a bus,” “jump off a building,” or “shoot yourself in the foot” automatically fail. Commands which direct a character into a dangerous situation break when the character suffers damage for following the compulsion. Characters may not relent to attacks that would pull them out of a Dominate command.
  • Example:  A character can Compel someone to kill their ally, but, when the ally’s defenders cause normal or Aggravated Damage to the Dominated character, the Dominate command ends. If nobody causes damage to them, then they continue until the duration of the power ends or they have completed the task.
  • Example: A character may Compel an enemy to flee a fight. If another enemy does damage to the Compelled character, the compulsion does not break because it drives them away from a dangerous situation.
  • Example: A character could Dominate someone on the edge of a cliff to “walk straight ahead until I say stop.” The target would move forward as far as they could, but would stop before walking off the cliff. 
  • However, Dominate does not provide a supernatural ability to know when something is dangerous. If the character does not know a cliff is ahead and cannot sense it, they will walk until they realize the danger  — which may very well be too late. 
  • See Terminal Decree on page XX for how that power modifies this base rule.
• Unless specifically stated, Dominate doesn’t impart any special ability to complete extraordinary commands. If a target is ordered to do something that she cannot accomplish, the target will make her best effort to obey the command but may not succeed. For example, if you use Compel to give the order to “sleep,” your target will lie down and try, but very few people can fall asleep in six seconds (two turns).
• Dominate cannot be used to compel someone to speak the truth or refrain from lying. Truth and lies are too subjective to be isolated by any clever phrase, loophole, or command.
• Most Dominate powers may not be used during combat. Whether a Dominate power may be used in combat is defined within the write-up for the power.
• Dominate cannot be used to force a supernatural being to turn off powers or prevent them from using powers. 
• The use of Dominate threatens free will and Humanity. Using it on mortals may incur Stains (see page XX).

Type: Social

Masquerade Threat: Minimal. While it might be hard to explain why someone did something exactly after another person asked them to, there are no visual cues to the use of Dominate.

Blood Resonance: Phlegmatic (blood of leaders and followers alike)