Purified

Purified

The Purified are the secret police of the Empire, created for the express purpose of hunting down and dealing with supernaturals. While their demeanor and style of dress vary widely, their badges of office are their distinctive canes and pocket watches. All supernaturals known to avoid any who carry these badges. 

They are functionally immortal, being killed only seems to slow them down. Even if their bodies are turned to ashes they are able to reform them in only hours. No one knows how they are created, or how kill them and keep them dead.

Innate Abilities

All purified gain certain innate abilities. The most obvious and important is physical immortality. When a purified returns to life, her body is always in the peak of health. Her body is in all ways identical in both health and appearance to the body of someone in her early 20s and does not age. Also, unless specially treated before the person's change, all scars, tattoos, piercings, and other markings vanish without a trace, as the newly purified individual's body is rendered perfect and eternal. Purified who wish to keep a tattoo or a scar must spend a point of Willpower and draw a special sigil upon this mark, either upon getting the tattoo or injury or when becoming purified in the first place. If the character doesn't spend the Willpower, the scar, tattoo or other mark vanishes upon becoming purified or within a few days of getting it.
The character's body also actively attempts to return itself to its initial pristine state. Purified are immune to all diseases, gain a -2 difficulty bonus to resist all poisons, and heal significantly more rapidly than normal humans. They heal at a rate of one point Bashing damage every five minutes. They heal Lethal damage at a rate of one point every four hours and Aggravated damage heals at a rate of one point every 12 hours. Purified cannot take any Merit that speeds their healing, including the Merit: Quick Healer.
Purified also gain innate abilities relating to their new existence between the mortal world and the Shadow World. All purified can automatically see and hear any spirits, ghosts or other beings in Twilight. Not only can purified see ghosts and spirits in Twilight as easily as they can see ordinary people, they cannot choose not to see such beings. Also, because of the dual nature of their existence, any being in Twilight who sees one of the purified automatically knows that the character can see and hear them. This ability often becomes an exceptionally mixed blessing. Spirits, and even more commonly, ghosts occasionally approach purified and ask, threaten or beg for aid.
In addition to being able to see beings in Twilight, purified also automatically know the inhuman language of spirits. They can understand and speak to all spirits as easily as they can understand and speak to someone fluent in their native tongue. The only limitation on this ability is that purified who speak to spirits must speak aloud, if only in a whisper. This speech sounds like complicated gibberish to mortals who overhear it, at best it sounds like the incoherent ravings of a lunatic. Purified who wish to avoid attracting attention soon learn to either only speak to spirits when no one else is around or to do so only in a whisper.
Purified also possess a version of the Unseen Sense merit that allows them to sense the presence of any phenomena related to spirits or the Shadow Realm, as well as the active use of all unseen forces. They can sense the use of all supernatural powers, but not the presence of a vampire or werewolf. A successful Wits + Awareness roll also allows a purified character to sense the presence of any nearby loci or verges and what emotional resonances they have.

Chi
When they undergo the right of purification, these beings change their minds and their souls to be more like those of the inhabitants of the Shadow Realm, including the ability to manipulate Essence. As they gain in power and experience, the purified gain even greater power over Essence. As part of the purified template, all purified receive one dot of an ability known as Chi, which represents their connection to and power over Essence. Characters can acquire additional dots either by spending Experience Points or initial Background dots. Once play begins, additional dots of Chi can only be purchased with Experience Points.
Chi is rated from 1 to 5 dots. As a measure of the spiritual power of the purified, it has the following game effects.

* Chi is added to all rolls to resist all supernatural powers. Chi is a form of supernatural advantage.

* Chi determines how much Essence the purified can hold onto at one time and how rapidly the character can spend it. See the Effects of Chi chart.

* Chi is a measure of the character's power and status in the Shadow Realm. Spirits treat characters with higher Chi as if they were higher level spirits. Spirits with a rank lower than the purified's honorary level treat the character with deference and respect as long as they are not actively hostile to her. See the Effects of Chi chart.

Chi	Attribute / Skill /	Max Essence / Max Essence per Turn	Effective Spirit Level
1	5	9 / 1	2
2	5	11 / 1	2
3	6	13 / 2	3
4	6	15 / 2	3
5	7	20 / 3	4

Essence
Because the purified have their minds and souls transformed into something more like a spirit, they also gain the ability to use Essence just like a spirit can. Using Essence allows the character to:

* Activate any Siddhi that requires Essence

* To be able to soak Lethal damage requires 1 Essence. To be able to soak Aggravated and Lethal damage requires 3 Essence. This ability lasts for a scene.

* Activate any Spirit Numina that the character knows.

* Spend one point of Essence to see from the mortal world into the Shadow Realm or from the Shadow Realm into the mortal world for one Scene.

* Spend one point of Essence to instantly heal one point of bashing or lethal damage. This Essence also instantly stops wounds from bleeding and the character's condition from deteriorating.

* Spend three points of Essence to instantly heal any aggravated wound.

* Spend one point of Essence to heal any single wound, of any sort, in the character's ephemeral body.

* Give Essence to a spirit or ghost to secure its cooperation or to pay for some service.

* Spending five points of Essence allows the character to completely reconstitute her body from ashes or fragments of bone and rot.

* Spending five points of Essence allows the character to reanimate her dead body.

Purified cannot create Essence, but must obtain it, either by extracting it from loci or obtaining it from a spirit or another of the purified, either as a gift, or by stealing it from them. Purified can absorb Essence by going to a loci. However, they cannot do so in the mortal world. To obtain Essence, the character must leave her body and enter Twilight or the Shadow Realm. The character then rolls Meditation + Wits and adds additional dice equal to the number of dots of the locus. The number of successes rolled equals the number of points of Essence gained.
The amount of Essence that one of the purified can absorb at one time depends upon their Chi. Purified who have additional dots of Chi can absorb additional Essence. Also, within 24 hours, one of the purified can absorb no more than 3 x Rating points of Essence from a single locus.
Purified may also attempt to steal Essence from spirits, ghosts, or even each other by making a contested roll of Manipulation + Meditation + Chi against the target's Wits + Meditation + Chi. The winner of the contest steals a number of Essence from the loser equal to the successes scored by the victor. Purified must touch a target to attempt to steal Essence from it. Stealing all of the Essence from a spirit causes it to become dormant and unresponsive. Stealing all the Essence from one of the purified makes him exceptionally vulnerable. Purified can only steal Essence or have Essence stolen from them when they are projecting outside of their body.