Doppelgänger

Doppelgänger
Long ago, the sea lords of Azure conquered the Auspice Isles and claimed the people as chattel. One enslaved Auspicene priest used curses, trickery, and poison to work such subtle revenge on his new masters that many died before they discovered him and executed him in the Kraken’s Pool. He continued his revenge even after death, until the Azurite ancestors drove him from their shores. Western mortals call him the Blue Shadow. He has mastered the art of moliation — the shaping of ghostly flesh — to copy others’ countenances. Making himself visible to mortals, he uses false faces to gain their confidence and plays on their passions with clever lies. Murder alone no longer satisfies him; he relies on seduction, treachery, and deceit to induce his victims to destroy themselves and those around them. He also practices the nemissary arts, stealing the bodies of the freshly dead for more tangible charades. He has become a doppelgänger. Like all of his kind, his name is lost to history, as is his old shape. Should magic tear his false faces from him, his visage is as blank and featureless as the moon.

Essence: 2; Willpower: 5; Join Battle: 6 dice
Personal Motes: 70
Health Levels: −0/−1x2/−2x2/−4/Incap
Actions: Disguise: 12 dice; Lockpicking/Pickpocketing: 8 dice; Read Intentions: 10 dice; Senses: 7 dice; Social Influence: 14 dice
Appearance 3, Resolve 3, Guile 7

COMBAT
Attack (Unarmed): 7 dice (Damage 10)
Attack (Grapple): 3 dice (4 dice to control)
Combat Movement: 7 dice
Evasion 4, Parry 2
Soak/Hardness: 5/0 (or 11/0; see Monstrous Mien)

MERITS
Cult 0-2: Mortals who fear the depredations of doppelgängers and other actively malicious ghosts often propitiate them.

OFFENSIVE CHARMS
Monstrous Mien (8m, 1wp; Simple; One scene; Essence 2): In an instant, the doppelgänger’s body expands into a horrid shape. His skin grows scaly, his visage bestial, his limbs long and bandy and tipped by vicious claws. This transformation grants the ghost the Hideous Merit (Exalted Third Edition, p. 162) for its duration, doubles 8s on unarmed attack rolls and threaten rolls, and grants +6 soak.
Soul-Thieving Method (1wp; Supplemental; Instant; Eclipse, Withering-only; Essence 2): The doppelgänger does not receive any Initiative from the unarmed withering attack this Charm supplements. Instead, for each point of Initiative he would have received, he removes a mote from his enemy’s Essence pools and adds it to his own.

MISCELLANEOUS CHARMS
Apparition (1m; Simple; One scene; Essence 1): The doppelgänger becomes visible, but not corporeal.
False Face (8m; Simple; Instant, Essence 2): Ghostly flesh flows beneath his fingers like clay as the doppelgänger alters his appearance to assume the guise of a living human or another ghost, negating all penalties and doubling 9s on disguise rolls to imitate a specific character. False Face doesn’t work on dead flesh possessed via Nemissary’s Ride, and its disguise bonus is only compatible with Monstrous Mien if the doppelgänger imitates a similarly monstrous creature.
Nemissary’s Ride (20m, 1wp; Simple; Indefinite; Essence 1): The doppelgänger moves into a human corpse, animating it. He uses the physical Attributes, soak, and health track of the corpse’s former life in place of his own, but otherwise retains his own traits. If the body is freshly dead or expertly embalmed, this imposes a −1 die penalty to disguise actions; more advanced decay increases the penalty or makes disguise impossible. The possessor is ejected if the animated corpse runs out of health levels. Attacks capable of striking the immaterial damage both the corpse’s health track and the possessing ghost’s.

Storyteller Tactics
A doppelgänger is vicious and pitiless, but subtle. He prefers never to reveal himself to his victims, keeping up a given ruse only until it’s no longer useful for turning his victims against one another. He only fights directly when cornered or absolutely certain of his victory. He withdraws from combat or scares opponents away whenever possible if it looks like he’s in danger of discorporation.
A doppelgänger chooses victims out of spite and vengeance. Although his memories of the life he once had are dim and twisted, he can recognize someone who did him wrong when he walked in the flesh, along with their friends and family, and has a nose for finding
their descendants too. Failing that, he preys on anyone who lives in places or circumstances that remind him of his past. Doppelgängers lie well, but some mimicry is simply beyond their ken. Characters may become suspicious if someone who ought to be a master swordsman chooses to fight with his fists, for instance. Clever manipulation of a situation can force his hand. Each doppelgänger retains
different skills from his living days, so each such situation requires an investigator’s careful attention.