The Forger

You may well have been lauded as a genius child, a prodigy. You were able to perfectly replicate the greatest of paintings, the surest of calligraphic hand strokes, entire passages word for word from the Bible, your school texts - whether you were taught to read or not. You can replicate it. Whether this has bred a poisonous ego or a crippling sense of imposter syndrome, your own novel inventions lack life and look ugly to you. It's a desolate thing, being praised only for what another person has made. You're an artistic mimic, though your ability to create such exact copies could lead to a very different, criminal life.

Long Description: Ever since you can remember you've been gifted in the art of replication. It's not that you have a good memory - it's as if you channel the original hand in some way, you lose yourself and go, for a time, out of time. You only wish you could snatch at that slipstream of thought and direct it, change it, so you could make versions of your own work through theirs. But no, once you've set your will and mind to stare at one painting - or ledger, or bank receipt or journal - you can only reproduce it in exact, your hands take on a life of their own while you are gone, the world blurs and you come back to another perfect alien copy.

It's a compulsion or itch you can't easily ignore, frustrating and upsetting in equal measures to be so beholden to this need to get something out. Especially sensitive information or things that aren't meant to be copied you've had to hide yourself away, shaking, as the compulsion or possession or whatever the damn hell it is comes over you, and the next thing you know your eyes are glazing over and you're swallowed by something, your hands moving elegantly, rapidly, confidently. All without your say so.

You've learned to direct it, if not control it. You can't not copy something if you stare long enough at the original. And the most beautiful works of art you're compelled to look at, and reproduce; it hypnotises you in place. You started avoiding art galleries and pop-up shows because you could lose whole weeks, barely eating and barely sleeping. You've woken from an art-haze once with urine in a sheet down your leg, acrid and reeking, your armpits drenched in sweat and your knuckles claw-gripped and white. They ache to the bone, most days, and have begun to tremor.

You're losing your life to it, any spare time you might have cherished - even your obligations to people are swept aside by this thing when it takes you, you can lose a whole month for staring up at a tributary fresco in the Brancacci Chapel. You'd take yourself home, in a daze, collecting paints or brushes or tools as you went, and won't rouse until it's done. Being interrupted works, sometimes, but the horror of how rough someone has had to have been just to snap you out of it - and how much worse it's getting - is terrifying. You want your life back. You want this to stop. The explosion of the Renaissance for some is a glorious thing, with its sculptures and artistic marvels littering every square inch of the world suddenly. You can't even go to the shop to get milk anymore.

Worse, people in the know have claimed (quite vocally) you cannot produce anything really of your own. Jealousy has made some artists go out their way to destroy your image and launch vicious smear campaigns, targeting everything about you. Much of it is unwarranted and cruel, just lies. It’s enough to drive anyone to drink.

One thing they say is true: there is something empty and lifeless about your own creations. They stare back at you with mocking too-wide grins and dead colours in their eyes. People drive themselves into restless, and increasingly coloured tempers by studying your original art too long. You don’t understand it. Choked up on tears and clutching your trembling gnarled hands you can only sob because you’ve given this life everything.

What sort of gift would strip you of everything you ever wanted and dreamed of building for yourself.

Mechanics: You are a forger without equal. After a few minutes spent with a painting, letter, or gazing at the face of another individual, you can recreate the original object flawlessly. There is no way of telling these simulacrums apart from the original without extremely high level Auspex. You can complete these works in less time than it took to create the original (for the sake of the game, a full painting might take 12 hours, a simple forged letter only a dozen minutes or so).

This power extends to supernatural designs such as runes and complex symbology that might be used for necromancy or thaumaturgy. Even if you are unpractised in the art, you could copy such patterns perfectly. You can also paint hyperrealistic portraits of individuals if you spend at least several minutes observing them closely. These portraits stray into the ‘uncanny’ - with an eerie soulless quality that haunts the onlooker - especially the individual of whom the portrait is based.