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In my Hunter the Vigil chronicle, the players were doing a good job of not talking to people, and IMHO, abused one of my NPCs, Ariana, to "go do it for them". It refers to investigating a Demon, Sarah, who was manifesting a glitch. I decided that Ariana's primary motivation for being in town was her quest for vengeance, against a Vampire, Scratch (from the Chicago book), so she ends up making a deal with the Sarah to get her vengeance, which she does.

However, I've allowed a PC Vampire to join the game (only one). He ended up doing a search for Scratch and got an exceptional success. I decided that he finds Ariana having recently torched Scratch. His character is a Ventrue and not well suited for combat, He decided to Dominate Ariana into thinking He did it and that she got their too late. She's now feeling like she didn't get her end of the bargain.

It's worth mentioning that Sarah, the Demon, got the friendship with the other PCs. However, Ariana neglected to mention that they knew about Scratch, and so when they talking about how they were looking for scratch, and Sarah compensated poorly, they got tipped off that something was awry. They are suspicious, and last session were talking a kidnapping Sarah. Sarah also doesn't know about the shared friend Max who didn't get included in bargain.

Sarah, is a Destroyer, Tempter. Is their any way she can know that Ariana's memory got subsequently modified by the PC Vampire?

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In essence the pact itself was not broken. So the demon does not even know that something is not right. So from that side no he can't know automatically.

That aside there are powers and form abilities that lets you look into memories and modify them or see what happened where. If he uses these powers then yes it is possible. But without actively using any of these powers no there is no possibility that the demon knows.

The Embed Synthesis (corerules 138) allows one to find out what happened at a specific location (no vision though only where scratches came from in an area or that a body feel like he was shot).

The Embed Heart's Desire can tell you a targets aspirations. If for example the vampires aspiration is to keep it a secret that he didn't do a thing that is how the demon could possibly find out OR if the aspirations the pactee has take an unexpected turn (for example taking revenge as the pact didnt work out as intended) would also be a way to find out

IF you want to find out what happens currently to someone the form ability clairvoyant sight is good. Else for non alatered memory the form abilities mind reading and Memory theft are good.

On the other hand as you talked about dominate. If I'm not mistaken there are vampire powers which can counter that for that the exploit "Show of power" would work as that allows you to use powers of another supernatural type (with a few prerequisites naturally). I think either Auspex or Dominate itself allows you to counter dominate if I'm not mistaken at least. Will have to read up there on the exact vampire powers.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I did find a mind reading power that was a form ability, but it was suggested elsewhere that dominate replaces the memory and thus that wouldn't work. Are their other abilities that might work better than the "white eyes" one (I forget its name_)? \$\endgroup\$ Commented Feb 13, 2015 at 18:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ @xenoterracide I updated the answer with a few details onto whihch powers could be useful there and mind reading / memory theft aside how they can be useful \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas E.
    Commented Feb 14, 2015 at 18:17
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Sarah knows something is up:

Sarah completed her side of the pact and knows that she still has whatever she bought in the pact from Ariana. She also knows that Ariana is complaining that the pact was not honored, so something has happened to Ariana.

Sarah should know that the PC vampire is involved:

After all, Ariana is complaining that the PC vampire killed Scratch first! From the question it's not clear if Ariana thinks the PC is a human who killed Scratch or a vampire who killed Scratch. If the latter, it is a short jump to conclude that the PC is messing with Ariana.

If Sarah is simply told that Ariana thinks someone else is responsible for killing Scratch, she would be most concerned that the PC is actually an Angel.

Sarah has several ways to proceed

Just knowing that the PC is involved in Ariana's confusion is enough to motivate her to look into the PC using normal talents of Investigation etc. Then there are several Exploits that will help (Synthesis, You Can Tell Me etc.). There is a description in the DtD book (draft available as text pdf without art on the Kickstarter page) that goes into details on conflicts between supernatural powers:

Clash of Wills:

Sometimes, two supernatural powers clearly oppose one another. If the normal systems for the powers fail to resolve this, such as when two demons attempt to Possess the same person or a vampire attempts to use a memory-altering power on a person previously affected by an Embed such as Never Here.

All involved supernatural effects enter a contested action, using a pool of the wielder’s Supernatural Tolerance trait (Primum for demons) plus the rating of the power in question or the rating of the governing Attribute (if, as is the case for Embeds and Exploits, the power does not have a dot rating). Ties reroll until one player has accrued more successes than all others. That player's character's effect wins out and resolves as usual, all others fail. Victory of one power in a clash does not mean the immediate cancellation of the others, save in cases where only one power can possibly endure (such as competing domination).

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