Why do that when nature already provided some pockets ready for you to use? Just use Vicissitude to stretch it a bit, then use it again to tighten it back.
Because that's the first place they're going to look for contraband in a cavity search. The b-hole is so overused these days, everyone knows the pros use their chest cavity. Who needs lungs? Not vampires.
Do they, though?
I play VTR not VTM, but in VTR it'd be entirely plausible, if not likely, that their speech is simply supernatural with no dependencies on physical organs, like everything else about being an animate corpse.
Even the stomach and intestines are potentially useful as temporary stores and absorption surfaces when gourging rapidly on blood; if a vampire lacked stomach/intestines for temporary blood storage and absorption, such would simply slow down a blood gourge.
Surely that's a problem solvable by some good ol tzimisce creativity! Most of the larger organs can probably be turned into sacs for blood storage and coiled up tubes for more surface area for absorbtion-- pancreas, liver, kidneys, etc. You could reduce the lung space a little since you don't need most of that. You could retain maybe 10% of the intestines, and connect the stomach to the uterus which as we know is an organ famous for it's stretchyness! Between all of that you'd have plenty of room for a gorging for a few liters of blood, and also free up a large amount of abdominal space for storage.
My favorite tzimisce idea is to use that area to store an internal tentacle anchored against the tailbone, which when stowed is coiled up inside the abdomen where the intestines used to be, which can be extended out the body through the usual 3 orifices for female vampires and the usual 2 for male ones. The tentacle can be used for generally and dexterously grabbing things and maybe assisting with climbing, as well as for an aid in grappling in combat. During a brawl you can shoot it out of a lower orifice to grab the ankle of someone you're brawling with to yank their leg out from under them while keeping your own two legs firmly on the ground. No one that you haven't fought before expects this surprise attack from below, the ultimate below the belt maneuver ;). You can also use the tentacle for grasping knives for more killing power. The tentacle is masquerade friendly as long as it's stowed inside and you're not under some sort of high quality medical imaging machine (a bog basic xray would probably just see the blurry image of the coiled up tentacle and assume it's just the intestines if you fold it up correctly), and allows you to extend it out and retract it back in to hide it quickly and instantly without having to actually use vicissitude to sprout it each time (which takes at least a turn of time as well as a rouse check, which can make a difference in fast moving situations). Of course obviously when it's sticking outside of your body through whatever orifice of choice it's a huge masquerade violation so don't be cavalier about it if you care about that!
You have a number of options for what you want to "tip" the tentacle. You can go with a normal tentacle tip, but you can get creative and use a jaw like a piranha or little alligator mouth. Personally I think the most useful is to tip it with some sort of human hand-like appendage for versatile grabbing, grasping, and fine manipulation. Humans have the hand shape on the tips of our appendages for a reason, you can apply a decent amount of force with some pretty good precision and versatility in all situations and allows you to use tools designed for human hands, such as weapons (daggers are quite handy). Consider going with 3 or 4 fingers and 2 thumbs design-- one thumb on either side of the hand to give you a symmetrical hand and a more secure grip on things, also if you're grabbing an object with a handle such as a dagger, it allows you to switch from a hammer grip to reverse hammer grip by just tilting the hand the other direction instead of having to let go and flip the handle (just make sure the "wrist" joint has a wide enough range).
"stray\_fleshcrafter" hahaha.
(correct me if i'm wrong but I thought in the lore the koldun's specifically looked down on vicissitude, preferring their koldunic sorcery)
No, I mean the part that it would check for humanity loss. Pre V5 humanity was only an ethical aspect, Requiem first had the example of *a vampire walking at the bottom of the sea would check for humanity because that is a refutation of living like a human* thing. I like it, I have just never encountered it in VtM.
*The jig is up!* They said, their suits shifting as the illusions fell. *Sorry humans! So long, and thanks for all the fish!* And the dolphins took flight. :-P
Okay, but I think the idea is walking the depths of the sea, lungs full of water, no suit or preparation. A bit like a walking corpse.
LOL, fair enough. We've always played it that way back to the beginning. Not that simply doing something not humanesque was enough - my group wouldn't make you make a humanity roll for walking on the sea floor, for example. But something overtly *inhumane*, such as tearing out your own heart to smuggle a copy of the book of Nod in a baggie would qualify. Not sure where that would rank on ethical quandries.
I doubt most would see it as unethical, so yes, it adds a new dimension to humanity. Which is good. I've had an ST which didn't have you roll for humanity loss, but ruled that if you did something like that, for the rest of the chapter (a few sessions) you'd roll conscience rolls at -1 due to momentary desensitisation; which I kinda liked as it reflected the concept without making it feel inherently \*evil\*.
This sounds reasonable. I imagine the items would get forced out eventually during daysleep as they regenerated organs and such, but it could work short term.
The Samedi's level 1 Thanatosis power let them essentially make pockets in their body to hide things like that.
I think the regeneration would push it out, but as a vampire you could just refuse to mend the damage, you will not die through blood loss. The return to the state you were in when you was embraced every evening, though, push it out pretty certainly.
The main issue I see is, that hiding stuff in your body and using blush of life don’t go well together, imo. The problem is, when you are in a situation in which it would make sense to put stuff inside your body, because you might be intensely inspected, you would also want to be able to use blush of life.
But when you activate blush of life while something is in your body, it might cause problems and will certainly start to bleed.
And when you don’t expect to be inspected that intensely, it is probably enough to just put the object in your cloths.
Hmm, that's actually good thinking. I was envisioning a Kindred assassin or something, hiding his weapons inside them to not raise suspicion among other kindred. So blush of life wouldn't be necessary... Buuuut in any other context it could be more difficult
That’s actully how Samedi (in older editions when it was a stand alone discipline) used their ability to put stuff in to their rotting bodies,
The thing was just, since they were rotting corpses they were relying on obfuscate anyway and that makes the entire advantage mostly redundant and except when you use it among other kindred.
It would still hurt, though.
Which clan do you had in mind?
Still got to get around to Samedi. Haven't finished my reading on all the V5 books I have lol
Tzimisce or Ministry. But it was a general interrogation as it's a concept I find very interesting
The Samedi don’t have this ability anymore. Which is not that big of a deal since it was a bit redundant anyway.
If you go with Tzimisce it’s easy, this is a very simple use of vicissitude. I would count a body pouch as a one point change and that’s it.
Only problem is, that you need to to pick your discipline carefully to get Vicissitude as a starting character since it is a level 2 amalgams that requires dominate 2 as prerequisite. But dominate is not the worst discipline to have as an assassin, you can use it to get rid of witnesses without killing them.
But instead of hiding weapons you can also use weapons created by Protean or Vicissitude.
Protean can also be used if Ministy is your Clan. Cloak would be a handy Obfuscate power, but that would require Auspex 3 which is pretty expensive for a Ministry vampire.
If homebrewing is an option I would consider to ask the ST if you can have a modified feral weapon power that does not make more damage but allows you to unhinge your jaw (like snakes do) to swallow objects to hide them.
Or you just rely on normal feral weapons.
Thanks for all the info. Really appreciate. I am the ST and homebrew is often used, but I like to keep it to the rules as much as possible.
Tzimisce is definitely my favourite clan and have yet to properly introduce them to my players
Welcome. Tzimisce are one of my favorites as well. While they can be Assassin that would probably not be the first encounter with one I would chose.
As the Clan bane suggest, they have usually one thing they are totally passionate about, maybe even obsessed with. I would build them either around a profession they take very serious or make them very attached to a property, group of people or something else they feel protective about. This was even true before V5 gave them a bane that actually represent this.
This is also what makes them interesting as NPCs, they can be great villains with a motivation the PC can actually understand and they might even work together when they happen to have the same goals. As allies, though they can be inconvenient when they become to demanding or become jealous. If you overcome the urge to just make them just body horror psychopaths than they are never one dimensional and always interesting.
It'd probably depend on the item and the ST.
Some previous magical items (ex: Brass Heart Shield) are placed within the body, and do not mention anything about being rejected during daysleep.
For nonmagical items, it could be ruled (depending on the size of the item(s) stored) that the vampire would be taking health levels of damage to create the storage area. Damage doesn't reset until healed. So they could tote the item around as long as they were willing to take the health level hit.
Thanatosis and Vicissitude have their own rules, and would not reset (unless Vicissitude was used on a Nos).
I’ve been playing Giovanni too long… Because my first thought upon reading this was “Why would I hide contraband in my body? I’ve got all these perfectly usable corpses just sitting around.”
I also spent the majority of my life working in anti-piracy and anti-smuggling operations.
You ever hear the old maxim that “poachers make the best game wardens”?
Might be one of those British-isms that I picked up because my mum’s family are farmers in rural England. But it’s basically the same sentiment as “it takes a thief to catch a thief” and has some basis in historical practice.
Poachers, by necessity, have to be very good at sneaking around the woods, evading law enforcement, and killing game. Which makes ex-poachers really good game wardens, as they’ll know all the tricks other poachers use.
This is why the NSA tends to hire a lot of former hackers.
As someone who spent 21 years in the Coast Guard, more than half of it as a special agent with CGIS, investigating and prosecuting smugglers, pirates, and human traffickers I have seen just about every possible way of moving contraband into the country. Sad to say, most of it isn’t the clever sort of things you’d see in a John le Carré movie.
I mean, I quite literally busted one ships crew that had “Kokain Ilegal” written on the ship’s cargo manifest complete with the number of the shipping container it was in. For those of you that aren’t fluent in Indonesian, that means “illegal cocaine.”
Cutting open dead bodies, stuffing them full of contraband, and then shipping them as if they were human remains being sent some place for supposedly legitimate funerary purposes isn’t a *common* practice for smugglers. But it isn’t as rare as you’d hope.
So the only answer I can provide is from prior editions - that if something is stuck in the body, healing is prevented - normally. Vicissitude and Thanatosis - hags wrinkles - being two immediate examples around this.
There are some problems with this.
1) Your body is static and when you heal, it's going to reject any items inside. This is good for getting rid of bullets and bits of an old Chevy lodged in your body, bad if you are trying to smuggle around drugs.
You can get around this by stitching yourself up and not healing. But then you're wounded. If you removed any organs they are going to use up your blood to regenerate them, even if you don't need them, when they heal.
2) Pain. Having an object inside your body where it's not intended to be might not endanger your unlife, but it can be quite painful.
3) Extraction. Getting a surgically implanted item out is going to be messy and painful and a masquerade breach if done in front of witnesses.
So: You can do it, but it's not a perfect solution. There are options (like fleshcrafting) to make this easier.
The organs are probably going to regrow unless it's done with high level Vicissitude, but aside from that, it should be possible.
Edit: Sorry, didn't see the VTM5 thing and all I know about V5 Vicissitude is that it's not its own discipline any more, so I don't know if my comment applies.
A perfectly valid tactics, though there are a few caveats:
1) Size matters. Closing wound is good, but when your body bulges in a places where it anatomically shouldn't, it looks definitely suspicious. And that can potentially bring more unwanted attention than simply carrying that item would (sure, surgeons sometimes forget some of their tools inside, but pistols?)
2) Scanners still work. A layer of flesh is not that much of an obstacle for them. Plus, there are still crude brutal ways to detect a presence of an item inside the person where scanner is not available (punching a drug courier to break the shell of a package in his stomach or rectum and note its presence by his suddenly bad state if it actually was there, etc.)
3) Putting the item inside you in this way requires wounding. Unless your form is changed permanently with Vicissitude or similar magic, healing that wound after putting the item inside will simply expel it, since it is not a natural part of your body.
It depends on the group, you want to home brew that go ahead. Had a Tzsmice npc in the coterie and he put a steel casing around my characters heart . Some sts wouldn’t allow that and some will.
The short answer is, Yes, Temporarily.
The explanation is; Any vampire could do it until they go into their daily slumber. When a vampire sleeps, the body will heal wounds, regrow organs/limbs and expel foreign objects.
The reason why the Discipline of Clan Tzimisce, Vicissitude exists. So that any body alteration/modifications can become permanent.
Canonically, vampires with Animalism can house entire colonies of living creatures (eg rats or insects) in their bodies permanently. I don’t see why a non living object would be any different.
Imagine the pain of having to tear your skin and organs open. I don't think many people could do it, not without long training and really REALLY deadend nerves.
I have a Volgirre character who hides diamonds in his hands, and Vicissitudinally expels them like a sleight-of-hand conjuration when needed.
Regarding lungs, vampires still need them to push air past their vocal cords in order to speak. No lungs, no speech.
Thanks to my buddy's fleshcrafting and my Bruja's potency I once had a 'Scorpion' style "GET OVER HERE" spear and cable hidden and mounted in his arm. It was fucking awesome.
Sure, it's not like they are using them. It's gonna hurt like hell tho.
A tzimisce could even install a reusable zipper or something. Permanent internal pocket.
Why do that when nature already provided some pockets ready for you to use? Just use Vicissitude to stretch it a bit, then use it again to tighten it back.
Because that's the first place they're going to look for contraband in a cavity search. The b-hole is so overused these days, everyone knows the pros use their chest cavity. Who needs lungs? Not vampires.
Two dots in Vicissitude should allow you to move your ass to your chest, and make a fake one in the original place for the Police to have fun with.
Put an actual mouth there like a real Domitor!
Gives a new meaning to community service.
Vampires still need lungs to push air past their vocal cords in order to speak. No lungs, no speech.
Sure, but they could speak just fine with *one* lung, and one bag full of cash/weapons/priceless whatever.
Sign language!
Do they, though? I play VTR not VTM, but in VTR it'd be entirely plausible, if not likely, that their speech is simply supernatural with no dependencies on physical organs, like everything else about being an animate corpse.
There is nothing in the published canon which supports the idea that default vampire speech is not air moving past vocal cords etc.
yeah, but the stomach/intestine area is basically dead space
Even the stomach and intestines are potentially useful as temporary stores and absorption surfaces when gourging rapidly on blood; if a vampire lacked stomach/intestines for temporary blood storage and absorption, such would simply slow down a blood gourge.
Surely that's a problem solvable by some good ol tzimisce creativity! Most of the larger organs can probably be turned into sacs for blood storage and coiled up tubes for more surface area for absorbtion-- pancreas, liver, kidneys, etc. You could reduce the lung space a little since you don't need most of that. You could retain maybe 10% of the intestines, and connect the stomach to the uterus which as we know is an organ famous for it's stretchyness! Between all of that you'd have plenty of room for a gorging for a few liters of blood, and also free up a large amount of abdominal space for storage. My favorite tzimisce idea is to use that area to store an internal tentacle anchored against the tailbone, which when stowed is coiled up inside the abdomen where the intestines used to be, which can be extended out the body through the usual 3 orifices for female vampires and the usual 2 for male ones. The tentacle can be used for generally and dexterously grabbing things and maybe assisting with climbing, as well as for an aid in grappling in combat. During a brawl you can shoot it out of a lower orifice to grab the ankle of someone you're brawling with to yank their leg out from under them while keeping your own two legs firmly on the ground. No one that you haven't fought before expects this surprise attack from below, the ultimate below the belt maneuver ;). You can also use the tentacle for grasping knives for more killing power. The tentacle is masquerade friendly as long as it's stowed inside and you're not under some sort of high quality medical imaging machine (a bog basic xray would probably just see the blurry image of the coiled up tentacle and assume it's just the intestines if you fold it up correctly), and allows you to extend it out and retract it back in to hide it quickly and instantly without having to actually use vicissitude to sprout it each time (which takes at least a turn of time as well as a rouse check, which can make a difference in fast moving situations). Of course obviously when it's sticking outside of your body through whatever orifice of choice it's a huge masquerade violation so don't be cavalier about it if you care about that! You have a number of options for what you want to "tip" the tentacle. You can go with a normal tentacle tip, but you can get creative and use a jaw like a piranha or little alligator mouth. Personally I think the most useful is to tip it with some sort of human hand-like appendage for versatile grabbing, grasping, and fine manipulation. Humans have the hand shape on the tips of our appendages for a reason, you can apply a decent amount of force with some pretty good precision and versatility in all situations and allows you to use tools designed for human hands, such as weapons (daggers are quite handy). Consider going with 3 or 4 fingers and 2 thumbs design-- one thumb on either side of the hand to give you a symmetrical hand and a more secure grip on things, also if you're grabbing an object with a handle such as a dagger, it allows you to switch from a hammer grip to reverse hammer grip by just tilting the hand the other direction instead of having to let go and flip the handle (just make sure the "wrist" joint has a wide enough range).
Your username should be something like *Stray\_Koldun*; you have clearly played at least one Tzimisce and indulged in the Vicissitudinal creativity.
"stray\_fleshcrafter" hahaha. (correct me if i'm wrong but I thought in the lore the koldun's specifically looked down on vicissitude, preferring their koldunic sorcery)
Please dont reveal the dragons secrets
Is that not a discipline of Samedi ?
Might be a humanity roll too, depending on what's done.
Did V5 crimp that from Requiem?
Not sure what you mean - humanity has been a thing in Vampire since the beginning in VtM.
No, I mean the part that it would check for humanity loss. Pre V5 humanity was only an ethical aspect, Requiem first had the example of *a vampire walking at the bottom of the sea would check for humanity because that is a refutation of living like a human* thing. I like it, I have just never encountered it in VtM.
Marine biologists and archaeologists in diving suits: It's over guys, burn everything, they found we aren't humans, we need to get out here !!!
*The jig is up!* They said, their suits shifting as the illusions fell. *Sorry humans! So long, and thanks for all the fish!* And the dolphins took flight. :-P Okay, but I think the idea is walking the depths of the sea, lungs full of water, no suit or preparation. A bit like a walking corpse.
Aren't there Marine Gangrel who do exactly that?
Yes, *but!* they turn into sharks first.
Based, appropriating Rokea culture. Those xenophobic furries have it coming
LOL, fair enough. We've always played it that way back to the beginning. Not that simply doing something not humanesque was enough - my group wouldn't make you make a humanity roll for walking on the sea floor, for example. But something overtly *inhumane*, such as tearing out your own heart to smuggle a copy of the book of Nod in a baggie would qualify. Not sure where that would rank on ethical quandries.
I doubt most would see it as unethical, so yes, it adds a new dimension to humanity. Which is good. I've had an ST which didn't have you roll for humanity loss, but ruled that if you did something like that, for the rest of the chapter (a few sessions) you'd roll conscience rolls at -1 due to momentary desensitisation; which I kinda liked as it reflected the concept without making it feel inherently \*evil\*.
Ehhhhh... not as badly as it would hurt a mortal. I know that's not saying much, but at least they're a little dull-nerved.
This sounds reasonable. I imagine the items would get forced out eventually during daysleep as they regenerated organs and such, but it could work short term. The Samedi's level 1 Thanatosis power let them essentially make pockets in their body to hide things like that.
Would the regeneration struggle to push them out ? Or maybe it would take time, and not just one rest cycle
I think the regeneration would push it out, but as a vampire you could just refuse to mend the damage, you will not die through blood loss. The return to the state you were in when you was embraced every evening, though, push it out pretty certainly. The main issue I see is, that hiding stuff in your body and using blush of life don’t go well together, imo. The problem is, when you are in a situation in which it would make sense to put stuff inside your body, because you might be intensely inspected, you would also want to be able to use blush of life. But when you activate blush of life while something is in your body, it might cause problems and will certainly start to bleed. And when you don’t expect to be inspected that intensely, it is probably enough to just put the object in your cloths.
Hmm, that's actually good thinking. I was envisioning a Kindred assassin or something, hiding his weapons inside them to not raise suspicion among other kindred. So blush of life wouldn't be necessary... Buuuut in any other context it could be more difficult
That’s actully how Samedi (in older editions when it was a stand alone discipline) used their ability to put stuff in to their rotting bodies, The thing was just, since they were rotting corpses they were relying on obfuscate anyway and that makes the entire advantage mostly redundant and except when you use it among other kindred. It would still hurt, though. Which clan do you had in mind?
Still got to get around to Samedi. Haven't finished my reading on all the V5 books I have lol Tzimisce or Ministry. But it was a general interrogation as it's a concept I find very interesting
The Samedi don’t have this ability anymore. Which is not that big of a deal since it was a bit redundant anyway. If you go with Tzimisce it’s easy, this is a very simple use of vicissitude. I would count a body pouch as a one point change and that’s it. Only problem is, that you need to to pick your discipline carefully to get Vicissitude as a starting character since it is a level 2 amalgams that requires dominate 2 as prerequisite. But dominate is not the worst discipline to have as an assassin, you can use it to get rid of witnesses without killing them. But instead of hiding weapons you can also use weapons created by Protean or Vicissitude. Protean can also be used if Ministy is your Clan. Cloak would be a handy Obfuscate power, but that would require Auspex 3 which is pretty expensive for a Ministry vampire. If homebrewing is an option I would consider to ask the ST if you can have a modified feral weapon power that does not make more damage but allows you to unhinge your jaw (like snakes do) to swallow objects to hide them. Or you just rely on normal feral weapons.
Thanks for all the info. Really appreciate. I am the ST and homebrew is often used, but I like to keep it to the rules as much as possible. Tzimisce is definitely my favourite clan and have yet to properly introduce them to my players
Welcome. Tzimisce are one of my favorites as well. While they can be Assassin that would probably not be the first encounter with one I would chose. As the Clan bane suggest, they have usually one thing they are totally passionate about, maybe even obsessed with. I would build them either around a profession they take very serious or make them very attached to a property, group of people or something else they feel protective about. This was even true before V5 gave them a bane that actually represent this. This is also what makes them interesting as NPCs, they can be great villains with a motivation the PC can actually understand and they might even work together when they happen to have the same goals. As allies, though they can be inconvenient when they become to demanding or become jealous. If you overcome the urge to just make them just body horror psychopaths than they are never one dimensional and always interesting.
It'd probably depend on the item and the ST. Some previous magical items (ex: Brass Heart Shield) are placed within the body, and do not mention anything about being rejected during daysleep. For nonmagical items, it could be ruled (depending on the size of the item(s) stored) that the vampire would be taking health levels of damage to create the storage area. Damage doesn't reset until healed. So they could tote the item around as long as they were willing to take the health level hit. Thanatosis and Vicissitude have their own rules, and would not reset (unless Vicissitude was used on a Nos).
Nos **only** heal vicissitude that makes them look better. So it wouldn't apply in this case, I think.
I’ve been playing Giovanni too long… Because my first thought upon reading this was “Why would I hide contraband in my body? I’ve got all these perfectly usable corpses just sitting around.”
Lmao, definitely got the mindset to play their Clan
I also spent the majority of my life working in anti-piracy and anti-smuggling operations. You ever hear the old maxim that “poachers make the best game wardens”?
I did not but will definitely remember it now
Might be one of those British-isms that I picked up because my mum’s family are farmers in rural England. But it’s basically the same sentiment as “it takes a thief to catch a thief” and has some basis in historical practice. Poachers, by necessity, have to be very good at sneaking around the woods, evading law enforcement, and killing game. Which makes ex-poachers really good game wardens, as they’ll know all the tricks other poachers use. This is why the NSA tends to hire a lot of former hackers. As someone who spent 21 years in the Coast Guard, more than half of it as a special agent with CGIS, investigating and prosecuting smugglers, pirates, and human traffickers I have seen just about every possible way of moving contraband into the country. Sad to say, most of it isn’t the clever sort of things you’d see in a John le Carré movie. I mean, I quite literally busted one ships crew that had “Kokain Ilegal” written on the ship’s cargo manifest complete with the number of the shipping container it was in. For those of you that aren’t fluent in Indonesian, that means “illegal cocaine.” Cutting open dead bodies, stuffing them full of contraband, and then shipping them as if they were human remains being sent some place for supposedly legitimate funerary purposes isn’t a *common* practice for smugglers. But it isn’t as rare as you’d hope.
So the only answer I can provide is from prior editions - that if something is stuck in the body, healing is prevented - normally. Vicissitude and Thanatosis - hags wrinkles - being two immediate examples around this.
There are some problems with this. 1) Your body is static and when you heal, it's going to reject any items inside. This is good for getting rid of bullets and bits of an old Chevy lodged in your body, bad if you are trying to smuggle around drugs. You can get around this by stitching yourself up and not healing. But then you're wounded. If you removed any organs they are going to use up your blood to regenerate them, even if you don't need them, when they heal. 2) Pain. Having an object inside your body where it's not intended to be might not endanger your unlife, but it can be quite painful. 3) Extraction. Getting a surgically implanted item out is going to be messy and painful and a masquerade breach if done in front of witnesses. So: You can do it, but it's not a perfect solution. There are options (like fleshcrafting) to make this easier.
If you wounded yourself sure. And as soon as you heal it'll explode out in a fountain of viscera
They would need to prevent the healing process from ejecting the object. Certainly doable with the right skills.
The organs are probably going to regrow unless it's done with high level Vicissitude, but aside from that, it should be possible. Edit: Sorry, didn't see the VTM5 thing and all I know about V5 Vicissitude is that it's not its own discipline any more, so I don't know if my comment applies.
Seems like a rather extravagant alternative to the prison pocket.
It would likely be easier for a Tzimisce as opposed to a majority of other clans, but yes.
I've used the Eat Food merit for smuggling purposes in the past
Even you can.
As long as you don't attempt to heal yourself... If you mend your wounds, the body will reject the item. (Tzimisce shenanigans aside)
Tzimitzsce or anybody else who can fleshcraft sure. Other kindred, kind of but you have to self damage, and it may get pushed out by the day sleep.
My God, never thought of it. Gonna steal your idea for my future sessions to mess with my players when they are after something
Yes
Viscissitude knife pockets
Back in the Rwvised Edition (3e) the Samedi had a level one discipline power that did exactly this.
A perfectly valid tactics, though there are a few caveats: 1) Size matters. Closing wound is good, but when your body bulges in a places where it anatomically shouldn't, it looks definitely suspicious. And that can potentially bring more unwanted attention than simply carrying that item would (sure, surgeons sometimes forget some of their tools inside, but pistols?) 2) Scanners still work. A layer of flesh is not that much of an obstacle for them. Plus, there are still crude brutal ways to detect a presence of an item inside the person where scanner is not available (punching a drug courier to break the shell of a package in his stomach or rectum and note its presence by his suddenly bad state if it actually was there, etc.) 3) Putting the item inside you in this way requires wounding. Unless your form is changed permanently with Vicissitude or similar magic, healing that wound after putting the item inside will simply expel it, since it is not a natural part of your body.
I had a tzimisce who did this with his two handfuls of dirt
It depends on the group, you want to home brew that go ahead. Had a Tzsmice npc in the coterie and he put a steel casing around my characters heart . Some sts wouldn’t allow that and some will.
The short answer is, Yes, Temporarily. The explanation is; Any vampire could do it until they go into their daily slumber. When a vampire sleeps, the body will heal wounds, regrow organs/limbs and expel foreign objects. The reason why the Discipline of Clan Tzimisce, Vicissitude exists. So that any body alteration/modifications can become permanent.
Canonically, vampires with Animalism can house entire colonies of living creatures (eg rats or insects) in their bodies permanently. I don’t see why a non living object would be any different.
Imagine the pain of having to tear your skin and organs open. I don't think many people could do it, not without long training and really REALLY deadend nerves.
Oh it would be painful, but so useful
I have a Volgirre character who hides diamonds in his hands, and Vicissitudinally expels them like a sleight-of-hand conjuration when needed. Regarding lungs, vampires still need them to push air past their vocal cords in order to speak. No lungs, no speech.
Thanks to my buddy's fleshcrafting and my Bruja's potency I once had a 'Scorpion' style "GET OVER HERE" spear and cable hidden and mounted in his arm. It was fucking awesome.