First edition has just ten disciplines. With the introduction of other clans, they began adding new Disciplines, but generally, these either weren't core to the concept of vampires, or else they could be easily folded into other Disciplines, or could be replicated through the use of devotions, which they started developing in Revised edition as combo Disciplines and developed into a full blown system of Devotions in Requiem.
Vicissitude shares the common theme of shapeshifting with Protean, but also has some egregious factors that can easily be jettisoned, and the rest can be folded in with Protean, giving a more vibrant and variable Protean by using an expanded set of specialties, much like those introduced for Haven of Soil in Requiem.
Chimerstry, as a set of illusion abilities, could be a conceptual extension of Obfuscate, which has minor illusion powers anyway. Alternately, they could be extensions of Presence and/or Dominate.
Quietus, with the exception of its name sake first level power is essentially similar in character the path of blood, and can be folded into it, as well as other blood based rituals.
Necromancy has some obvious connections with Thaumaturgy, except that the version of Thaumaturgy I'm using is focused on psychokinetics. The expanded version of Necromancy found in later versions of Masquerade has a lot of duplicated effects just to fill out levels, which could be condensed. Mostly the Discipline could be covered by Devotions fashioned from Auspex (as a connection with spirits) and Dominate (to control them) and possibly some physical disciplines for the purpose of actually binding spirits or harming them "physically".
Given the spiritual leanings of Requiem Obtenebration, some necromantic powers could be extended from it as well.
Obtenebration and Obfuscate
Finally, there is Obtenebration, which is a singularly appropriate shadowy discipline for vampires. It thematically crosses with Obfuscate, and in first edition, there was less to distinguish them. The crucial distinction is that Obfuscate essentially an area mind control power of a limited sort, whereas Obtenebration, especially as advanced in later editions of Masquerade and in Requiem, has more of a weird supernatural connection to extradimensional forces. Because there are already mind control and crowd influencing disciplines, it is trivial to make devotions from those, allowing the much more thematic and inspiring Obtenebration to take the ten spot of dark shadowy discipline. While I'm reasonably sure on how to assemble it from various versions, I'm not sure how to explain it in terms of the relatively "preternatural" (vs outright supernatural) format that I'm shooting for. Possibly it could be cast as some very particular variety of shapeshifting and psychokinesis, or even an actual connection with a shadowy plane, perhaps where ghosts dwell, or the same region through which psychic projections travel. Given that this is *the* discipline of mystery, it is probably reasonable to leave it somewhat more mysterious than others.
So the consequence of Substituting Obtenebration (henceforth Tenebrus) for Obfuscate is that, assuming the three Discipline per clan/bloodline model, Tenebrus is thematically applicable to some, such as the Nosferatu, who are more spooky and creepy and less to others, such as Malkavians, who would benefit more from a trickster methodology, possibly their new stack would become Auspex, Dominate and Betiare.
Which brings me to the last point for this post.
Animalism and Nightmare = Bêtiare
Animalism in its Masquerade form dealt somewhat with the Beast as well as animals. In Requiem, the Beast manipulating aspect got all shunted into the top level, however Nightmare sprang up, took the scary aspect away from Majesty, and added some vaguely Dementation like levels, ultimately all relating back to revealing the Beast to produce fear effects. Both fear effects and Animal effects are somewhat thin to spread over the course of an entire Discipline. The commonality is of course the Beast, and the elegant solution is Bêtiare generally dealing with the Beast to various ends. First we take the inappropriately placed Aspect of the Beast from Requiem Protean and give it some actual mechanics, followed by a Dread Gaze effect, followed by talking to animals, summoning animals and finally directly controlling the Beast. Other effects related to animals, fear or the Beast can be generated by Devotions, and voila, you get a discipline which involves dealing with the beast, being beastly, communing with beasts, Bêtiare. This is especially suitable for the Nosferatu as it covers both "being scary" and their more classical role as masters of animals.
So TTFN, more about Disciplines next time.
