The phrase “true love” belongs in the notebooks of junior high girls and no place else. It creates a nasty and petty non-distinction between types of otherwise profound love and, as we see here, sends people chasing their tails.
I have seen and experienced love that wasn’t very mushy or fuzzy but was far more profound than what’s called “true love” in romantic comedies. Drop the word “true,” just as one would drop the word “cold” in “cold iron” -- it’s an affection without meaning for our purposes.
So we’re left with some kind of profound love -- that is, love, as opposed to affection. (English overuses the term love and includes “affection” and “enjoyment” within the same.) Fine; that’s not too hard to find.
An immoral method of discovering a person experiencing love:
a) Find a married person: seize and hold that person with violence.
b) Promise to kill that person or his or her spouse, allowing the target to choose which.
c) If the target selects herself, congratulations: you’ve found love.
Divinations should be able to discover this without such gauche methods, as could visiting dreams or maybe mindreading (with the subject’s permission and cooperation if one isn’t using sponsored magic such that we don’t have any Law violations).
Dying for someone else is good enough. Seriously. If this isn’t the case, one must conclude that that one crazy dude who was going on about how “No one shows greater love than when he lays down his life for his friends” had no idea what he was talking about. Indeed, if a person holds the position that a willingness to die for someone else isn’t enough to qualify as love, such a person easily slips into the absurd and inane territory of ridiculous expectations. (I won’t link to tv tropes, but it’s an “arson and murder and jaywalking” type deal.) “Sure, she’ll die for you -- but will she have dinner ready when you get home?” If you feel like a douche for questioning the love of someone willing to sacrifice their life, a) you’ve found love and b) you’re a douche.
The real hard part is discovering what the vampire is vulnerable to. This can be done by finding out what the vampire feeds on. This takes a great deal of effort if the vampire is hiding it -- we’re already in no more than +1 Fate Refresh territory here.
One could also try generating the emotion, instead of producing a lovebird. That. . . seems actually kinda easy. Magic can generate emotions, so that gives lots of supernaturals access to whatever can hurt the target. Indeed, a bit of self-control can also generate appropriate emotions. Admittedly, a person who is utterly hopeless couldn’t generate hope, but outside of extreme personalities, anyone could generate most of the relevant emotions and magic could create the rest. After all, if magic can make you love someone enough to die for them, that consequence alone meets the “love test.” Thus, similar magic or effects could meet the hope and courage tests as well. I’d declare, in my games, that these passing emotions couldn’t “infect” an object such that the object is proof against the appropriate vampire -- the transference from person to object is cancelled if the basis for the emotion fails to persist -- but otherwise I’d find this fair.
Fighting a fear-feeding Malvora?
You’re one short evocation away from having enough bravery to charge in.
If you lack the evocation power, simple: Harden The F*** Up.
Oh, almost forgot -- what’s the refresh cost, then? Well it can’t be better than +1: knowing which emotion is relevant is simply too tricky. It’s sort of an all-or-nothing thing: if you’re dealing with a wizard, you’re toast, between divination and lore. If you’re dealing with a mortal or a non-wizard paranormal, you’re secret is safe. WCV are puzzle monsters: figure out the puzzle and the challenge is completely transformed.
Seriously, the issue here is that a persistent, patient wizard pwns you. But that’s always the case. As such, this is a +1 catch if a WCV’s enemies will feverishly research him for a week, or a +0 catch if the WCV’s enemies are actually sane. I mean, two dudes, hired out of a Soldier of Fortune magazine, armed with an AK and a flamethrower are easier to finagle than Hope and Love and they end the Terrible Vampire Menace with aplomb.
[/unlurk]
