#Vtm meta

[chiss-ticism]

I'm having Nod thoughts again:

Do you think Caine remembers how things really were?

He's doomed to walk the Earth eternally, lest he accept his actions as wrong and genuinely seek repentance for it, but how clearly do you think he remembers in Modern Nights? To my knowledge, I don't think it's ever explicitly implied or stated that he'd be exempt from the fact that memory is a fickle thing at the best of times, which is to say nothing for folks as long lived as the Cainites.

How much of what isn't muddied and blurred by emotion can he truly recall? Do you think he remembers the way Abel's face lit up when they'd joke around like brothers are want to do? The proud looks he must've gotten from Eve when he'd taken up gardening? The grief-stricken look Adam gave him before exiling him to the lands of Nod?

This is, of course, to say nothing of his time in Enoch and the squabbles his Grand-Childer got themselves into in the First City.

How can one truly, genuinely, repent if you can't even properly remember parse the events that have got you here in the first place after a certain amount of time has passed? A swirling miasma of emotions and trauma mudding the waters, diluting any chance at reconciliation. God In the WoD was never portrayed as infallible - [His] laundry list of fucks ups and overwhelming displays of neglect being more than enough to back up that point - but the more you delve into it, Caine's punishment seems more and more like an afterthought for something that had as many ramifications as it did. He never had a real shot at redemption, no matter how many emissaries [He] sent. Something something "the game was rigged from the start" something something

[vladimirsangel]

Printing out relevant reblogs from tumblr and showing them to your OC because you can

@amatres @gehenna-calling @crownedinmarigolds @crovvbaar @urbanknightart @spell-fox @vandalblood he loves you, by the way

[dykeferatu]

i think the fact that we don't know much about what causes migraines is why it could really be either one. vampires have very different blood pressure considering they don't have a heartbeat most of the time, so if it's from blood pressure i don't think it would apply. also, if we accept that they can "heal" migraines with blood, why wouldn't it be healed like other minor wounds are during the embrace? <- then again, that's inconsistent even in canon. i would say both answers can be true without contradicting each other. there's a "permanent wound" flaw in older editions, so i think it would function like that (which works p much exactly how u described: they have to heal it with blood every night)

[gorbalsvampire]

On Humanity, Tenets and Convictions

The V5 corebook does an appalling job of explaining how these mechanics fit together and what they represent; I don't think even the Players' Guide really hits it in the terms that are needed. I don't want to jack the excellent post by @vixensdungeon but nevertheless, the urge to explain things on Tumblr dot Com, the App and Website, is very strong in me this morning.

Humanity itself is objective. Each notch on the scale has defined, concrete mechanical impact on what the character can and cannot do, and these are consistent no matter what the character thinks or believes or feels, and these are universally applicable, no matter who your character and my character and her character might be. At one end of the scale your character is Literally Unplayable; at the other, they are more human than most humans, certainly than most RPG protagonists, and might as well be unplayable considering the role of the TTRPG as societally unacceptable behaviour simulator (cf. Power Kill, as usual).

Tenets are subjective but shared. They are the ethical rules on which our story operates: the things that we have agreed should provoke a moral crisis in our vampire protagonists. For Humanity loss to occur, you need these cues and triggers, these "thou shalt not" rules, and for that central fact of the game - that unlife isn't life and living it makes you less of a person - to come up in play, they need to be rules your character is going to break.

Without Tenets you have no idea what makes Humanity vulnerable and precious and worth saving; there are not many universal, objective, "doing this always gives you a Stain" rules in V5. You have to do the work here. The game needs you to decide what's horrific in order for its personal and political horror to exist at all. You cannot skip this. You cannot rely on a universal morality that isn't there and isn't shared to dictate Humanity loss. The game needs you to think about these things.

Convictions are subjective, and entirely personal. They are the "but thou must!" imperatives which allow your character (and only your character) to justify breaking the Tenets and retain a grip on their Humanity. They create the opportunity for your character to resolve their moral and ethical qualms in their own favour every so often; to stop the process of play being a nihilistic rush down the Humanity scale. VtM works if you all speedrun down to Humanity 4 and act like the usual "chaotic evil until proven otherwise" TTRPG protagonists but it aspires to make you think and feel things about that and the rules are set up to demand you meet that aspiration.

If you want a vampire game where the state of being a vampire isn't a moral issue, can I recommend Vampire: the Requiem Second Edition? A game with an objective, universal definition of Humanity and the threats to it as "experiences that remind you you are not a human being any more," and the more fundamental that reality check is, the less likely it is a character will retain Humanity when confronted with it? It's extremely tidy and doesn't demand that you establish and interrogate any of your own principles. It's not moral "degeneration," it's experiential "detachment," and that hits very differently.

Also, none of this is to do with Lines and Veils. Tenets are rules you want your characters to break. They are the substance of your morality play. They will come up in play and they will do so often. Lines and Veils are rules about what you as a player do not want to have to experience at the gaming table and they are not supposed to come up/be directly narrated. One of these things is part of a core gameplay function and one is a safety tool. Know the difference.

[viahiptop]

Vampire The Masquerade: Justice (aka Rat Eating Simulator)

[levylevaroni]

Living my best life as a vampire in VR. 🩸

[aidsyouinthinking]

V's files- "Somewhere Someone Comes to Die"

[charmantevamp]

🚫 Have they ever broken one of the Traditions? (This is includes the Masquerade) 🧛‍♀️ Do they have any preference regarding who they feed on/how they feed?

VTM oc ask meme.

None that they will admit to, cause Audrey’s a survivor. They were even as a human. Even if it means lying, sacrificing ‘goodness’ and ethics. Note: Audrey’s a social climber because she has/had to be to survive, “Nothing comes for free, sir.” Until 1910 Audrey is perhaps excessively concerned with money and stability, but she isn’t my Ventrue Byzantine vampire, Livia. What tradition has Audrey broke? … she’s never broken the masquerade to the point of endangering herself or her fellow kindred. But if someone in private and quietly asks what she is, she will answer truthfully, she didn’t ask for vampirism, it was very much forced upon her. So the masquerade. It was the gutter or the embrace. More on the masquerade. It’s not necessarily a “tradition” but she’s caught feelings for humans, which given their fragility you aren’t supposed to do. But it’s not explicitly stated so Audrey would simply say, “what was I supposed to do? They/she/he were blonde, pretty and nice to me.”

Evildoers, though obviously what defines mortal “evil” is relative as evil in general is relative. Generally, the kind of person, especially men who use their power to do harm to others and abuse their power. Audrey knows she’s not a good person, or kindred, rather, but she considers it passably better than doing harm to innocents or feeding on the ill and dying.

[gorbalsvampire]

@silkenred don't leave gold in the tags! pure gold!

we should talk more about cities that are vampires. cities that are cold and wet and sink into your bones and stay there. cities that are hungry and want to live. dead cities that dont know they're dead and suck the life force of their people to maintain the delusion. cities with harbors that are actually mouths; one-way entries. cities that are devastatingly lonely and see consumption as love

[gorbalsvampire]

You know what I can't stand about VtM?

Camarilla apologism.

The Camarilla are monsters with rules, and they will use those rules to justify slavery and exploitation and abuse and control and murder, for ever. And people tell me these are the good guys. They're absolutely not. The Beast is sitting down at table and wearing a pretty dress and her table manners are ever so lovely and her dinner conversation sparkles, but you're still getting eaten alive. And you have to love it. They have made you love it. Nothing in their rulebook says they can't.

I have never actually run a Camarilla game. Not properly. I think it's because that level of authoritarianism makes me urge. It's weird, because I love Dark Ages Vampire with all my soul and those are the same rules, but Dark Ages Vampire doesn't have the "default sect" phenomenon, the expectation that you the players are going to be aligned with this side and therefore that's the right side because you the players are on it.

Woobifying the Sabbat and apologising for the Camarilla makes the real default protagonists of V1 - the Anarchs - even more toothless than they already are, burdened by their writers' failure to imagine a way out of the status quo (not blaming them for that, progressive politics are hard and it's only a bloody game, innit?). And as the game drifted more and more into Camarilla-as-default-vs-Sabbat-the-Anarchs-are-also-there... I don't know where I'm going with this, I was just confronted by the monstrosity of the Camarilla before I'd even had a cup of tea this morning and it's great horror but don't ever tell me they're the good ones. Don't you dare.

[viahiptop]

Vampire: The Masquerade - Justice

Bonus: Painter/Decorator simulator.

[charmantevamp]

🙌

I couldn't decide, so you get 4.

Lucas (verse: canon) — he/him, bisexual, a blonde pretty boy from the Rhône-Alpes, a try-hard wannabe poet, think Lestat de Lioncourt in the extreme alternate universe he never gets vampirism. Audrey's first proposition also 'above her station', her first 'lay.' Audrey's first kiss was one of her mamans friends daughters, somehow Lucas and the harlotting were more scandalous then kissing a girl, the 18th century huh? Regarding dandyism. Regarding classicism.

Gustave (verse: canon) — he/him, unlabelled queer, artist and elevated French court nobility, 3rd husband, a supposed love-match, "why did I think he'd be different?!" he is eventually murdered by Audrey in something I'd call premeditated self-defence. This also predates her vampirism. There was no self-defence plea in the 18th century, certainly not for women, least of all for harlots.

Jody (verse: canon) — she/her, bisexual & sapphic, dominatrix in the Harris list of convent garden (which Audrey was on famously for at least a decade) friend of Audrey's late mother. Audrey's mother herself was an actress and elevated 'left-handed wife'. Queerplatonic relationship of Audrey's.

Ferid (verse: vtm) — he/him, pansexual. A Toreador harpy and a manipulative bastard, a club owner, sired by the Prince of London herself. Audrey doesn't stand with his political views, but, indulging him helps her forget. One could call it addictive. Audrey would simply say she's 'into him', Audrey thinks 'feeling alive' is worth a lot. A friend of mine’s original character.

[gorbalsvampire]

As a corollary, if you have been playing Vampire for long enough, you really ought to try playing ancillae rather than pretending total ignorance as a fresh out of the grave fledgling. If more people play ancilla games we'll collectively figure out what the hell the middle managers of the damned actually do with themselves, what it's like when all the conventional "rpg quest" stuff is for the neonates you're bossing around. It's also easier, for me at least, not having to to play stupid for the sake of authenticity.

Putting aside setting trolls on fire, I do think there is a place for separating player and character knowledge. For example, if you waltz up to a game of Vampire I’m running and insist that your character knows everything about all the secret factions and ancient plots and other supernatural beings just because you’ve read all the books, I would kindly ask you to find a different table.

[badass-at-fandoming]

Do you have any headcanons for Beckett? Specifically about his life as a mortal? It sucks that we know so little about his past, other than the fact that Beckett "wasn't the name he was born with," and that he was embraced in the early 1700s in England. I find it strange that we know so little about him despite the fact he's practically a mascot for VTM.

Hi Nonny! I'm so used that World of Darkness' lacuna that it doesn't seem strange to me anymore, but it is quite a cold-water shock, huh? The game designers leave blanks on purpose so we can fill them in. I remember this one interview with Justin Achilli where the interviewer said the Book of Nod was (forcibly) published in 1993 (same as irl). He corrected her and said, "No, no, you have to say it was published in the early 1990s, so any Storyteller can fit it into their '90s chronicle, like if they want to do an adventure to prevent or pursue its publication." His answer stuck with me. As a fan I was like "...why does it matter, let us have this fixed date" but as a writer/baby game dev I was like "OH, that is CLEVER." It leaves room for creativity! Any adventure can follow the meta-canon! That's such a good game design trick! As a fan I find it frustrating!

This game design principle sticks even to the mascot. I've seen stuff that Beckett was a pirate, a privateer, an Oxford scholar, and/or an attractive dying waif. @chinesegal was kind enough to ask me various Beckett backstory questions, that you can find here: bathing practice, opinions on creationism, trans experience. I'd also point you to @vampire-the-askerade for their delightful Beckett writings.

My only like, firm headcanon for Beckett is that he has to be kind enough to warn the fledgling in VtMB. If someone's interpretation of his character doesn't allow for that, my interest tanks. I'm not even totally married to the backstory in my fanfic and idle-thoughts-before-falling-asleep scenario. Those were all convenient pretexts for me to write cuddles and snuggles, haha. I'd love more kudos and comments on my fanfic if you read those stories, but below the cut is the bullet point version.

A Kinder Universe series drops hints of a possible backstory, especially "A Monastery Hides More Than Bones," "It Pleased the Lord," and "Forbidden by God and King."

Birth name is Matthew Lowell.

"Matthew" after the Christian Apostle. The Matthew of the Catholic Bible was a tax collector and therefore a pariah in society (just like Beckett is kinda like an outsider to Kindred Society). He was called to join Jesus out of a crowd (like Aristotle called Beckett out of the wild, or how Caine singles out Beckett during Gehenna). After Jesus's Ascension, Matthew wrote a Gospel, which translates to "good news," and spread it around, (like Beckett spreads his theories like "Good news, everyone! Gehenna is fake!). Matthew's Gospel is focused on how Jesus fulfills Hebrew prophecy and begins with a long genealogy connecting Jesus to King David (Beckett is obsessed with the genealogy of the Kindred race and studies/fulfills/collects prophecies).

"Lowell" is the Anglicized surname of Norman French "lou," which translates to "wolf." Beckett's dark brown, straight hair and white skin is a common coloring with French people. We don't know his original eye color, but blue would clinch the deal. There's a long history of migration between France and England, both of people and culture. It's in the realm of possibility he's of French descent, at least partially.

Born in Oxford. One of many siblings. Mother died in childbirth. Kid during the Great Plague of London in 1665-1666. Good father.

Attended one of the Oxford universities and got his doctorate in some sort of proto-anthropology.

I think I've talked about it before, but I have an Embrace fic idea an Embrace scenario I've thought about real hard before falling asleep.

Beckett has the same tombstone data as above. He teaches at his Oxford university, but is not very popular among his department peers. He's too into evidence and the scientific method, and he's constantly quarreling with his colleagues.

Aristotle and Anatole visit Oxford to set up a satellite library. Possibly they needed a break from Paris for some Kindred political reason.

Kindred brothel owner owes them a favor and lets them stay in the brothel while the duo sets up the library haven

Beckett visits this same brothel to let off steam, and he's gifted to Anatole as a blood doll for the night. Except Beckett is like, "Can I rant to you about how stupid my colleagues are?" and this leads to a genuine discussion of scholarship and, later, friendship

Beckett becomes Anatole's regular client, and Anatole proposes to Aristotle that Aristotle Embraces Beckett

Aristotle approaches the Prince of Oxford and something something Kindred politics and Cassandra Darby kill steals Beckett and dumps him in the forest

The two Noddists learn that Beckett has been Embraced, and they try to find him. Anatole is so distraught that he is Not Helping the search at all, so Aristotle sends him back to Paris. Aristotle keeps up the search and eventually finds and adopts a feral Beckett baby

Aristotle and Beckett rejoin Anatole in Paris. Anatole has regained his equilibrium and takes over Beckett's Kindred education.

Yeah! I hope that answered your question, Nonny. Thank you for the ask!

[camellia-thea]

I cannot brain properly but I have GOT to know more about amara and dove. tell me anything - @pretend-pretend-vampire

hello!! thank you for the ask! i will ramble about them <3

dove and amara are from a recent vtm 5e game, set in aotearoa. dove is my pc, and amara is a tzimisce spc played by the amazing @balthazarslostlibrary, our storyteller. we're currently on break for life reasons, but i look forward to when we get to play again. this is a (very) long ramble about character choices, meta, and a little bit of narrative.

a little context for dove! she spent sixteen years as a ghoul to a ventrue named rochefort, before being poached from him by an as of yet unknown lasombra. she was abandoned him, but due to having the with a blood bond to him, by way of having both the long bond, and the bond slave flaws. it took several months for the bond to drop away, and so now that's she's finally in her right mind -- after almost 17 years of being bound to someone -- the chronicle began.

dove and amara first met at elysium; dove's first. they wandered the museum hosting the elysium and ended up in the deep sea exhibit! (this is, by the way, a real exhibit in the museum te papa, a part of the exhibit te taiao. it has a colossal squid!) i just think it's super fun that they wandered around with a whole load of wet specimen from the deep. amara invited dove out to its haven, a tattoo parlour.

dove then made a visit on her own, and as a gift, gave amara a set of her ribs.

mechanically, amara is dove's mawla, and i love them a lot.

i think a lot for me that rests about their relationship is how the pair interact with interpersonal relationships.

tzimisce have so much about possession; they are built to have really fucked up views of people and ownership. mechanically, their bane is grounded -- they must rest in a place (be that concrete or more abstract) with things they own and deem theirs. then their compulsion is covetousness. i love that conceptually, beyond dove and amara. vampires leaning into the inhuman way they view their surroundings because of their immortality, their power, their everything.

i didn't intentionally make dove to play off of amara, or tzimisce in general, but i've always had a thing around perception of freedom and identity (look at taralin, my primary d&d pc--it's a theme!), and i wanted to play with the concept of someone who had finally gained a significant amount of power and freedom, and have them struggle to find their feet, and make bad decisions as they figure out who they are. dove was the culmination of a whole load of ideas that i really enjoy playing with. with the lasombra technology issues, her past as someone good with computers isolated her from her skills. an absentee sire, and someone who held a grudge isolated her socially. in addition, making her as a character designed to experience blood bonds, one drink to triple the length of the bond? delicious, and i really wanted to play a character who desperately was grappling for control over her own life while being built to not be in control.

having amara present? a tzimisce on side? honestly made the choice for me; there was never ever going to be a way for that to go smoothly in any capacity, simply because of both character's designs.

someone who never wants to be owned again and a character who cannot help but claim ownership over anything close to it? i wanted to have dove grapple with that.

there's another aspect of it i touch on in anatomy too, which is a character with the ability to entirely remake themselves in whatever image they wish and another who cannot perceive themself at all. dove's loss of identity through being a ghoul, and then that manifesting as someone who cannot ever see herself again? amara has the capacity to gift her control over her body, her reflection, as it were.

i think it also comes down to the fact that dove doesn't know how to not be owned by someone entirely. i don't think she'll ever be able to separate herself from that past.

i think vampires often get stuck in who they were right before they turned. it's the idea of being frozen in time and unable to move past that traumatic event; you died. how could you ever get past that?

and i think that's an aspect of dove too. the feeling that you'll never get past your trauma and for her, it might genuinely be true. but that also might be her own perspective stopping her, i don't think i know, nor do i necessarily think i need to know yet. and dove spent 16 years knowing that she'd die a ghoul, or become a vampire. there was never going to be a different end for her. and so, that's had a massive effect on her decision making.

one of the first things she did was to give herself over to mother russo (the lasombra primogen) and agree to join the cam. her logic was, this gives me protection, this keeps me safe. strength in numbers, and if something goes wrong i'll have allies. but i don't think she wanted to. she wanted to remain autarkis, but she didn't know how to exist without some sort of external direction. being given a task gave her so much relief, even as it made her feel resentment. it's funny, because i as a player hate that dove is cam. i think it's going to completely fuck her over and i think it was the worse option for her. but for her? completely correct and i think it's going to hit hard when she realises she's locked herself back into being at the bottom rung.

i think amara in equal respects represents everything dove desperately wants, and everything she despises. amara has the control dove wants, the respect of the wider community, in as much as it can control its own life and isn't (visibly) beholden to anyone. but, dove knows what amara is. knows what the tzimisce are, and is terrified of that too.

but i also think dove views amara as the closest kindred to trustworthy as she can get. there's a lot of paradoxical thinking in my girl. i, the player, was given the option to have mother russo as my mawla instead of amara, and i hummed and hawed about it a lot before going with my initial instinct (which was definitely motivated in part by my love for tzimisce). but despite how willingly i flung dove at the cam, she felt far more vulnerable with mother russo, (despite being willing to let amara at her rib cage) and she hated that. amara treated dove as a person. that was the real deciding thing on dove's thought process. there was a collection of meta things too (such as wanting to play with possessiveness and dove's control issues.) dove knows what to expect from amara. she knows what it is, and while there are certainly hidden depths, dove thinks that she can at least trust amara to be genuine with the push-pull of a quid pro quo relationship.

and i think part of the really fun thing is at present, dove is completely disenchanted by her coterie. she doesn't want to be there, but they've got a job to complete for the cam. she's a bitch, she looks down on them, and that's driving her to the only person she really thinks is capable, amara. and i think dove will grow to like and respect her coterie, but unfortunately two very well placed frenzies on our gangrel's part has completely lost any potential respect she has for the others. and i think there's a whole load of potential fun things there for dove siding with amara over the coterie, or a push pull situation of dove being places between what the coterie wants and what amara wants. we'll see when we pick up again.

if you want to read more about amara, there is another (much much longer) piece that features him! Te whakawhitiwhiti: The Transformation was written by my storyteller about amara and two of their ghouls. this is set before dove and amara's first meeting, and primarily focuses on one of amara's ghouls, hine, coming into her own, with a lot of fun vampire stuff alongside.

if you have any follow ups, feel free to ask! it's been super fun to ramble about them both here

[all-thestories-aretrue]

Public accountability post!!!!!

So I don't waste the entire day writing four paragraphs of fanfiction again.

Grocery shop- must (being sick and having the worst period ever made my eating shit. I want chicken caeser wraps damn it!)

Cook!!! Food!!!!

Laundry (wash sheets??)

Dishes/counters/clean fridge

Fold up floor bed

Sweep

Lesson plan Mon/Tues/Preschool (and kindergarten if you have time/feel like it)

Prep character info for mini-vtm thingie AND send out time information

Dnd stuff- name, character sheet, backstory retype

Miles meta- i need these Thoughts™️ OUT of my head!!!!!! Finish the rough draft AND mark sources needed

Technically most of this stuff just needs to happen over the next two days but i need to do at least some of it today so tomorrow doesn't suck.