#fucking edgy tremere

[gehenna-calling]

updated vampire roster

lyssa breach - she/her - playlist 215 y/o, 9th gen malkavian

trying so hard to hold it together :)

has had a number of strange collections through her kindred life, currently is focused on collecting relics of violence

specialises in auspex (has five dots in it)

incredibly curious about basically everything, much to her detriment

quintus fourier boylan - he/him 9th gen malkavian

mathmalktician

hears the cobweb through radios, broken televisions, white noise

gets premonitions, may or may not be receiving messages from malkav himself :)

has a slightly fraught relationship with his sire and a recently broken blood bond. he's getting better i swear

isa breach - she/her - playlist 215 y/o, 9th gen tremere

an au that got out of hand

comes from entirely the same background as og lyssa, except she was embraced by a tremere rather than a malk!

this has had pretty significant knock-on effects, so she is pretty much a separate character in her own right

specialises in path of blood, still has some auspex

does a lot of very dubious scientific experiments investigating vitae

just altogether horrible <3

hellebore - they/them - playlist 243 y/o, 11th gen nosferatu

sad wet creature alert

originally from venice, has had a Turbulent Past and now works for the ivory tower

as big on secrecy and anonymity as you might expect

spends most of their time travelling around in a minivan, "solving problems" for the camarilla

constantly coughing up brackish water as a side effect of their embrace

desdemona - she/her - playlist 58 y/o toreador

currently exists in 1980s oregon, though i might bring her forward to the modern day at some point

a poet! an artiste! literally every toreador stereotype squished into one dramatic little creature!

prefers to deal with mortals rather than camarilla politics

has quite a name for herself in mortal poetry circles

still pining over her tragic lost love, whom she will never see again, so dearly departed (they broke up)

ever/everett - any pronouns - playlist freshly embraced tzimisce in their early 20s

very recently embraced into the sabbat and has no idea what's going on

was attacked by their sire on a night out

a former medical student who proved to have natural aptitude with vicissitude, which promoted them from shovelhead

has been kept very isolated by their sire, as they're still very much known to be missing in the area where they were embraced

harrow - she/her giovanni embraced in the 80s

brawler who's unable to do necromancy and has the world's largest chip on her shoulder as a result

simultaneously problem child of her branch of the family and so, so eager to prove herself loyal

has a bunch of edgy cool tattoos!

lachlan bryant - he/him 19 y/o caitiff fledgling

finance student with a podcast, picked out as a ventrue embrace but turned out a caitiff :(

has been a kindred for like a month and is doing terribly

was embraced illegally and has been charged with hunting down his sire in order to save his own skin

his memories of his embrace are Fucked due to excessive use of cloud memory, so he's piecing together what happened as best he can

laurence "laurie" stoker - she/he/they hecata (originally giovanni)

a former insurance salesman turned giovanni ghoul

diablerised their bastard sire as soon as possible after their embrace

evading the diablerist allegations. barely

REDACTED, aka "red", the rat king, eyes in the dark, etc etc - any pronouns nosferatu elder & primogen

the giant rat who makes all the rules

left wales after her sire and all her coterie were torn apart by werewolves. still nursing that grudge

7'2 of coat hangers and bad jokes. always smiling

specialises in obfuscate, imitation and mimicry

[sanglantromantique]

Some art of my edgy Tremere brat, Marlissa. She's been a vampire for maybe 5 years and already went out and got herself Vissiscitude from a "helpful" Tzimisce so she could make some aftermarket adjustments to her physical form (i.e. gender confirmation fleshcrafting) and now she's dedicated herself to figuring out how to uh... not turn into a pool of goo if the antediluvian wakes up.

[queenofbaws]

out of curiosoty, what is the tag eli underwood in reference to?

ohohohohohohoho

OHOHOHOOOOHOHHOOOOHHOOOOO

that's the best onomatopoetic maniacal laugh i can manage, so i hope that came through. looking back on it, it DOES seem a little 'evil santa claus,' but what can you do.

tl;dr: eli underwood is an oc of mine, an eccentric vampire who plays opposite @brockandroll's tough-as-nails (but poet-at-heart) character jayco atascadero in a vampire: the masquerade tabletop game where @malum--in--se is the world's most forgiving (and terrifying) storyteller.

eli is precious and perfect, and wears a lot of lace and velvet. if you want a quick laugh, i wrote a little thing about him and jayco during challenge month, and anyone who's interested in learning even MORE about one of my ocs (something that is unthinkable to me) is absolutely welcome to click that read more askldjfklsjdlkfjskdfj

when we decided we were going to start a vtm game, malum straight up said to us "this is a game about embracing edginess. be as edgy as you want." and i said okay!

and then i made eli instead.

for anyone not familiar with vtm, there are different vampire clans that your character(s) can belong to, and they take on certain traits/abilities based on that. for example, brock's vampire jayco is a tremere, which is sort of like...vampire magician class, so he can do SICK blood magic and cast wards and (as he futilely tried recently ;Dc ) determine whether or not someone is lying to him.

eli is a malkavian, which means he has some fairly impressive psychic powers (think prophesy, divining the future, reading minds) and experiences fairly severe mental distress because of it. mostly this manifests as paranoia for him, because i like to PROJECT when i have an oc, know what i mean?

ANYWAY. a born theater kid in boise, idaho, he spent his whole-ass human life DESPERATELY wanting to be a vampire. you know the type, right? IMAGINE HIS GLEE WHEN IT HAPPENED FOR REAL.

trying to distance himself from his parents' cute and kitschy secondhand antique shop in the great state of idaho, eli spread his (metaphorical) wings and moved to the big apple to start his own antique shop.

sort of.

the antiques aren't really antiques in a...traditional sense.

the attic, his store, specializes in - as i'm sure you've predicted - hauNTED DOLLS AND OTHER ASSORTED OCCULT MEMORABILIA. it is his pride and joy. most of the dolls are not haunted. most of the dolls are purchased en masse from ebay and then creatively MADE to look haunted. but some of them, he finds once he's turned, are in fact, incredibly fucking haunted in a very real and very unpleasant way. and they have unfinished business they NEED him to finish for them. like finding boys for them (the dolls) to smooch.

this is where i'll remind you this was going to be an edgy game at the onset of things.

the point is, as the sole proprietor of this shop, he can live his life exactly how HE wants to: namely, as a vampire. so he wears white-out contacts, he has the personally-molded fangs from hot topic, he dresses like lestat, and (this is the most important part) speaks in a vampire accent that's just. it's a lot. it is admittedly a lot. imagine bela lugosi having a child with count chocula and you're getting close. but don't worry - if you don't like that one, he's got others. theater kid, remember??

anyway one night he wakes up dead in his own storage room, and realizes the unthinkable has happened: he's a vampire.

and he's so. fucking. happy.

he takes the whole vampire thing so seriously. however seriously you're imagining, triple that. quadruple it. he's tried hanging upside down (doesn't dig it), he's tried the whole hissing thing (undecided on that one), and god help him, he's trying so hard to figure out how to turn into a bat. he wants to be a bat so bad. SO FUCKING BAD. just because it hasn't happened YET doesn't mean it WON'T.

he is precious and sweet and just wants to be the best vampire ever and make his sire and his sire's friends very, very proud of him :)

oh he's also literally killed every single person he's fed on so far, leaving absolutely no survivors in his wake as he carves a bloody swath through the city's sleeping citizens, but like. that's what vampires do, right? besides, maybe that's how he'll get to the bottom of that whole "becoming a bat" thing.

who knows.

[ryttu3k]

Already finished Coteries of New York, so on to Shadows of New York! I’ve seen the first bit in an LP, at least, but the bulk of the story will be new. This will have two playthroughs, one for each ending, since at least it has them XD First up - the ‘good’ ending!

Oh dang I like the music.

Julia is a bit on the edgy/cynical side XD

Yeah, she’s got a shit deal :-\ And what’s worse is that it’s all planned out.

Interesting note - at Lodestar, there were shadowy figures in the background, but you could rationalise it as people on the other side of the windows. On the train, you only see the shadowy features, and it’s otherwise empty, so no obvious figures casting them...

I guess if you choose the ‘don’t shoot’ option, Julia gets drained and it’s an early game over?

God that Embrace scene is intense. I got goosebumps!

Spirits, huh? Oh yeah, Obtenebration became Oblivion and is now connected with necromancy, IIRC?

I’m glad she had a good few nights XD;;

Valerie Duval, she was... the scourge in CoNY hunting down the Red Hook killer?

Nice to meet you, ‘Katherine Wiese’ XD

Cool ponytail, Qadir! I really dig the relationship between him and Julia, it’s fun. ‘sup Aisling, how’s Agathon? A blood hunt, really? Y O U. Okay yeah probably better for Julia’s long-term survival for Arturo to ignore her XD;; Samira’s so pretty. Ooh this guy is Hope’s sire, yeah?

“You wanted to hear about which member of New York City's Camarilla I dislike the most?"

"Yes?"

"Too bad. They're all my dear colleagues, and I deeply respect every single one of them."

"Sure you do. Wouldn't want to blurt out something that could lock you out of Mr Vanderweyden's legal services, would you, you ass-kisser?"

"I do expect to find myself in need of a good defense attorney when my broke, incompetent, and foul-mouthed assistant finally pushes me over the edge."

THEMST.

Benoit hi!! “Got any news about Sophie Langley?” *sharp intake of breath* Benoit backstory, that’s rad. I wonder if it’ll be uncovered in-game? Like we know Arturo is still around, Panhard is still around. Presumably Adelaide Davis is still around. Callihan... well, I know what happens to him. I think Torque ditches the scene before Sophie dies?

Father Leonard seems like a good sort. I wonder what his deal is?

Dakota is adorable. I’m going to do the ‘good’ end first even though I know it’ll make me feel horrible, but dangit, the ‘bad’ end is totally going to be my canon.

...Vin Diesel? XD

DING DONG THE DOUCHE IS DEAD. ...Deader than usual, I mean.

jfc Panhard that is pretentious as hell. Both the party description and the costume, actually XD Qadir’s mask is kind of funky. Oh my god Arturo you are a Toreador is that the best you can come up with?! Nice horns, Aisling.

...Thought, given their clans, Samira/Aisling could be interesting as hell.

Man, Arturo and Panhard must be pissed off XD Unless they’ve already picked their replacement stooge?

And here’s where the plot starts! Hey, isn’t that the priest’s house? Ohh, they’re meant to be meeting with Mia. I guess they’re just reusing assets.

“It’s a list of four names. ‘D’Angelo. Hope. Agathon. Tamika.’“ *SHARP INTAKE OF BREATH* Okay, that could be the list Sophie gave the fledgling. Which one did Callihan get it from?

Oh criminy Dakota don’t tell me you’re into that Q-Anon shit XD;; Ooh okay that makes more sense. Neat.

Ahhh man I was hoping to get a lead and instead Julia has to punish this poor fuck XD;; Yeesh. Okay, Bunny as a Reporter it is, then.

Almost run over by a limo, huh? *chinstroke*

Oooh this is the lead to Hope! Yeah, I’d say she has a connection with a Montgomery XD Wonder if she did end up eating her? Huh, contact used LeakyGutSyndrome... didn’t Hope end up having to retire that one, or was it the other one? Let’s just... Dominate this guy. Sorry dude it’s for your own good.

Agathon’s missing? :( Damn, he’s like one of the only decent Tremere. Oho, a diary! Oh sweetheart :( Oh, Silvia died :( Damn, interesting past, though... and a reference to CoNY again.

Fucking shadows, I literally glanced over my shoulder.

S C H E M E S. And yeah, looks like I’m on my way to the ‘good’ end :-\

Oh shit, Adelaide or.... whatshisname, Kaiser’s dude? Oooh man who to meet first... Kaiser’s dude. Oh. That was a bit anticlimactic XD

On to see Hope at Double Spiral. I think this is one of those choices that leads to one of the endings, so what’s more ruthless and Camarilla... busting in it is.

Nastya isn’t having a good night, is she XD;; Also Hope’s suit is badass.

...huh. Sounds like she’s actually managed to get shit sorted decently XD

Interesting... the coterie members were a list of heroes for hire that multiple people had, including Sophie. Well, that widens the scope a bit! Anonymous information broker, shall I assume that’s Kaiser? OH. No, it’s her sire!

“The story going around is, he left me alone and I hate his guts. Well, at least half of that is true.” Which half, though...

Aww man I wish I had saved some of those websites! I miss SciFiVine...

You know, I’m not 100% sure Carter’s the murderer (my main suspect is Arturo at this point tbh) but damn, the bit about Stern’s show kinda makes me want to slap him anyway XD;;

Queer Catholic blues, huh :-\

“Haven’t you noticed what’s going on in the news? People are going absolutely insane about this virus, cancelling trips and orders and --” Ahh. We’re in that 2020 XD;;

Okay the scene with the kid meeting his girlfriend was cute but then spooky time?? jfc was that the Abyss?!

Ooooh did she just find Tamika solely by accident? Thanks, Abyss XD I love how Julia’s first response is ‘shit, she’s hot’. And she took out a whole SI squad herself? Nice. Calebros mention! Huh, so the SI are maintaining the status quo... they became an issue because the Camarilla tried to sic them on the Anarchs and Sabbat and it backfired, maybe it actually succeeded here?

Ooh, a history with Torque. Neat. Also not sure with the art, but are those tattoos on Tamika’s arm, or fur? I mean, Gangrel beast marks and all.

Sorry Torque I’m just trying to get the ‘good’ end :(

Mention of the fledgling! Officially ‘disappeared’, that leaves it fairly ambiguous at this point.

Oof. The Circulatory System are... not cool. And yeah Julia’s just been called tf out, I do look forward to this scene in the ‘bad’ end XD;;

COVID strikes back. The Big Beat Burger is closed :( Charlie is sweet, at least! I hope his mom is okay.

Well that rat bit was weird. Hi D’Angelo! Oh my god blood doll rats? Drunk blood doll rats?! Still a damn good detective, though, that’s good shit. On to Kaiser and some answers! ...Yeah, okay, he’s a prime suspect too.

Kaiser, you are a deeply unpleasant person :-\

...good to know pepper spray still works. And, uh, probably satisfying to beat him up XD;; And yeah, there’s the last choice for the ‘good’ ending. Sorry dude.

...huh. Okay, I was at least partially right XD;; Oh Qadir, not you too :-\

Well that’s a bit... weird of Dakota, yes.

lmao oh Benoit you absolute mess. Religion as A E S T H E T I C XD I have a theory he’s from Michael’s line and I also quite sincerely believe that Michael would take one look at him and bitchslap him into the next millennium. He’s a Path follower, isn’t he?

Father Leonard is okay. I wonder who the ‘friend’ is?

This is very Agatha Christie, revealing the killer in the midst, except I have the horrible feeling Qadir’s going to go with ‘it was suicide’ and not ‘it was everyone’.

Denouement! Before it ends, Julia’s traits:

Loyal only to myself

Glass half-empty

A little abuse of power never hurt nobody

You can’t be a writer and not lie

The ends justify the means (duh)

Honestly she may have just blackmailed her way into power, set up Carter to take the fall, and sent poor Dakota to final death, but the drama was impeccable XD Good luck not ending up in the Abyss, Julia!

[hazelenergy]

My friends are very kind and learn about my interests, but here are some quotes once they had learned about the clans that made me facepalm.

Brujah- "Sharkbait! BRUJAJAJA!"

Gangrel- "gangrene."

Malkavian- "You're telling me I could hardcore dissociate during a chronicle session and I'd be more in character?"

Nosferatu- "oh! You mean the thing that showed up that one SpongeBob episode?"

Toreador- "You're kidding right? That's their name? Are you joking? How? Who decided that? It's fucking gold. Extra as hell. I wanna meet whoever decided that they were on their good shit that day"

Tremere- "goddamn edgy wizards."

Ventrue- "uhhhh a bootlicker vampire? Capitalists? In my horror fantasy? I think not!"

Tzimisce- "did they just keyboard smash and then throw a dart at a list of powers and some asshole, idk, Kyle, had written fleshcrafting as a joke, but it was too late, the dart had spoken?"

Giovanni- "you didn't tell me team rocket is in this setting!"

[geek-patient-zero]

Prologue (Part 2)

Or: Your Clan Sucks

Blood War: Masquerade of the Red Dead Trilogy Volume 1

Father Naples claims that the Methuselahs were the ones who instituted the Masquerade. Not really true in canon, but let’s go with it for now. The Kindred realized that if humanity continued knowing that they existed, they’ll overwhelm them with sheer numbers and wipe them out. Under the Masquerade, Kindred had to hide their true natures and the existence of vampires in general from humans, on penalty of death. And it worked. Despite being fed on by them for over two thousand years, humanity forgot the existence of vampires after a few centuries, remembering them only as myths and legends. Now relatively safe, the Methuselahs sired more vampires, who sired more and so on, and in secret, apparently gained control of the world from the shadows.

Since one vampire could in theory create infinite more vampires, Reuben asks why, if all this is true, the earth isn’t overrun with vampires. Father Naples tells him about the Six Traditions, which the Masquerade is one of. He doesn’t go into detail, so here’s a link if you’re curious. The relevant Tradition is the third one, which says a vampire can’t sire another vampire unless daddy an elder vampire gives permission. If you played Bloodlines, this may sound familiar. Father Naples claims that the elder vampires keep the number of vampires low. Apparently the rule is one vampire for “tens of thousands of humans.” Given the different vampire factions this probably isn’t followed exactly worldwide. The point is vampires control their populations so they don’t overpopulate and wipe out their main food source. Keeping populations low also means that newer kindred generations can’t grow more numerous than the older ones and, well, you know. That’s left unsaid by the third Tradition.

Reuben’s next question is how kindred maintain their influence over the world when they can’t do anything when the sun’s up. Father Naples explains ghouls to him, and here there might be some divergence from modern canon. 

You know Renfield from Dracula? A ghoul’s basically that. They’re humans that a vampire regularly feeds their own blood to, but whose blood isn’t drained out first so they don’t turn into vampires themselves. They stop aging and gets some enhanced strength, survivability, and other goodies as long as they get their fix. In exchange for their free will, that is. A ghoul becomes utterly devoted to their master, doing anything for them even if the ghoul hates their master, like an unholy combination of a stalker, junkie, and slave. It’s a really shitty thing to do to someone.

Father Naples doesn’t mention that bit about losing their free will. He just thinks they’re traitors and devil worshipers. Thing is, I don’t think it’s just Naples being an unreliable narrator. Throughout the book, except for maybe one instance, it isn’t brought up, and ghouls come across more like regular people who just knowingly work for vampires in exchange for their blood. There’s some mention of possession, like his ghoul or her ghoul, but if they’re still stalker-junkie-slaves in this story it doesn’t come across. The writing is very expository even after the prologue, so believe me, you’d notice if that was how ghouls were supposed to work here.

Reuben then asks about the Camarilla and the Sabbat. Now we get to talk about everyone’s favorite V:TM subject: factions and clans. First he discusses the Camarilla, and the seven clans (at the time) that makes up the bulk of it. Father Naples seems to define the sects more by their opinion on the Antediluvians as a threat than their structure or how they operate.

“The Camarilla believe that the Antediluvians met the Final Death when the Second City was destroyed. They feel that the basic threat to the Kindred comes from the possibility that mankind someday might learn that vampires are real. The Masquerade governs their actions. They are the traditionalists among Caine’s decendants.”

He goes on to define the clans in the Camarilla.

“The Ventrue are power mongers, the unofficial leaders of the sect.”

Eat the rich before the rich eat you. Naples summed it up well enough: they’re old money aristocratic fucks who believe they’re meant to be leaders of vampirekind, and thus are most likely to be Princes, the guys in charge of a city. They’re famous for the Dominate discipline, a group of powers that allow them to force others to obey their commands.

One interesting thing about the Ventrue that doesn’t get covered in this book is their clan curse. They can only drink the blood of certain kinds of people. In Bloodlines, this translated to a Ventrue character being unable to feed from hobos and prostitutes without barfing it back up half the time. Think of some snooty rich New Englander turning his nose up at a Happy Meal. In the tabletop, this preference tends to be more specific. Sometimes very specific, like that same snooty rich New Englander absolutely loving Burger King but not being able to eat anything else. Sometimes, a little too specific.

There’s this Ventrue guy in the lore, Jan Pieterzoon... I’m probably gonna get shit for this since he’s a character in the popular Clan Wars novels. Janny Boy here can only drink the blood of rape victims.

Uh huh. Wasn’t kidding when I said that this franchise can get try-hard edgy.

TVtropes’ V:TM character page lists Jan as a Nice Guy, but also mentions under Kick the Dog that he once had to arrange for someone to get raped in order to survive. This might be more on TVtropes being full of fucked up contributors, but still. In the recent V5 of the tabletop, a change was made that Ventrue can feed from people other than their preference, though they won’t get as much “nourishment” from it. Sounds like it helps avoid situations like Jan. Who’s dead now, by the way. Final Death dead. That helps.

“The Toreador are involved in the arts.”

Father Naples doesn’t seem to be all that interested in the Toreador as that’s all he says about them. Commonly rich socialite types, if the Prince of a city isn’t a Ventrue, chances are they’re a Toreador. ��They’re big into art, yeah, but they’re also the clan that works the closest with humans and are obsessed with beauty. So obsessed that they can be distracted by something they find beautiful, ignoring anything else until they can either muster the willpower to tear their eyes away or, more likely, one of their friends drags their pretty ass away from the shiny thing.

Their art, by the way? Fucking sucks. Toreador are terrible artists. There’s a neat reason for this; when they’re Embraced, become vampires, they’re said to lose much of their passion and creative spark. That, and they’re emotionally and artistically stunted to the era they were Embraced in no matter how long they live; something that’s apparently inspired by Anne Rice vampires. Their love and obsession with what they find beautiful is a way for them to hold on to their humanity, and art is in service to that. It’s beautifully tragic. 

Not that your character is going to care when they have to deal with Vampire Squidward showing off Bold and Brash Belongs in the Trash. You can’t say anything about it either, because that Toreador is probably powerful enough that they can have either you or someone you love killed. You’re not even safe if you’re playing a Toreador because even Toreador don’t like other Toreador art. As with humans, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and what’s considered beautiful varies from one Toreador to another. So they shit on each other’s work and call each other poseurs.

There’s maybe three Toreador in the book, and they’re all background characters. Only one of them gets a line or two of dialogue. I get the feeling Robert Weinberg wasn’t a big Toreador fan.

“The Tremere are a line of vampire wizards...”

Insert What We Do In the Shadows quote here.

“...who rose to prominence in the Middle Ages.”

Unlike the most of the other clans, the Tremere didn’t originate from an Antediluvian. The original ones were mages, members of the now technically extinct House Tremere led by Lord Tremere, who turned themselves into vampires with magic in order to obtain immortality. They lost all their cool powers in the change, so they had to invent blood magic, which they call Thaumatergy. It’s both a specific Discipline (vampire power) and a general term for blood magic.

You might be wondering, if they became vampires via magic and didn’t come from an Antediluvian, wouldn’t that mean there are fourteen clans, not thirteen? Well, one of he original thirteen clans were the Salubri. They were the healer class among vampires and were dedicated to finding a certain kind of enlightenment. Y’know, to make the Tremere look like extra big pricks for what they’re about to do to them. Lord Tremere, now a vampire, finds and diablerizes (more on that another time) the Salubri Antediluvian, and then Clan Tremere wiped out most of the Salubri. So now they’re one of the thirteen clans.

While they never wiped out another clan, this screwing over of the Salubri was part of a trend with the Tremere. The magic potion, spell, or whatever they used that turned them into vampires in the first place? Made by experimenting on vampires. They also created Gargoyles by performing blood magic rituals on unwilling vampires from other clans. So, despite a propaganda campaign advertising that no, really, the Salubri had it coming, and the fact that they gained legitimacy as a clan and became a part of the Camarilla, other vampires generally hate the shit out of the Tremere and don’t trust them even remotely.

We’ll be seeing the Tremere in more depth later in the story, including this book’s interpetation of the ritual that turned them into vampires.

“The Nosferatu are monstrously ugly because their leader was cursed by Caine. A few of their fourth-generation progeny are rumored to be grotesque monsters, known as the Nictuku.”

Ah, the Nosferatu. Everyone loves the Nosferatu. Like Father Naples says, they’re all horribly deformed; so ugly that even being seen by humans risks breaking the Masquerade since they’re obviously not human. That curse Naples mentioned? The Nosferatu Antediluvian was a vain pretty boy to rival a Toreador, so for his part in killing the Second Generation and destroying Enoch, Caine cursed him and all future Nosferatu generations with ugliness. 

(He actually cursed all thirteen Antediluvians for what they did, hence the clan curses.)

Why does everyone love the Nosferatu? Couple of reasons from what I’ve seen. They’re ugly as hell and generally have to live in the sewers, and while they’ve learned to live with that they’re not really happy about it. On top of that other clans find them repulsive and don’t like being around them. Loneliness, pathos, angst; this is crack to fandom. 

I imagine they’re also fun to design. The standard look for them is Orlok-like, but lore says that each Nosferatu’s deformity is unique. I haven’t tried designing one, but as a wannabe artist I can see the appeal. Just don’t wuss out and make “hot” Nosferatu. 

Speaking of, there’s the monster fuckers in fandom. In this post-Shape of Water world, it’ll take more than looking like Count Orlok and a few lumps to make someone unfuckably ugly. And even if they are, I’ve seen people lust over werewolves, the deathclaws from the Fallout games, all kinds of weird crap. There’s surely someone out there for your lonely Nosferatu.

Oh, and they’re the smart guy of the vampire clans. You know how when people talk about playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters on the playground as kids, and which characters they’d play as? And how there’s always those people who’d say they always picked Donatello or Egon because they were the smart gadget guys who made all their toyetic gear, unlike their dumber friends who stuck with boring old Leonardo and Venkman? That’s the Nosferatu. They don’t really invent anything, but some of them are hackers. They’re also spymasters, using their hacker skills and Obfuscate discipline (turning invisible, mostly) to obtain information others can’t, making them an indispensible part of the Camarilla, or whatever group a Nosferatu is part of.

Finally, as a culture, Nosferatu are the most likely to stick together and look out for each other, united by their shared experiences of having to hide in the shadows and pisswater in order to not break the masquerade and being direspected by the other clans. Nosferatu can scheme and plot like every other vampire in the setting, but at least for survival’s sake, if you’re playing a Nosferatu, you don’t have to worry about your fellow uglies stabbing you in the back (most of the time). Outside the clan, I imagine this trait can easily transfer over to a coterie (V:TM’s word for party) or an OC’s friends.

Yeah, Nosferatu are these angsty, fun to draw, unconventional looking but bangable hackermen that know the Meaning of Friendship and who you can feel sorry for. But there’s another side to the Nosferatu. Fandom looks at these appealing traits, maybe a bit too shallowly, and risk over-glorifying them and missing out on their darker side.

Like I’ve said several times, Nosferatu are ugly, deformed. A lot of them develop a complex over this, along with a strong hatred and jealousy of beautiful people. One thing Nosferatu like to do is find mortals who are stuck up and egotistical about their looks, turn them into Nosferatu, and let their newly grotesque appearance serve as an eternal karmic life lesson. Whether the formerly pretty person was actually a stuck up jerk guilty of vanity or if their sire imagined it is a matter of opinion. Hell, some don’t care about teaching a lesson, embracing beautiful people purely out of jealousy and spite. They have a word for these victims: Cleopatras, named after the villain from Freaks, not the Egyptian queen. It’s like their version of “Chad”, except as the name implies, these poor newly deformed people are usually women.

Am I implying what I think I’m implying? Yep! Your favorite clan is made up partly of proto-incels!

On a lighter note, their differing opinions on beauty make the Nosferatu and Toreador natural enemies... if they’re NPCs. Player characters will be BFFs.

“The Malkavians are tricksters, seemingly mad, but probably more cunning than most imagine.”

The V:TM fandom’s other favorite clan. I don’t have to explain Malkavians to you, do I? Even if you’ve never played Bloodlines I bet you’ve heard people talking about the Malkavian playthrough of the game. At least the part where you can yell at a stop sign?

Malkavians are the “crazy” clan. Said in a more respectful way, they’re the clan whose embrace gives them a form of mental illness, either a real one or a more supernatural one, if they didn’t have one already. These guys are probably the hardest to roleplay well, because there’s a thin line between a respectful portrayal of a mentally ill person living their unlife the best they can and a character Jhonen Vasquez would create if he was phoning it in. You’d better do your homework if you want to roleplay a Malkavian or else you’re gonna annoy your friends and look like an insensitive dick.

There’s a term for a Malkavian character who acts in an early 2000′s monkey cheese lol random humor way, but c’mon, you already know what it is. That’s it for Malkavians for now. There’s only one Malkavian side character in this book so I don’t feel like going too in depth with them. Besides, I already wasted too many words on the incels. Just keep the “more cunning than most imagine” bit in mind. Oh, and they have a power that can make people around them go mad, usually in the Malkavian’s favor. That’s pretty rad.

Now that the fan favorites are out of the way, let’s get to the boring clans.

“The Brujah are rebellious in nature...”

That’s all Naples says about the Brujah. Even the writer can’t think of anything interesting to say about them.

Alright, seriously, Brujah tend to be rebels and activists, very passionate about their beliefs and strive for social change. I’m not sure whether becoming vampires makes them that way. The White Wolf wiki says that they’re compelled to go against the status quo, but I’ve heard people argue that’s just the kind of person a Brujah tends to embrace. Either way, they do develop very short tempers. Gameplay-wise in both the tabletop and Bloodlines, they tend to “frenzy” more easily than other clans, meaning they lose control of their vampiric urges and try to kill/drain the closest person available, masquerade and consequences be damned.

I feel a little bad about calling the Brujah boring. Especially nowadays with fascism on the rise and climate change about to kill us all, it’s easy to empathize with rebellious activist characters and find them relatable, even if they aren’t as flashy as the pretty people, the ugly people, and the crazy people. It’s their powers that’re a little dull. Ventrue have Dominate. Nosferatu have Obfuscate. Tremere have blood fucking magic. But despite their clan name, Brujah aren’t magic. Their powers just enhance their physical abilities, allowing them to boost their strength and move faster. You know that RPG joke about how wizards get more god-like power when they level up but warriors just hit harder? That’s the Brujah. Okay, they also have Presence, which makes them more charismatic, scarier, more convincing, and other things that helps with roleplaying a street justice dispensing rebel. And one other power I can mention, but we’ll leave that for later...

In a way, the Brujah are the closest V:TM has to a default clan. If you’re playing a game where you have no choice of which clan your character belonged to, you’d likely be a Brujah. Luckily, unlike the Ultramarines over in Warhammer 40K, the Brujah don’t really steal any of the spotlight from the other clans, so they’re not intolerable.

“...while the Gangrel, master shapechangers, maintain close ties with the gypsies and werewolves,”

Wolverine from X-Men, you know him? Give him shapeshifting powers and that’s a Gangrel. This Clan is for those who want to roleplay a werewolf but aren’t playing Werewolf: The Apocalypse for some reason. Their biggest claim to fame is that Beckett, one of the most popular recurring characters in the franchise, is one. Problem is, he’s supposed to be a subversion of how one of them typically acts, a wandering scholar instead of some guy who hangs with his pack in the woods, so he’s not doing them much favors. There's only one minor Gangrel character in Blood War, so I apologize for glossing over them.

You probably want me to talk about a certain word Naples just said here. I could say that it’s characterization, that since Naples is some old European prick he’s prejudiced against Roma and calls them whatever he wants. More of that unrelialbe narratorness. He also said Gangrel are close with werewolves when werewolves will attack them on sight like any other vampire, which helps with that interpretation. But this is the early 90′s, and V:TM had an entire clan that was based on negative Roma stereotypes.  So...

Reuben sipped his Coke and said nothing. He had come to listen, not to comment.

I’m pointing this quote out because he comments two paragraphs later. Father Naples moves onto the Sabbat.

“The Sabbat are the rebels of the Kindred.  My Order considers them the more dangerous of the two sects. Two major clans, the Lasombra and the Tzimisce rule the order. Most other clans are represented by small groups of rebels known as Antitribu.”

The franchise likes to point out that the Camarilla aren’t the “vampire good guys”, but the Sabbat are undoubtedly vampire bad guys. They believe that vampires shouldn’t have to hide behind a masquerade, that they should be the masters of the world with humans as their cattle and slaves. They usually ignore the Masquerade, and use big obvious Masquerade breaking as a tactic against the Camarilla, who have to clean up after their mess. Since the Masquerade exists because humans will curb stomp them if they ever found out they existed, this also makes the Sabbat the stupid sect in this case.

The Lasombra are like eviler Ventrue, but with cool shadow powers, a fetish for Catholic symbolism, and being the only clan to do the “having no reflections” thing. Oh, and they’re social darwinists. One of their methods for picking out potential new Lasombras is to utterly ruin a prospect’s life. Make their business fail, kill their family, frame them for something terrible, cancel their favorite shows. If they don’t break down after all that, congratulations, you’re now a vampire! If they’re not an utter sociopath and do, then the Lasombra just leave them in the ruins of their life without them ever knowing why the hell any of that happened. So yeah, they’re jerks.

And the Tzimisce? Quick, whose your favorite comic book villain? If you said “mid-2000′s Black Mask”, then congratulations! You’re a teenage boy, and also a potential Tzimisce player.

There is one “redeeming” thing about the Sabbat. While the Camarilla deny the existence and threat of the Antidiluvians...

“Leaders of the Sabbat firmly maintain that the third generation lives and that they are secretly manipulating their descendants for reasons of their own.” The priest’s voice sank very low. “They fear an approaching Armageddon that they call Gehenna. A time when the Antediluvians will rise to take control of the Kindred. The Sabbot suspect that the third generation plan to devour their descendants.”

Gehenna is an important part of the setting. It’s another thing I’ll explain more about later, but the Sabbat are right to worry about it. It almost makes up for their dumbass social policies and the whole “chaotic evil” thing.

Reuben comments (told you) about how the longer a vampire lives, the more potent the blood they drink has to be. Third and fourth generation Kindred would only be able to feed on other Kindred. This backs up the “third generation’s gonna wake up and eat everyone” theory. After Naples’ confirmation about this, Reuben immediately changes the subject and asks about the four remaining independent clans.

“There are the Ravnos, a society of outcasts and drifters,”

These guys are the Roma stereotypes I mentioned earlier. Their clan weakness is that they’re addicted to crime! Or at least some personal vice. Someone at White Wolf must have figured out how this looked, so they fixed it by, um, having their Antediluvian wake up and kill all but about a hundred of them... I mean, it worked for the Squats over in Warhammer 40K, but...

“Then the Assamites, an Order of Assassins, much feared even among their own kind, [sic] The Followers of Set worship a long-dormant third-generation Egyptian horror, the embodiment of that land’s ancient evil.”

I don’t know much about these two clans. There’s a couple of Assamite characters in this book, but no one from the Followers of Set.

“And last, we must not forget the Giovanni, another fairly new clan, who are preoccupied with two subjects - death and money.”

The Giovanni have a big part in this story so we’ll get to them when they show up. Also, wow, they sure made these last four the ethnic stereotype clans.

Satisfied with this new info on the Clans, though “unsure about their interactions”, Reuben moves on.

The young man’s bright blue eyes burned with an intense inner fire. “What is the Jyhad?” he asked.

Father Naples was feeling very strange. Yet he felt that he had to answer. It was extremely important to himself and the Society of Leopold that he answer Reuben’s every question. Extremely important.

Reuben may not be a vampire, but it looks like he pulled some sort of mind whammy on Father Naples. Not sure why he had to, though. I can’t think of a reason why Naples’ would explain all the other stuff of his own free will but not this subject.

The Jyhad’s a legend among Kindred, that the fourth generation is manipulating their descendants as pawns in a game where they play against each other for complete control of the world. Some say that the fourth generation is actually being manipulated by the Antediluvians, the true players of the game. The nature of Kindred society and politics makes finding the truth difficult.

“The world of the Kindred is filled with treachery and deceit. Remember, Lucifer (here he goes with the devil stuff again), their patron, is the Father of Lies. Wheels spin within wheels within wheels. None other than the Antediluvians, if they actually survive, know the truth.”

“On that subject,” said Reuben, “you might be mistaken.”

Signaling for the check, Reuben asks if there’s anything else he should know about the Kindred, such as “the Inconnu” and “the recent disturbances in Russia and Peru.” Father Naples doesn’t know about any of that, and when asked why he asks, Reuben says he was “Just confirming a few of [his] own suspicions.” Father Naples has told him everything he wanted to know, so Reuben pays the waiter and prepares to leave. Time for the prologue’s big finish.

“The young man rose to his feet. ‘No need to get up. I can see myself to the door. Thank you, for your time, Father Naples. I appreciate the information you have given me, though I think your views concerning the devil tint your narration slightly. That’s always been a problem with the Inquisition. You worry too much about demons and too little about evil. I’m sorry, but you can’t be permitted to describe our conversation to anyone. Especially to your superiors in the Society of Leopold. May God grant you peace.���

None of the five Society of Leopold agents stationed in the restaurant noticed Reuben leave. Nor could they remember anything at all about his appearance. When rewound, the audiotape from the directional microphone was found to be completely blank. And none of the technicians working the post could recall a word of the conversation they supposedly recorded.

Father Naples remained unmoving at the table until fifteen minutes passed and a curious waiter came over to see if anything was wrong. To his horror, he discovered that the priest was dead.

According to a secret report prepared by a team of investigators, Father Naples had died from a massive heart attack. One suffered by the priest a few minutes after sitting down at noon. No one could explain, nor even attempt to answer, how a dead man managed to drink two bottles of wine. The black attache case found beneath the table was empty.”

I hope Reuben at least didn’t take back the money he payed his bill with. Reality warping or no, he still ate there and should pay them.

Seriously though, this was a great prologue. It explains enough about the setting to help you follow along with the rest of the story, but doesn’t explain everything and ends on a great mystery. Rereading this helped me remember why I liked the setting so much as a kid, even if I poke fun at it now. Vampire societies might not seem like the most original idea, but back then when I thought of vampire stories, I thought of a single vampire with a cape and widow’s peak sneaking into peoples homes to drink their blood, and the closest thing to mystery, court intrigue, and games of thrones were the humans trying to figure out how to stop that one vampire. V:TM introduced me to a type of story and concepts I’d never read before, and not just about fictional monsters. That’s more a credit to the original tabletop than just Bloodwar, but this book was still my gateway to the setting. Sometimes even schlock can have meaning to someone, I guess.

[tiredgiovanni]

The Clans in High School

Assamite: The edgiest. Collects cheap knives they bought from a man with too many piercings in his face. Naruto runs down the halls.  Brujah: way too into weights class. dad bought him an AR-15 for their birthday. has broken two phones this semester. Followers of Set: know it all. scoffs loudly; tries correcting the teacher. always has an obscure fact of the day. Gangrel: literally never in class; always wandering the halls. during lunch break, they all but disappear. good fucking luck if you ever need to talk to them. probably going to drop out. Giovanni: the edgy witch/warlock. tries to lure students into the bathroom to mess around with an Ouija board. probably given more closet blowjobs than anyone else.  Lasombra: always looks like they just dropped 500$ in hot topic; black eyeliner that goes to their eyebrows. Probably microwaves hamsters in their downtime. Nosferatu: do they even own a washing machine? when was the last time they showered? probably 4th grade. lives in the absolute worst side of town and seemingly has no parents. Always very nice though.  Ravnos: lives next door to the nos. everything they own is stolen. always has a new card trick to show you. 7/10 on the edginess scale. Toreador: fashion was their calling; tries inventing new styles. always on their phone (which has a fuzzy pink case). Has mild narcissism problems, but everyone loves them so it’s okay.  Tremere: distant kid who always sits in the back and never answers any of the teachers' questions. super quiet and intimidating bc of it. if you try talking to them they answer ask curtly as possible.  Tzimisce: helps the Lasombra microwave hamsters. has an oblong head which they for some reason enjoy shaving to further show off their oblong head. tricks the Brujah into beating people up for them. Ventrue: comes to school in a button up and tie??? takes it way too seriously??? their lunch box is always neat and tidy and full of GMO-free, organic food??? has never ridden the bus in their life??