#koldun sorcerer

[ladyeroway]

Koldun, your blood,

You belong to the Roots, 

You Belong to the Forest.  As we approach the season finale - Lilijana took the third dot in her Kraina with a disembodied beating heart under the land making an interesting declaration. 

[tiorinio]

Trying to figure out how to draw my main guy without any skill of drawing men

[gruntled-druzhina]

Just yeet the wizard from a cannon is apparently an option.

[dykeferatu]

pathologic/vtm overlap come here look at this

[thefoxandthebrush]

lays down and thinks of my tavs and their relationships

Drift, my newist playthrough just finished the tiefling party and DEEP BREATH

This girl is so social dispite very little contact with other tieflings/humanoids. especially because her dragon patron kept her deep in the snowy mountains away from people and 'harm.'

ZEVLOR COMES IN FROM LEFT FIELD WITH SUDDEN DAD ENERGY FOR DRIFT AND HAS ME ON THE FLOOR.

[cynical-tuba]

Leo is participating in Godwin's hobbies. (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

(Leo's pronouns are He/She and Godwin's are He/Him)

Godwin, the current Ghoul to the missing Ventrue Baron, Horsa,has taken an interest in the koldunic sorcerer, Kresimir, and strives to be the dragon he's always dreamt of becoming. Leo does his best to support him in every way possible of course, right down to negotiating Godwin's favor with a demon.

[merrillapologist]

breaking news! THIS koldunic sorcerer is about to cause issues for the entire city of st louis missouri

[ID: Art of a white nonbinary femme. They are fat, sickly pale, and covered in freckles. They have pointed ears and golden eyes, and their curly dusty brown hair is tied up into buns. They wear a brown bralette, pentacle necklace, and green skirt. They are posed with a hand in their hair and a mischievous smile. Behind them are the silhouettes of a forest.]

[mortifying-macaroni]

What's got you into the whole Tremere/Tzimisce dynamic? Just curious to know. I like them too

Well, anon, I'm glad you asked (btw you've got excellent taste). I'll try to keep it short and sweet with a few main bullet points *cracks fingers*

It's the perfect foundation for "somewhat acquaintances to enemies to lovers". Their first means of interaction stemmed from curiosity to potential cooperation laced with some form of trust as they partook in exchanging of knowledge and magic acumen, hell even some Tzimisce got embraced while carrying a Tremere name. Moreover, they lived in this brief unity until it all got squandered by the blood wizards' betrayal as we know.

Both clans are pretty much two enigmas wrapped in a mystery that battled on a tight rope throughout the ages. Despite the rocky road they're fiercely tangoing on, the fire from their mutual hatred keeps them on their feet as they're restlessly trying to take the lead in bringing the other party to their downfall. There are certain things that entwine them, things that establish a common ground for them to agree upon. Aside from the bit of blood they share by forceful means from the Tremere's side, both clans foster this penchant for torture in the name of academic pursuits. If melding their minds by combining their methods for causing destruction, then these two bloodlines could've been the most fearsome clan duo of educated executioners throughout kindred history.

I've already quoted this one part somewhere (*ahem* my fic), but they have the potential to work like scissors- the blades function to that of a married couple that carry out their tasks together in perfect synchronicity and unison, with equal toil put into it. They're two hands holding the gun, the hammer and firing pin pushing the bullet out. One example of that is their co-op dependant ability to create Blood Brothers. Think about it, A koldun fleshcrafter and a thaumaturgy sorcerer can mass produce walking weapons of annihilation, sort of like their "children" birthed for war through brutality and blood magic.

The whole kindred world may be cursing at them, deeming them as inhumane monsters and murderers and yet the Tzimisce and Tremere can only slow dance to the beat of chaos and pure pandemonium unfolding around them. Everything may as well be crumbling into ruin, but they'd still see an opportunity to salvage something from the suffering of others. What's more, I imagine if they were in a relationship they'd be partial to mutual inflictions of pain. All the pent up clan tension could provide an outlet to channel that (whether it be caused or sustained) hurt into a sort of gratification that nobody else could provide them.

A Tzimisce is an instrument of pain that a Tremere can learn to, not only appreciate, but study, even without applying force; just how a Tremere's knowledge can serve as a song for a Tzimisce to learn through guidance. Furthermore, if given the chance, either of them would kill or burn the whole world for their partner no questions asked. Even though they bring out the worst in each other, they'd remain where they are because nobody else can handle or keep up with all of their "ugly" aspects.

In other words, if only they weren't so stubborn about their clan beef, they could not only have the kinkiest sex imaginable, but also establish a Gomez/Morticia relationship if they'd just work everything out.

I have only one Tremere/Tzimisce ship, so I'm kinda going based on my own little headcanons regarding their own issues and how they can personally work together through them, in addition to some lore I've dug out on top of that.

Final verdict (in my humble, yet correct opinion): Best ship dynamic in VTM with Nosferatu/Toreador being the runner ups

[gorbalsvampire]

If you were redesigning Blood Sorcery, what would its central schtick be? What makes it potentially unique and interesting, and not just a swiss army knife? (I'd argue Thinblood Alchemy is maybe a more interesting and balanced fill for that total versatility niche.)

Hm!

So, I actually kinda like the core Discipline as it exists in V5. The art of discovering truths about someone through their Blood, or manipulating the Blood directly, or turning the Blood into a weapon or a message? That shit rips. That is a good time.

I'd move Scour Secrets into Auspex (seriously, what the shit is it doing here?) and I'm turning Koldunic Sorcery over and over in my hands - it's a botch job, but the net effect works, you take that and then your upper levels are things like Visceral Absorbtion and Transitive Bond, there's a Tzimisce-sorcerer route through the Discipline and it does hold together now that i think about it. It's fine.

I think a good Discipline is one where you can cross the streams, but it's also apparent what the streams are. Blood Sorcery is a good Discipline, it has archetypal routes through for your stereotypical Tremere and Banu Haqim and Tzimisce but also space for you to push sideways and create characters who have leant this way or that.

Digression: Oblivion is a bad Discipline, largely because it has four pathways between two clans and is trying to cover two historically separate applications of mysticism and ceremony while also remaining as faithful as it can to every depiction of them that's ever existed, because it's a Dawkins design and he can't not include something that's canon. Great concept, but indulgent execution. Someone needed to say no.

But then we get into Rituals, and that's where the bloat kicks in. Niche protection? What niche protection? Haven't you heard, we're Tremere!

I think each Ritual needs to be interrogated. Ask it what it's for. Why does it exist at the level it exists? What is Clinging of the Insect for? We have Potence and Celerity powers for that. Splash another Discipline, you cowards, this is worth more than 3 XP and some bug juice.

What is Blood Walk for? Why is it not a critical effect on Taste for Blood, the mainline power that's its obvious prerequisite? This is stupid. Merge them.

What is Wake With Evening's Freshness for? Why do Tremere get to do this, for cheap? Get rid of it.

Do that, and pare the Rituals right down to the ones like Enrich the Blood, Herd Ward, Calix Secretus, the ones that are clearly derived from actual Blood manipulation. To be honest, the Oblivion notion of prerequisite powers is a good one, and if you can't think of a good prerequisite power, chances are you don't have a good Ritual - you have an Ars Magicka wizard spell that nobody's had the spine to delete.

I've said before and I'm saying now that I prefer Tremere as alchemists to Tremere as mages from Ars Magicka backformed into mages from Mage. It shucks off a lot of baggage, it makes them a self-contained Vampire concept (this is a problem I also have with the Giovanni, to be entirely fair), and - in the context of this ask - it also creates some cool parallels with the thin-bloods, the Duskborn of the here and now. Tremere looks to Thin-blood: as you are, we once were. As we are, you are not allowed to be. No wonder Tremere invented the practice of branding the little shits.

I do agree that being a hyperflexible little multi-tool, manifesting semi-random powers from Resonances and cultivating specific counterfeits with Alchemy, is a really good niche for Thin-Bloods to occupy. The Revised era version - "vampire from clan, but shittier" - had no appeal outside of specific metaplot-hugging or masochistic playstyles. The V5 version is exciting. People should play them, and want to play them.

That said, I have some beef - specifically, a Thin-Blood who lives long enough and plays with other clans erodes niche protection by being able to counterfeit most Disciplines a PC from another clan can bring to the table, "anything you can do I can do" kind of deal. Level 5 is off the table, but how many PCs are getting level 5 powers at the standard rate of XP gain? Blood Potency is a counterbalance and if you bother to implement its rules all the way across (the rerolls are super important) I do think it works as a balance, but this isn't about what works. It's about the feeling of having your special snowflake power, and yours, and yours, all available to this one character.

I think I'd get rid of Counterfeit Discipline, as a thing: you can curate low level powers from feeding, and you have unique Alchemy effects, and that's enough, actually.

[jasina85]

So, I've been reading Blood Sigils now and I'm not gonna lie... this ain't it chief. While I like one or two rituals present in the book (and surprising no one who knows my tastes, absolutely hate what that book does with koldunism), the whole rest of it is just... off.

Like the big focus on creating the "redworking scene" feels like it's basically only useful in a chronicle wholly dedicated to it, and it feels like the book is desperately trying to sound cool and "hip with the kids".

I think I'll stick to mostly pulling stuff from the old Secrets of Thaumaturgy and Rites of the Blood books for my sorcerous needs.

[ladyeroway]

Genius Loci One of Lilijana’s favoured Koldun sorceries, as the world peels back and she perceives everything in painful detail. 

[girlnextvore]

Still 5 am ignore my VTM posting.

I think that the Old Clan Tzimisce has real reasons to hate the current clan outside of the normal "they killed the elders" thing. One of the first ones

They allowed the fucking tremere to be seen as the "sorcerer clan" they allowed Usurpers to be viewed as the "vampire sorcerers"which feels REAL BAD.

Second their obsession with Vicissitude and the use of it to transcend their humanity instead of using the legit cool spirit land magic has got to be annoying to Koldun masters. (I say this as a vicissitude pervert)

[seventhconsumedsigil]

I have decided that, on a whime, I shall be doing this for Alva, my V20 character for whom I have untold amounts of brainworms for because I love her.

alone: She actually deals with isolation pretty well! So long as there's input. Book, view, just anything. This has gotten worse as her supernatural senses have moved from impressive to downright insane, she needs sensory input in some way.

betrayal: Not really, no! She's had quite a few plans for it, but no one she's actually trusted has done that. Mainly because that list has a whole three people in it, she just doesn't trust most people. That's healthy, right? No betrayals on her part, she stabs people in the front like a dignified person.

bound: She is a failed shovelhead. Meaning that when she was Embraced into the vampiric unlife, she got smashed in the head with a shovel and chucked in a mass grave to see who clawed out. She was not one of them. This has done... not great things to her mental state, especially given she got unearthed by a wild animal a whole decade later. She has a whole complex about backup plans and retaining mobility/independence now.

break: If you take her fae gf away, there will be Bad Things. Everyone involved will learn exactly what a Koldun of the Way of Earth can do, and if they're unlucky, how long a fleshwarper can drag things out. Her ancestors made people into chairs while they were still screaming, and the very nasty bit in the corner of her mind has such innovations in that area to show you.

desire: She wants MORE. To have domain and connection and all that time from the backhanded gift of immortality. She's not really processed it yet, but she wants to frankly slightly concerning degrees. We'll blame the fae influence, even though this tendancy was absolutely there before.

failure: She didn't get into uni on accounts of terminal broke-ness. She spent the last few years of her natural (as opposed to unnatural) life slowly grinding her soul away as a paramedic, drinking too much, and curling up into a ball. This was not a good time for her. Maybe she'd have turned it around, maybe she wouldn't, and she doesn't like that she's unsure on that.

fear: To lose control. Being unable to get herself out of something is one iteration, although another that's becoming a whole complex is mental control. She is terrified of having her control over her own emotions and mind touched even more than the physical side. It's one of the few things that's caused her to have panic attacks nowadays, and her heart only beats out of habit, it takes a lot to do that.

future: Oh boi. This ties in with break, but she's got the tools avalible to her to do some awful, awful shit if she leaned into the Beast. Steal a Treasure from the fae and rip what she can from their souls, start diablerising some of the fools she deals with, go down the Path of Metamorphosis and emerge an unholy mess for everyone else to deal with. Assuming they can.

ghost: N/A, at least not seperate from prev with the mass grave and empty former life.

guilt: She is a vampire, insert usual moral compunctions here. Add in the fact that her own mental issues mean she deals with social situations, even when she's genuine, in a very mechanistic, cold blooded way. When it's all masks, how genuine can she really be, even to her love? May have had a little too much of my own head leak through here, makes her character spicy tho.

hate: Mental control, and more widely, the lack of control she sees in others. Fae, vampire, a few sorcerers, none of them focus themselves. They lack discipline, will, the drive to make themselves something more. She holds them in profound disdain

heartbreak: Her problem was mostly an empty life, not a shattered one. And so far, her romancing of a fae has involved almost none of the classical problems! In this way, her life's going perfectly fine

hide: Oh boi, where do I begin. She hides her original name from almost everyone, the face she's a vampire from most, her original face behind an array of others, partially due to her subconcious swapping her face around so much that she sometimes struggles to maintain consistent faces day to day.

hunt: N/A unless I twist it around a lot and honestly this is getting so long already.

mask: Oh boi. On the physical end, as a fleshwarper who's powers sometimes decide to do it themselves, she's almost all masks. She puts on her original face maybe once every few weeks. On the mental end... she doesn't even know where it ends. Lux with the Anarchs, the Cam, with 2 seperate semi-Autarkis elders, Miranda, Cait, that's just the deliberate level. The social masking, balancing how much to explain, how much to hide, what buttons to push on other people. She's really just a pile of masks that does magic sometimes and turns into a dragon-insect-thing on occasion.

midnight: Being dead and all, her sleep is more a coma. She has however colonised it via the art of lucid dreaming, and now uses it to roll over every single interaction she makes with almost every other supernatural, picking over it for weaknesses or slips or flaws. This is her idea of a healthy level of analysis.

mistake: Arguably, half her relationships. But more seriously, she's playing with fire. Dating a fae, being taught by a weird fucked up elder who lives in the woods and has Opinions about the antonine wall, and most of all continuing to stick around Ignis, who is a strong competitor for Most Unstable Vampire in the entire local setting, with some hefty competition. He is unfortunately in the middle of all the politics though, and hey, he got an emotional support human at least!

monster: Where do I even start. Vampire, shapechanger, magic-user, she's just every kind of weird. She's what creeps in through the window at night, or would be if she didn't need to follow stupid old hospitality laws about entering uninvited. She's increasingly comfortable with some parts of it like the shapechanging, but the blood drinking and manipulative habits are something she's not really happy with in general and likely never will be. It's VtM, we play monsters here. She's just honest to herself about it.

nightmare: See Midnight, I feel like I'd just repeat myself.

pain: Well, she got her arm half ripped off once, that was awful. Was after she decided to fiddle her pain receptors around to be able to suppress it though. She doesn't really feel it the same way unless she wants to.

secret: All her bitching and moaning and angst? Fuck that. She likes this. She likes having some fucking power for once, to speak and let the world bend around her, to just be able to destroy sometimes. And she likes to tell herself that's mostly the Beast, but there's a reason it speaks with her voice.

skin: Standard issue VtM vampire, and she's actually far too comfortable in both her skin and other people's skin. Different faces, different bodies, different body morphologies altogether. They all fit far too nicely for her. She might fundamentally alter her own anatomical structure on a lark on a Friday night.

torture: She's not been deliberately tortured, and likes to think herself above such inefficient method. Most of the time. She is a Tzimisce though. She could show someone tortures unbeknownst to mortal ken. She thought of a few already. The Cold Iron Skeleton is her nastiest, for if another fae takes the step over that line to using cold iron on her gf. She feels like that should make the example nice and clear

wound: Given her pain suppression and healing, she reacts to wounding... barely at all. She had one arm dangling off and still proceeded to beat a fellow into a red pulp with the other. She does try to hide it though, especially the gorey process of healing herself (or indeed any involved shapechanging). It's not for the faint of heart.

oc asks: not-so-nice edition

alone: How does your OC deal with loneliness? Have they ever been completely alone before? How do they act when there's no one around to see them?

betrayal: Has your OC ever been betrayed by someone they thought they could trust? Has your OC ever betrayed someone who trusted them?

bound: Has your OC ever been imprisoned or captured? What happened? How did they get out? Did the experience leave any scars?

break: What would cause your OC to break down completely? What do they look like when that happens? Has anyone ever seen them at their lowest?

desire: What's one thing your OC wants more than anything in the world? Are they open with that desire? Why or why not? What would they do to fulfill it?

failure: What's your OC's greatest failure? Have they been able to move past it? Does anyone else know about it?

fear: What is your OC's greatest fear? What do they do when confronted with it? Are they open with their fear, or do they hide it away?

future: What's the worst possible future for your OC? Are they taking steps to avoid that outcome? Are they even aware it's a possibility?

ghost: Who or what haunts your OC? What happened? How do they live with their ghosts?

guilt: What is your OC guilty about? How do they handle their guilt? Do they try to avoid guilt, or do they accept it?

hate: What does your OC hate? Why? How do they act towards the object of their hatred?

heartbreak: Have they ever had a relationship that ended badly? Experienced some other kind of heartbreak? What happened?

hide: What does your OC hide? Why do they hide it?

hunt: Who or what is your OC hunted by? A person, a feeling, a past mistake? Is your OC able to let their guard down, or are they constantly alert?

mask: Does your OC wear a mask, literally or figuratively? What goes on beneath it? Is there anyone in their life who gets to see who they are under the mask?

midnight: What keeps your OC up at night? Do they have nightmares? Fears? Anxieties? What do they do in the small hours of the morning when they should be sleeping?

mistake: What's the worst mistake your OC ever made? What led to them making it? Have they been able to fix it? How have they moved on?

monster: Is your OC monstrous in any way? Is there something that makes them monstrous? Are they aware of their own monstrosity? Do they accept it or reject it?

nightmare: What does your OC have nightmares about? How do they deal with their nightmares? Do they tell people, or keep it to themself?

pain: What's the worst pain your OC has ever felt? Do they have a high pain tolerance?

secret: What's one secret your OC never wants anyone to know about them?

skin: How comfortable is your OC in their skin? Do they grapple with anything that lives inside them—a beast, a curse, a failure, a monster? How do they face the smallest, weakest, most horrible version of themself? Are they able to acknowledge it at all?

torture: Has your OC ever been tortured? Would your OC ever torture someone else?

wound: How does your OC handle being wounded? Are their wounds mostly physical? Mental? Emotional? What's the worst wound your OC has ever experienced?

[theonewiththevampires]

I didn't think anyone ever knew what that was nowadays!

I'm currently a VtM game so it's alive and well in my friend group at least!

My character is currently trying to figure out how to convince the local koldunic sorcerer to teach her magic in exchange for this nice book on supernatural anatomy she found. Look, Mr. Tzimisce, the author drew pictures of a werewolf's insides! Please don't eat me.

My maker is pretty sure he won't eat me because then he'd owe her, but...

[clanlasombrasp]

The search for a weapon. Part 2.

Previously...

The woman, stained with blood and bone remains and brain matter from the owner of that Toledo bookstore specialized in Jew culture, read the scroll that contained the Book of Spider's Web while searching for what she was looking for.

Luckily, her hated Sire had prepared her for that type of work. Latin, Greek, Aramaic, Arabic, even Egyptian ieratic writing held no secrets for her. Indeed, Mr. Solomon was right since the language in which that book was written was difficult to understand. But Beatriz was prepared. Thanks to her apprenticeship with Koldun Tzimisce sorcerers and members of House Goratrix during her stay in Timisoara, she was prepared to be able to understand the content of that scroll.

Blood for the summoning circle.

She used her sharp teeth to open one of the veins on her left wrist to make the dark ichor contained in her undead body flow out. She splashed the book with her Vitae while intoning the litany. The thick reddish drops didn't touch its surface, they vanished in a reddish glow and the woman's brain was filled with the knowledge contained in that scroll.

She waited a few moments to be able to assimilate all the information received. She knew that knowledge would disappear from her mind in a matter of a few hours, but in the meantime she should take advantage of it.

The summoning circle...

She began to trace with the blood of the corpse in front of her the symbols and drawings that made up the invocation circle that would allow her to bring to that plane the creature she was searching for with such determination. With her own Vitae she traced the symbols and sigils of protection of another circle around her, she was not going to be defenseless if SHE really appeared.

The protection circle...

Beatriz felt satisfied with the work done, she sat inside the circle of protection and began to intone the words of the invocation. -"Curious name for a demon..."- she thought.

To be continued...

[ryttu3k]

@meatcrimes: "but perhaps consider: Salubri Gale, and Mystra is a Tremere elder trying to diablerize him"

Ohh damn. Mystra being, "You're so rare and interesting and powerful, I just want to get to know you", trying to earn his trust, no really she's not like those other Tremere, only she can really appreciate and understand him...

It'd be tricky as hell, logistically? In my head this was all happening in 1492 as a nice parallel (the very end of the Revolt, a year away from Thorns and the major choices they'd be making there, same year as BG3), and the Salubri had already been largely wiped out. A more time-period-suitable equivalent would be Gale as an old-clan Cappadocian and Mystra as a Giovanni, since that was still ongoing, but doesn't quite fit, thematically - neither of them are necromancers nor have anything to do with death.

Still, it's a super interesting thought! I think I will keep them both Tremere, since magic is Gale's whole raison d'etre, and Gale being a natural Mage who's later Embraced fits in with one of my headcanons about him actually being a Sorcerer instead of a Wizard, but yeah, really neat idea.

(You know who's definitely Salubri, though? Aylin. Warrior Salubri, absolutely. Not sure about Isobel, I'm almost thinking Tzimisce koldun from a revenant background? There could be a hell of a dynamic between her, Aylin, and Ketheric, with Ketheric, more tyrannical old-school Tzimisce warlord, wanting to keep Isobel safe from one of the Soulsuckers and not wanting her to become a target from the Tremere, since he saw the Salubri genocide with his own eyes, and Isobel defying him to keep protecting her love.)

Theoretically, what clans do you think the other bg3 companions would be?

I have definitely Thought About This! The setting I had in mind was during the Anarch Revolt, with the main squad being a new pack.

Thoughts behind Lasombra Astarion - still keeps his self-image issues regarding reflections, which sets him aside from his companions. That implication that Cazador set the Gur on him is pretty similar to the Lasombra tradition of deliberately grooming your future childe for the Embrace, and honestly, a combination of blood bonds and heavy use of Dominate fits Cazador's modus operandi as well. The ritual is either Abyss mysticism or, yeah, straight-out infernalism, like the whole Azaneali/Angellis Ater stuff. In this, it's not a tadpole that frees Astarion from his control, it's the Vaulderie.

For his fate afterwards, I'm not sure. I feel Ascending would parallel him diablerising Cazador and maybe his siblings, as in it may be a step too far. An Ascended/diablerist Astarion would probably stay with the Revolt as it became the Sabbat, one who doesn't might go Autarkis.

For the others, I'm not 100% locked in on these, but I'm thinking:

Shadowheart: Lasombra as well, focusing much more on Abyss Mysticism (whereas Cazador dabbled but largely stuck to the Lasombra social structure stuff). Keen user of Obtenebration. Has had a lot of her memories erased or altered via Dominate. Kinfolk. At first is extremely vehemently against joining the Camarilla and supports the nascent Sabbat, but leaving the Sharrans may work as her going Autarkis, working out her own route?

Lae'zel: I'm actually thinking Ventrue? Very strict social structure, all these complexes about power and weakness. If she ends up staying with the Revolt and joining the Sabbat, the whole Dark Knight thing the Ventrue antitribu have fits pretty well! OTOH, Orpheus kind of fits as a stand-in for a methuselah, so that would cause... issues. She might be Ventrue antitribu only in the sense that she's not Camarilla, and still has her personal loyalty to Orpheus.

Gale: Tragically, I think he's Tremere, and probably quite a low generation (maybe instead of Mystra, he's bound to his sire, Meerlinda?). Born Mage who was identified and groomed by the Tremere specifically for the Embrace. Leaving Mystra = defecting from the Pyramid and joining the Revolt, although he still feels deeply conflicted about it. He may end up joining the Camarilla but could be swayed otherwise, which I suspect he might do based on love of his friends and being convinced he doesn't need the power the Camarilla could offer him.

Wyll and Karlach: Brujah, but more specifically, Brujah from the same 'family', with Zariel being Mizora's and Karlach's sire, and Mizora being Wyll's sire. Wyll fits the idealistic Wanting To Fix Things Brujah mindset, and Karlach… enjoys punching things. I don't see either fitting with the Sabbat. Zariel and Mizora are both into infernalism and got their childer into it as well, although Karlach resents it and Wyll feels deeply conflicted. Another option is that they just have regular-ass sires, but Mizora and Zariel are Baali who convince them to go apostate - Karlach under a lot of duress, Wyll with good intentions (power to help people!) but recognising later that, oops, that may have caused issues.

Halsin: Two fun options! One, he's a Gangrel (who follows the Path of the Eightfold Wheel, natch). Also Autarkis, although I feel he'd want to keep having a Purpose and would probably end up with a group of other Autarkis and try to… keep an eye on them. Another interesting option, though, is that as well as Garou, there are also bear Fera! Will elaborate below.

Jaheira: Gangrel, straight-out. Would go Autarkis after the Revolt.

Minsc: Having met him yet, but I get a Brujah-with-out-of-clan-Animalism vibe. Maybe learned from Jaheira? Autarkis as well.

So for Halsin, there are werebears! They're called Gurahl.

"The werebears are Gaia's healers, tied to the Earth with a stronger bond than any other Fera. Many Garou believe the Gurahl are extinct, killed during the War of Rage when they would not give up the secret of restoring life to the dead. In truth, they entered a long sleep using a trick taught to them by the Mokolé, and have awoken in the modern world.

Slow to anger, Gurahl tend to be healers and protectors rather than warriors. Rare since the War of Rage, they were targeted for refusing to teach the Garou the secret of resurrecting the dead."

So, either Halsin is a Gurahl who ends up accidentally adopting a pack of Cainites, or he's a Gurahl kinfolk who's Embraced as a Gangrel. When he returns home, he's a bit, "Sooooo… hi. Vampire now," and they don't end up killing him because, what the hell, he's family and also still Halsin. "Yes, this is my son. Yes, he's a vampire. It's complicated."

Slight alternative - Halsin, Jaheira, and Minsc are all much older (older ancilla/ancilla with a werebear pal), with Jaheira and Minsc already being close, and maybe Halsin and Jaheira knowing each other beforehand. When they meet this newer, younger pack (the Origin characters), they go, "Okay, these kids are going to need guidance" and jump in to babysit mentor them. In that case, they may not consider themselves truly part of the Anarch Revolt, but be avowed Autarkis. Age-wise for the Origin characters, Astarion is ancilla but the whole two hundred years of slavery means he's still pretty inexperienced in the world, and the others are all neonates. Hell, Lae'zel, Wyll, and Karlach may even still be considered fledglings, or like, just released.

So tl;dr, Anarch pack who largely go Autarkis after the Revolt, with Astarion, Shadowheart, and Lae'zel torn between Autarkis and the Sabbat, and Gale being torn between Autarkis and the Camarilla. I want to say they all stay Autarkis, with the bonds they've developed? Still have some Anarch traits like a vinculum, but otherwise are avoiding both the violence of the Sabbat and the hierarchy of the Camarilla, a lot of which is why they joined the Revolt in the first place.

Thanks for the ask, this was so fun :D