Sahib of Flesh of the Covenant of Shadows's blog: "Vampires"

Ventrue From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Ventrue are a fictional clan of vampires, associated with the Camarilla, from White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, and Vampire: The Requiem books and role-playing games. Their symbol is a scepter. The Ventrue are the rulers, leaders and politicos of the Camarilla, sometimes known as the Patrician Clan or the Kingship Clan. In Ancient Rome, they were generals and warlords of the Empire, and in the Dark Ages, they were knights and barons, leading crusades and conquests. In modern times the Ventrue still have great ambition and see themselves as conquerors, but their ways have changed, using courts and companies instead of feifdoms and mighty armies. Targets for Embrace by the Ventrue have always been people in positions of power, whether these people were aristocracy or company CEOs. The Ventrue perceive themselves as the most powerful of the vampiric clans thanks to their wealth, social influence, and powers over the thoughts and feelings of mortals. The clan as a whole is typified as conservative, be it in actions or customs. The Ventrue have their own nigh-inviolable code of etiquette. The clan's Elders have been known to punish violations of these unwritten rules with greater ferocity and resolve than the Traditions of the Camarilla. The Ventrue claim that ruling vampires is their duty, their burden, a task which is interlocked with their fate, given by Caine himself (if he ever existed). The reality is that excessive pride and ambition seem a more convenient explanation as to why they strive to expand their already vast influence and assert themselves over other Kindred. They tend to be politicians, businessmen, military officers, crime lords, important members of powerful religions, sects and cults. In response to what they perceive as a degeneration of the clan from its noble roots, a smaller segment of the clan has forsworn their ties to the Camarilla to join the Sabbat as antitribu. They believe that greed has led the body of the clan astray from its previous glory, so their quest is for righteous military and tyrannical power over other Kindred to reestablish what they believe to be the proper order. The Camarilla Ventrue casually dismiss their antitribu cousins as idealists doomed to failure. Both Ventrue and Ventrue antitribu refer to themselves as the sole "true" heirs of the name. In comparison to the other vampiric clans, the Ventrue are considered to be especially particular about whose blood they drink. In fact, any given Ventrue can only drink blood from a specific kind of mortal, or from mortals under a specific sort of circumstance. Some may only prey upon a given ethnicity, while others can only feed from humans of a certain occupation or even religion. Some Ventrue can only find nourishment from blood that carries a more rarified quality such as anger, fear or innocence. Regardless of the sort of blood the Ventrue requires, other blood is regurgitated or simply cannot be swallowed. They may feed from other Kindred with no such restriction. Ventrue prefer to view this flaw as a matter of refined tastes. Of course, with the power (both supernatural and temporal) most Ventrue possess, few go hungry. Disciplines: • Dominate • Fortitude • Presence Vampire: The Requiem In the new World of Darkness game Vampire: The Requiem, Ventrue are the name of another clan of vampires. See Clans in Vampire: The Requiem. References * Vampire: The Masquerade (Revised) by White Wolf (1998)

Brujah From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Brujah are a fictional clan of vampires in White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness books and role-playing settings. In the modern setting (Vampire: The Masquerade), the Brujah are characterized mostly as anarchists. White Wolf states, "The typical Brujah wears a biker jacket, tattered jeans, combat boots...". Brujah are said to have semi-political conventions amongst the noise of raves and punk rock concerts. In comparison to other vampires, the Brujah are especially violent. Currently the most popular symbol of Brujah is upside-down form of Circle A Red. The Brujah were not always so anarchic: in nights long past, they were warrior-philosophers, and they engineered the creation of Carthage, the fabled city where Kindred and kine walked freely amongst each other. However, the dream would not be realized, as the city was destroyed by forces within and without; the Brujah of the modern nights primarily blame the Ventrue, Toreador and Malkavians for Carthage's fall, though they are also suspicious of the Lasombra for a suspected role in the fall of their city. Many, if not all Brujah dream of re-making their fabled Carthage, unfortunately most of the Brujah have a very different vision of what it should be. Of course the the utopia that the Brujah aspire to may not be all that the clan elders describe, with rumors of links to the diabolic Baali and their infernal practices. In modern times, the Brujah have split into two primary groups: the intelligent, politically active Brujah, many of which are fiery and outspoken among the politicking of the vampires, and the raging, angry counter-culture Brujah that most other vampires think of when they try to picture a member of the Clan. Strangely enough, Brujah Princes are relatively common among the Camarilla, ranking perhaps second for the number of Princes ruling over a city. Like all vampires, Brujah have a clan flaw associated with them. Brujah are known for their fiery and often violent tempers, having more trouble than any clan does to keep their homicidal tendencies at bay. They fall to their Beast with disturbing frequency, and tend to get quite agitated if this flaw is ever mentioned in their presence. Members of this clan are haunted by rumors of a bloodline calling itself the True Brujah. History The Brujah are warriors -- but always warriors for a cause. The fierce heat of passion burns within their cold, dead breasts and it drives them to champion causes that they believe can set the world right. When Caine slew his brother, he threw the world from its intended course. The horror that it has become must be corrected, and the Brujah intend to do just that. Each member of the clan has her own vision of the way the world should be, and he strives to make that vision become a reality through argument, manipulation and force of arms. In the earliest nights, passion was not a trait of the Brujah. Indeed, the founder of the clan, Ilyes, was Embraced for her cold wisdom, and her ability to assess the virtues of an idea without emotional involvement was greatly valued by her sire and grandsire. However, in her long years banished from the sun, she grew ever more remote from both the humans of the First City and her own childer. What few emotions she had left atrophied completely. As she developed theories, her experiments to test them became ever more cruel. She would use and sacrifice the living and the Damned, just to satisfy an idle whim. One of her childer, whose name was Troile, could no longer stand by and watch this cruelty. He dreamed of a world in which the human and Cainites had at least an understanding. Even then, he thought that genuine peace was too much to ask. He tried to convince his sire to abandon her ruthless behavior. Ilyes's arrogant dismissal of the childe's arguments drove Troile to the very edge of frenzy, and he threw himself at his sire. Long out of practice in hand-to-hand combat, Ilyes eventually fell beneath her childe's fists and fangs. Once he had tasted his sire's blood, Troile was unable to stop himself from drinking. Within minutes, Ilyes was no more. From the shadows stepped Caine himself, his face clouded with fury: "Never before has one of my progeny drank the very soul of another. I curse you ever to aspire to your sire's wisdom, but also to be prey to the very fury which led you to this diabolic act." Troile took his sire's title and position among the third generation. He assumed the burden of Caine's curse, but also worked towards his own vision of a better world. His passion seemed to spread like wildfire through the line of his childer, and at first he rejoiced in their crusading zeal as they worked to make the world a better place. In the city of Carthage, Troile and his childer worked to establish what he had dreamed of in earlier times: a society in which mortals and Cainites coexisted for their mutual benefit. But again and again he saw those of his clan start to repeat his mistakes and give in to their anger. In despair, he left the city and was never seen again. Carthage fell far from that ideal, until even some of the demon-worshipping Baali were welcomed within its walls. Soon, the other clans acted under the guidance of Roman Ventrue to destroy this abomination. The Brujah have fought to improve the world ever since, but the failure of their grand experiment had made their blood boil ever hotter. As the centuries pass, the world seems to fall ever further from what it should be. As kine philosophies, religions and ideas multiply, proliferate and die, the clan becomes more divided as to what should be done to make the world right -- and even as to what that right should be. Many of the younger members of the clan no longer heed the wisdom of their elders. Their blood calls to them to do something "now," not watch and observe for a few centuries until the patterns of society become apparent to them. The elders merely shake their heads and recall the misjudged dreams of their own youth. Some Brujah follow the great philosophies and religions of the past, while others adopt new faiths and ideals with equal vigor and convince themselves that the salvation of the fallen world lies there. Some even jump from idea to idea in search of the one that fires their imagination and drives them towards a better world. All of them pursue their ideals with a vigor and commitment that would put a hardened crusader to shame. Disciplines: * Potence - Superhuman Strength * Celerity - Superhuman Speed * Presence - Superhuman Charisma References * Vampire: The Masquerade (Revised Edition) by White Wolf (1998)

Gangrel (World of Darkness) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Gangrel are a clan of vampires, often associated with the Camarilla, from White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, and Vampire: The Requiem books and role-playing games. Vampire: The Masquerade The Gangrel are associated with Gypsies, transmogrification, and vagrants. As a symbol, Gangrel often use a wolf's head. The Gangrel clan's magical Discipline, Protean, allows them to assume partial or complete animal forms. Their mastery of Protean is so much greater than any other Clan that Gangrel can assume virtually any animal form, providing it is a scavenger or a predator. Other vampires with the Protean Discipline are limited to the forms of Wolf and Bat; no one (not even the Gangrel) know why this is so. According to Second Edition sourcebooks, the Gangrel, despite living in the wilderness, are attacked much less often by werewolves than other vampires; some speculate that the werewolves and Gangrel have a shared origin. This, however, was retconned in Revised edition. In the Dark Ages, the Gangrel were the vampires most commonly associated with the Road of the Beast, which dictates a life based on instinct, similar to that of an animal (living in the immediate present, having no morality, killing whenever necessary but only then). In the modern setting, Gangrel are commonly allies of the Brujah and enemies of the Ravnos. The Gangrel severed its ties with the Camarilla in 1998, when the Camarilla's ruling body refused to lend aid to the clan's Justicar to fight a creature he identified as an Antediluvian (the god-like progenitors of the vampire clans). Disciplines: • Animalism • Fortitude • Protean Vampire: The Dark Ages Unlike their brethren, Gangrel spurn the trappings of civilization, preferring to roam the deep wilds of solitude. The Grangrel is a clan only in the loosest sense; its members tend to be rugged individualists, indifferent to the protocols of either mortal or vampire. They are the bestial ones, the closest to losing themselves to the wild. Many Gangrel appear as, and dress in the manner of, barbarian people. Furs, plaids, deerskin clothing and similar garb predominate. Some, emulating the Highland Picts, go about in woad and little else. Of course, those unfortunate Gangrel who have fallen prey to the Beast one too many times have a look all their own. Tufted ears, horns, coats of fur, razor talons, gleaming catlike eyes, even feathers and scales adorn (deform?) these bêtes noires, and feral musk wafts from them. Vampire: The Requiem In Vampire: The Requiem the Gangrel, also known as "Savages", are the oldest clan among the five clans. They are also known as the least organized, with most Gangrel being uninterested in clan politics, a marked change from other clans. The Gangrel’s favorite character attributes are Stamina and Composure. This often results in Gangrel characters having high health and willpower scores. Most of Gangrel tend to join to Circle of the Crone, The Unaligned and some belong to the Ordo Dracul. A few Gangrel may follow elders and will find themselves in the Lancea Sanctum and the Invictus, and those beasts are among the most frightening Kindred. However, these are few on the grounds that the generally disorganised nature of the gangrel plays heavily against structured covenants, and any Gangrel that submits to such an organisation generally has another motive. Part of the Gangrel's powers include shifting their appearance into a natural soil and blending into the ground, but it is no replacement for a haven; even the most savage will appreciate such a place of respite. However, their natural talents with Protean means that they are the clan most likely to travel from domain to domain. Disciplines: • Animalism - Control over the beasts of nature and the Beast within a vampire's soul • Resilience - Supernatural toughness • Protean - Shapeshifting Gangrel The Gangrel clan from Vampire: The Masquerade was recreated for Vampire: The Requiem as one of the five major clans. In Vampire: The Requiem, their close connection with the Beast has left some members becoming animalistic and barbaric, to the point where some are unable to interact with mortals other than to feed. These members have left members of the other clans as viewing them as dim-witted and coarse. Gangrel favor the Disciplines of Animalism (control over the beasts of nature and the Beast within a vampire's soul), Resilience (supernatural toughness), and Protean (shapeshifting). Gangrels have a unique weakness caused by their close connection to the Beast; their animalistic instincts are drawn close to their surface, clouding more reasoned thought. This is represented mechanically by preventing Gangrel characters from re-rolling tens on rolls requiring Mental attributes, and subtracting ones from the total successes rolled. While the stereotypical Gangrel is savage and socially unsophisticated, there have been many upstanding and respectable Gangrels in Vampire society who resist the touch of the beast through self-discipline. This is represented mechanically by placing several dots in the Gangrel character's Resolve and Compose stats to compensate for their inability to re-roll 10s. As indicated by their preferred disciplines, Gangrels tend to be more physically oriented than other clans. Unlike the Gangrel of the Masquerade, Requiem's Gangrel have no ties at all to Werewolves, and are not "in touch with nature" any deeper than being in touch with their inner Beast. One of the Gangrel's bloodlines is the Bruja, a collection of bikers and thugs loosely based on Vampire: The Masquerade's Brujah. The symbol of the Gangrel is a stylized brush-stroke rendition of a predator's eye, seemingly made up of various animal parts. [edit] Other appearances Gangrel was also the ring-name of a wrestler, played by wrestler David Heath. He performed for the World Wrestling Federation in the late 1990s. His gimmick was that of a Gothic Vampire. Gangrel was also the Clan origins of Julian Luna's bodyguard Cash (Channon Roe) in the television series Kindred: the Embraced. Cash was also the Primogen or leader of the local Gangrels of a fictional San Francisco, California. [edit] References * Vampire: The Masquerade (Revised Edition) by White Wolf Game Studio|White Wolf (1998)

Malkavian From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The Malkavians are a fictional clan of vampires from White Wolf Game Studio's books, role-playing games Vampire: The Masquerade and, Vampire: The Dark Ages. In modern times, they are associated with the Camarilla. Their symbol is a broken mirror. White Wolf states, "Stories speak of an epidemic of contagious dementia exploding among those of Malkav's blood. Malkavians frequently haunt asylums, hospitals, and slums. As with all the vampire clans in the World of Darkness setting, Malkavians suffer from a specific flaw: in this case, they are incurably insane. However, many Malkavians believe their insanity to be a strength rather than a weakness. Exactly why they all suffer from insanity is unknown, but according to the Book of Nod, all third-generation vampires were cursed by Caine after the second-generation vampires were destroyed. One of these third-generation vampires was Malkav, the one Malkavians come from. According to Malkavian legend, when Malkav was killed, all his childer came to his corpse and drank the blood of their father, thus collectively diablerizing Malkav. He is said to speak inside each and every Malkavian's soul and connects them into one collective consciousness. This "hive mind" is sometimes called "the Cobweb" or "the Malkavian Madness Network", which contains each thought and memory that any Malkavian in the world has ever had (and sometimes is about to have). The Malkavians possess a rare ability (Discipline) called Dementation, which can alter the way a victim senses reality. It can be used to increase the Malkavian's own oracular ability or to induce insanity in others. Most Malkavians are willing to attempt to educate others of their rare power, but they are often neglected as it is believed among other vampires that the knowledge of Dementation drives the user insane. Originally, this power was the initial province of the Malkavian antitribu, but now can be found in the vast majority of the clan's membership. Some Sabbat Tzimisce elders endeavor to learn Dementation, however, to gain insight in the great ways of the Jyhad if they succeed. Unfortunately, learning Dementation will often turn a non-Malkavian insane themselves. With the formation of the Camarilla, the Malkavian elders came to the conclusion for the clan to survive they would have to remove Dementation, instead taking up the commonly-known mental Discipline Dominate. According to the Malkavian Clanbook, Dementation was blocked by a small group of elder Malkavians who called for a gathering of the entire clan through the Malkavian Madness Network. Strangely, no one else noticed that the Malkavians were gone. When almost all the Malkavians had been collected, they were changed. Roughly one-tenth of Malkavians did not attend for whatever reason, and as a result the clan was split into two parts - the changed and the unchanged. Those who had their grasp of Dementation blocked remained part of the main clan, while those who refused to do so became known as the antitribu - most of whom later joined the Sabbat. The Malkavian antitribu continue to practice Dementation, growing steadily more insane due to the brutal conditions of Sabbat unlife, while the more "stable" Malkavians remained part of the Camarilla. This division lasted for centuries until the Final Nights, when the "ban" was released and Dementation surged back into the minds of Malkavians everywhere. Disciplines: * Auspex * Dementation (Antitribu only in 2nd edition) * Obfuscate * Dominate (2nd edition) Malkovian In Vampire: The Requiem, set in the new World of Darkness, an analog to the Malkavians has been found in the Malkovian bloodline of the Ventrue clan. Like Malkavians, they are incurably insane, but do not possess Dementation or any other special Discipline. References * Vampire: The Masquerade (3rd Edition) by White Wolf (1998)