The Minds of Kindred and Cainite

[Zyraen]

All and sole credit goes to Bly of Elliquiy.com.

His profile is here elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?action=profile;u=42233

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Before you continue, a few personal notes and disclaimers.

Yes, I think his writing on the topic is brilliant.

Yes, it might possibly change your perspective on (some of the clans of) Vampire the Masquerade forever.

No, I do not wholeheartedly agree with everything he writes, but certainly a substantial quantity.

No, if you have an existing campaign, it might not be wise to change (the affected clans) to incorporate the ideas here wholesale. 

Yes, gradually incorporating some of the ideas here, especially those that resonate with your players, would perhaps be a good idea.

Yes, asking your players to read this might be a good idea, but keep an open mind and agree to disagree.

[Zyraen]

Credit to Amaris for the banner!

For those of you looking at this and asking 'What on earth is this about,' this is about a tabletop rpg, Vampire the Masquerade. It has gone through several editions. This blog is likely going to appeal to those already familiar with it. However, if you have never heard of it & my blog makes you curious, by all means comment or PM me. I'm always happy to talk to people on this subject. Commentary to the thread is generally most welcome in general! (Those of you who know me may literally be groaning that I'm babbling about this game again. I know. I know. I'm obsessed.)

So what is the purpose of this blog? There are several Clans and bloodlines of vampires in the aforementioned tabletop rpg, and my blog is going to explore how their ingrained clan/bloodline curses affect them psychologically and sociologically. I may also later explore the effects of different Roads and Sect allegiances, but for now, we're sticking to curses.

My thought process and writing might not be the most cohesive. I ramble. A lot. Not always the most sensibly. And sometimes you might not agree with me. Either way, that's okay! And honestly, my thoughts might not even be that original--chances are some of this may have already been talked about in a sourcebook I haven't read yet or whatever. I don't care. Gonna blog anyways. <_<

One thing I want to add is that just because I mention something about a Clan and how I sometimes see them isn't necessarily how they'd always come up in play. A lot of times I'm just rambling. I wouldn't really take to heart anything I've said if you don't like a write-up I do of your favorite clan!

Stay tuned for Part 1, which will features one of the more well-known Clans...

Table of Contents

Clan Ventrue's Curse
Clan Malkavian's Curse
Clan Toreador's Curse
Clan Lasombra's Curse
Clan Assamite's Curse
Clan Gangrel's Curse
Interlude: Immortality

[Zyraen]

Part 1: Clan Ventrue

"Behold my proudest childe,
whose own pride betrayed him.
Let the blood of the humble sicken him,
and give him no sustenance."

- from The Erciyes Fragments, pg. 87


Clan Ventrue's curse is that they become limited to drink only from a certain type of mortal vessel. They could be limited to a certain type of ethnicity, a nationality, a gender or sexuality, a profession (office worker, bartenders, strippers), or even less savory restrictions (think about how many criminal types there are. Somewhere there's a Ventrue who can only feed on thieves, to give a kind example), but the point is that they simply cannot just feed on anyone. No other blood beyond their restricted type will sustain them; they cannot even ingest that blood. Stereotypically, they are often called Blue Bloods for their discerning tastes...and the Clan's propensity to generate obscene amounts of wealth over the years.

Oftentimes, this Clan's curse is mocked a bit as not being as severe as other clan curses, but psychologically and sociologically, I don't think it gets enough credit. In the short term, it might not seem severe since on a small scale one just has to ensure there's actually blood around for the Ventrue...but when you really look at Clan Ventrue over the long term, this is a genuinely horrible curse with a remarkably long reach not just for an individual, but anyone around that individual, including people who will never meet a Ventrue.

The Individual Kindred/Cainite

Clan Ventrue's curse innately forces them to separate people into groups. No Ventrue is blind to the things that distinguish groups of mortals from each other. If a Ventrue can only feed on people of Irish descent, you're never going to hear a Ventrue claim to want a world without borders...because such a world would render the distinction of "Irish" moot eventually and result in a Ventrue starving to death. Ventrue vampires are forced to thrive in ensuring that humanity is not united or even necessarily diverse--the Ventrue has to ensure a certain level of quality in their vessels to not starve, regardless of what that 'trait' is.

On an individual level, it means Ventrue are constantly evaluating a person not on their own merits or flaws, but on some trait that may not even be important about the person in the first place. Ventrue are vampires, and vampires have to think about feeding. Given the Ventrue feeding restriction, it means that Ventrue, moreso than any other type of vampire, start thinking about people less as people and more as a collection of traits and whether or not those traits = dinner.

Vampires are already isolated from the human experience by virtue of what they are in Masquerade. One might imagine that the Ventrue--often known to be the wealthy elite--are closer to people, but that isn't necessarily true. The Ventrue's wealth, often accumulated over the years, coupled with their Clan curse, results in an individual who is completely divorced from the average person's life. The Ventrue are the 1% among a species of creatures that are already a rather exclusively small percentage of the world's population. Some might say that this makes them privileged--certainly it does to a degree!

This results in there being a very 'us vs. them' mentality. Worse, it results in humanity in general not being exceptionally useful to the Ventrue; the Ventrue have very little reason to interact with and learn about humans outside of their preferred prey, aside from satisfying certain psychological needs or resource needs. Ventrue on an individual level are going to be prone to either dividing the world into little factions or simply de-humanizing anything that doesn't fit their current needs.

'Snobbery' doesn't even begin to cover this.

On a large scale level, Ventrue are more likely to end up perpetuating systems of oppression against vulnerable groups of people. They need to have access to feeding vessels, they can't have those vessels able to easily leave, and they can't have other unsuitable vessels interfering...so it's in an individual Ventrue's best interests to perpetuate oppression. Just not so much oppression that they risk their feeding vessels not being around in a few generations.

Here's one of the worst things on an individual level: at first, it would be hard to recognize this as a curse. After all, to the newly-made vampire, who is still trying to navigate that line between feeding and understanding people, it might even seem like a blessing. "Oh, there's a lot of people I can't hurt, because my body won't let me have blood outside of what I'm wired for! Yay!" Or they might try to rationalize it away as a taste preference. The first means they are already trying to look at people from a bigger picture perspective rather than acknowledge harm they inflict on an interpersonal level, and the second means they have begun their ethical decline by reducing what once were their fellow humans into...tastes. People are not wine or dessert--they are sentient, and any Ventrue talking about their discerning palates is subtly trying to remove the pesky 'sentient' aspect out of the equation so they can bear to sleep and un-live with themselves during the day.

Ventrue are, from the outset, predispositioned uniquely to see people as things or resources. They represent the horror of prejudice or elitism taken to extremes, the horror of capitalism run rampant by making the company phrase 'human resources' terrifyingly literal.

At best, even the most well-meaning Ventrue is going to have to find and cultivate certain types of mortals to survive. Even if they dedicate themselves to protecting and saving such individuals, to enriching the lives of those humans, they are setting themselves up in a meddling paternalistic role that humans aren't likely to appreciate--it naturally skews to being condescending. And that's at best.

And that mentality sneaks up on an individual Ventrue. Or worse, they are indoctrinated into behaving as such by elder Ventrue who have adopted those methodologies as ways to cope with an eternity of limited sanguine fare.

The Clan As A Whole

When looking at Clan Ventrue as a whole and how their mindsets spread and affect others, the result is chilling.

The existence of even a single Ventrue in a city will result, over a long term, in an undead being who feeds on people attempting to change the population. The Ventrue curse means that while they are completely divorced from average people and even to some degree many vampires (who are able to so easily feed on anyone most of the time!), they nonetheless must ensure their feeding type is present in a population to a sufficient degree. So there's a mental 'disconnect' even though they have to involve themselves in some way.

This isn't really a severe problem (though it's always problematic to some degree) until you start getting towards Ventrue whose feeding restrictions have skewed especially unsavory. Ventrue develop their curse fairly early after their initial Embrace--oftentimes their first victim and whatever trait that victim most personified to that Ventrue will end up being their dietary restriction.

A well-meaning Ventrue neonate, starved with hunger, might try to feed on criminals first. As a result, they lock down their feeding preference.

Have you seen the problem yet?

It means that individual Ventrue cannot survive in an area that lacks the type of criminal they are restricted to feeding upon. As a result, if a Ventrue intends to live for any length of time, they either have to cultivate mortals of the desired type, thus increasing the crime rate if they need a type of criminal...or if they don't want to harm a certain location, they can pack up shop and move. This doesn't even touch on the dreadful conflict that a Ventrue will face: if they don't feed on criminals to see if they can lock that down as neonates as their preference, it means they have to feed on innocent people, and that's a harder jump to make emotionally as a feeding preference. Imagine realizing that no matter what you do, you're screwed: you either have to create new criminals or shelter them in ways that alter where you live forever, you have to victimize innocent people or meddle in ways to create the 'right type' of innocent person in ways that change people's lives often very permanently, or....starve to death. There is no option the Ventrue picks where they 'win.'

But if they move, that just moves the issue to a new city. It doesn't fix the problem. In the long term, Ventrue with criminal feeding interests end up generating income disparities or de-valuing the places they live, resulting in the wealthy Ventrue becoming more wealthy...and the average citizenry falling prey to the humans the Ventrue needs to survive.

But let's look at a less ominous example. Let's say even a single Ventrue can only feed on single mothers. Seems really benign, right? Nothing wrong with single moms...until you realize it means that Ventrue has a vested reason to destroy healthy marriages of couples with children in order to 'generate' a single mom somewhere if they aren't able to secure a single mom naturally in their feeding herds. Even the most benign Ventrue feeding restriction results in a predator entity doing its damnedest to alter the world around it to suit its needs, treating people as pawns in a grand scheme to extend their existences.

Is it any surprise that Clan Ventrue is fond of chess?

This means that a Ventrue living in a large city may never meet a given human, but that human could very easily be impacted by something that Ventrue does. The criminal example is probably the most prominent--a Ventrue who can only feed on muggers means that those muggers are going to, well, mug people. And that means there will be humans being victimized as a result of a single Ventrue's existence--not even necessarily a Ventrue's overt deliberate actions!

Clan Ventrue see themselves as the natural leaders of vampires--they are built to rule, in their minds. They are built to look at people as a whole rather than on individual levels, and they are pre-disposed to be forced to look at the long view of any place they live in, simply due to their clan curse. Yet any city with Ventrue in it can never truly be at peace no matter how much the Ventrue tout their roles as leaders--at least not among humans, as this undead creature within it slowly alters it over time, to the city's detriment and harm. The kicker here? A Ventrue isn't likely to feel they are doing harm. That's how detached they are. What we are likely to see as harm is, to the Ventrue, just them trying to secure lunch. Ventrue have a hierarchical structure that puts Ventrue above the other Clans, too--at least in their general mindset. So not only are they isolated in general, their curse and their chosen wealth results in them isolating themselves from the only other entities capable of even a modicum of understanding: other types of vampire. The sad part is that the Clan as a whole is fine with this; they view that isolation as a sign of status rather than the sad and almost pathetic situation that it is.

If the Ventrue acknowledged their curse for what it was rather than pretending it was just a 'delicate palate,' they would have to acknowledge how truly isolating and sorrowful it is, how pathetic they are, how they aren't leaders, just base schemers and meddlers. It's a grim realization, and it's not a glorious one for minds who might be fragile newly entering into undeath. Is it any wonder Ventrue prefer to pretend they have a glorious destiny as kings and queens of vampires rather than just loathsome morally bankrupt shepherds? No one wants to be the oppressor, the accountant who reduces people to numbers, the manipulator. It's easier to delude one's self into grandiose visions of nobility and refinement than it is to acknowledge their clan curse for what it is: a horror.

The isolation of the money and the blood often results in creatures with crippling detachment, arrogance, and yet longings for interaction.

Which means they end up Embracing and creating a new Ventrue.

Which starts the whole cycle of systematic de-humanization and oppression all over again.

[Zyraen]

Part 2: Clan Malkavian

"Behold my most foolish childe,
who claims madness for his pleasure.
Let him become mad in truth,
so that all may fear his company."

- from The Erciyes Fragments, pg. 88


Clan Malkavian has a curse that is....well, lets be blunt: controversial. Each Malkavian is 'mad,' so to speak. But it differs with each clan member. To let people know about a trigger warning up front: discussions around Clan Malkavian explore mental illness, and my discussions will endeavor to be respectful, but I may not always get it right, and in part this is due to the source material for the game since I'm constrained by canonical source material, and in part it's due to not being as versed at this as I'd like to be. And it's okay to call me out and help me do better. Just be gentle with me, please.

This clan's curse is often talked about a lot. They are one of the more popular clans, but they are often the one that's most often played....I won't say 'disrespectfully,' but I will say that a lot of people buy in to the idea that madness = pure goofy lack of logic, and that denies the true curse of the clan: being condemned with the burden of a stigma they never asked for and coping with an illness for which (for them, unlike humanity) there is no treatment. That's the true horror of Clan Malkavian: the mental darkness has no pill, no therapist, no methodology that can get a Malkavian coping long-term.

The Clan's curse is not unifying; each Malkavian displays their struggle on a very individual level, and yet they are often lumped together under the same 'curse.' Anyone who has ever been diagnosed with a personality disorder knows that these aren't the same as eating disorders, knows those aren't the same as mood disorders, etc.

The Individual Kindred/Cainite

Let's get into the awkward reality that mental illness is difficult to deal with. It's worth noting that it's not as if mental illness is unique to Malkavians! Any vampire can, in the game's less-than-polite terms, suffer a 'derangement.' But the difference is that any other Clan can 'treat' the illness to a point where you get to remove it from your stat sheet (it doesn't necessarily mean they are 'cured,' it just may mean that vampire can now cope in a way to where there's no in-game issue). But Clan Malkavian? Nope.

Being 'the weird one' doesn't begin to cover a Malkavian's struggle. Individuals are presented with a chronic long term mental illness...and are then saddled simultaneously with the stigma of that specific illness while dealing with vampire society's stigma of the Clan as a whole.

Individual Malkavians suffer because they are often not taken seriously. They are dismissed. They are, in a way, erased. Thought of as jesters, prophets, 'madmen,' or often less savory terms, a Malkavian's good ideas can often be shut down by the oh-so-supposedly 'stable' people around them. Why? Because Malkavians are people who are being forced into this dreadful reality where they are entirely defined by their diagnosis. Imagine never being thought of as more than two feet walking a diagnosis around the city. Worse--every bad thing you do is your illness's fault if you listen to the stereotypes....and every good thing you do is also attributed to that same diagnosis.

It's a horrible thing to realize other people are robbing you of your free will and agency by reducing you to a set of symptoms you can check on WebMD or some other site.

There is no balance for a Malkavian: humans get to find that all-important balance of handling a diagnosis but still being a person outside of that capable of changing. Malkavians are vampires: they are eternally locked in place and stagnant. Imagine trying to make progress in therapy only to eternally get reset to square 1 because of a single bad night. Lather, rinse, repeat. It's no wonder a lot of Malkavians give up and embrace stereotypes--why not? It's better than hopelessness.

Imagine dealing with a very real problem that isn't unique to people like you....and yet the others around you who suffered through it and could get successful treatment act like you're incompetent, unreliable, or worse, dangerous. Creepier, some people will almost fetishize the diagnosis, acting as though this ephemeral idea of "madness" is tied to prophecy, acting as if this part of yourself you are seriously struggling with is somehow the only useful thing about you. They forget that Malkavians are vampires. The Blood is powerful. The Blood is often unique. Why must the clan's tendency for prophecy always be tied up in their instability? Later editions of VtM mentioned thin-bloods and members of the 14th and 15th generations--who often had penchant for prophecy as well. But without the 'madness' element.

Malkavians are nonetheless fairly entrenched in Kindred and Cainite society. Their clan 'curse' is not, contrary to the stereotypes, always immediately obvious. Mental illness is not always something you can detect just by a look and speaking to someone, after all.

On an individual level, Malkavians have an even more inherent problematic issue to tackle: their unique clan disciplines in conjunction with a mental illness they always have to fight. Depending on one's Sect, they could have Dominate or Dementation, plus two more Disciplines. Imagine feeling like you don't even quite have your own head together one night...and someone tells you to use 'Dominate' to influence how someone else is behaving. It's hard to direct others when you're having a hard time directing yourself. The other 'signature' power is more terrifying and known as 'Dementation.'

Like the Ventrue, Clan Malkavian is prone to self-perpetuating cycles of misery. Malkavians can use Dementation in various shades to alter someone's mind or even induce a mental illness (or several) in a person. There is no benign use of Dementation--none. There is nothing in its use that could be used for a good reason: the Clan has an innate ability to alter someone's mental state and possibly make themselves understood to an individual...while subjecting that person to all the same problems the Malkavian faces. Sometimes their Dementation ability doesn't even inflict the same mental illness as the one the Dementation-using Malkavian possesses. Meaning that a Malkavian can potentially remove someone completely from their own ability to understand them easily or relate to them.

Imagine being part of what people claim is a clan of vampires who supposedly have this 'curse' as common ground only to realize you know nothing about them. They are all different. There's no common ground you can find. Some of them don't seem unstable to you, some do, some seem completely off the deep end, and yet....everyone treats you all the same. On an individual level, it's not a surprise that many young Malkavians both struggle to learn about their unlives or to relate to their Sire. To outsiders, they have the same 'curse,' but to the Sire and childe? If the Sire has bulimia and the childe has bipolar disorder, as far as the two are concerned, those are certainly not the same thing.

Individual Malkavians often grow to believe that they understand and know more than other Clans, because they are able to see these distinctions. They are able to perceive the world in ways that are not often neurotypical. They have the ability to control others or 'share' their 'curse,' meaning on an individual level, Malkavians often struggle with control issues completely irrespective of their individual diagnoses. A positive of this is that Clan Malkavian is probably the least likely to stereotype other Clans or people. A negative of this is that when you are a person who cannot treat the worst of your symptoms, you are perpetually vulnerable to people who will try to exploit you and even vulnerable to the person most able to cause you harm: yourself. For all that other vampires act out, a Malkavian's worst enemy is theirself. Imagine knowing an area you struggle in and knowing you need outside help (if only to get you through the next night), only to realize outside help is a bunch of blood-sucking untrustworthy vampires who don't treat you like the adult you are. Yikes.

Individuals can either embrace the current paradigm, try to be the prophets and game-changers and mystical illogical guides, or they can be outcasts and loners and danger-bringers. And they didn't get to decide those were the options to pick from. Imagine being the most mentally free yet the most shackled, the most open-minded and yet the most restricted. Treated as the most intelligent and decried as useless at the same time.

An un-life of complete paradox. They didn't pick that chaos. Other people picked it for them.

The Clan As A Whole

The effect of Clan Malkavian as a whole is interesting. Unlike the Ventrue, who tend to alter populations as mere consequence of existing, Malkavians are the type of vampire who don't seem to influence much or alter things...at least on the surface. As a Clan, theirs is a different legacy: they are often at the forefront with other Clans, influencing them, supporting them, or subverting them. Clan Malkavian's legacy is the legacy most likely to be diminished, erased, or outright stolen, simply because some other vampire will use a Malkavian's mental illness as a way to rob them of their accomplishments. Implying they can't be the real mastermind--they're 'mad.' Surely the real architect of greatness is elsewhere! It's no wonder the Clan tends to treat the whole of Kindred and Cainite society as a joke--it's their joyous 'fuck you' in a world where the consequences of their actions seem to have huge meaning while simultaneously no meaning. Sure, a Malkavian might predict the coming of a potent demon-worshipping enemy who is going to rend the fabric of reality, but at the end of the day, some Ventrue is going to claim they are the leader and therefore take credit. The Malkavian gets erased from the equation while being crucial to the equation.

But let's talk about how Malkavians influence society.

They are an invisible lynchpin that often holds things together. Malkavians are often much more stable than given credit for. While they can never truly hope to treat symptoms of their diagnosis long-term, they often find short-term workarounds that let them keep functioning. Coupled with Auspex, which lets them see hidden emotions, and Obfuscate, which lets them hide and sneak easily....

Malkavians are the assassins that can topple regimes. Malkavians are the architects who discover secrets and can go back to blending in a crowd. Malkavians are the people who know how you're feeling before you've ever put it into words. Malkavians are the people that saw where you were at three in the morning when you should have been home in bed.

And they are blood-sucking monsters, just like the other ones. Don't let the diagnosis fool you: theirs is a relatable painful struggle, but Malkavians are vampires at the end of the night. And their concerns are their next meal.

Malkavians end up doing to other people what was done to them: erasing them. Maybe they used Dementation to open someone's mind in the hopes of a friend, but at the end of the day, that person's been inflicted with a long-term struggle. And in 'normal' disorders (by that I mean ones that follow the course for diagnosis and treatment among humanity), there's something of a rhyme and reason--brain chemistry gone awry, trauma, environmental influences, intoxicating substances, etc. But one inflicted by a Malkavian does not follow that pattern: the cause is the Malkavian. How can a therapist ever hope to find the right medicine for someone whose cause for mental illness can never be found or fathomed?

Malkavians in a domain tend to start altering people on a more fundamental level than the Ventrue ever could. A Ventrue preying on single moms might wreck a home. A Malkavian using Dementation on that same single mother could result in her abandoning her kids and having a meltdown...and that's not necessarily what she'll do: it's just one thing she could do. Ventrue do their damage and then happily retreat to maintain the status quo. Malkavian damage is something altogether different and sinister in that it introduces chaos, almost the exact opposite of what a Ventrue might want.

Malkavians in a city in large amounts tend to precipitate some sort of massive change. They can never change themselves, yet they are always provoking it in other people. They are agents of chaos trapped in cold stagnation. This doesn't mean they can't be stable--they can! But the more Malkavians one introduces with fewer people relating to them on personal levels, the higher the chaos is likely to go. Viva la revolución! Why is that bad, you might wonder? Not all change is good. Change can bring pain, income instability, perpetuate traumas that produce more instances of hard-to-treat mental illness...you get the idea.

The genuinely sad thing, the true tragedy of this clan, is that they have so much to offer--their 'curse' isn't one that has to remove them from vampire society or even human society beyond the typical vampire restrictions. They bring unique and often constructive perspectives to situations that could use unconventional problem-solving, have skills that are strong in their ability to support others, have ways to destabilize those who they can't deal with more conventionally. And the Malkavians often buy into it themselves, because if they had to admit how much they truly had to offer, if they were able to forcibly break the mold in which other Clans see them, they would have to admit how truly erased they've been despite their contributions, how ignored and hurt they've been. No one wants to be a victim. Some would rather be seen as the goofy FishMalk, a personality-less Prophet, or a threat than realize how marginalized they've been made to be.

[Zyraen]

Part 3: Clan Toreador

"Behold, she who thought of nothing
but her own fleeting pleasure
shall by her own pleasure
be enslaved."

- from The Erciyes Fragments, pg. 86


I'm going to come out with a controversial statement for VtM fans. I think Clan Toreador literally has the worst curse. The WORST. I seriously mean it. This curse is heinously debilitating. If I, the writer of this blog, had to pick one curse I absolutely could not deal with if it were inflicted on me, it would be this one.

The Toreador clan curse is that if they encounter something truly remarkable (it's always something beautiful or at least capable of being understood that way--like a rare blue moon, a piece of genuinely great art, a symphony of exquisite taste), they stand captivated by it, completely entranced until the experience is no longer able to affect them. Here's the real kicker: Toreador can't defend themselves from attack during this. Even if attacked, they only get a chance to snap out of it; it isn't guaranteed.

The fact that this is almost never touched upon by many people always sort of amazes me: the Toreador are, by far, the most vulnerable and easy to exploit of all the Clans. And yet somehow they have maintained a very high position in nearly any status quo they are part of. And a lot of this has to do with the curse. Let's dig in. Hold on to your hats for this one, folks, I have very strong opinions about this clan curse.

The Individual Kindred/Cainite

Have you ever had that one song you can't stop listening to? Something so catchy you just hit that repeat button over and over again? This is a tiny fraction of what it's like to be a Toreador who sees or hears something beautiful. A Toreador who is given a portable music device with a lasting battery and a 'masterpiece' song on repeat is a Toreador that is officially, at best, useless. At worst, they are completely and utterly neutralized and easy pickings. "Well then just don't do that stuff," you might be thinking.

Can you imagine a life without your favorite song? Without your favorite book? Without looking at Pinterest, imgur, or your favorite image hosting sites? Worse: what if you find something beautiful that isn't conventionally beautiful? A Toreador architect is a Toreador who probably desperately needs to go live in the wilderness somewhere, because they are likely to see interesting beautiful geometry or architecture everywhere in a city.

On an individual level, this produces two problems:
1) How can a Toreador satisfy the basic psychological urge to be creative?
and
2) How can a Toreador remain secure and safe while satisfying urges?

Individual Toreador have to develop supremely excellent social skills or risk death. Why? Because they can't pull themselves out of a trance when they encounter true beauty. They need someone else to do that. People who are their friends would have a motivation to help a Toreador. For a Toreador, being a socialite really might not have anything to do with snobbish elitism. It's a matter of survival. A Toreador trying to be a loner is a Toreador who is painfully vulnerable to the beauty trances. Who knows what will interrupt it if it's not a friend?

Most people won't give up things they love, even if those things are dangerous. All the time we see average humans continue smoking cigarettes when they know it's harmful to them. Such is an individual Toreador when they realize the beauty they love is very literally deadly to them. Imagine the arrogance that must engender in most individual Toreadors--believing that they can make true friends of either fellow predators or vulnerable prey, balance their appetites, and manage their weaknesses all at once.

In history, the Toreador were probably less vulnerable to their curse simply because historically the average populations just had far less easy access to beauty at the drop of a hat. (<- That's just me applying my modern ideas of beauty, though. With beauty changing over the eons, it's possible beauty for them was still readily available and just as surprising) In the modern nights, however, in our era of near-instant gratification and near-constant barrage of new media, a Toreador has almost no power over what beautiful thing might appear to entrance them. At any sudden given point, they can be rendered helpless.

Individual Toreador have to engage in manipulation. They can't trust, yet they need to trust. They have to cultivate people to 'save' them, ideally people who share their interests so they can keep indulging themselves (which is why they like rich Ventrue so much), and during this, they are still a blood-sucking dangerous predator. Individual Toreadors don't mean to, but it's very easy for them to become co-dependent.

Individual Toreadors are often regarded as flighty, as mere irritating fad-pushers, and that's how the Toreador like it. Why shouldn't they? If the Toreador were regarded as dangerous, why, other clans might actually do something about them rather than accept them into the status quo! And individual Toreador clan members know how easy that would be. Imagine knowing you are a powerful creature with exquisite taste, with a Discipline (Auspex) that heightens your perceptions and lets you get in touch with people's feelings, that you are a consummate gorgeous predator sucking the rich vitae from the mortals at your beck and call....and your best friend turns on the radio. They are playing your song. You stop. The world, for a brief moment, is the crash and ebb and flow of violins. But by that time your best friend, for reasons you will never know, has betrayed you and is about to try to stake you.

To talk but not trust, to feel but not feel, to indulge but remain distant--Toreadors strive for constant satisfaction of beauty but can never be secure or safe in that satisfaction. Imagine never being able to enjoy what you love ever again while constantly craving it or seeing it everywhere.

Individual Toreador have every reason to be afraid of what they love and find beautiful. Their worlds are turned upside down when they are first Embraced. The things you find comfort in, the things that bring you casual relief and pleasure, are now things that weaken you. At best, even if you mitigate the deadly threat, a single wrong moment with something you really love and find beautiful can result in failing to accomplish anything else that night other than...playing that one song on loop. That can result in missed meetings, missed opportunities, missed changes to meet people....you get the idea.

Life goes on while a Toreador is entranced. For the individual, they are trapped in a blissful moment that feels like forever...and make no mistake: it's pleasurable. Like the Ventrue, it's hard for individual Toreador to admit this is a curse. Toreador lecturing people about good taste and beauty are Toreador who are already in thrall to their curse--they've already started prioritizing something that isn't pragmatic as the forefront of their new existences. Toreador that try to resist their passions are creatures living in misery and denial.

Now imagine that forever.

It's a damn tragedy.

The Clan As A Whole

This part is going to feel so sad to write. Of all the Clans, I think the Toreador legacy in mortal society is perhaps the saddest. The Toreador diminish the rate and value of human achievement wherever they go. That's how much their curse sucks--Toreador aren't going to Embrace someone they can't stomach. Which means they will Embrace someone with similar tastes more often than not. The pattern of behavior of Toreadors matches that of an addict--except it's a whole Clan acting like this. Substance abusers one and all, but for the abstract idea of beauty, and on a mass scale.

They Embrace and bring into undeath creative types. Writers. Singers. Musicians. They rob society of its potential to satisfy their cravings. But it's not just robbing society of its potential. No. It's worse.

If a city has too many Toreador, you will see the creative professions stagnate. The place will become boring, full of the same people repeating the same old tired yet beautiful things. Because the Toreador are undead monsters who don't change. That means their tastes very rarely change. Barring some sort of catastrophic incident, a Toreador is probably going to be 'locked in' to a certain standard and perception of beauty. The only blessing for the Clan is that beauty is subjective, so what entrances one of them might not entrance another. A city with too many Toreador might have a little bit of variety among the same old selections, at least. But that variety never really compensates for the lack of innovation.

A city with too many Toreador is a city that just released the 26th Harry Potter sequel, to give you an idea of how uncomfortable that might be. Yes, I said 26th. Why not? Toreador live forever. A Toreador whose tastes never change is going to want more of the same thing. Sequels, to put that in movie or book terms. Just different flavors of the same thing. Ice cream is still ice cream, whether or not it's vanilla or chocolate or strawberry. Harry Potter is still Harry Potter regardless of what movie or book in the set you're on.

Let's talk about another thing that the Toreador tend to change about society. Because the Toreador curse revolves around beauty and because most indulge rather than try to refrain, this means undead creatures that often have a lot of money (or access to Ventrue with a lot of money) are going to try to direct that money into 'creative' interests. That's money that could have gone towards research, charity, athletics, politics, etc. Practical things. So not only does a city full of Toreador become boring, it stops progressing with any real speed in other areas potentially.

On an individual level, a Toreador might try to be a patron for more than just the arts. But when you start stacking up Toreador and their numbers and their cash and their cronies...it starts to become very grim.

The Toreador are often referred to as Roses as one of their Clan monikers. Yet it's known that roses are becoming a vapid romantic cliche. And that's what the Toreador as a whole reduce society to: vapid yet lovely cliches in a constant loop. Toreador don't establish status quos like the Ventrue--that's not the purpose of beauty. Toreador don't establish chaos like the Malkavians--that's also not the purpose of beauty.

As a whole, the Clan has to cope with fierce passion with nowhere constructive to put it--even with the idea that there may not be anywhere constructive to put it. Toreador are the un-living embodiment of l'art pour l'art (or 'art for art's sake')--wherein the art has no purpose except to be.

How the clan survives in the modern nights is sort of a mystery to me.

[Zyraen]

Part 4: Clan Lasombra

"Behold my darkest childe,
who killed with shadows.
Let the shadows veil his soul,
so that all may know his crime."

- from The Erciyes Fragments, pg. 88


I have mixed feelings on the Lasombra. I do feel their Clan curse is a bit...underwhelming, but at the same time, I think it's the sort of curse that a clever Storyteller can do a lot with, provided they have players who are really willing to get into the spirit of the thing. I also want to get it out of the way and say that while I've often tried to think about the particulars of what causes a reflection in mirrors and just when and where Lasombra can be seen (to a point that this comes up in group games of mine at times! ), I've come to the conclusion that I have really been thinking about this the wrong way.

Lasombra should never be able to see themselves in any medium that is capable of transmitting their image back to them. I think this would be in the truest spirit of their Clan curse. No mirrors, no visages in a puddle, no showing up on cameras of any kind, no showing up on video, etc. At first you might think "Well, good job making their curse a BENEFIT, Bly."

But hear me out. I think about it this way because I want their curse to be on par in terms of import with the other Clans in terms of being debilitating. And I think trying to rules-lawyer it just lessens it and makes it feel like a throwaway curse--which I don't want to do. So let's crank them curse to 11 on a sale of 1 - 10. Fasten your seatbelts, we're off on another rollercoaster ramble of mine! :-)


The Individual Kindred/Cainite

Faces have a profound psychological effect on people. Obscuring the face is....bad. It's inherently dehumanizing. The face is a huge part of self-recognition and ties deeply into our sense of worth as people. The eyes are the windows to the soul--a bit of a re-hashing of something Cicero might have said. But it's true. And sometimes we need reminded we have a soul.

"Yeah, but you can see a Lasombra's face in person even though they don't have a reflection, what's the point?" you might think. Yes, but the Lasombra can't, and that's the point. Consider this: a Lasombra will dehumanize theirself first, well before anyone else does. Is it any surprise that the Lasombra tend to join the ferociously violent Sect known as the Sabbat or follow the often highly inhumane Paths of Enlightenment? They are encouraged (by sad circumstance) to not really see the humanity in themselves from the very onset on the Embrace by virtue that they are faceless. Obfuscate can't hold a candle to this level of 'hiding.

The effects of this on an individual are subtle. I need to emphasize this, because facelessness sneaks up on you. You don't just wake up and stop thinking of yourself as a person. No, it's a slow and very gradual decline, a creeping decline away from normality. New Lasombra may be likely to scramble for any recent photos of themselves from when they were alive, if only because it's their closest chance to knowing what they look like again--and it's easily rationalized away as sentimentality--"I miss the old me, so I'll just collect these old pictures."

The frustration builds the first day a Lasombra cannot fix their own hair, do their own makeup, or shave. The little rituals that are left to a vampire to keep them connected to humanity are being slowly yanked away--it's not as if they can eat or drink. They can't go out during the day, so any daytime activities have been robbed from them. So one of the basic pleasures of mortal life--spending time on one's own appearance, has been taken. Even the absolutely hideous Nosferatu can pay some mind to their own appearance thanks to Obfuscate. All of this builds in a Lasombra neonate over time.

No records of where they go. No casual admiring of the self in a rainy puddle in the moonlight. No glimpse of a reflection in a store window during a bad night to get an idea of how harried or haggard you look after a really bad run-in with someone you hate. You never realize how much you try to look at you own face until you can't any more. Now, in ancient times, the Lasombra could navigate this a little better--reflective surfaces weren't as common. In fact, one could argue the Antediluvian (the original first Lasombra) might not have even seen this as a curse at first. Modern Lasombra should know better--the world is hell on them. It's a blessing not to show up on security footage...until a witness remembers you from the location and there's no film to support that. Or until someone tries to take a picture with you and you don't appear.

Young Lasombra who are familiar with technology and the fact that from store windows to bathrooms to building decorations...there are reflective surfaces fucking everywhere. That means on an individual level, of all the Clans, the Lasombra are most likely to attract the notice of vampire hunters. "Oh but what about the Gangrel or Nosferatu?" you might ask. Guess what? The amazing thing about Clan curses that alter a person physically is that the affected are always reminded of them...so they are always careful. Lasombra look normal, and that means they are likely to be very careless in their early nights (as their Curse is initially really easy to forget about at first) and get caught in some obvious reflection-based giveaway.

Any Lasombra who makes it past their first year has to become paranoid and constantly think about how they look and how they are interacting with their environment. Even more interesting: if a Lasombra can't show up on security footage and can't be seen in reflective surfaces while having blood-fueled shadows to hide in...then they are the perfect thieves and criminals. Neonate Lasombra have to be very careful early on or they risk spiraling out of control and losing themselves to their Beasts, because crime and hurting people is so easy for them. Too easy. No wonder a bunch of neonates try to switch to Paths of Enlightenment where such actions won't violate the personal codes all Cainites need to avoid becoming mindless bloodthirsty animals.

So they're slowly becoming dehumanized...while learning traits that tend to narcissism, crime, and selfishness. A Lasombra looks for theirself everywhere (or that 'lack,' so to speak) so as to figure out how to mitigate the problems of their curse, too. All the while they are reminded of how not human they are, how hungry they are...and here you have a recipe for evil. Lasombra tend to treat other people as obstacles or food, because more often than not, people are to them. Either mortals are about to expose them or mortals are making them hungry. Either way....well, you have a recipe for someone who desperately needs power and influence over others to stay safe. Lasombra as individuals are lucky to have Obtenebration (a discipline that manipulates darkness and shadows to a deadly effect)--fun fact--don't want that lack of reflection to easily show up? Try to make the area darker. Then no one cares, because when its dark enough, reflections are irrelevant.

Paranoid, selfish, reminded of their lack of humanity, and slowly becoming divorced from human ethics and trained to see humans as the enemy as a matter of survival.

The picture looks grim for individual Lasombra. And these traits get worse over time in that gradual decline I mentioned earlier. The horrible part is that this sneaks up on a Lasombra. It gets disguised as a quest for personal safety or some other very supposedly relatable and understandable need. It's rare to find ethical Lasombra, but regardless of ethical leanings, they end up being drawn to religious institutions--morality fascinates them. Sometimes they need to tear it down, sometimes they need to co-opt it, but ultimately they need a relationship with it in some way. They crave the connection. Their facelessness demands that something fill the void in them--their eyes are no longer windows to the soul, and so they seek religious spaces for either comfort or vengeance. But in the end, the results are the same for individuals.

Evil emerges. Intentionally or not. It doesn't matter. It's there.

The Clan As A Whole

Oh boy, the Clan as a whole. This is fun. There's a certain irony that, according to the Erciyes Fragments, the original Lasombra got this curse because of criminal actions...and as a result, later descendants coped with the curse by....doing the same crap that got their clan Founder in trouble all over again. Clearly nobody learned anything. And the Lasombra are just fine with that.

I have a really hard time thinking about the impact the Lasombra have as a whole because it....scares me shitless, if I'm being honest. They harm humanity in a way that I think the other Clans can't come close to. Anyone ever listen to Sound of Silence by Simon & Garfunkel? It's a weirdly fitting song for this Clan. The song is very much a discussion about how a person can very much be alone in a crowd, about the rise of materialism, etc. But that first line would wound a Lasombra in the heart: "Hello darkness, my old friend." And it is. Lasombra are alone in the crowd. They see the world following neon gods and prophets...and the Lasombra are determined to emerge from their old friend, the darkness, and become the neon gods of a new era.

When you can't see yourself, you desperately need others to see you. To connect. And for the Lasombra, to be seen is to be safe, provided they can control how they are seen. To position themselves within religion or cults of personality opens up the ability to handwave away their curse, to place themselves above humanity in a way that requires constant adulation so they can feel like a person who exists. Alternatively, they see themselves as Damned and revel in that role in a religious sense, acting as demons or devils or whatever is needed. Because if you're a demon, at least you're included in the story. You still exist. In fact, possibly in a way more necessary than many other parts of the story--no tale exists without conflict, as any writer knows. Lasombra are that conflict.

You have to remember that evil we talked about. This isn't just desperation. This is reducing humanity to herds or masses that exist only to exalt the Lasombra or exist only to fear them. Because the Lasombra are likely to get involved in religious institutions, the long-term effect they have is damaging in a very different way from the other Clans I've covered.

You can't quantify Lasombra damage. It injures human souls. Religious institutions tend to rot from the inside out when infiltrated or subverted by a Lasombra. When there are a lot of Lasombra in a place, religious scandals rise. The faith people have begins to become jaded and faded.

Do you know what that's called?

Hopelessness.

The Lasombra don't kill the souls of humans. They just wound them, drain the hope from them and give them nothing to look forward to, and let the poor bastards finish themselves off. I'm an atheist, and that hits me something fierce. Religion is just one pathway to hope, of course. There's other paths. But it's hard to pick yourself up and find a new pathway to hope when the one you trusted for so long is torn down around you, when it's co-opted to train you to exalt or fear things that never had a place in your faith at all.

The Ventrue destroy society. Malkavians destroy your mental stability. Toreador destroy your creative impulse. But the Lasombra? The Lasombra take away the one thing that could restore those other things: your hope. As a whole, the Lasombra are prideful wretches. Why wouldn't they be? Admitting that your existence feels like it's being slowly wiped out every night, that you're so hopeless you can't even know if you cleaned your own face correctly is debilitating psychologically. Instead of acknowledging their curse takes away a certain element of being a person, they instead wrap their cold dead arms around a comforting but terrifying idea: they get to be the villains in the story. There's always a place for the villain, even if you can't see them, even if you can't see yourself. It's a mark of honor in a twisted way.

The only thing Lasombra give to you in return for your blood and hope is....shadows and mirrors.

Just shadows and mirrors.

[Zyraen]

Part 5: Clan Assamite

"Behold my most deadly childe,
who loved murder for its own sake.
Let him be addicted to the taste of killing,
so that all may fear and loathe him."

- from The Erciyes Fragments, pg. 88


Well, this took me way too long. Sorry about that everyone! My writing may be a bit rusty, so bear with me.

I'm going to start by saying Clan Assamite is probably my least favorite Clan (doesn't mean I don't like them, mind you, just means this isn't a personal favorite), in part because I've always found their curse underwhelming. But one challenge I'm trying to Embrace (haha, all puns intended) is taking every clan curse seriously whether or not I'm enthused with it and trying to show new ways or interesting ways it can be used or interpreted. Clan Assamite is also one of the Clans I struggle to really get into at all; I feel they were not incorporated very well in the Vampire: the Masquerade game line. They are independents who can be just about in every Sect...but they don't seem to be at home anywhere.

And then I realized...that's it. That's the feeling I need to run with when I think of them—not in a bad way, but...the horror of never really being connected to things. Because their curse does tie into that. At first, it seems as simple as 'just don't drink vampire blood,' but by the end of this, not only do I hope to show you a side of Clan Assamite you might not have thought about, I'm hoping putting my thoughts into the blog will make me more open minded to playing them. For those of you wondering: I'm going to talk about both of their canonical Clan curses in the metaplot: the “Tremere levied ritual” that made it to where they couldn't ingest vampire blood without damaging themselves & their original curse, which was an addiction to vampire blood that made it hard for them to stop drinking it or resist drinking it if they tasted it.

I'd also like to leave a trigger warning here: I will make some references to self-harm in this post & what it means to be alone. (Not me self-harming, but talking about the Assamites. I just don't want anyone stumbling across stuff that would upset them)

The Individual Kindred/Cainite

By far, the Assamite curse is a very personal one. Before I get into how it affects them, let's talk about vampire emotions in general. This sets up the context to understand why their curse is effective. Kindred and Cainite alike are somewhat sublimated to their Beasts and hungers—the strongest feelings they'll ever feel are when they feed. Nothing beats the blood. Absolutely nothing. But a lot of vampires can push past that and be people for a while. The Blood is there, though, at the end of the day. The Blood wakes up a vampire's dead body, flushes them with liquid life. And it is the strongest joy, the strongest love, the strongest craving, the strongest everything. But here's the kicker: vampire blood trumps human blood in all of that delicious 'everything.' Not only that, drinking vampire blood risks a Kindred or Cainite being 'blood bound' to the vampire they drank from. Oh yeah. Three drinks, and a vampire is trapped in a blood fueled haze of fake love. Not just any fake love. A fake love so obsessive that a person might even think about dying to preserve it or to feel it again.

Still with me? Blood is everything. Most importantly, its the most reliable and strong venue by which vampires can feel true emotions again like love or joy. Which I can probably not state enough in a blog about vampires, but in this particular blog post, I need to really highlight it.

So what if your curse relates a little more strongly to the blood than simple 'preference' like the Ventrue? What if it related directly drinking vampire blood?

Let's tackle the Tremere levied ritual curse first. That's the one where they take damage if they drink from other vampires. For a while, I thought this was a benefit in that it meant Assamites were probably harder to blood bind. And then I realized...no. There's no rule in the books that I know of that says the Hunger wouldn't drive them to hurt themselves for the chance at that sweet sweet vampire vitae. On an individual level, a blood bond can be a good thing, by the way. The first two drinks can help a vampire feel connections with other vampires and help them get a certain sense of stability in their emotions with their peers. The books have mentioned before that some vampires cultivate that first drink for fun, just to feel something. But what about an Assamite? Let's say they want to feel that love. That friendship. That kinship with their fellow monsters. Oh, they can. But they'll feel the magic of the Tremere slowly destroying them taste by taste.

How horribly isolating. Worse, the history of Clan Assamite is such that they are mostly an independent Clan who are trained assassins and killers. Sure, some leave the Clan and go elsewhere, but...nothing will change that any time they want to have a connection with another vampire through the blood, to feel something other than 'dead' towards them, they have to engage in deliberate acts of self-harm thanks to the Tremere ritual. The only way they can feel love of other vampires is to not love themselves. That's pretty crippling over the long run for a person's mental health. And the only way that they can avoid hurting themselves is...oh, you guessed it. Not loving themselves. Because deliberately eschewing connections is just another way of brushing off love.

Let's switch to the other curse, the ancient one before the Tremere levied that ritual. The ancient curse was an addiction to vampire blood. I find this one almost sadder in a way. Now we're in the reverse: an Assamite can't feel that love unless they are wiling to risk hurting someone else. Not just a mortal—mortals come and go...and most vampires dehumanize their prey eventually—but a vampire. Someone equal to them. Someone who understands. Someone who could truly share an existence with them. And an Assamite, seeking love, is almost assuredly going to end up losing control and drinking as much as they can. With blood being like liquid love to more vampires, Assamites are the terrors that can drain your love and leave you truly dead.

Assamites exist at the extremes of love and connection. They are either isolated and cold as a result, preventing themselves from tasting that nectar that is the only thing that can give them any satisfaction and meaning. Or they seek it out and in so doing, must either hurt themselves or others.

The Clan As A Whole

I struggled to write this section. The Clan as a whole has always been hard for me to really grasp. But the more I thought about isolation, the more I realized that this is a large part of what I need to explore with their Clan structure. The Assamites, moreso than any other Clan (exepting perhaps Clan Ravnos or Gangrel), are the most scattered Clan. An assassin often can find work anywhere. Most Assamites stay with their kith and kin, and that means that they work for blood payments.

Given what I talked about, really think about that for a moment. They could work for money. Some, perhaps, do. But most require some manner of blood payment and tithe it up to their superiors.

They deal death...and they are paid in the vampire equivalent of love. They have to share it with their elders, too. This was what hit me as the tragic element. Every Assamite elder when they are enforcing the Clan requirements to tithe blood is, whether they realize it or not, internally screaming, “Please don't forget to love me, too.”

In other entries, I have talked about how Clan curses affect mortal society. The truth is that the Assamite curse (well, curses plural)...just read. It does the same thing, albeit in different ways.

The Tremere levied ritual that hurts them if they ingest vitae means that Assamites prey on humans more than any other Clan. They have to. They need to heal the damage they sustain if they drink from other vampires. Drinking from other vampires is dangerous. Mortality rates spike in domains with a lot of Assamites. Murder rates increase. Assamites make domains a lot more lethal because they must rely more heavily on mortals rather than being able to get an occasional sip from another vampire. Consider that in their clan info, they're killers. They aren't always paid to kill other vampires. Yeah.

Then there's the ancient curse, if you're not using the Tremere-levied one. At first, you might think, “Oh, this helps humans because if Assamites are going after vampires, they aren't eating as many humans!” And that would be reasonable, except that Assamites don't always have the strength to kill a vampire they feed from. And sometimes they just get the blood via tithing/payment for assassinations. Vampires of other Clans must replenish their blood somewhere, right? Oh, yeah, from mortals. Clan Assamite likes to think that their curse, because it's so vampire-centric, doesn't really affect humanity, but that is arrogance, rationalization, and denial talking.

The Assamites are alone and unloved, dealing death for a drop of affection. And the worst part is that they are aware of this one some level, knowing that other Clans fear and dislike them, knowing that they do dangerous work that involves helping pit vampire against vampire. Assamites are the tools of vampire warfare against each other very often. Imagine feeling unloved and knowing that the only way you can feel like a person again is to hurt yourself or others--not just others, but the only people who would be capable of giving you the true connections you seek in a world where you are left seeking forever.

It also means that the only person who can really 'get' another Assamite is...an Assamite. Is it any surprise that this might be depressing for many of them? Some of them prefer to be cold loners than forever be caught with their clan of killers, but each comes with it's own struggle. You get individual rogue killers in the night that represent tools or threats to cities, or you get ravenous love-starved creatures in a disturbingly well-organized unit who are eager to do whatever it takes--harming themselves, harming others--to get what they want. They have various ethical paths to try to stave it off, but that's the horror in each of them, that desperate need. It's no wonder other vampires are frightened of them.

The Assamite struggle is altogether too real and far too comparable to human struggles.

...I may have talked myself into playing one. There's a lot more to explore here than I thought when I first started writing this post.

[Zyraen]

Part 6: Clan Gangrel


"She who used the wild beasts
for allies in her killing
Shall become a beast herself,
so that all men revile her."

- from The Erciyes Fragments, pg. 86


I kind of like the Gangrel. Not entirely for the animal themes, but because they are meant to appeal to a very different aspect of vampirism. A lot of myths sort of have a natural crossover between werewolves and vampires. So I like contemplating this Clan's curse because it's...sort that strange place where werewolf meets vampire again.

One thing I'll talk about when I talk about the Gangrel curse is their signature Clan Discipline, Protean, because I don't think any discussion of their curse should be absent it. There's some interesting implications here that just aren't there for other vampires. I'll draw from the V20 book: the Gangrel gain animalistic traits after frenzy, both physical and behavioral. These are temporary, but after enough frenzies...some traits can become permanent.

Let's dive in, shall we?

The Individual Kindred/Cainite

I've talked a lot about being dehumanized in other blog entries, but with the Gangrel, I'm going in a different direction. Being a dehumanized monster is one thing--there's almost a certain grim pride in it if one can push past the horror and pain. But the Gangrel aren't just being dehumanized.

What do you think about when you think about animals? Some people are going to think about the majesty of the wild, photos you see in the National Geographic, maybe you think about a beloved pet.

Do you think about how dumb animals are sometimes, though? No, you might not. That's not a popular view of some animals, but the fact of the matter is animals don't approach human intellect. The Lasombra lose a reflection, and Nosferatu become ugly, but they are human shaped. The Gangrel is taking on animal traits each time they lose it and frenzy. It's this really disturbing reminder that when they lost control and acted on blood and instinct, they were not just acting inhuman. They were acting like dumb beasts.

Even the inhuman out there can look down on that.

Sometimes the trait might be claws on a person's hands after a frenzy. Or vibrant animal eyes. Or a twitching gait to their walk. Or an urge to hibernate. The fact of the matter is...for a Gangrel, frenzy isn't over when it's over. The temporary trait remains for a while. And if you frenzy again, why, you might get a new trait to cover up an old one, but then you have the trouble of a new one. There was a riddle that got used a lot in 1st edition: "A Beast I Am Lest a Beast I Become." And in a lot of ways that riddle is about feeding and being a beast so you can stave off the ravages of the darkness in you. But to a Gangrel, that riddle sucks. They have to be beasts all the time. Consider carefully, too, that new vampires frenzy very often right after the Embrace from hunger if their Sire didn't feed them much or they were drained pretty low. So some of them get a trait right away. Some of them, though, are 'lucky.' They seem normal and totally without a Clan curse at first. It makes the fall so much worse later.

On an individual level, each Gangrel has the specter over their shoulder of "How long until I lose it? How long until I'm nothing but a rabid freak?" There's no escape even in the Disciplines they innately have. Protean is their specialty, but guess what? Protean lets you....

See in the dark. Gives you especially damaging claws that can slice through Kindred, human, or werewolf alike. Lets you sink into the earth like it's a den to protect you from the sun. Turn into mist. But in particular, I want to talk about the fourth level power. All of the powers take a Gangrel further away from what's human, but the fourth power literally lets them change into an animal completely.

Imagine being unable to control taking on animal traits when you lose control, but when you do have control...oh look. You can change into an animal. Their curse is also their specialty power. Oh sure, a Gangrel could try to focus on other Disciplines like Fortitude, which, while useful, leaves a Gangrel with little utility among other predators in the night. Or...Animalism. Which, you guessed it, deals with frenzy and more importantly...talking to animals.

Rather than accept on an individual level that this is a horror, most Gangrel leap headlong into this wild exploratory foray. Why fear the wild when you can be the wild? But in the back of their minds they know as time goes on, less and less separates them from the thin hungry wolves that lurk outside camp sites, ready to pounce on the nearest weakness. It's a hideous lonely existence, but the Gangrel must either find strength in it or die. Unlike the Nosferatu, Gangrel have no chance to use a Discipline to hide these animal traits. A Nosferatu might be able to play pretend for a little while.

Gangrel are a walking Masquerade violation with no easy way out. Animals that can't be trusted at the dinner table, so to speak. It's no wonder they don't like joining Sects very often.

Every moment of every individual Gangrel's unlife, they think about scholarship, fighting, love, sorrow, hatred, all the things that make us people. But they know that their real selves stir under the surface. Stupidly eating, screwing, running, and fighting. Most Gangrel act like loners and as if the games of politics aren't really for them. As if their connection to the natural world helps them be above it all. But the truth is they aren't removed--when they are, it's not their choice. They were never really included in the start. They can't socially hold their own with a Ventrue or Toreador. They don't have the unpredictability of Malkavians. They don't have the savvy of the Nosferatu. They aren't trained killers like Assamites. They don't have that religious drive and shadow-lore like the Lasombra.

Every individual Gangrel--almost every one of them--looked at their Curse and embraced it, because it rendered them into something that had no place in polite society. Not even undead society. Not cool rebels, but the family dog howling sadly outside the door, not allowed in the house. Wanting to come in, but shying away when the door is actually opened because the crowds are just too much.

Some individual Gangrel will buck this trend. Those individual Gangrel are almost perpetually unhappy trying to be something they aren't.

Remember, too, that the quest of every vampire is to maintain personhood. To be an individual who can be proud of keeping themselves intact despite the horrors they deal and have had dealt to them. But each individual Gangrel started off shafted from the start: they're pre-disposed to be reminded of the slide into animalistic behavior that every vampire fears. Imagine living the existence all the rest are terrified of...now imagine being in a crowd with those people as you slowly decline into that state.

Individual Gangrel have to deal with a loss of pride from their descent from humanity. They disguise it as practicality, but it is what it is.

The Clan As A Whole

Clan Gangrel as a whole is tricky. They have almost no Clan organization. It kind of makes sense. The closest they probably come is at the coterie or pack level. The impact they have on mortal society is interesting, and their impact on vampire society nearly as much.

As mentioned, Clan Gangrel cause at least as many Masquerade violations as the Nosferatu. Maybe more since they lack Obfuscate. This means that anywhere you hear stories about cryptids or 'modern' myths, you might find a Gangrel. Gangrel are out there making the World of Darkness feel more dangerous. They are attracting human attention, thus imperiling those poor mortals. Because they attract human attention, humans end up looking for more weirdness...often finding other vampires.

A single careless Gangrel, by dint of not wearing gloves or sunglasses or acting too weird in the middle of a city street, can bring down the wrath of any number of humans.

They also aren't exactly 'parental.' In some ways, this is pretty bad. It means they are the clan most likely to create Caitiff when they just up and abandon their childer to 'test' them to see if they're strong enough to survive. Lot of failures, but there are some successes. Sometimes the childe is a Caitiff. Sometimes it'll be a Gangrel. Interestingly, Gangrel tend to be more open to Caitiff, mostly feeling bad for their bad place in society. They can relate. But secretly? The Clan as a whole envies them. And feels that any chidle they sired who became Caitiff owe them a debt: they could have dragged them to the level of animals, but they didn't.

Imagine a Clan whose good outcome is abandoning the people they bring into immortality.

Domains controlled by Gangrel (a rarity, but it happens), tend to be very 'the strongest survive' simply because most Gangrel don't have an aptitude naturally for a lot of social abilities. They can try to develop these over time, but a Prince whose very appearance could violate the Masquerade with one false step makes for awkward leadership. Territories with high amounts of Gangrel tend to be very violent. While some Gangrel who practice Animalism learn self-control and thus don't frenzy as much, talking to animals tends to affect the psyche over time and make a person...simpler. More wild. Protean is just compounding the Clan curse. And Fortitude...is only good if you intend to get into dangerous situations. As such, most get used as guards or shock troops, which doesn't exactly make them feel at home when they do try to fit in.

This doesn't always mean the crime rates go up, by the way. Missing Persons cases in domains with lots of Gangrel, however, are very common. Gangrel may not be the most subtle, but what they are is effective when they do manage not to be noticed. Sometimes the there will be sprees of 'animal attacks' in domains where there are too many Gangrel. The beloved puppy dog who was never violent before suddenly leaps the fence one night and bites some dude passing? Maybe the person bit was someone a Gangrel did not like. And maybe that sweet puppy wasn't violent. Maybe a Gangrel told them to.

The Clan is doomed to bay in the night and bite the hand that feeds them. Or necks.

And if they slip into nothing but bestial behavior and lose their humanity, who would even notice?

They already look halfway there already. And so few people care about strays.

[Zyraen]

An Interlude: The Curse of Immortality

The better days of life were ours;
The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

- from Lord Byron's poem 'And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair"

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Trigger warning: This blog post will explore the idea of death in detail. It will touch on ideas of abuse. It will be a very sad sort of post, and if you're feeling fragile today, I don't advise reading it.

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While the original subject of my blog talks about Clan Curses, I am taking a little interlude here to talk about the curse of immortality. In part this writing is so I can revitalize my urge to write for the other Clans again, and in part it is because of all the curses Kindred and Cainite suffer, this one is universal and yet is not typically seen as a curse.

But let's talk about why it is.

At first, it's deceptive. They can't die! No more does a vampire need to fear disease or the ravages of age. In some ways, at first, this immortality is a profound relief. All the natural mortal fears we carry with us in the back of our heads are something a vampire can gently begin to shed like an old snake skin. While it's possible to slay a vampire, they won't die of natural causes. Even going hungry is not necessarily going to slay one--they sink into the long slumber known as torpor. The first impulse might even be to rejoice; there's a certain freedom in the shackles of these very human fears being removed.

It ignores the horrible reality of what a vampire is in favor of focusing on the silver lining of a dark cloud. Many Kindred and Cainites take a shallow view of immortality as a gift and don't look into the deeper implications.

Such as 'why' they are immortal. Setting aside the canon of vampirism as a curse of Caine, vampires are corpses. The reason they cannot die is that they are already dead. It takes a Herculean level of effort to consign a corpse back to its proper rest, and if left to their 'natural' devices, they won't rest. But they're dead.

In several blog posts, I talked about basic human experiences and being removed from them. Immortality removes a vampire from so many of those experiences.

The Kindred don't understand how to commiserate with a mortal about a common cold or the flu as time passes. They don't know how to relate to the idea that a mortal's body after a hard day's work is exhausted--dead limbs don't easily feel such fatigue. They lose sensitivity to temperature--a vampire cares very little if it's cold or hot--they aren't generally going to sweat or shiver, after all. They are long past a point of needing to do such things. Some of you reading might still be seeing those as bonuses--they aren't. It gets worse: no having children of their own. No having sex that feels like real sex the way a person remembers it--everything pales in comparison to the Blood now. Vampires get a mockery of family creation--the ability to sire a new vampire. Some people might point out that it means vampires really can have children! So why is not having them the mortal way so bad?

Because generally vampires Embrace individuals who are adults or close to that age; they bring into unlife those who have already been taught and raised. They kill them. They rob them of their friends and family. They rob them of the soft rays of the sun. They take away the pleasures of food and drink. They take away the ability to certifiably safely be near any mortals without the Beast potentially coming out to play. In a normal family structure, a parent or parents raise children from a state of pure vulnerability to a state of independence, helping to shape their personality and sense of self along the way. Vampires, though, don't do this--they take an individual and steal their place in the natural cycle of the world. It's not a healthy way to make more family--for vampires the relationship starts out innately abusive even if the Sire has the best of intentions. Eventually, what a vampire is hoping for in a prospective progeny is a companion or helper, someone who can go through eternity in an ultimately positive manner--what they often get are competitors and enemies.

Let's continue.

Being distant from disease or fatigue is also not as good as it seems. In fact, it can lead a vampire into some accidentally destructive behavior. Just because a vampire can't die from illness does not mean they cannot be carriers. A careless vampire can spread plague among humans due to a single night's impulsivity. So vampires need to care deeply about mortals and their weaknesses...but they can't ever really empathize with them.

But vampires were once human. They have sentient minds that need stimulation. They become isolated, but they will constantly seek newness. Their hunger at minimum drives them to interact.

Which is where we get to the Lord Byron poem from my post.

Imagine knowing every friendship one acquires is guaranteed to be transitory at best? And if one wants to save it, to make it eternal, it requires doing something heinous and unforgivable to that friend? Think about that choice for a moment: there is no result where one does not lose that friend eventually. Either they die and are lost that way, they are ghouled and kept immortal but their positive feelings become a sham and a fake, or they are turned into a vampire and develop a competitive hatred for their Sire. Now...the first result is a commentary on the fact that mortals invariably die. Image it: befriending someone and watching them age. Watching them gently falter, knowing that you can stop it, yet you must not. They wither before you, and eventually you lose them.

Lather, rinse, repeat. Over the course of centuries.

Let's talk about those centuries, by the way! For any adult, you can remember at least one thing that used to be popular but isn't any more. You can think of at least one innovation in technology that rendered something else useless. And it's kind of a pain to learn those new things--you do, because they are convenient, but the more time that passes, the harder and harder it feels to learn. A person has to suddenly be doing an awful lot of basic learning and upkeep simply to avoid being a little 'out of date' instead of outright anachronistic. Now not only is a vampire unable to have a healthy family, unable to relate easily to the mortals around them, unable to easily trust their own kind, and prone to watching the few they do care about die, now they face the uncomfortable reality that 'modern' as a definition changes every few years...and suddenly those typewriters are replaced with keyboards. Black and white is replaced with technicolor. Cable TV is being replaced by online streaming. And some of these new technologies require a proper living touch to activate in the case of smartphone screens, touch-tablets, etc., so vampires have to try to make themselves warm by burning blood to use these things...or just admit they aren't willing to expend the resources to learn.

At its core, immortality is all about isolation as a theme. Isolation from the basic human experience. It's about being frozen in a single moment of time and knowing with horror that the mortals you love are not frozen. That you should not freeze them with you. And if you do, you might not be alone, but that companionship is a ticking time bomb of toxicity.

Vampires are left behind while simultaneously leaving everything they love behind in the grave.