World of Darkness: Original

Main Page

Current Timelines

Brenda, Hayley, Jason & Brian (Rome - March - 1095) / Morgan (Alternis - January 1096) / Bruce (Paris - April 1900) / Keith (Detroit - June 2003)

Quote

"What horror have the Methuselahs wrought? What grotesque affairs of terror and destruction have they birthed upon this planet?"

"Their cruelty and depravity are legendary, and none can match them for atrocities - and then there is the Black Hand."

"Defender of right, servant of the clan sires and instrument of justice, the Hand plays a central role in the World of Darkness."

"Far more than the assassins of the Sabbat, the Hand plays its part with all the considerable skill an ancient society can muster."

Daily Quote

Friday - June 1st, 2018

"For he being dead, with him is beauty slain,"

"And, beauty dead, black chaos comes again."

-- Venus and Adonis (1593), line 1,019.

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Arcana

Quote: The face was no longer bone, but animal - the face of a white wolf.
"I forbid you nothing. Nothing," uttered the awful face.
"You may go anywhere - you may open any door. But, little bird, remember you must be prepared to accept whatever you find." The long jaws spread in a smile filled with teeth.

- Peter Straub, Shadowland

• -- Arcane Objects
• -- Grimoire of Note
• -- The Hidden Library
• -- Hedge Magic
• -- Infernal Sorcery (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Koldunic Sorcery (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Necromancy (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Setite Sorcery (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Thaumaturgy (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Minor Magical Traditions

• -- Blood Magic Research (All)
• -- Ritual Learning Times (All)

• -- Infernal Investments

Art of Vampire

• -- [[1]]
• -- Concept Art: Firearms -- Artistic Representations of Jason Maier's Firearms Manufacturing
• -- Futuristic Vehicles

Arcana

Quote: The face was no longer bone, but animal - the face of a white wolf.
"I forbid you nothing. Nothing," uttered the awful face.
"You may go anywhere - you may open any door. But, little bird, remember you must be prepared to accept whatever you find." The long jaws spread in a smile filled with teeth.

- Peter Straub, Shadowland

• -- Arcane Objects
• -- The Hidden Library

• -- Hedge Magic
• -- Infernal Sorcery (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Koldunic Sorcery (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Necromancy (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Setite Sorcery (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Thaumaturgy (Paths & Rituals)
• -- Minor Magical Traditions

• -- Blood Magic Research (All)
• -- Ritual Learning Times (All)

• -- Infernal Investments

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Astrological Events

https://www.farmersalmanac.com/full-moon-dates-and-times#:~:text=The%20next%20full%20Moon%20will,learn%20more%20history%20and%20folklore.

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Bestiary

Quote: "Here's the devil-and-more to pay." - Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote de la Mancha

Angelus Lacrimarum

Animals

Cults

Demons

Divine Host

Djinn

Doppelgänger

Fae

Familiars

Fomori

Gallû

Ghosts

Gods

Gypsies

Hellhounds

Hunters

Infernalists

Kuei-jin -- Kuei-jin are the vampires of Asia presented in Kindred of the East. Other terms are Wan Kuei, Wan Xian, Gui Ren or simply the Hungry Dead.

Liber Monstrorum -- A true bestiary.

Law Enforcement

Mafia

Mummies

Necromantic Animations

Nightwalker

Oneiroi

Plasmics -- Elementals of the Underworld.

Revenants

Risen

Secret Societies

Sin-eater

Spirits

Strotires

The Changing Breeds

Vampire Abomination

Vampiric Proteges (ghouls)

Vhujunka -- Aliens of the World Below

Wizards & Witches

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Character Quotes

• -- "Here's my chain, act natural." -Bruce in character as Tiberius in London - 2016 C.E.

• -- "Harden this shaft, please" - Yan to Yakav in London - 2016

• -- "See, it's harder to use him as an ass-puppet than it looks!" - Bruce to Yan in a London graveyard - 2016

• -- "At least I'm not Aspen Barbie!" - Jamie's comment on a dream, 2022.

• -- "If I stand behind you, all I'm going to look like is the back end of the front end of your ass!" - Brian, to Jacob Schumpeter, would be Prince of Ottawa City. November, 2022

• -- "Vampire blood is like deep-fried Twinkies, its so bad for you, but it tastes so good." -- Jason on the blood of other vampires -- September of 2031 {Rio de Janeiro}

• -- "That's what us in the business call... ' bad. '" -- Brian, on the failure to recall one's own gratuitous display of obscene power. -- January 3, 2032, Beirut.

• -- "I carved Dieter Kotlar's name on some Pakistani's back, I really like this guy." -- December 25th, 2042, Berlin.

• -- "Dr.Vogel?...Dr.Vogel??....Dr.Vogel???" -- February 2nd, 1933, Dresden.

• -- "I need human tallow!!!" -- Brenda -- February 2nd, 1933, Dresden.

Character Traits

Quote: "One must not always think so much about what one should do, but rather what one should be. Our works do not ennoble us; but we must ennoble our works." - Meister Eckhart, Work and Being

• -- Abilities
• -- Archetypes
• -- Attributes
• -- Backgrounds
• -- Character Creation
• -- Derangements
• -- Disciplines

• --Discipline Techniques

• -- Experience
• -- Generation Chart
• -- Linguistics and languages (errata)
• -- Maturation Points
• -- Merits & Flaws
• -- Specialties (errata)
• -- Remaining Awake (errata)
• -- The Roads

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Discussions

Announcements

• -- 20th Anniversary Edition versus Dark Ages Vampire 2nd Edition
• -- April 4th -- Happy Giovanni Day 2018!
• -- A New Storyteller for the Pageant -- 8/2/2018
• -- Happy Halloween 2022!

Articles

• -- Diablerie
• -- Misconceptions: Player thought conventions that inhibit successful game play in a VtM environment (*)
• -- Paths v.s. Sendings
• -- Abyss Mysticism vs Shadowcasting
• -- Necromancy v.s. Thanatotic Science
• -- What is a Ward?
• -- What is a curse?
• -- Vampire Facts (*)

Source: New articles taken from Kismet's World of Darkness Page (*)

Birthdays

• -- Bruce -- February 12th, 1969

Blogs

• -- Brian's Session Notes
• -- Jasons' Journal
• -- Torsten's Blog

Fiction

• -- An Apprentice's Travel Diary
• -- A Toreador's Story --
• -- Lord Blake's Personal Journal

History

• -- Personal Histories -- The Personal histories of the game's many player-characters

Geography

Quote: "The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein

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One World of Darkness

• -- Africa
• -- The Americas
• -- Asia
• -- Australia
• -- Europe
• -- Middle East

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Cities of Darkness

• -- Prototype City

• -- Alt-1920s New Orleans -- The setting for our Jazz Era vampire game.
• -- Berlin -- The Grey City
• -- Boston -- The Hub (Federated American States)
• -- Chicago -- The Windy City (Federated American States)
• -- Leeds -- Capital of the North {England}
• -- London -- English Capital {The Old Smoke}
• -- Melbourne -- City of Chromatic Dissolution
• -- Naples -- Partenope
• -- New Orleans -- The Big Easy
• -- New York City -- The Big Apple (Federated American States)
• -- Paris -- The City of Lights
• -- Quebec City -- The Once and Forever Capital
• -- St. Louis -- Rome of the West (Capital of the Missouri Free State)
• -- San Francisco -- Modern day, V5 game
• -- York {England}

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Noteworthy Locations

Quote: What powerful but unrecorded race, Once dwelt in that annihilated place. — Horace Smith, “Ozymandias”

Vampire players have always enjoyed the sense of completeness reflected in the World of Darkness — the idea that, as wheels turn within wheels, something they do in their home domain might have repercussions as far away as Venice, Mexico City, or even in the Underworld home of the True Black Hand. The setting truly is a world of darkness, with clans, sects, and mysterious groups and individuals plying their private agendas under moonlit skies. Even when a coterie solved a mystery, something else was always out there, hungrier and bigger than they; that idea is one of the horror elements that still characterizes the world of the Kindred and the more inscrutable things with which they share the darkness. Here, then, are several notable locations of particular significance to the Race of Caine.

• -- The Cathedral of Flesh -- Eastern Europe (Specific Location Unknown)
• -- Hunedoara Castle -- Transylvania, Romania
• -- The Vampire Club -- San Francisco, California
• -- Catedral da Sé -- São Paulo, Brazil
• -- Red Sisters Midnight -- Location Varies
• -- Kaymakli -- Cappadocia, Turkey
• -- Highgate Cemetery -- London, England
• -- Palacio de Lecumberri -- Mexico City, Mexico
• -- Gaslamp -- San Diego, California
• -- Lodin’s Boardroom -- Chicago, United States
• -- The Pyre of Moloch -- Tunisia, Northern Africa
• -- The Tomb of the Patriarch -- Istanbul, Turkey
• -- The Succubus Club -- location varies
• -- Prime Chantry -- Vienna, Austria
• -- Alamut -- near Tehran, Iran
• -- l'Ossuaire Municipal de Paris -- The Catacombs of Paris -- Paris, France
• -- Dr. Netchurch’s Laboratory -- Lowell, Massachussetts
• -- Utgård -- Vesterøy, Norway
• -- The Abbey of the Sacred Crown -- Hampshire, England
• -- Gamla Stan -- Stockholm, Sweden
• -- Poveglia -- Venice, Italy
• -- Celestial Park -- Dallas, Texas
• -- Varosha -- Famagusta, Cypress
• -- The Chase Vault -- Oistins, Barbados
• -- Block Arcade -- Melbourne, Australia
• -- The Second City -- Location Unknown
• -- Autumn Lane -- Varied Locations

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Alternate Realities

• Alternis -- A alternative Earth in which the last ice age never ended.
• Ancient Enoch
• CyberRealm
• Dionaea -- Earth's Dark Sister
• Limbo
• Pandæmonium
• Tartarus
• The Abyss
• The Maya Realms - The World of Dreams
• The Reach -- Paradox Realm of Time
• The Underworld - The Lands of the Restless Dead
• Vanaheimr -- Keith's Vanaheim
• Xibalba --

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History

Quote: "History is written by the victors." - Winston Churchill

• -- Archives
• -- Current Stories
• -- Downtime
• -- Iteration I - Original Timeline
• -- Iteration IV - Current Timeline
• -- Past Stories
• -- Personal Histories
• -- Time Travel

2018

• -- January 2018
• -- February 2018
• -- July 2018

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Alternate Histories

• -- Past Imperfect -- History as it never was...

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Night Gallery

Quote: "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts." - William Shakespeare, As You Like It

• -- Antediluvians
• -- Arrayed Alphabetically
• -- Bloodlines
• -- Arrayed by Clan
• -- Arrayed by Sect
• -- Character Creation
• -- Dead Vampires
• -- Methuselah
• -- Mortals and Others
• -- Player Characters
• -- Random Characters
• -- Vampire Genealogy

Player Schedules

• -- Brian's Schedule
• -- Bruce's Schedule
• -- Erin & Mac's Schedule
• -- Hayley's Schedule
• -- Jason's Schedule
• -- Morgan's Schedule

Politics

Quote: "There's a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom." - William Wallace

• -- Prestation
• -- The Jyhad

Rules

Quote: "Mortals thought they were fighting their own wars, but it is for us that they spilt their blood." -- The Book of Nod

Actions

Over the course of a game, a character will do many things. Some of these tasks are considered actions, while others aren’t. Actions are anything that might produce an interesting outcome to the direction the story takes. Trying to use a Discipline on the Prince, hiding in the shadows to ambush a rival pack, scaling a cemetery wall, attempting to forge a damning note from the Toreador Primogen, rending one’s claws through the guts of a frenzied Tzimisce — these are all examples of actions. One action typically takes one turn to complete.

In most cases, speaking and conversations aren’t considered actions. Although interesting developments may certainly arise from things the Kindred say to one another or to the other residents of the World of Darkness, talking is typically free in terms of game mechanics. The Storyteller may rule otherwise, such as whether a vampire manages to scream out the location where the Methuselah has the ghouls trapped before the sunlight burns him to ash, but for the most part, the game places as few limitations as possible on communication among players and characters.

It’s easy enough to attempt an action — just tell the Storyteller what your character’s trying to do and how she plans to go about it. Most actions — crossing the street or loading a pistol, for instance — are easy enough to be considered automatically successful. However, if you’re trying to cross a four-lane highway full of speeding trucks, or trying to reload while you’re hanging from a fire escape by one hand, there’s a chance you might fail. So when there’s reasonable doubt whether an action will succeed or not, you may have to roll dice to determine the results.

If you need only one success to accomplish an action, the action in question is called a simple action. Actions that require more successes or longer periods of time to complete are called extended actions.

Automatic Success

Sometimes rolling dice is unnecessary, particularly when the task is a relatively simple one for a character, or when there’s not much at dramatic stake to necessitate determining how well a character succeeds or fails. Remember, anything that streamlines play and reduces distractions is a good thing. Vampire employs a simple system for automatic successes, allowing you to skip rolling for tasks that your character would find frankly mundane.

Simply put, if the number of dice in your dice pool is equal to or greater than the task’s difficulty, your character automatically succeeds. No dice roll is necessary. Mind you, this does not work for all tasks, and never works in combat or other stressful situations. Furthermore, an automatic success is considered marginal, just as if you’d gotten only one success on the roll. If quality is an issue — the dramatic necessity mentioned earlier — you might want to roll the dice pool anyway to try for more successes (although you still risk potential failure). But for simple and often-repeated actions, this system works just fine.

There’s another way to get an automatic success on a roll: Simply spend a Willpower point. You can do this only once per turn, and since you have a limited supply of Willpower you can’t do this too often, but it can certainly help when you’re under pressure to succeed.

Reflexive Actions

Reflexive Actions In some cases, taking a particular significant action doesn’t actually take any appreciable amount of time. These actions often come as a result of or are triggered by other actions. In game terms, these are called reflexive actions, and performing one may break the normal sequence of play and action resolution. A reflexive action doesn’t require “taking an action” as described above to accomplish. Your character can perform one whenever the opportunity arises, and may also take his normal action, without any penalty.

For instance, spending a blood point to increase an Attribute is considered to take less than a second of game time — no dice are rolled, and your character can do this while doing something else. Soaking — withstanding the damage from an attack — is likewise a reflexive action. Making a Humanity roll is a reflexive action, though it may well lead to other, standard actions.

In most cases, the only prerequisite for performing a reflexive action is that the character be conscious (or otherwise capable of choosing to take the action, in the case of dream sequences or other deviations from consciousness that still allow choice) in order to choose to do so. Unless otherwise specified, a character may perform any number of reflexive actions, and they don’t get in the way of anything else she may want to do in a turn.

Multiple Actions

Occasionally, a player will want her character to perform more than one action in a turn. For example, a character may be trying to search through a notebook to find a password while creeping stealthily through a hallway, or might be trying to sidestep an incoming attack while firing a pistol into her assailant’s gut. In such situations, the player can attempt actions normally, though all actions become more difficult as the character’s attention is split among them.

The player declares the total number of actions he wishes his character to attempt and determines which of those dice pools is the smallest. He may then allocate that number dice among the actions as he sees fit.

Example: You want your character to hang a sharp right turn in a stolen taxi cab while simultaneously screaming at the surprised cabbie in the passenger seat to calm the hell down or you’ll tear him in half. This is a Dexterity + Drive roll (for which your character has seven dice) and a Charisma + Intimidation roll (for which your character has five dice). Five dice is the smaller dice pool, and you may thus divide five dice among the number of actions you want to take. That is, you may allocate these five dice as you see fit between the driving maneuver and intimidating the cabbie.

At the Storyteller’s discretion, certain action combinations that are wildly disparate may incur a difficulty increase (see below) on top of the split dice pool limitations. Composing a stirring poem while showering an enemy with a hail of bullets is a task not lightly undertaken. As well, at the Storyteller’s discretion, splitting dice pools to a certain degree may well just be plain impossible.

Vampires with the Discipline of Celerity (p. 142) may take multiple actions without subtracting dice from their dice pools. These extra actions may not themselves be divided into multiple actions.

The Difficulty in Rolling Dice

There’s no point in rolling dice unless you know what results you’re looking for. Whenever you try to perform an action, the Storyteller will decide on an appropriate difficulty number and tell you her decision. A difficulty is always a number between 2 and 10 (but generally between 3 and 9). Each time you score that number or higher on one of your dice, you’re considered to have gained a success. For example, if an action’s difficulty is a 6 and you roll a 3, 3, 8, 7 and 10, then you’ve scored three successes. The more you get, the better you do. You need only one success to perform most actions successfully, but that’s considered a marginal success. If you score three or more, you succeed completely. Also, a result of a 10 is always a success, no matter the difficulty number.

The following charts should give you a good idea of how to combine difficulties and degrees of success.

Difficulties

• Three Trivial -- (scanning a small crowd for a familiar face)
• Four Easy -- (following a trail of blood)
• Five Straightforward -- (seducing some one who’s already “in the mood”)
• Six Standard -- (firing a loaded gun at a stationary target)
• Seven Challenging -- (locating where those agonized whispers are coming from)
• Eight Difficult -- (convincing a cop that this isn’t your cocaine)
• Nine Extremely difficult -- (walking a tightrope fifty stories above the ground)

Naturally, the lower the difficulty, the easier it is to score successes, and vice versa. Six is the default difficulty, indicating actions neither exceptionally tricky nor exceptionally easy to accomplish. If the Storyteller or rulebook ever calls for you to make a roll, but doesn’t give you a specific difficulty number, assume the task is difficulty 6.

Degrees of Success

• One Success Marginal -- (getting a broken refrigerator to keep running until the repairman arrives)
• Two Successes Moderate -- (making a handicraft that’s ugly but useful)
• Three Complete -- (fixing something so that it’s good as new)
• Four Exceptional -- (increasing your car’s efficiency in the process of repairing it)
• Five or More Phenomenal -- (creating a masterwork)

The Storyteller is the final authority on how difficult attempted actions are — if the task seems impossible, he’ll make the difficulty appropriately high, while if the task seems routinely easy, the difficulty will be low (if the Storyteller decides you even have to roll at all). A difficulty 3 task is so easy that it probably doesn’t merit a die roll, but a fluke failure or extraordinary success might sometimes make it worth the chance.

At difficulty 10, the results curve becomes very anomalous – indeed, there are a few dice pools for which the likelihood of botching actually increases over having a smaller (and thus theoretically “worse”) dice pool.

Failing a Roll

If you score no successes on a roll, your character fails his attempted action: He misses his punch. The file is encrypted too well. The Prince doesn’t believe her alibi. Failure, while usually disappointing, is not so catastrophic as a botch (below).

Example: Your character is attempting to eavesdrop on the greasy-looking guy with a bag of pills who’s talking to the blonde in the corner of the bar, and is trying to look nonchalant by the pool table. The Storyteller tells you to roll your character’s Wits + Subterfuge (difficulty 7). You roll and the dice turn up 2, 5, 6, 6, 4, 3 — no successes. The Storyteller rules that the greasy guy notices you making an awkward show of pretending to chalk your cue and stops talking to the girl, staring your character down instead. He doesn’t draw a weapon or bolt for the back door, but whatever this deal is isn’t going any further.....

Storytellers, bear in mind that failure is simply that: failure. All it means is that the attempt didn’t produce the desired result. Judge the narrative accordingly, but a failure probably doesn’t in itself result in any harm to the character unless the circumstances would dictate such. A failed attempt to jump the gap between two buildings probably doesn’t result in a breakneck plummet, but perhaps the character lands clumsily on a fire escape below the intended rooftop, or maybe she knocks the wind out of herself and is desperately hanging onto the ledge.

Botching a Roll

Bad luck can ruin anything. One more basic of a roll is a “botch.” Whenever one of the dice comes up as a 1, it cancels out a success. Completely. Take the die showing 1 and one of the dice showing a success and set them aside. In this manner, an otherwise successful action may be reduced to failure.

Occasionally, truly bad fortune strikes. If none of your dice comes up a success, and one or more dice are dice showing 1, the roll is a botch. If you score at least one success, even if that success is canceled out and additional 1s remain, it’s just a simple failure.

A botch is much worse than a normal failure — it’s dramatic misfortune. For instance, rolling a botch when trying to fast-talk the Sheriff might make him think you’d better go see the Prince to explain yourself. Botching a Stealth roll when breaking into an apartment makes so much racket the neighbor calls the police. Botching an Animal Ken roll enrages the animal. Botching an Athletics roll means you gauged the width of the gap between the two buildings incorrectly... and look at all that chain-link fence and razor wire rising up to meet you. The Storyteller decides exactly what goes wrong; a botch may produce a minor inconvenience or might result in wholesale catastrophe.

Of course, some Storytellers may find that botches are cropping up a little too frequently in their chronicles (the laws of probability often warp around dice, as any veteran roleplayer can attest). In that case, it’s the Storyteller’s privilege to give everyone, player and Storyteller character alike, one botch “free” — in other words, the first botched roll of the session doesn’t count. This rule tends to make unlife a little easier on the players — but then again, there’s less chance of their enemies suffering a run of bad luck as well.....

Example: Your character is desperately fleeing from the Archbishop’s most zealous Paladins, and all that’s standing between him and the safety of his haven is a freight elevator that leads up to the service docks of the meatpacking plant. You roll your character’s Stamina + Athletics (difficulty 8), hoping to outpace your pursuers to the elevator and get 9, 1, 1, 8, 1. The 1s outnumber the successes, but because you rolled any successes at all to begin with, the action simply fails. The Storyteller rules that you make it to the elevator — but it’s two floors up.

You dash toward the staircase, but you’re not so lucky as the chase continues. The Stamina + Athletics dice come up 1, 3, 4, 3, 7. This time, not only did a “1” occur, but no successes were scored at all, so the action is a botch. The Storyteller rules that the Sabbat thought you might try to run away like a punk bitch, and backed a forklift into the stairwell, blocking it entirely. No choice but to turn around and face them....

Botching is a place where some creativity on the part of the Storyteller goes a long way. There’s nothing wrong with having a botch signify a dropped gun or stalling out a car in a chase, but a botch might also be an odd fluke that happens at an incongruous time or a butterfly effect that may haunt the chronicle at a later point. Instead of dropping the gun, maybe a botched firearms roll signifies that the gun went off to close to the shooter’s face, blinding or deafening her. Maybe the botched Drive roll suggests that, as the car fishtailed around the corner, the captive Toreador in the back seat made a break for it or the manila envelope full of the incriminating photos fell out the open window. Botches should create a new dramatic twist to the scene in which they occur. They don’t have to be reliable pratfalls.

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Drama & Sytstems

Automatic Feats

Automatic feats require the character to take an action, but don’t involve a dice pool roll under most circumstances. The following are common automatic feats. Storytellers may decide that other feats are automatic, at their discretion.

• -- Blood Use -- Healing, Augmenting Attributes, etc.
• -- Getting to Your Feet
• -- Movement
• -- Readying a Weapon
• -- Starting a Car
• -- Yielding

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The Blood Bond

One of the most wondrous and terrible properties of Kindred vitae is its ability to enslave nearly any being who drinks of it three times. Each sip of a particular Kindred’s blood gives the Kindred in question a greater emotional hold over the drinker. If a being drinks three times, on three separate nights, from the same Kindred, she falls victim to a state known as the blood bond. A vampire who holds a blood bond over another being is said to be that victim’s regnant, while the being subordinate to the bond is called the thrall.

Put simply, the blood bond is one of the most potent emotional sensations known. A blood-bound victim is absolutely devoted to her regnant and will do nearly anything for him. Even the most potent uses of Dominate cannot overcome the thrall’s feelings for her regnant; only true love stands a chance against the bond, and even that is not a sure thing.

The blood bond is most commonly used to ensnare mortals and ghouls, but Kindred can bind each other as well. Such is the blood bond’s power that a mighty elder can be bound to a lowly neonate; in this respect, the blood of a Thirteenth-Generation fledgling is (presumably) as strong as that of Caine himself. As such, the blood bond forms an essential strategy in the Jyhad; some Ancients are said to hold dozens of influential Kindred in secret thrall.

● First drink: The drinker begins to experience intermittent but strong feelings about the vampire. She may dream of him, or find herself “coincidentally” frequenting places where he might show up. There is no mechanical effect at this stage, but it should be role-played. All childer have this level of bond toward their sires, for the Embrace itself forces one drink upon the childer; they may love their “parents,” hate them, or both, but are rarely indifferent toward them.

● Second drink: The drinker’s feelings grow strong enough to influence her behavior. Though she is by no means enslaved to the vampire, he is definitely an important figure in her life. She may act as she pleases, but might have to make a Willpower roll to take actions directly harmful to the vampire. The vampire’s influence is such that he can persuade or command her with little effort (Social rolls against the thrall are at -1 difficulty).

● Third drink: Full-scale blood bond. At this level, the drinker is more or less completely bound to the vampire. He is the most important person in her life; lovers, relatives, and even children become secondary to her all-consuming passion.

At this level, a regnant may use the Dominate Discipline on a thrall, even without the benefit of eye contact. Merely hearing the regnant’s voice is enough. Additionally, should the thrall try to resist the Dominate (or similar mental control power) for some reason, the difficulty of such resistance is increased by two. Naturally, a higher-Generation vampire still cannot use Dominate on a lower-Generation thrall.

The blood bond is true love, albeit a twisted and perverse version of it. Ultimately, we can’t reduce the vagaries of love down to a simple “yes/no” system. Some thralls (particularly people with Conformist or other dependent Natures, or with Willpower 5 or less) will commit any act, including suicide or murder, for their beloved; other characters have certain core principles that they will not violate.

A full blood bond, once formed, is nearly inviolate. Once bound, a thrall is under the sway of her regnant and her regnant only. She cannot be bound again by another vampire unless the first blood bond wears away “naturally.” A vampire can experience lesser (one- and two-drink) bonds toward several individuals; indeed, many Kindred enjoy such bonds, as they create artificial passion in their dead hearts. Upon the formation of a full blood bond, though, all lesser sensations are wiped away. Vampire lovers occasionally enter into mutual blood bonds with each other; this is the closest thing the undead can feel to true love. Even this sensation can turn to disgust or hate over the centuries, though, and in any event few Kindred trust each other enough to initiate it.

A blood bond is a mighty force, but it is at its most potent when perpetually reinforced with further drinks. Feeding a thrall often reinforces the bond, while depriving a thrall of vitae may cause the bond to grow tepid over time. Like any other relationship, treatment and courtesy play a part in the dynamics of the bond. A thrall who is treated well and fed often will likely fall even more deeply in love, while a thrall who is degraded and humiliated may find resentment and anger eating away at the bond.

It is possible, though difficult, for a vampire to temporarily resist a blood bond. Doing so requires the player to make a Willpower roll (difficulty is typically 8, though this can be modified depending on the regnant’s treatment and the thrall’s Nature) and accumulate a number of successes equal to the number of times the thrall has partaken of the regnant’s blood, to a maximum of difficulty 9. The thrall must then spend a Willpower point. Upon doing so, the bond is negated for a variable amount of time: from one scene (if the thrall merely wishes to plot against the regnant, deliver confidential information to an enemy, etc.) to one turn (if the thrall wishes to attack the regnant physically). The thrall can continue to expend Willpower to extend the duration of “freedom,” but once she ceases doing so, the blood bond resumes at full force.

A blood bond can be broken, though this requires the thrall to not only avoid the regnant entirely for an extended period of time, but also spend great amounts of Willpower to overcome the addiction. As a general rule, a thrall who neither sees nor feeds from her regnant for a period of (12 - Willpower) months finds her bond reduced by one level (so, a fully bound thrall with a Willpower of 5 has her blood bond reduced to the equivalent of two drinks if she goes seven straight months without any contact with the regnant). If the bond is reduced to zero in this fashion (a feat typically accompanied by the expenditure of a great deal of Willpower on the thrall’s part, as she resists the gnawing urge to seek out her sire), it is nullified entirely.

Another, though somewhat less certain, way to be rid of the bond is to kill the regnant. Such a choice is extremely perilous on many levels, and makes no guarantees that everything will go smoothly. Those who have been released by such means claim the bond shatters like spun glass upon the moment of the regnant’s Final Death. The thrall’s Nature may play a large part in whether the control is completely ended, though, and such aftermath is best left in the hands of the Storyteller.

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The Vaulderie

The vampires of the Sabbat take their nightly struggle seriously — so seriously that they tolerate no dissent in their ranks. From the lowliest new recruit to the most exalted Cainite, the Sabbat ensure loyalty to one another through a bloody rite known as the Vaulderie.

The Vaulderie is similar to a blood bond, though it differs in intent and function. No Sabbat would ever voluntarily succumb to a blood bond, reasoning that such bonds are the tools the elders use to enslave their childer. Rather, the Sabbat swear the Vaulderie to each other, bonding themselves to the pack instead of an individual, and, thus, to the Sabbat’s greater cause.

Those who are ignorant of the Vaulderie’s finer details believe it to be a simple commingling of vampire vitae in a vessel and the subsequent drinking of it. In truth, the matter is far more mystical. To start the ritual, the priest takes a tool used specifically for the Vaulderie and nothing else and cuts her wrist. The ritual cutting tool could be a small knife, silver straight razor, or awl. To impart more gravity to the rite, many packs use elaborate ritual bloodletters decorated with engraved swirls, spirals, or blood droplets. The priest then bleeds into a vessel and passes the cutting device to each Sabbat member present, who pierces his own flesh and bleeds into the chalice. The vessel is then passed around the pack until everyone has poured their blood in, before the priest recites an incantation over it, consecrating it as a terrible sacrament before every member of the pack draws a draught.

Vaulderies take place at any time — before assaults, during important Sabbat gatherings, at the initiation or Creation Rites of new members, and almost infallibly at pack gatherings. This rite is perhaps the foundation of the Sect, and it is afforded the most reverent status.

The result of this rite is known as a Vinculum, or blood- tie. These ties connect each member of the pack to one another, engendering a mutual loyalty in addition to bolstering pack morale. Because of the mystical nature of the Vaulderie, however, Vinculi are imperfect — what one pack member feels toward another one night may pale in comparison to what he feels toward her the next. Vinculum ratings may change every time the rite is observed.

Without the Vaulderie, the Sabbat would probably collapse under its own weight and dogma — the chaos and anarchy that follows the Sect would erode what little organization it has without the loyalty and sympathy created by the rite. Those who refuse the Vaulderie or oppose it are not viewed favorably by other Sabbat. Vampires who refuse to partake of the Vaulderie at least monthly suffer ostracism from the pack at best — and may be destroyed outright at worst.

The first time a character observes the Vaulderie (or during creation of a Sabbat character), roll a die for each character whose vitae is part of the rite. That number reflects the Vinculum the character feels to- ward the individual whose blood she ingested; see the chart for effects generated by individual Vinculi. Every time a new member participates in the Vaulderie, each player should roll a die and record the score for her Vinculum rating toward that character.

Afterwards, each time the pack partakes of the Vaulderie, each player should roll one die for each of her Vinculi. If the result is higher than the Vinculum score, increase that Vinculum score by one (to a maximum of 10). If the result is a 1, lower the Vinculum score by one (to a minimum of 1).

It bears mention that, like the emotions engendered by blood bonds, these feelings are artificial, as they are created through ingestion of blood. It is quite possible for a character to utterly hate someone for whom she would risk her unlife, just as it is possible to have immense love for someone who has little in the way of Vinculum. Players are encouraged to explore the full range of these complexities in their packs through role-playing.

At times, a character may be at odds with herself over how to react to a given situation because of Vinculi she possesses toward another vampire. In cases such as these, the player should decide which party her character would favor outside the Vinculum. The character then rolls a number of dice for each party equal to her Vinculum score for that individual against a difficulty of 5 (for the party favored regardless of Vinculum) or 7 (for all other parties). The individual who receives the greatest number of successes earns the character’s aid. Such is the nature of the Damned and the Vinculum — a character who knows better may sometimes be forced into an obviously bad course of action by following her emotions. Storytellers should consider Vinculum rolls for matters of dramatic significance, but too much reliance on Vinculum rolls may leave players upset at being railroaded by dice rolls.

The Vaulderie can also corrode existing blood bonds. Multiple draughts of the Vaulderie may be required, but sooner or later, the pack‘s blood will overcome all but the most potent of vampiric vitae. A vampire wishing to break a blood bond via Vaulderie must have no more than one blood point in his blood pool, and must ingest six points of Vaulderie vitae. At that point, the old blood bond fades rapidly, replaced almost as quickly by Vinculi toward those whose blood composed the Vaulderie. On the other hand, a vampire attempting to replace Vinculi with a new blood bond is in for a disappointment — unless her blood is powerfully potent, Vinculi may not be so easily erased. Unlike normal blood bonds, Vinculi do not fade over time — a Vinculum left after a Vaulderie with a vampire in nights hundreds of years past is still as potent as the night it arose. Indeed, many elder Sabbat have vast webs of Vinculi connecting them to Sect members across the world.

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Physical Feats

These systems cover actions involving the three Physical Attributes (Strength, Dexterity, and Stamina). These feats typically require a roll. Remember that Celerity, Fortitude, and Potence add dice to Physical Attributes when making many of these rolls.

• -- A Stake Through the Heart
• -- Carrying Capacity ~ {Strength}
• -- Climbing as an Action ~ {Dexterity + Athletics}
• -- Driving ~ {Dexterity/Wits + Drive}
• -- Hunting as an Action ~ {Various Styles}
• -- Intrusion ~ {Dexterity/Perception + Larceny}
• -- Jumping ~ {Strength, or Strength + Athletics for a running jump}
• -- Lifting / Breaking ~ {Strength}
• -- Opening / Closing ~ {Strength}
• -- Pursuit
• -- Shadowing
• -- Sneaking
• -- Swimming as a feat
• -- Throwing as a feat

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Mental Feats

These systems cover tasks involving the three Mental Attributes (Perception, Intelligence, and Wits), as well as tasks using the Virtues, Humanity and Paths, and Willpower. Mental tests can provide you with information about things your character knows but you, the player, don’t. Still, you should depend on your creativity when solving problems — not on dice rolls.

• -- Artistic Creation
• -- Awakening (Vampiric)
• -- Computer Use
• -- Investigation the Feat
• -- Repairs
• -- Researches
• -- Tracking the Feat

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Combat

• -- Damage Types

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The Beast

• -- Frenzy & Rötschreck

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Storyteller Support

“Writing controlled fiction is called “plotting.” Buckling your seatbelt and letting the story take over, however…that is called “storytelling.” Storytelling is as natural as breathing; plotting is the literary version of artificial respiration.” ― Stephen King, Salem's Lot

• -- | Computer Generated Dice Rolling
• -- | Sound Effects
• -- |The Gentleman Gamer

Sunrise / Sunset

• -- Sunrisesunset.com [2]

International Time Zones

• -- International Time Zones

Game Years

• 2042

  2043

The Modern Traditions

The First Tradition: The Masquerade
Thou shall not reveal thy nature to those not of the Blood. Doing so shall renounce thy claims of Blood.

The Second Tradition: The Domain
Thy domain is thine own concern. All others owe thee respect while in it. None may challenge thy word while in thy domain.

The Third Tradition: The Progeny
Thou shall sire another only with the permission of thine elder. If thou createst another without thine elder's leave, both thee and thy progeny shall be slain.

The Fourth Tradition: The Accounting
Those thou create are thine own childer. Until thy progeny shall be released, thou shall command them in all things. Their sins are thine to endure.

The Fifth Tradition: Hospitality
Honor one another's domain. When thou comest to a foreign city, thou shall present thyself to the one who ruleth there. Without the word of acceptance, thou art nothing.

The Sixth Tradition: Destruction
Thou art forbidden to destroy another of thy kind. The right of destruction belongeth only to thine elder. Only the eldest among thee shall call the blood hunt.

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Television Shows

http://www.penny-dreadful.com/ --{New & Quite Good}-- http://www.sho.com/sho/penny-dreadful/home -- {The World of Darkness as it Should be.}

http://newepisodes.me/watch-dracula-online-free/58928/about -- {Dracula 2013} -- {Victorian Age Vampire at its best.}

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonlight_%28TV_series%29 {Moonlight - a TV show about modern vampires in Los Angeles circa 2007} -- Check it out: http://newepisodes.me/watch-moonlight-online-free/5690/about

http://www.bbcamerica.com/orphan-black/ {A Fairly good look at Doppelgangers}

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemlock_Grove_%28TV_series%29 {Slow - but very World of Darkness}

http://www.fxnetworks.com/thestrain/ {A Grade B horror - action thriller about vampires the way the medieval mind probably saw them -- Vicissitude at its best.}

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V20

• -- V20 - Disciplines

Vampire Music

http://rock.rapgenius.com/albums/The-clash/London-calling {During the First Edition, The Clash were a very popular sound by which to play Vampire.}

Vampire Websites

http://enoch.wikidot.com/start

http://www.vtm.kismetrose.com/VampireSite.html

http://mypage.iu.edu/~adashiel/wod/

WoD Wiki

Vampire Genealogy

http://www.planetware.com/

https://thealbanyfiles.obsidianportal.com/

http://reference.l2fury.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

http://theonyxpath.com/ {Highly Recommended}

http://www.white-wolf.com/ {Useful}

http://whitewolf.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page {Useful}

http://rp.thesubnet.com/ {This site contains the new 20th Anniversary Edition material}

http://forums.whitewolfarchive.com/default0a8a.html {Forum on all things VTM}

http://www.offkorn.com/blog/vtm-owod-vampiric-npc-listing/

http://www.thesubnet.com/portal/wod/vtm/CreationAbAS.html

http://www.thesubnet.com/portal/wod/vtm20/index.html {5 Stars}