Perhaps you have seen this world before.
Perhaps it is all too familiar.
Yet, to fully understand it, you must look at it in a different light: a soft flame kindled for millennia and held up against the growing darkness that surrounds it. The centuries to come will almost extinguish that fire. In the years that follow, technology revolutionises the world, aristocracy becomes an anachronism, noble behaviour becomes obsolete, and world wars ravage the planet. The idealists of that brave new world become even more jaded and degenerate, modernity will repress and restrict emotion, forgetting the blistering freedoms and passions of the Renaissance era, when for the first time the vampire is put into stark and burning contact with the brilliance of humanity - for the human species, and their own.
Forget these shadows of a future past.
History is yet to be written, and as the protagonist of your own passion play you may yet rewrite it in your own image.
To recapture the spirit of this bygone age you must die and be reborn. You must see the world anew as a vampire.
Cursed by God, Caine was the first of the vampires. His legend grows with each generation. Or so it is said. Some vampires view him in almost religious terms, for legend holds that the Almightly destroyed Caine's soul, forever banishing him from the Kingdom of Heaven. There can be no greater curse than losing all hope of salvation.
Others believe in the faintly flickering, but unedniable presence of a light - a strength of which is heartbreaking in its brilliance - hidden away somewhere in the deepest dark of their souls.
You will step into the role of an immortal vampire or a human seeking to survive, and even thrive, in a complex society hidden beneath our own. In this World of Darkness, enemies hide in every shadow, and a moment’s weakness could prove your eternal undoing. Each night is a constant struggle — not just for power, but also to preserve your humanity even as your vampiric instincts perpetually drive you into a dark spiral until you bottom out as a monster without a soul. The tale is about the allure of vast powers chained to very human weaknesses.
Vampire: The Masquerade is the vampire-specific setting in The World of Darkness.
The producers of the World of Darkness games have made various other games such as for werewolves, mages, vampire hunters etc. Vampre: The Masquerade refers for our purposes to the classic version of the game for the vampiric species.
What is the World of Darkness?
Vampires are supreme urban predators, gifted with immortality and frighteningly preternatural powers.
But the vampire does not exist in a vacuum. She resides in the World of Darkness, the base setting for our story. This is where she must struggle against her worst instincts, where she will never again see the light of day. Everything in the World of Dangerous is darker and more dangerous than it is in our own world. The World of Darkness presents a setting where vampires, supernatural creatures of myth, have always been among us and wield far more influence than mortals suspect.
It’s a world much like our own but with some important differences. While mortal society goes about its day-to-day activities, its citizens are the unwitting pawns of vampires, werewolves, and other creatures that struggle nightly with internal politics, backstabbing, and vicious games of manipulation.
These battles may span centuries, spreading out over entire continents, waged through mortal intermediaries and institutions such as corporations, governments, and churches. Nothing and no one is safe from the dark taint of such a world, and while characters residing in the World of Darkness are sometimes capable of astonishing moments of heroism, each victory comes at a high price.
Vampires in the World of Darkness have their own culture, customs, laws, and vocabulary. Many call themselves Kindred, a reference to the ties of blood between the vampiric clans. Cultural legends among the Kindred state that all vampiric lineages trace back to a single founder: the first vampire, a creature called “Caine.” Caine created, or Embraced, other vampires. Those vampires Embraced others, and so on, descending down into clans and a small multitude of bloodlines. As the Embrace is passed from one to the next, each new vampire is slightly weaker than the one before.
Caine, being the first vampire, is the reason western vampires call themselves Cainites
And they call humans “kine”
Whether your character is an ancient relic of long-ago Rome, or a modern street punk Embraced last week, you should try make the character seem real. Think about how she will interact with other characters in the game; plan a personality that will get into heated arguments over ethics or religion; think about what traits your character values in others and what type of people get under your character’s skin. Vampires have many advantages over mortals – they’re stronger, faster, deadlier, and often more alluring – but they aren’t perfect. Your character will have weaknesses and flaws, and portraying these can be as much if not more fun as her strengths and advantages.
The Vampire
Vampires have many advantages over mortals – they’re stronger, faster, deadlier, and often more alluring – but they aren’t perfect.
Vampires need blood to survive
Blood is life. To sustain her immortality, a vampire must periodically consume blood, preferably that of humans. Some penitent vampires eke out a pale existence drinking only animal blood, and some ancient vampires have become so monstrous that they must hunt and kill others of their kind to nourish themselves, but these are rare, extreme examples. Generally, vampires consume the blood of humanity in order to survive.
They use blood to fuel their supernatural powers and they use it to enhance their physical strengths in limited bursts, or to heal themselves from damage. Damage caused by fire is considered "aggravated" and takes a lot more blood to heal.
Most vampires cannot eat food
For some of them it turns into ash in their body. For others the food or drink that settles, for long enough in them can be savoured for taste, is invariably rejected by the vampire’s body and she has to use their own blood to keep it down. If she does not, she vomits it up quite spectacularly and sometimes even painfully. It cannot stay there indefinitely; even the most powerful vampires have a limited supply of blood they can keep in their bodies, and it seems wasteful to risk depleting it for human nourishment.
There is the occasional exception to this rule, notably among the Toreador who as a Clan have spent so much time in and among humans that some of them seem to have maintained the ability to consume human food and drink, though it provides them no nourishment. Perhaps their blood is better suited to hiding among the kine than vampires of other Clans.
Clan? Kine?
Kine is the vampiric term for humans as a species.
Meanwhile the clearest indicator of a vampire's quality lies in their clan, the "consanguineous family" that has chosen them as progeny so that they may carry on its essence in their very veins. When you are Embraced you are given the blood of a vampire who belongs to a particular clan. It is a family with particular traits (physiological or mental, sometimes even magical) who are all descended from a very old vampire who carried their specific hallmarks. Some clans are viciously territorial of their lineage and control their behaviour to rather extreme extents, while others could care less about the night-to-night activities their clanmates beyond their own direct progeny (and even then, some Sires don’t care at all).
Sire?
A Sire is the vampire who gives you their blood after draining yours, thus turning you into a vampire. They are usually the one obliged to protect and train their “Childe” fledgling but the desire to be a responsible Sire is not shared by all vampires, and some vampires can Embrace for a slew of reasons, including out of spite only to abandon their progeny soon after the Embrace.
Sunlight?
A vampire exposed to sunlight bursts into flame and usually meets their final death. Vampires need something solid and opaque - such as a house’s walls - between themselves and the sun.
Sleep?
Vampires sleep during the daytime. At dawn, a vampire falls into a dream slumber that paralyses their body in what they call “Torpor”. It is immensely difficult to rouse from this, or resist. However a vampire who finds herself in a dangerous situation that threatens her very life may be successful in rousing enough to move for a few seconds.
Stakes?
Stakes can forcibly put a vampire into a type of Torpor, similar to that of their resting state, but from which they cannot wake by choice until the stake has been removed. It does not slay her, however. Some tired Sires have been known to stake their Childe and tuck them safely out of harm’s way somewhere should they have had enough. The vampire is not aware of her surroundings while she is staked, and it is generally a painful thing to be staked, given the wood must penetrate the breastbone.
Vampires feel pain
Only vampires with a power known as “Fortitude” (which is innate to some clans) can ignore pain. Otherwise, a vampire has its nervous system in keeping and they feel pain as a human might.
Vampires can give their blood
Ghoul is a term used to describe a minion created when a vampire gives a bit of vampiric vitae to a mortal without draining him or her of blood first (which would create another vampire instead). The mortal temporarily stops ageing, is purged of most sickness and feels healthier, stronger, and more able. They may even gain some of the vampire's inherent supernatural power, in the form of one of their "Disciplines".
Animals can also be ghouled, a tactic particularly favoured by the Nosferatu. Animal ghouls tend to grow larger and mutate, the result being a somewhat horrifying parody of the original creature. In addition, almost all ghouled animals develop a taste for blood, regardless of their original diets.
Garlic? Mirrors?
Traditionally no and no, most vampires have no reaction to garlic (beyond it turning to ash in their mouth if they eat it or sitting badly in their stomach) and they leave reflections. There are exceptions, especially among Clan Lasombra, who as a rule have no reflection in any mirrors, including in the pentaprisma of traditional non-digital cameras. This happens to be the Lasombra Clan Weakness.
Clan Weakness?
Every Clan has a uniting flaw or drawback to being them. Some are debated as being more a weakness than for others, a matter that has led some clans to thinking better of themselves when compared to their less fortunate cousins. While the Toreador are known for their weakness of being captured by beauty - indeed they can stand rooted to the spot while transfixed - the Nosferatu Clan are so warped by their blood’s weakness that their entire body is changed. They are horrifically ugly, and cannot walk among humans at all without causing deep alarm or fear. Meanwhile the Malkavians as a Clan are crippled by madness.
Vampires do not need to breathe
Vampires breathe reflexively, pulling air in and out of their lungs in order to smell and talk, but a vampire does not require oxygen to function. If she puts her mind to it, a vampire may hold her breath indefinitely, survive underwater, or operate normally in a room choked with carbon monoxide.
Some vampires care about sex
Vampires do not have the majority of their bodily functions, but they can fake it with some effort. Notably, because they still have a working nervous system they can feel pleasure in physical contact and they can have sex - vampires who have a penis can become rigid and even ejaculate a viscous, bloody fluid, and the clitoris still functions. It takes a lot of trust or abandon for a vampire to risk letting another predator so close to it however, so some vampires prefer to take exclusively human lovers or companions.
Vampiric blood is addictive
Vampiric blood is more potent than human blood, and even to the vampire, it is addictive. Vampires usually avoid other vampires’ blood at all costs, because it can create in them an artificial feeling of good will to the vampire whose blood they have supped, it can make them put aside their own ambitions and boundaries for the other vampire and after enough of it - especially if consumed over several nights - it can create a fixed, lasting obsession that sees the vampire become all but a total slave to the other. Blood gained through sexual ejaculation is not enough blood to create a blood bond; you usually need to have consumed enough to nourish yourself, a half pint or more.
The first consumption of a vampire’s blood creates in a victim (be they human or vampire) the desire to be close to that individual. It creates feelings of meaningful friendship, even arousal and attraction. The drinker may experience lucid fever dreams related to the vampire. The second drink, if it is on a different night than the first, creates a desire in the drinker to protect the vampire with a fierce passion, even going so far as to put themselves in harm’s way for them as one might a spouse or very close friend. There are three stages of the “Blood Bond” and this third is the most dangerous. It takes the victim consuming the blood of the same vampire over a period of at least three night in the same year. It can subjugate a vampire or a human to another’s will entirely, and turns even the most independent and strong-willed of people into mindless slaves, bent only on achieving the attention of their “Domitor” and doing what they want.
Given the limitations to this in roleplay, it is not recommended that players engage in any “third level” Blood Bond, unless they are strictly certain they wish this roleplay for themselves.
Vampires respect age
The youngest vampires are called neonates; after you become an immortal you remain a neonate for one century. After one century you are classed as an ancilla. After three centuries, you become an elder.
Most vampires care about “generation”
How far removed you are from Caine - the first vampire - determines how powerful your blood is. Vampires become progressively weaker with each successive generation.
The “Jyhad”
The Great Game/The Great Struggle
The great political board that spans all vampires like a grand chess table was recently given a name by younger Cainites, seeking to legitimise their experience and struggle: The Jyhad.
In actual fact the jihad, (Arabic: “struggle” or “effort”) also spelled jehad, in Islam, is a meritorious struggle or effort. Islam being such a young religion and a new faith, the ancient Methuselah of the world see the term as a European appropriation of a modern, eastern concept and they do not have it in their vernacular. The idea remains, despite that. With so many clans claiming their heritage (and right to rule) dates back to the Middle East, to Mesopotamia and the First City, it is no wonder that younger, reaching vampires will legitimise their experience in any language that feels non-white. However, the idea of the jihad (or worse: Jyhad) is a young one in mortal history, not relating to the correct region or the etymological root of where these famed Antediluvians are said to hail. At least closer in form is enedi 𒂊𒉈𒁲, the Old Babylonian word for game.
Vampires are supreme urban predators, gifted with immortality and frighteningly preternatural powers. Removed from the mortal world, they spin webs of intrigue, playing deadly politics and enjoying great influence and wealth. While centuries slowly creep past, vampires sink into archaic depravity, sparring for control in the shadows of the night with little else to occupy their time other than their own ambition.
Driven by paranoia, jealousy, and the constant, predatory urge to gain power, vampires form societies and hierarchies much like those of mortals. These creatures claim territory, both literal and figurative, and defend it with a vicious steadfastness even as they avariciously seek to gain more. Manipulation and political struggles are common, all hidden beneath the elegant porcelain mask of social customs.
As immortal creatures, vampires prefer to humble their opponents rather than destroy them, thus providing themselves with decades of amusement and a constant reminder of their personal superiority. Rivalries and alliances can intertwine in a vast tapestry, shifting in unpredictable patterns as politics twist and change. This worldwide struggle is called the Great Game, or the Great Struggle, depending on the culture and language, and all vampires – whether they wish to participate or not – must compete if they wish to survive. The Game crosses all sects, all clans, and all eras.
Morality
The mystery, tragedy, and dark majesty of Vampire: The Masquerade can be explained best perhaps, in just one singular concept that unites all the vampires of this world in one lived experience.
That is: the struggle that exists in each of them between the better part of their consciousness (or their humanity), and a darker, insidious thing that perches on the shoulder of their every thought. It is the thing that tugs from their chest, heartburn hot and fidgety just beneath their sternum, it’s there even when they are lost to the throes of the greatest passions. It is always there. This thing is so renowned as to have gained a name of its own. It is the wicked smile in the dark; the place in themselves that is fairytalishly too big, its teeth too wide for the soul’s mouth, arranged in a bleeding grin.
They call it the Beast. The force that drives vampires to commit sin, to hurt, to destroy. It wants nothing less than to utterly suffocate the people around them, to tarnish, corrupt and blacken the aspects of their life that were once pure and good. It is the most vulnerable, twisted, and childishly furious facet of them. It is the vampire’s pettiness and rage, their jealousies and possessiveness blown huge. It inspires the extremes of their warped personality. There is no one agreement about what the Beast is, biological or spiritual, real or imagined, but it is undoubtedly shared by every vampire descended from Caine.
As the vampire ages, so too ages their Beast. With the years that pass the Beast strengthens its hold over the vampire and it’s lewd bloodstink grows richer, meatier. Being a vampire in the World of Darkness is a dangerous game trying to dog the steps of the Beast, of trying to withstand the temptation to let go utterly.
No matter how ready a person thinks they are when they take the Embrace, a part of their soul is not. That part of them goes - alone, stunned - unready into that night with the vampire. The soul carries the yolky taste of its confused pain, the blistering bright library of its memories and experience instead raped and rearranged by vampirism, but still there.
You can grow fat on the beat and rhythm of the World of Darkness, like the proverbial Miss Muffet’s spider you could sit in the center web of your own power, and each time you feed you could go into that plunge with a smile, feel the rhythm of the drinking in your lips and fingertips and nipples and feet. You can all but swim down into your victim’s soul, soften into their pleasure, their horror, their life and their light.
But you do all of this while a distant part of you watches on mute in horror, unable to surrender or leave through the open door, forever fixed betwixt the two states - humanity and monstrosity - and forced to find space to exist between the groaning stacks of your shelved sins.
Humanity
Humanity measures a vampire’s innate empathy. As she degenerates, the vampire loses the ability to form meaningful, emotional connections with others. Her control over the Beast diminishes as it encourages indulgence in twisted pleasures. Perversion, cold-blooded murder, mutilation, and wickedness for its own sake are all signs of a vampire whose control is slipping. A vampire with a low rating in Humanity begins to reflect her Beast in her outward appearance. Her next frenzy may well be her last before complete surrender to the Beast.
Frenzy
The vampire who enters Frenzy is no longer in control of herself; the Beast is running the show. The Beast wishes to commit heinous, violent acts, or glutton itself to feed for the first time. Older vampires can also enter Frenzy, it is not unique to the Embrace. Indeed many things can set off a vampire who is too close to her Beast. If the Frenzy was begun in anger they may lash out wildly - or if it was fear that inspired it, the Beast will force the vampire to flee in terror for its own survival, such as if confronted by a torrent of raging fire. It takes time to accumulate enough stress in the vampire to risk entering a Frenzy of any kind, although the older the vampire, the more potent the Beast within, and less control they may have over it.
When a Childe is first Embraced and becomes a vampire they always enter a feeding Frenzy until they can consume enough blood to settle themselves and become lucid. This is a very dangerous time for anyone around the Childe. The careful sire provides a generous amount of their own blood while restraining the Childe - but a cruel sire may even release the new fledgling in their Frenzy state onto a member of the Childe’s old human family, to better ‘teach them the hardships’ of their unhappy world. Given this tends to reduce a Childe’s ability to cope in their new unlife however, and springs their Beast forward, not every sire is as keen to do this. Some are very proactive in training their Childe how to hunt and survive with surprising rigor, usually a trait of more experienced, humane sires.
The Temptation of the Beast
The Beast is calling, scratching at the door. It is hungry, eager, tempting, twisting a vampire’s perceptions. It whispers, “murder is justified, even necessary.” “Here’s one who deserves it.” “That one’s better off dead.” A little here, a little there, the Beast chisels away at a vampire’s ethics and reason until something snaps — and the vampire’s Humanity degrades.
In the end, all vampires are supernatural beings, animated corpses that subsist by preying on others. They are a pestilence, and they exist only by harming others. Further, vampirism reduces an individual’s capacity to feel positive emotions, slowly wearing away the individual’s compassion, empathy, and ability to recognize good from evil. These things are all cast aside by the curse that brings a vampire back from death. With human drives and desires twisted by a raging Beast that demands survival at any cost, vampires must cling to their beliefs. If they lose this tenuous thread, the Beast will win, and the original personality of the vampire will be utterly destroyed.
The vampire will enter a frenzied, incredibly violent state known as wassail, and she will never return to lucidity. Fledglings thrust into undead society often cling to the trappings of their mortal lives. Their original belief systems become guides, reminding them which actions are right and which are wrong, even when the vampire can no longer instinctively tell the difference. This ethical code is known as one’s Humanity: the semblance of living according to positive moral values and principles. By clinging to these innate guidelines, a vampire can fight against the Beast and retain her sanity.
However, a vampire cannot ignore the fact that she is a monster. Even a vampire with a high Humanity rating feels the Beast inside, scratching at her spirit and demanding blood.
As a vampire’s Humanity erodes, she becomes jaded and blasé. She may even actively pursue progressively depraved acts in order to feel anything at all. With little memory of her Humanity to guide her, a vampire’s behavior becomes callous in the extreme, utterly degenerate and monstrously predatory. She becomes a beacon of evil, and those nearby – undead and mortal alike – actively feel disconcerted, as something alien and terrible moves among them.
Diablerie
One of the greatest sins that a vampire can commit is to perform the foul and heinous act known as diablerie, once known also as Amaranth. This practice requires one vampire to drink from another, exsanguinating all of the victim’s blood and continuing past that point to feast upon a vampire’s very soul. To do so imbues the diablerist with new potency, permanently concentrating her blood. This act terrifies elders, who fear that a time may come when young, thin-blooded vampires will rise up and attempt to steal the elders’ power, consuming their souls in the process. Vampires known to have practiced such an act are typically hunted down and destroyed.
There are many spiritual beliefs concerning diablerie. Some clans believe it is a spiritual act, one that forever merges the soul of the diablerist with her victim. Others claim that it is a vampire’s way of delivering God’s greatest punishment, removing a particularly evil soul from the cycle forever. Many vampire faiths have doctrines explaining the nature of diablerie within their belief systems, and even outside of these religious beliefs, vampires are highly superstitious and fearful of the act.
Undead legend tells many dark tales of murderous childer betraying and cannibalizing their sires, and it is for this reason more than any other that elder vampires harbor a great distrust for weaker vampires. Further, diablerie is addictive, and those who commit this sin even once find that their Beasts rage forever with a powerful, almost unconquerable desire to do so again. Even centuries later, they can still remember the taste of the heart’s blood, and they occasionally awaken from dreams wherein they were experiencing the blissful moment of gluttony over and over again.
Those who commit diablerie experience the spiritual merging of the consumed soul into their bodies. Memories, along with the power of that individual’s blood, surge through the practitioner at the time of the act, and those memories will linger for the rest of the vampire’s eternal existence. In ancient days, clans such as the Salubri and the Assamites claimed to know secrets that allowed diablerists to access their victims’ memories freely and live in peace with those they had consumed. Few modern vampires have this capacity or knowledge. A diablerist finds herself forever changed, her personality affected by the resonance of the person she diablerized. Unlike the Beast, the victim’s spirit is not sentient within the diablerist, but rather exists as a subtle influence, like old habits or unquestioned beliefs. A diablerist will find herself remembering half-understood moments of her victim’s life as if they were her own, and she will discover that her perspective on the world has forever been colored by the personality of the individual whose spirit she has consumed.
