Mind's Eye Theatre - Vampire The Requiem.pdf - RoseRed

In addition to the powers and advantages provided by such aspects of the Requiem as Blood
Potency and Disciplines, vampires are subject to certain physical, mental and emotional states
outside those of the mortals through whose world they secretly move. This chapter describes
and explains a number of special rules and conditions that apply to Kindred characters alone,
or that affect the undead differently than they affect mortals.
Topics covered in this chapter include the following.
• Properties of the Blood: How the Kindred acquire and use Vitae, in addition to the
unique effects it has on vampires.
• The Predator’s Taint: How vampires instinctively react to one another.
• The Traditions: How the physiological laws of being affect the undead, as well as the
restrictions (and protections) it places on them.
• Damage, Wounds and Healing: Suffering harm is inevitable when one becomes a vampire,
and recovering from it is paramount. Torpor is handled herein as well.
• Frenzy: From fear frenzies to hunger frenzies to berserk rampages, the Kindred are given
to fi ts of uncontrollable passion.
• Humanity: How the Kindred stave off the wiles of the Beast Within, and the toll its
actions take upon their sense of morality.
• Derangements: When a Kindred’s mental or moral state erodes, she sometimes exhibits
dangerous psychological quirks.
• Golconda and Other Means of Transcendence: Some Kindred believe that vampirism
itself can be overcome, its curse overturned by good works or a greater understanding of the
Kindred condition.
• Status and the Danse Macabre: Kindred jockey endlessly for position in their gilded
cages, trading favors and drawing strength from their clans and covenants.
Properties of the Blood
More than anything else, blood defi nes the Kindred. Within seconds after a vampire
consumes blood, the vital fl uid changes into something quite different that the Kindred
call Vitae. Vampire Vitae looks like mortal blood, but it doesn’t fl ow like mortal blood. A
vampire’s Vitae moves through her body at the behest of the character’s will, not because of
a beating heart. Kindred don’t bleed when they are wounded; Vitae might pool slightly in
the wound, but it does not fl ow forth unless the vampire wills it to do so.
Vitae retains its supernatural properties for a few minutes after it leaves a vampire’s body
and is exposed to air, then it reverts to ordinary blood. A scientist who examines a sample of
former Vitae would fi nd a mixture of blood from many sources, with some of the cells broken
down. Some Theban Sorcery practitioners know procedures to preserve the supernatural
power of Vitae outside a vampire’s body, and blood that came from a vampire always retains
a mystical connection that ritualists can exploit.
Kindred employ their Vitae for many purposes. As a vampire calls upon the occult power in her
stolen blood, the actual mass and volume of Vitae in her body decreases. As a character uses up her
Vitae, her skin tightens and blanches and her body shrinks slightly. She looks less alive. Feeding
enables her to restore her lifelike appearance — as lifelike as the character can manage, anyway.
A player may spend Vitae in the same turn in which he spends a point of Willpower. Spending
a Vitae is always a refl exive action. Even if the actions that doing so enable might not always be
refl exive themselves (such as with certain Disciplines), the act of spending the Vitae is.
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mind’s chapter eye three: theatre: special requiem rules and systems