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

permanent residence in a vampire’s body. A few Kindred read about African outbreaks
of ebola — a disease specifi cally and only spread by contact with an infected person’s
blood — and wonder if some African vampires have become careless.
In centuries past, the Kindred did not care much if one of their numbers became
a plague-dog. Mortals got sick and died so often that no one noticed a few more
victims every week. As more people went to doctors, however, the covenants all
encouraged their members to avoid the diseased. Cases of doctors who became
witch-hunters because of patients talking of strange people biting them convinced
the Invictus and Lancea Sanctum, in particular, to declare plague-spreading a breach
of the Masquerade. The rise of modern epidemiology and institutes such as the WHO
and CDC increase the danger even more.
In a few cities, the Prince and Primogen execute Kindred found guilty of spreading
diseases from vessel to vessel. More often, Kindred leaders settle for locking up a
plague-dog until they can fi nd a practitioner of Theban Sorcery who knows how
to cleanse Kindred of disease (one of the rare occasions when Kindred deliberately
seek to bring a foreign vampire to a city). Of course, they don’t bother feeding the
imprisoned Kindred. Let the pain of starvation be his punishment, they fi gure, and
then let him wait in torpor until the sorcerer comes to set things right.
If one ever comes.
REVERSION AND SCARRING
Normally, vampires revert to the state in which they were Embraced while they sleep during
daylight hours. Hair cut during the course of the night grows back, a shaved fi ve o’clock shadow
returns if the Kindred was Embraced while scruffy, and minor wounds correct themselves. In
some cases, however, this reversion is prevented. If a vampire suffers damage, those wounds
persist until the vampire heals them.
In a few instances, a vampire might actively wish to change his appearance in a lasting fashion.
Such is the case with hair dye, tattoos or piercings that would normally expel the ink or push
themselves out of the skin while the vampire slumbers. A few vampires even like to force their
bodies to permanently exhibit a scar after a particularly signifi cant battle or physical ordeal.
If a vampire wishes to keep a scar or other change to his body, the player must spend a
Willpower point to do so.
Truly severe modifi cations, such as permanently losing a limb or other extensive modifi cations
cost a Willpower dot, and the Storyteller is the fi nal arbiter of what constitutes the distinction.
TORPOR
The ancients called sleep the brother of death. This is even more true for vampires than for
mortals. Every day, the Kindred enter a sleep that mortal senses and science cannot distinguish
from death. The Kindred experience it much as mortals experience sleep. The Kindred can also
enter a deeper sleep, however, in which their souls come even closer to death. The Kindred call
this state torpor. A vampire’s daily sleep lasts a few hours, but torpor can last for centuries.
WOUNDING
Wounds suffi cient to kill mortals send the Kindred into torpor, instead. If a vampire’s
rightmost Health box is occupied by a lethal wound, she enters torpor instead of dying.
(Recall that suffi cient bashing damage can convert to lethal damage, so a good beating with,
say, baseball bats can still send a Kindred into torpor.)
The duration of this torpor depends on the character’s Humanity and her Blood Potency.
A high Blood Potency extends the torpor’s duration; so does having a low Humanity. High-
Humanity vampires spend much less time in torpor than Kindred who have given most of
themselves to the Beast.
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mind’s chapter eye three: theatre: special requiem rules and systems