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

options? Petition for help? To whom? No higher authority exists. Overthrow the regime? Odds
are, no single faction in the city has the strength to wrest power from the Prince, else it would
have happened already. One might be able to rally several different factions, multiple powerful
elders or simply a great portion of the Kindred population behind the goal, but for this tactic to
work, a great many Kindred with their own ambitions and fears must put aside their differences
and work together. This simply doesn’t happen often enough to provide much hope. The only
way such is likely to occur is if the Prince is so truly horrible and abusive that nearly every vampire
in the city believes that she has something to gain by ousting him. Sometimes a single powerful
elder does succeed in scheming her way to authority, ousting a weaker Prince in the process, but
doing so requires years of machinations, numerous alliances and many decades of experience.
So if no appeal is available and revolution is unlikely to succeed, what’s left? Leave the city,
begin anew somewhere else? The Kindred are acutely aware of the hazards of that course of
action. For the great majority of Kindred, the only way to survive is to keep one’s head down,
grin and bear the current Prince no matter how awful he is, and hope one night to accumulate
enough personal power and infl uence to take steps at that time.
It must be said, though, that not all Princes are sadistic, iron-fi sted tyrants. Few Princes rule so
absolutely that they can do everything they want. Other elders most likely dwell in their domains.
Certain vampires (known collectively and individually as the Primogen) might advise the Prince,
but that doesn’t necessarily mean they share all his goals and desires. Few Princes are so secure
in their positions that they can afford to completely ignore the wishes of their cities’ elders. This
isn’t necessarily a good thing — no guarantee exists that the desires of other elders are any better
for young Kindred than those of the Prince — but the need to make occasional concessions is
still the only check on the Prince’s power, other than the Traditions (see p. 91).
Many domains take the feudal model further still. One method the Prince has of both mollifying
the other elders and delegating responsibility is to parcel out portions of his city to other
Kindred as personal feeding grounds. Only a very few Princes parcel off an entire city. Most focus
only on the best areas: downtown, specifi c slums, hospital districts, club and bar areas. (In many
cities, an area of this sort is called the Rack.) If the Prince grants such a territory to an elder, that
elder then decides who, if anyone, may feed there. This grants the elder substantial power, as
many Kindred rely on Racks for easy feeding. If they wish to continue hunting in those areas, they
must offer favors or concessions to the current landholder. Of course, some Kindred choose to
ignore the fact that the territory is no longer open. Many get away with it, but a vampire caught
poaching on another’s territory can be taken before the Prince and judged as a criminal.
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DEPENDENT DOMAINS
Precisely how much power individual elders have over those in their territory varies
city by city. In some domains, they have very little. They might offer to trade feeding
and haven rights for boons or services, but anything beyond that is considered stepping
on the Prince’s toes.
In other cities, elders rule their territories as domains within domains. Here, an elder
may set his own laws and enforce his own dictates, as long as they do not blatantly
contradict those of the Prince. This is particularly common in cities where an elder is
nearly as powerful as the Prince himself. In some cases, the Prince doesn’t even grant
territorial rights to the elder in question. Rather, that elder goes to him and says, “I’m
claiming this portion of the city for my own. Do you care to dispute it?” Weak Princes
(at least in comparison to other local elders) sometimes accept such arrangements in
order to avoid confl ict.
For more information on such situations, see “Subinfeudation” on p. 34.
chapter one: society of the damned