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

confusion or underestimation by “dressing younger,” then he’s have won himself a victory.
Using preconceived notions against one’s opponents becomes just another way to assert
dominance and maintain an edge.
This isn’t to say that your players’ vampires can’t enjoy some extra costuming fl ourishes now
and again, especially in their private sanctuaries far from prying mortal eyes. If Elysium is held
in closed quarters away from mortal eyes, the fashions of the modern era can certainly give
way to what Kindred knew in lifetimes past. Just because the mortal world demands certain
concessions from them, that doesn’t mean the Kindred won’t fi nd their own way to express
themselves in the styles they once adored. If part of the vampiric experience for your players
is having the occasional session where they can wear archaic clothing, so be it.
VOICE
Many vampires are walking relics from times and places long past, but how does a someone
portray a creature of great age without resorting to the clichés of fi lm narratives? There are
a few simple tricks to convey the weight of years. For example, a player can speak slowly and
precisely, leaving out all colloquialisms and modern phrasing. While this might leave a person’s
speech somewhat bland, it can be balanced by not taking every opportunity to speak.
It is important to realize that while accents can often betray the origin of a person, many
vampires in the World of Darkness have existed for half a dozen mortal lifetimes or longer.
Even an ordinary person who moves to the other side of a country can return home with a
noticeable accent change. Now imagine a person having lived in several different places over
the course of many years. The vampires can often be so far removed from whatever their
homeland might have been that their former speech patterns have been obliterated in the
process of constantly gaining and losing accents and languages. This allows players to portray
elders from different times and places without feeling obligated to construct entirely consistent
or encompassing accents to do so.
Other options can include simply throwing in a few words from the character’s native language
in their dialogue. Sometimes certain ideas can only be expressed in the language that
a person fi rst learned them. Instead of attempting an accent for the full run of a chronicle,
a player may prefer to simply learn a few choice phrases in a separate language and use them
from time to time — especially in moments of great stress.
BODY LANGUAGE
Getting the message across that your character is something other than human doesn’t just
stop at speech patterns and costuming. How a person moves and acts can also deliver a powerful
performance of its own. Remember that vampires are no longer human, sometimes not even
outwardly. Aside from basic sensory features and the muscular/skeletal use of their limbs, they
no longer have true biological functions, but have been mystically animated into a semblance of
life. It stands to reason that some of their casual movements can be made to seem inhuman.
Players seeking models to base their movements on might fi nd it very instructive to study
the movements of animals — either in real life or on television nature programs. Ordinary
people move and act much differently than animals. We tend to be sloppier and make a lot
of unnecessary movements, while animals rarely move unless they have to. Even at times of
play, animals are often learning survival skills necessary to keep themselves alive. Likewise,
vampires are devoid of most casual motions. Unless they choose to mimic them to put their
prey at ease, they don’t need to breathe, blink or perform many other automatic functions
that living things do all the time.
Likewise, animals that live in social groups often seek to secure their location among their
peers through the use of body language and posturing, strengthening their position while
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mind’s chapter eye four: theatre: storytelling requiem