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

THE RULES STUFF
At some point, you must defi ne a bloodline’s favored Disciplines and inherited weakness.
This is usually the easiest part of designing a bloodline, and it’s very often the point of inspiration.
Storytellers shouldn’t let a Discipline be the only inspiration, though.
BLOODLINE DISCIPLINES
A bloodline favors at least the same Disciplines as the parent clan. In case it doesn’t, a
bloodline may replace one or two favored Disciplines, and one of them is usually a somewhat
similar Discipline. For instance, the three “physical” Disciplines of Celerity, Resilience
and Vigor easily substitute for each other. So do the “psychic” Disciplines of Animalism,
Auspex, Dominate, Majesty, Nightmare and Obfuscate, which all affect the mind in some
way. The Bruja, for instance, seem to have decided that they’d like to wield brute strength
in addition to the supernal hardiness of their parent clan.
A bloodline has four favored Disciplines. Of them, three almost always remain the same
as the parent clan’s. The fourth is either unique to the bloodline — unable to be learned by
Kindred who are not of the bloodline — or is one of the “common” Disciplines practiced
by vampires across clan lines. Ghouls can never access more than one unique Discipline
at the same time: if their Regnant changes, they lose access to any unique Discipline dots
they may have learned under his tutelage. If embraced, such a ghoul would only be able to
access a unique Discipline if they joined that specifi c bloodline.
Theban Sorcery, Crúac and the pseudo-Discipline of the Coils of the Dragon may never
be a bloodline’s fourth Discipline.
The change to a bloodline never replaces all three clan Disciplines. The Blood just doesn’t
change to that degree, no matter what infl uence works upon it. If you design a bloodline
and fi nd that you want to replace all three of the parent clan’s Disciplines, re-examine your
reasons for choosing that particular clan. Some other clan is probably more appropriate.
This goes for players, too. A player whose character has developed all three clan Disciplines
to the limit set by his Blood Potency might want to move the character onto a bloodline
so that the character gets an experience-point break when learning another Discipline. We
recommend that Storytellers not allow this because it’s cheap and tacky point-mongering,
instead of serious character development.
We also recommend that you do not allow any bloodline to favor more than one unique
Discipline. This is a point of story design, not an innate property of the Blood. Special
Disciplines should relate to the core idea of a bloodline — its very reason for existence
as part of your chronicle. More than one exotic Discipline suggests a lack of focus in the
concept of the line… or an attempt to create a “super-bloodline” or a simple desire to be
strange for the sake of strangeness.
Under no circumstances can a character have more than four bloodline Disciplines.
Changing the Blood to favor a new Discipline always means honing one’s affi nity for one
other Discipline. No power in the World of Darkness can change this iron law.
BLOODLINE WEAKNESS
A bloodline may keep the same weakness as its parent clan. Additionally, bloodlines develop
new fl aws or focus the clan’s existing weakness. The Morbus, for instance, have very specifi c
tastes while the Malkovians suffer from a refi ned madness even more crippling than that of
members of their parent clan. Storytellers should examine proposed weaknesses closely, to
make sure that they actually handicap a character. Compare the new weakness to the standard
clan weakness. Does the new weakness limit or hinder the character just as much?
372 mind’s appendix: eye theatre: bloodlines requiem