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

Upon being informed of just how old the Kindred truly are, many grow eager — giddy, even — to
fi nd really old vampires and pick their brains about people, places and events of ages past.
They quickly come to learn, however, that history is an inconstant companion for the Kindred.
Even if a single (formerly) mortal mind could conceivably retain all it saw, learned and
experienced over a period of centuries, the very physiology of the Kindred form forbids such
clear and detailed recall. A vampire’s blood increases in potency the longer he stays awake and
active in the mortal world, and the more potent a vampire’s blood is, the more diffi cult it is
for him to remain at ease with the world around him. Potent blood is demanding, indeed. It
calls out for the Vitae of other Kindred — an urge potentially leading to the terribly sinful act
of diablerie. Failing that, it calls out for sleep, so that the blood at least has a chance to thin
over time and return the vampire to a semblance of his more composed self. To make matters
worse, certain vampiric activities can cause a Kindred’s blood to concentrate prematurely,
thus leading to further mental distortion, frustration and anguish.
This fact alone would call into question any elder vampire’s ability to remember specifi c
details of centuries past, but the Blood is neither the only nor the greatest contributor to the
eternal inconstancy of history where the Kindred are concerned. When an elder fi nally does
succumb to the call for rest, she enters a state known as torpor, a comatose sleep during which
her vampiric essence thins out. While in torpor, the Kindred does not need to feed to keep
her unnatural form in its static state. She merely sleeps, rejuvenating her body.
The diffi culty comes in the quality and nature of torpor-induced sleep. Being in torpor is
akin to lying prostrate through a decades-long waking dream. Visions, memories and images
of events past (and possibly even future) plague the addled mind of the torpid Kindred, and
that’s just a mild torpor experience. For some, torpor is a protracted nightmare, fraught with
horrifi c visitations of past atrocities and failures. Imagine all the most intense qualities of
a powerful drug high, combined with the lucid displacement of the deepest sleep, and the
result is what every passing hour of torpor is like. Now, try to imagine such a mental state
stretching on for 50 years. How about 100 years? The results can be harsh.
Not even the strongest mortal mind could withstand such psychic duress for more than a few
days, let alone years. Waking from such a state would leave the average mortal psychologically
scarred, if not entirely catatonic. And yet, the Kindred must endure this punishment regularly
and repeatedly in order to survive the passage of centuries. Is it any wonder, then, that their
concept of time and the sequence of events is distorted? Indeed, some are simply too weak to
bear the brunt of the mental onslaught of repeated torpors. Their minds eventually shatter from
the strain, leaving them incapable of rising of their own volition. It is whispered that hundreds,
if not thousands, of such Kindred lie beneath the Earth’s surface, their sanity stripped from
their undead minds like husks from corn. Some believe that these insane Kindred will rise one
night and be like unto an army against the Damned society from which they were driven.
Wise Kindred take steps to make sure that their precious thoughts and memories stay fresh,
and more importantly, fi xed. Many use journals and other mundane means of recording events
and dates, while others resort to more drastic and often mystical means. One group in particular,
a faction known as the Agonistes, has taken it upon itself to catalog some of the knowledge
that has been lost to Kindred over time and in torpor, while simultaneously looking for ways
to ameliorate the worst of the great sleep’s effects. So far, the scholars of the Agonistes have
made little headway in the latter objective, but they have made such advances in the former as
to be “in demand” around the world. Indeed, many elder Kindred, in expectation of impending
torpor, summon one of the Agonistes to oversee his transition, as well as to assist in various
other record-keeping tasks. The group takes the “confi dentiality” of patrons’ activities and
memories very seriously, and there have been few accusations of impropriety to date.
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chapter one: society of the damned