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

Kindred even use connections in the local religious community to attract Church-sponsored
vampire-hunters, which is an exceedingly risky move.
Ultimately, very few criminals ever escape a blood hunt unscathed. They are either tracked
down and slain or manage to fl ee the city, which is often a death sentence in and of itself.
Technically, a Prince is not supposed to call a blood hunt for personal reasons, only when
a truly heinous lawbreaker is on the loose. Some Princes are better about following this tradition
than others, and a few of the most dictatorial ones actually use the hunt as a means
of squashing dissent. Sure, it fl ies in the face of tradition, but who are the Kindred going to
complain to? That said, some Princes have found the calling of an unnecessary blood hunt to
be the spark that fi nally triggers revolution among their subjects, so even the most tyrannical
Kindred ruler doesn’t invoke the Lextalionis lightly.
Very rarely, if a fugitive is considered an enemy of a specifi c covenant, a blood hunt might
extend to more than once city. For instance, all the Invictus-dominant cities in a specifi c area
might exchange information via email and phone in an attempt to run a criminal to ground.
For the most part, however, a blood hunt is strictly a local thing, and no hunt that has expanded
beyond the borders of a single domain has ever lasted more than a few nights. Multiple cities
simply cannot maintain cooperation for longer than that, especially since each Prince has her
own issues to deal with, the wishes of her covenant notwithstanding.
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Strains of the Requiem
These overarching concerns of the Kindred condition aside, the world of the Damned is
complex even in the minutiae. Whether an issue involves Kindred from one Prince’s domain
to the next is not the question. Myriad small concerns potentially face every vampire from
the moment she rises at nightfall.
SLAVES TO THE BLOOD
It’s a simple, fundamental fact that no vampire, however determined or powerful, can escape:
The Blood is all. It defi nes everything the Kindred are, and ultimately everything they do. It
also defi nes many of their relations with mortals and the Kindred around them.
VESSELS
By its most basic defi nition, a vessel is simply a source of Vitae. The vast majority of the
time, Kindred use the term to refer to mortals, but those elder Kindred who can feed only
on the blood of other vampires use it to refer to undead fodder as well. Mortal vessels are
often called “Licks” by young Kindred.
As much as the Kindred might prefer to deny it, vessels are often far more than merely a
covered dish. The act of feeding is extremely intimate, perhaps the most intimate experience
either participant will ever have. For the subject, the vampire’s Kiss brings exquisite pleasure,
comparable to or even greater than the pinnacle of sexual release. Some mortals become literally
addicted to the experience and — if they can ever piece together precisely what happened
through hazy memories and the cloak of the Masquerade — they even seek out vampires, or
the particular Kindred who fed on them, in hopes of repeating it. For the undead, the act
of feeding is the sum total of who and what they are, the very purpose for which they exist.
Mortals simply cannot comprehend the need the Kindred feel or imagine the satisfaction,
relief and release the Kindred experience in fulfi lling that need.
chapter one: society of the damned