The Great Houses of Vampire have crept side-by-side for
as long as there has been prey to glut themselves upon, and each House has
their own distinct history and origin. The Great Houses are vastly different in
how they stumbled upon Undeath, and each are brought into darkness in their own
unique way. Some were never breathing to begin with…
House Ventrue
Starting Humanity: 6
House Discipline: Majesty
Nicknames: Scions, Blue Bloods, The First Estate (Old
Form)
The Scions of House Ventrue are the lords and ladies of
Charon, Master of the Underworld. There, they rule over vast armies of the
dead, commanding their charges in eternal warfare against their own noble kin.
Status, prestige and tradition are their birthright, and they wield their power
with a master’s authority.
Ventrue are the only House of Vampire that never once
drew living breath. The Ventrue are born as Vampires to Vampiric parents in an
ancient and grim ritual that spawns a new Scion. A newly spawned Ventrue ages
at a normal rate, ceasing to age entirely when they reach the peak of their
physical impressiveness. Some Ventrue are locked in eternal youth and beauty,
yet others appear as truly ancient and frightening beings.
The process of spawning is, as things tend to be with the
Ventrue, highly traditionalized. A male and Female Scion pledge
themselves to each other as they did in feudal times, then go about the
business of producing heirs and heiresses to their unholy kingdoms. Once per
century, a Ventrue couple can produce offspring by ritually exchanging blood
and reciting vows of allegiance to each other at the foot of the river Styx in
the presence of Charon himself. One year after the ceremony is observed, the Boatman
returns, cradling a new Scion in his spindly arms.
Many Ventrue “families” are rife with political
infighting and outright contempt. Ambition runs high among the Scions, and an
eternity waiting in line for your chance at the throne is a very real possibility.
It was this very problem that forced the younger Ventrue to abandon the
Underworld entirely and seek their fortunes among the lands of the living.
A schism has divided the grand house of Ventrue firmly
down the middle, as young Vampires openly fled the yoke of their Lieges and
Lords, unwilling to fight in the endless campaigns of their bloodlines, and
fled into the lands of the living, where they are free to carve out their own
kingdoms in a new, living world. The House is divided between the Old
Blood, who maintain their residence in the Underworld inside crumbling
castles amid constant warfare, and the New Blood, who have ascended
to the living world in search of their own bloody kingdoms. Ventrue Player
Characters in Vampire: the Darkness are members of the New Blood.
Due to their origins in the Underworld, Old Blood Ventrue
have ashen, grayish colored skin and pointed ears. The New Blood Ventrue have
lost these ghastly features as they spent more and more time among the living,
adopting the physical traits of the Mortals that they feast upon.
House Boon
Affluence: The New Blood Ventrue have spent
centuries amassing material wealth. As such, all Ventrue begin play with the
Rich Edge for free at Character Creation.
House Bane
Rarified Tastes: As a Ventrue ages, their
feeding preferences become more and more exclusive. Every Ventrue chooses a
certain type of prey that they find particularly tasty. This is the type of
prey that the Ventrue must feed on to gain nourishment. Drinking any other type
of blood provides no sustenance, and also forces the Ventrue to purge the
ingested blood all over their nice shoes. Neonate prey preferences are often
broad and manageable, as in only drinking the blood of divorced females. As the
Ventrue ages, however, this restriction becomes more and more alarmingly
specific. By the time a Ventrue reaches Elder age, their choice of prey is
indeed specific…and hard to come by.
Opinions of Others
Daeva: “Admire
their passion, preferably, from afar, lest it set you ablaze.”
Gangrel: “Trapped
between two inferior worlds. Pity them.”
Nosferatu: “The
worst of the Kine become the worst of the Kindred. What a cruel-hearted joke.”
Spectri: “Trusted
advisors with a wellspring of secrets. Make sure none of them belong to you,
and all is well.”
Old Blood
Ventrue: “We have bowed and scraped to
their rotting crowns for too long. Now the night belongs to us. Our exodus
could not have come soon enough.”
Mortals: “Every
Ruler needs a serf.”
House Daeva
Starting Humanity: 7
House Discipline: Verve
Nicknames: Sirens, Degenerates, Tempests (Old
Form)
White hot Passion is what drives the fiery Daeva, so much
so that even death itself cannot hold back their fierce spirits. Everything a
scion of this House does radiates with a blazing passion and sincere drive, and
their unlives are swirling tempests of activity and roiling emotion. There is
no middle ground with a Member of this vivid assembly of Undead, and restraint
is a term that they despise with all the turbulent emotions they house inside
their furnace-like hearts.
Zeal isn’t only a way of unlife for the Daeva, it is in
fact their fuel for returning to the world of the living. All Daeva were born
mortal, and died before their time. Still anchored to this world by the source
of their passion, the Daeva is reanimated and given eternity to rectify this
urge. A Daeva who is murdered by a sworn enemy might be driven by pure,
unadulterated vengeance and stubbornly refuse to die meekly, or a lovestruck
mortal killed in a freak accident might claw their way back out of the grave to
forever protect (or even reclaim) their lost love.
Other Daeva were great artists or creators, meeting death
before finishing their greatest work and returning from the grave to finish
their defining work. Even if a Daeva’s mortal body is destroyed or burned
beyond recognition during their first death, the remains are supernaturally
animated and reformed afterwards. If there is one thing that can be said about
these fervent souls, it is that they do not go quietly! Daeva are only created
from those who met sudden and fiery ends, however, and none perished from old
age or disease. For this reason, the vast Majority of House Daeva appear as
younger in age than their contemporaries among the damned.
By far, the Daeva are the most enamored with mortals and
the living. Of all the great Houses of the Damned, the Daeva revel in their
affairs of the Kine and are, in fact, their biggest fans. Your average Daeva
craves the attention, adoration, or outright worship of the masses, and is heavily
equipped to handily secure them. As with all things the Daeva cultivate,
relations with mortals are plagued by turbulence. What the Daeva love, they
incinerate with their passion. What they hate, they endlessly revile and thrash
against.
House Boon
Blazing Soul: The Daeva are fiery souls and
begin play with the Charismatic Edge for free at character creation. Not all
Daeva are physically attractive, but they all have that intangible “It” factor
that draws others to them.
House Bane
Slave to Passion: There is no middle-road with the Daeva, and their emotions run fiery hot
and boil close to the surface at all times. This often manifests itself in
fiery outbursts of tempestuous emotion, and all rolls made to resist Frenzy are
rolled twice and the lowest result is used.
Opinions of Others
Ventrue: “The
mantle of leadership fits snuggly around their throats like a noose. Funny, how
eager they are to wear it.”
Gangrel: “Their
rough exterior takes some getting used to, but these dual-souled beasts harbor
instincts and drives that may just rival our own.”
Nosferatu: “How
they don’t run screeching into the first dawn is truly beyond me.”
Spectri: “Do these
dark and mysterious sages have the slightest idea what manner of being to whom
they have pledged themselves?”
Mortals: “They are
our sustenance and our inspiration. The Kine remind us what we have lost and
what we aspire to be.”
House Gangrel
Starting Humanity: 6
House Discipline: Protean
Nickname: Savages, Outlanders, Primals (Old Form)
The spirit of the predator reigns uncontested in the
heart of the ferocious House Gangrel. These indomitable Kindred reflect the
instinctual, feral side of their kind, bringing to bear all the savage gifts of
the ancient and wild spirits that inhabit their eternal bodies. Of all the
Houses, it is the Gangrel who are most repelled by Charon and his Underworld.
That realm of death and decay is the very antithesis of the natural wilds where
the wily Primals feel at their most potent.
Members of House Gangrel trace their lineage back to an
ancient and powerful nature deity whose name is long lost to time. She has been
worshipped by endless ancient tribes and primitive civilizations under a litany
of names and bloody sacrificial traditions. Her influence was once unquestioned
when the world was still a green and wild place. While her true name is lost to
time, the Gangrel know her only as the Crone, mother of monsters
and founder of their savage kind.
Ancient tales depict a fierce battle between Charon, lord
of the Dead and the Crone. Neither side of this conflict left the encounter
unscathed, as the battle saw the Crone’s bestial claws rend the grey, withered
flesh from the boatman’s bones, leaving him the skeletal husk he remains to
this day. In retaliation, an icy cold finger touched the uncovered, bare flesh
of the Crone, infecting her with the aura of entropy that caused her to retreat
from battle in revulsion. With her nigh-limitless powers weakened by this
stench of death-essence, the Crone watched in horror as nature’s hold on the
world soon was wrested over the centuries, allowing humankind to prosper and
tame her once savage wilderness-world. In one last act of defiance, the Crone
called out to all her children, a collection of massive, feral beasts that were
once fabled to still walk the lands of men and prey upon them. Surrounded by
her offspring, the Crone ritually consumed her kin, forever freeing these
powerful, eternal nature spirits into the ether before slumbering deep into the
Earth for eons.
These ancient nature spirits possess the bodies of a rare
few mortals, melding with their host and instilling the fury and predatory
instinct of the Gangrel. These primordial spirits, however, are still tainted
with the death magic that plagued their Mother, and thus, the Kindred of House
Gangrel are a precarious mix of nature and death, outsiders among their own
Vampiric kin, as well as the living, natural beasts of the world. A member of
House Gangrel often grows up troubled, with strange dreams of ancient glades
and bloody hunts as the possessing spirit inside them stirs latently, growing
in influence over time. When the ancient bestial spirit of a Gangrel fully
awakens is different for every Gangrel, but she becomes something more than a
beast and more than a Vampire. The Gangrel consider themselves as the children
of the Crone, walking embodiments of nature’s savagery.
These primeval spirits are truly undying, and when a
Gangrel meets final death, the conjoined souls of the Gangrel’s host and the
nature spirit possessing it enter the body of a new host, thus creating an
endless cycle of ‘renewal’ much like those found in nature. In fact, Gangrel
oftentimes relive the pasts of their ancestors through vivid dreams that play
out through their daytime slumber and torpor.
House Boon
Natural Predator: As potent hunters, all
Gangrel begin play with ratings of d6 in Stealth, Tracking and Survival.
House Bane
Primal Spirit: Every member of House Gangrel
is possessed by an ancient earth spirit from eons before the rise of man. As a
Gangrel ages, this spirit exerts more and more control over their host. Neonate
Gangrel might have show small feral features or behaviors, but these are often
easy to overlook. Ancillae Gangrel often sport more noticeable predatory features,
and Elder Gangrel often times appear as true meldings between beast and man.
Beyond this, Gangrel as a whole are very territorial, and mark places they
frequent, as well as feeding grounds as theirs, and woe be to anyone who dares
violate their terrain.
Opinions of Others
Ventrue: “Come
command me, my Liege, I’m begging you.”
Daeva: “Blazes
twice as bright flicker out in half the time, don’t you know.”
Nosferatu: “Their
deeds pollute them to their very core. To both man and beast, the stench of
Worms is horrific.”
Spectri: “They sign
away their soul in blood? Yea, right…”
Mortals: “A quarry
most divine.”
Werewolves: “They
smell the mark of Charon on our very souls, so best to let them sniff from a
distance.”
House Nosferatu
Starting Humanity: 5
House Discipline: Nightmare
Nickname: Worms, Haunts, Wretches (Old Form)
Even the Damned have their Monsters. Those Kindred of
House Nosferatu were so wretched in life that they were cursed with an eternity
skulking in the Shadows and preying upon the living. Every Nosferatu’s origin
is a tale rife with vileness and atrocity. While their stories vary wildly in
specifics, the one gruesome and frayed thread that binds them together is that
they willfully committed an act so unspeakably taboo that their souls were damned
in the process, or they uncovered a parcel of forbidden knowledge that no man
was meant to know, and were forever altered after tasting of it.
In an ancient land, a holy knight turns his back on God
after his beloved is slain and taken from him. The grieving warlord defiles his
own church and impales the priests of his order on sharpened pikes, renouncing
all gods and in turn being cursed to Undeath as a result.
In the thick and steamy jungles of Vietnam, an unhinged
Sergeant slaughters a peasant village in a violent rampage, defiling an ancient
and mysterious statue in the process while the wounded and dying villagers
scornfully whisper an ancient and binding curse...
In a horrifying insane asylum, the caretaker conducts
gruesome experiments and takes foul liberty with those under his care. The
lunatics try to warn him while they still have tongues, but soon, the
caretaker’s appetites grow darker still.
In a dusty tomb, an obsessed archaeologist eagerly
defiles the grave of the entombed pharaoh who resides there, clearly reading
and ignoring the grim warning etched in the sarcophagus after killing his
research partner in cold blood for trying to stop him.
All Nosferatu performed some perversion that forever
twisted their souls. Simple murder or theft is not enough to warrant the curse
of the Nosferatu, but only the most twisted, perverse and willfully reckless
acts that a mortal can perform. As payment, the Nosferatu wear their sin like
an immortal shroud, forever repelling the living they once dwelled alongside.
Each Nosferatu is repugnant for Mortals to be around. Some are physically
twisted, looking like monstrous, fanged and hunched over…things. Some are as
beautiful and dazzling as one can physically be, but radiate an aura of utter,
complete dread and fear in those who still breathe. A Nosferatu’s curse
radiates from her in palpable, spine tingling fear, and many are similarly
mentally twisted as a result. Whether mentally or physically desecrated, the
Nosferatu’s is a mirror’s reflection of everlasting horror.
House Boon
Monstrous Soul: As twisted instruments of
dread and madness, all Nosferatu gain immunity from use of the Intimidate skill
or other fear effects. Also, all Nosferatu begin play with a free d6 in the
Intimidation skill.
House Bane
Warped: Every Nosferatu is either physically
or mentally deformed. No matter what type of malady a Nosferatu has, there is
an aura of menace and danger about them, and all Nosferatu suffer -4 Charisma.
Mortals are inherently put off in the presence of a Nosferatu, even if the
creature is taking pains to conceal its presence.
Opinions of Others
Ventrue: “They fled
from tyrannical elders so that they could become tyrannical elders. Gotcha.”
Daeva: “Their link
to the mortal world is a weakness waiting to be deliciously exploited.”
Gangrel: “These
guys are possessed by spirits and I’m the crazy one?”
Spectri: “Dirty
secrets are the best kind. We should do lunch.”
Mortals: “They make
fun sounds when they break.”
House
Spectri
Starting Humanity:
5
House Discipline:
Void
Nickname:
Blackhearts, Shades,
Abyssals (Old Form)
In
the grim depths of the Underworld, long beyond the winding river Styx and far
past the endlessly clogged battlefields of the Old Blood Ventrue lays a
swirling and black void of what appears to be thick, roiling ink. This lonesome
place is called the Abyss, and none who enter its alien depths ever see light
again. The beings who inhabit the Abyss are called many things by many people.
Some call them demons or devils, while some claim that all negative energy
pools here and stirs in a thick, concentrated sludge. Whatever you choose to
believe, the denizens of the Abyss hear every sinister plea and sinful whisper
from the living, and sometimes, every so often, they whisper back.
The
Spectri are Mortals who somehow not only make contact with the unknowable
entities that dwell in the endless darkness of the Abyss, but enter into
grim pacts for deeper understanding of that which was not meant to be known.
Above all else, the Spectri are slaves to knowledge. In
fact, it is their obsession in life with acquiring the answers to all things
that often sets them on paths that lead towards more and more forbidden lore.
As they uncover layer after layer of grim enlightenment, they may soon attract
the attentions of the denizens of the Abyss, who approach the interested party
and offer the ultimate Devil’s deal: An eternity in the shadows in exchange for
the power over death and the Void.
None have yet to refuse.
While the particulars differ from Shade to Shade, each
member of House Spectri is visited by an otherworldly being cloaked in
impenetrable darkness who promises them power and immortality in exchange for
their earthly souls. Each
Spectri has made their own unique deal with the Darkness and signed it in their
own blood, and awoken that evening to find themselves in endless and abyssal
debt as a result. Spectri do not taste of the fruits of the tree of knowledge,
but feast upon it hungrily.
Most Spectri have backgrounds in academia, investigation,
or any profession that digs up information that sometimes is better left being
buried. Some Spectri managed to discover the truth about the Kindred and their
society, and inwardly craved to join their Undead ranks and jumped at the
opportunity once offered.
The
eyes and hair of all members of this House turn stark and sleek black once they
are Spawned, no matter what color they were before hand. Spectri are many
things, but tragic characters is not one of them. The Darkness didn’t trick
them into accepting the devil’s deal. Indeed, each Shade eagerly grasped at the
power offered and never looked back.
More
than a few Vampiric scholars who study the Abyss theorize that it has grown
substantially in the last few centuries, its murky and inky waters slowly, yet
surely rising. In hushed, horrified whispers, they ponder what would happen if
the Abyss swallowed the Underworld entirely and began seeping into the realm of
the living…
House Boon
Dark Lore: All
Spectri begin play with a free d6 in the Knowledge Skill. Furthermore, members
of this House constantly hear whispers from the Abyss that tell the dark
secrets of others. A member of this House can spend a point of blood once per
night to learn one dark secret from anyone (Kindred or Kine) that they have
physically touched in the last 24 hours.
House Bane
Light Sensitive:
As creatures of the Abyss, the Spectri cannot tolerate bright lights. Sunlight
deals double damage to them and Neonate Spectri take a -1 penalty to all rolls
made in abnormally bright lighting. This sensitivity increases as a Spectri
ages, and Ancillae most often wear sunglasses even indoors to protect
themselves. It is rumored that very old Spectri must function in nigh-total darkness,
and that even artificial light can cause aggravated damage to their ancient
flesh.
Opinions of Others
Ventrue: “Their
constant politicking assures their constant need for our counsel.”
Daeva: “It is a
waste of time amassing the secrets of those who truly have no shame.”
Gangrel: “As fierce
as they are unfocused. All things said, they can be overlooked.”
Nosferatu: “They
were punished with undeath. We were gifted it.”
Mortals: “Fuel for
the whispers of the Abyss. Sin on, Kine.”
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