The world of Vampire is a dark reflection of our own. The shadows loom longer here, and the night is more reluctant to yield to day. Corruption runs rampant, from the government through private corporations and into the various subcultures that revel in these culturally bankrupt times.
It is a world of contrasts, of haves versus have-nots. It all looks very much like the real world, as seen through an extremely stylized filter that turns up the contrasts between dark and light. The technology is the same as ours right now, but the people who use it are different — darker, in personality and motive — and that changes how the world functions.
In this world, vampires exist, and they are very much an extension of the tarnished aesthetic that shapes the World of Darkness. Whatever their origins, or whatever they believe to be their origins, vampires are an outgrowth of the people who populate this desperate environment. Vampires exist in the World of Darkness because they are the monsters among us, the products of a world so dark that only something truly horrible and captivating can challenge the depths into which the living residents of the world have plunged it.
For the Kindred, cities are urban collections of territories and domains that stand as illuminated points against the greater backdrop of the wilderness and the places between their safety. For vampires, the paradigm is almost medieval. The cities are their homes, and everything that’s not a city represents some sort of danger. Outside the cities are packs of savage Lupines, vast fallow areas where there is no blood to be found, and the unquantifiable strangeness endemic to a World of Darkness. Modern technology eases those dangers somewhat, but most Kindred are effectively trapped in cities, where they gild their cages with elaborate games of prestige, social status, and vendetta.
To that end, much of Vampire takes place in urban environments. Why should the Kindred risk starvation in the untamed wild when those badlands confer no status upon their masters, and when a frenzied werewolf may well come rampaging across the landscape, leaving dismemberment in xyr wake? Truly, vampires are uniquely acclimated to city domains, and the cities are the places that hold the most of their most precious resource in blood.
Upon the Embrace, the fledgling’s senses sharpen, displaying to zir a richness of visual colors, auditory distinction, tactile fineness, and olfactory alertness that mortals senses are too limited to discern. The most important of all, however is taste — taste becomes the new Kindred’s primary sense, and with it ze engages the pursuit of a single taste to the exclusion of all others: vitae. Mortal blood. The mortal dies, and in zir places rises a member of the undead, a Kindred. With this unholy rebirth comes a host of new potential, from the mystical powers known as Disciplines that Kindred possess to the quintessential vampiric ability to use blood for a variety of supernal purposes.
Thereafter, nothing is the same for the fledgling. Ze’s no longer mortal, but a new member of an elaborate society of the Damned, who have their own complicated codes of behavior, their own customs, and seemingly endless rules and protocols that dictate who is subservient to whom and under what circumstances. Even for those who rebel against the system — Anarchs, ungovernable Autarkis, and any number of other rogues — a pecking order must exist. The only place it doesn’t is when only one vampire claims the domain… and if that vampire just performed the Embrace, well, there’s no longer only one vampire there.
The trappings of the fledgling’s mortal life can no longer support zir. In the short term, the new vampire now requires blood to sustain zirself, and surrounding oneself with vessels of sustenance whom one loves will inevitably result in bloody ruin. In the long term, while the new vampire will remain deathless, unchanged by time, those around zir will age, wither, and die. The easiest course, most sires agree, is simply to turn one’s back on the mortal life that no longer offers anything but tragedy and a reminder of the damned state of the undead.
Once a vampire is Embraced, her looks are frozen in time. Zir skin will be unnaturally cold to the touch and become paler as ze ages, but ze will look the same in a thousand years as ze does on the night of zir Embrace. However, zir body does not work like it used to. As mentioned previously, nearly all Kindred are unable to eat food after the Embrace, vomiting it up almost immediately — only blood will sustain them. Over time, most of the vampire’s bodily fluids will be replaced by blood — the Kindred sweats a thin sheen of blood when nervous, cries tears of blood when sad, and makes a god-awful mess during sex.
Blood has other, unique uses for vampires. Besides needing it for sustenance, Cainites can mentally direct the blood to various parts of their bodies, “spending” it to perform a variety of feats. Ze can heal zirself, mending scrapes, cuts, and slashes in moments. Ze can also enhance zir physical capabilities, making zirself stronger, hardier, or more agile for a short period of time, and fuel the mystical powers at zir command. Zir blood can also create new vampires through the Embrace, and enslave the minds of mortals and even other Kindred. Some vampires can also spend blood to appear human once again: make their skin rosy and warm, mimic breathing, and even allow zir to have sex once again (although intercourse pales in comparison to the ecstasy of the Kiss).
Of course, there’s a downside as well. Inside every vampire lurks an impassioned, hungry creature that is the opposite of the Man. It is the Beast, and the Beast knows only three activities: kill, feast, sleep. It is the roiling, inchoate desire every Kindred feels to slay zir prey rather than taking just enough. It is the inevitable urge to be what the vampire is — a predator who doesn’t answer to the will of men or hide from their numbers. When the Beast takes control over a vampire, ze is said to enter a state of frenzy, directing the Cainite into a response of fight or flight.
But the Beast isn’t a simple animal soul; it can be sophisticated. It knows that the war against the Man is one that, given time, it will inevitably win. Thus, in young vampires, the Beast is often a savvy creature, willing to take small victories here and there because in the long term, they lead the Kindred down the path of greater degradation and subservience to the Beast. Tonight the Kindred destroys property, tomorrow ze kills with reticence, the night after that ze kills with relish. By the time the Man has eroded and the Beast holds sway, there is little rational consciousness left to the Cainite in question. Kill, feast, sleep is all that remains in a vampire dominated entirely by zir Beast.
The Kindred who believes he’ll forever be the toughest motherfucker in the place just because ze drinks blood and can’t die is in for a rude awakening. Thousands upon thousands of other vampires are competing with zir for that top-dog status. Vampires are powerful creatures, certainly, but those powerful creatures have put in place hierarchies of their own, and none of them have “share my jealously hoarded power with some newly Embraced whelp” at the top of their agendas.
The elders have it all sewn up, it would seem. They claim domains that they have held for decades, if not centuries. The social hierarchies, no matter the sect, are occupied by cagey vampires who didn’t rise to the top by being companionable. The highest echelon of Kindred authority in almost any city is a spider’s web of tenured intrigues, vicious rivalries, and outright hatreds that can boil over into physical violence and even Final Death.
Add to this the fact that these entrenched elders are masters of manipulation and misdirection, and many young vampires feel — not incorrectly — that they are pawns. They are moved in a game played by hoary old monsters, and their every movement may not even be their own. Does the brash young Brujah really hate the Toreador ancilla who snubbed her at a party? Or did the Ventrue elder encourage his great-grandchilde to hustle the inexperienced Brujah sire into introducing his progeny too soon into Kindred society in the hopes that the Toreador would make a move? These are the games the elder Kindred play with one another. These are the wheels within wheels in the spiteful war of ages known as the Jyhad.
What sets vampires at each other’s throats? What motivates them to construct the elaborate social systems that allow them to stubbornly maintain their veneer of humanity? What is the origin of the endless games of brinksmanship in which vampires contest one another?
In a single word, it is the Jyhad.
Vampires are inherently solitary creatures, lone predators whose urges are selfish and destructive. When one vampire meets another for the first time, neither of them can ignore the fact that the other is a rival for the limited resources that ze exerts zirself night after night to cultivate. Whether an individual is a mighty Sabbat Bishop or a lone Gangrel who subsists by not being noticed, each Kindred on a primal level knows that for every new vampire spawned, unlife becomes more and more difficult, more and more dangerous.
In these modern nights of sophisticated sects, longstanding clan politics, and the histories of cities that define the fates of the Kindred who dwell there, this primitive urge to hoard all available blood all for oneself finds outlet in conspiracy and gamesmanship. What one Kindred wants, another hoards, another has plans to steal, and still another can distract them all and seize a momentary advantage.
It is ironic that Cainites turn to a mortal political figure to summarize the perilous philosophies of the Jyhad, and, indeed, if Kindred interactions can be described in terms of human perspective, the appropriate word is Machiavellian. “A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise,” Machiavelli advises, and “If an injury has to be done to a [rival] it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared.”
Such perspectives are the bylaws of the Kindred’s eternal war against one another, and with centuries or millennia behind the individual feuds in the Jyhad, it is no wonder that the Damned play their cards so close to their chest. These are no mere territory struggles among short-lived mortal tyrants. These are the conflicts that drive history.
Although it may seem like the elders have all of the best domains, young Kindred do have a certain advantage. They haven’t been dead as long as their elders, and remain closer to the mortals from whom they only recently parted.
This means they still have a connection to mortal trends, and in nights when even children have technology at their disposal, young Kindred do, too. Elders’ age and stasis make them reluctant to engage with these new — and, frankly, frightening — technologies. Thus, the speed at which information travels is the neonate’s most valuable asset.
From social media to web-based archives of city history to data clouds that house all of the public records of civic transactions (including the name on the deed of the Tremere chantry...), the ability to seemingly reach into the ether and pluck out vital information is an aptitude that confounds many elders. Consider that a given elder may have once held sway over scriptoria of monks who diligently copied manuscripts by hand over the span of years, or even one who watched the printing press slowly transform the western world. The speed at which information disseminates is a modern horror that can cause even the most stalwart elder to blanch. Flash mob at the graveyard, which just happens to be a craggy old Malkavian’s favored haven? “No problem,” says the confident young vampire, smartphone in hand. There has even been talk of vampires making their own social network.
Just know what you’re getting yourselves into, whelps.
Various castes, appellations, and divisions distinguish the Kindred. Most vampires belong to more than one of the following groups, and movement between them can be as liquid as a neonate’s ambition or as calcified as an elder’s habits. It all depends upon the domain and the circumstances. Note that these are allegiances or classifications, not jobs. Titles and offices a Kindred may possess are something altogether different.
One of the ways that Kindred determine the social pecking order is through a combination of age and Generation (an indication of how far the vampire is removed from Caine, the original vampire). Newly-Embraced Cainites must prove themselves to older, more established vampires in order to gain any sort of recognition or standing. There is a small degree of mobility, but a vampire primarily gains respect through the passage of time and the attrition of zir enemies.
As a means of self-preservation, Methuselahs retreat from the world. The constant struggle of facing the young who seek power through the blood of their elders grows numbing. Eventually one of the hungry whelps will get lucky. Thus the only option is to retreat fully from society, and go into torpor. Some Methuselahs remain involved in power struggles and the Jyhad of the Kindred, but do so from a position of complete anonymity. Still others do so from the cold sleep of torpor, moving their minions with mental commands, dream-visions, or centuries of conditioning. The fear of Jyhad, that no Kindred may truly call their actions their own, stems from the inexorable dread spawned by the terrible potential of the Methuselahs.
A Kindred’s clan is zir lineage, the vampiric “family” into which ze was Embraced. The clans are distinguished by their Antediluvian founders. Kindred society generally acknowledges 13 clans tonight, though some may have been lost to history, some may exist in secrecy, and some may never have been known. Some clans are highly organized, while others are utterly decentralized. The only constant when speaking of clans is that each has a unique ultimate progenitor, a set of mystical aptitudes known as Disciplines, and a pervasive flaw.
Those without a clan are known as Caitiff. These individuals are undeniably vampires, but they display no inherited characteristics from their sires (if, indeed, they know who their sires are at all). Caitiff are frequently shunned in Kindred society, as much for their lack of pedigree as their ignorance of vampiric social structures.
A sect is an artificial organization of vampires, usually composed of multiple clans that form a league or compact. In most cases, one’s clan has immense influence on one’s sect, but exceptions do occur. Some clans belong to no sect at all, and in most cases, Caitiff may be found among any of the sects.
The interplay of clan and sect realities shapes much of a Kindred’s nightly experiences: A Camarilla Ventrue’s understanding of zir city is radically different from a Sabbat Tzimisce’s perspective.
The way clans function varies. Some are closely knit, almost fraternal organizations with distinct agendas and focused hierarchies. Others are little more than a predilection toward certain Disciplines and an exploitable flaw in the blood. Ultimately, what clan means to each vampire is unique, and some Kindred may be very proud of their clan while others don’t give it much thought. Ultimately, though, each clan tends towards certain common behaviors, perceptions, or roles in Kindred society.
Sect — a vampire’s political and philosophical affiliation — is ostensibly a matter of choice. If a Cainite dwells in a Sabbat city, however, ze’s almost certainly a Sabbat member whether ze wants to be or not, and a vampire in a Camarilla-held city had better have an exquisite explanation if ze chooses not to honor the word of the Prince.
Each sect has a dogma and an objective its members seek to attain. Being broadly distributed organizations populated by creatures as selfish as vampires makes a sect’s nature in each city a unique thing. Some sect-dominated cities might be paragons of their organization’s virtues, while other pay only lip service to sect creeds.
Not every Kindred belongs to a sect, nor swears fealty to a clan, Prince, Bishop, or other such entity. These Autarkis often lead solitary unlives not unlike hermits or outcasts. The lot of the Autarkis is unique in every case — what drove zir into self-rule, and why does the local sect allow an individual to flout its primacy? In some cases, an Autarkis is beneath notice, as with a Nosferatu who keeps to his warrens on the outskirts of town or an irretrievably damaged Malkavian who dwells in the Barrens. In other cases, the Autarkis is simply too powerful or otherwise ungovernable for the local sect to bring under its sway. These latter are often terrifying, warlike when prodded, and nearly legendary in the domain. If you’re such a badass that you can thumb your nose at every pack of Templars or Archon strike team the local Kindred call in to force you to toe the line, you’d make a fine Autarkis.