Lithium (Institutionalize 2, Dominate 3)

[If you read my last post this one will seem awfully similar – it is basically the resolve equivalent to Sedation’s strength reduction.  Although much of the text and mechanics are the same it is the sensation that is so different and significant.  Many kindred would in fact seek an effect like this if they knew about it which could be a boon, bane or both to a Morotrophian.]

Handling any patient is a challenge but modern pharmacology has coped with the needs of mental wards by creating a variety of drugs that allow a patient’s moods and mania to even out.  Tragically, these same drugs do not work on kindred patients.  Dr. Opal Berke solved this dilemma by finding a way to combine the power of Institutionalize and enforce the potency of a drug on a kindred system as if it were a rule of the institution.

Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Manipulation + Empathy + Institutionalize – (Blood Potency + Resolve)
Action: Instant

Activating this power requires injecting a Kindred target with the appropriate drug.  While doing activating this power some of the Morotrophian’s blood joins the drug in invading the target’s system and transmit’s the Morotrophian’s power to overwhelm the target.  The blood is merely a conduit however and loses the properties of the Nosferatu’s blood causing no blood ties or other effects.  The drug must be appropriate for the effect of reducing the target’s resolve (such as lithium) but it is not the drug itself that has any effect.

The effects of this power lasts a minimum of one hour.  Every hour the victim may make a contested willpower roll against the Morotrophian and if they fail it continues another hour.  A tie means that the power will last one more hour and then automatically end.  The power cannot last beyond the next dawn.

When successful the lithium effect reduces the target’s resolve by the same value equal to the number of successes on the activation roll.  The mellowing of the victim’s attitude also makes it hard for them to be motivated to do much of anything.

This power costs 20 experience points to learn.

Sedation (Institutionalize 2, Vigor 3)

Handling any patient is a challenge but modern pharmacology has coped with the needs of hospitals by creating a variety of barbiturates and muscle relaxers that aid in keeping a patient asleep or at least sedated.  Tragically, these same drugs do not work on kindred patients.  Dr. Opal Berke solved this dilemma by finding a way to combine the power of Institutionalize and enforce the potency of a drug on a kindred system as if it were a rule of the institution.

Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Stamina + Intimidation + Institutionalize – (Blood Potency + Strength)
Action: Instant

Activating this power requires injecting a Kindred target with the appropriate drug.  While activating this power some of the Morotrophian’s blood joins the drug in invading the target’s system and transmits the Morotrophian’s power to overwhelm the target.  The blood is merely a conduit however and loses the properties of the Nosferatu’s blood causing no blood ties or other effects.  The drug must be appropriate for the effect of reducing the target’s strength but it is not the drug itself that has any effect.

The effects of this power lasts a minimum of one hour.  Every hour the victim may make a contested willpower roll against the Morotrophian and if they fail it continues another hour.  A tie means that the power will last one more hour and then automatically end.  The power cannot last beyond the next dawn.

When successful the sedation reduces the target’s strength by the same value equal to the number of successes on the activation roll.  This power can also be used on oneself, as Dr. Opal sometimes does at a certain risk.

This power costs 20 experience points to learn.

So, I’m looking at the upcoming Amazon releases from White Wolf, what I have and what I want.  I’m eagerly looking forward to new books for Werewolf and Mage.  Vampire?  /shrug

Now, I know the vampire content on this site might lead one to believe that I’m obsessed with vampire. I’m not.  I am very comfortable with vampire and very fond of it.  You might call it my natural default within the World of Darkness.  Not only am I comfortable with it mechanically but thematically and in terms of characters.  However, I look over my Vampire: The Requiem library and … well, its huge.  And while I’ve been happy with the quality I would be lying if I said that at least a few books within the last year or two didn’t feel a bit like they were stretching or filler.

I’m not accusing them of being twat and twaddle mind you, not at all.  Just a bit like they were trying.  Now, I’m looking forward to Wicked Dead.  It sounds good.  I don’t know what is planned for Vampire after that but I’m sure there are products on the board.  Its clear that Vampire has been very, very popular for White Wolf but I want to see some Werewolf and Mage books at this point.  I suppose I feel like I have a world of Vampires that is increasingly less dark, like we are peering into every corner already.  I’m not saying I won’t get interested in future Vampire books but I think White Wolf will have an increasingly hard sell on their hands.  I’m increasingly more interested in seeing the other parts of the World of Darkness which they have done and are doing good work with.

First, my thanks to Howlin, a poster on the White Wolf forums who posted his Coil of Progeny which I used as the basis of mine very closely.  His ideas were very close to my own (scarily so) and his write up was very strong.  So, why re-invent what has already been well made?  The Coil of Progeny you will see below has seen changes but not to ‘fix’ it but reflect what I wanted differently from it and limit to only four ranks.

In Khallam, Byron is the only master of this coil and even lower ranks are closely protected knowledge.  They are not secret at all, in fact knowledge of this coil grants great rank and puts kindred in a perilous position.  Dragons should never withhold knowledge of a coil but they do routinely.  That is the nature of the danse macabre.  If a Dragon exhibits knowledge of this coil others will also assume that they have a relationship with Byron.

First Tier: Will of the Blood
The vampire may create and maintain Ghouls without spending willpower.  Ghouls created by the vampire must still spend willpower to maintain themselves, but the vampire can maintain them with a mere thought, and no expenditure beyond the Ghoul’s blood requirements.

[no changes other than fixing spelling]

Second Tier: Strengthen the Bloodline
If the vampire is a member of a bloodline, he may optionally chose to embrace his childe directly into the bloodline, rather than the childe needing to willfully activate the bloodline at blood potency 2 with a willpower dot expenditure.

[no changes other than fixing spelling]

Third Tier: Infectious Soul
Reduces the cost of performing the Embrace from a willpower dot to a willpower point.

[no changes other than fixing spelling]

Fourth Tier: Beyond Clan
Vampire may embrace his Childer into any clan who’s blood he committed diablerie on recently enough that the death would still show on his aura (it doesn’t have to show if they have the ability to hide it, it simply has to be in that time frame].  Further, the effects of his blood in creating ghouls or mandragora can be likewise be revectored to work as though the vampire were a member of that clan (changing what is “in clan” for a ghoul, or what specific effects mandrake lacroma produces).  Such childer however often show an aptitude for joining bloodlines or developing disciplines that have affinities for their sire’s true clan.  So, for example, a a Gangrel who uses this power to create a Ventrue childer might find that the Ventrue has an affinity for joining the Adrestoi bloodline or developing the Protean discipline.

[I fixed spelling and changed the rule for cross clan embrace from 'blood he has tasted' to the verbiage involving diablerie and added the last two sentences.]

Malkav vs. Malkov

About five years ago White Wolf took a game premise (that you play the monster) that they had built over over a long time in the World of Darkness and rebooted it.  When the Vampire : the Requiem came out one of the first things on every pair of lips (or typed at the keyboard was) who made the cut.  The Ventrue, Nosferatu, and Gangrel were still clans.  They were joined by the Daeva (Toreador like but broader in concept) and Mekhet (new but could incorporate a number of older ideas).  The Toreador themselves showed up as a bloodline in the back showing a narrower interpretation of the Daeva as well as the Brujah (surprisingly ignored for their oWoD popularity) and the Malkovians.

Not Malkavians, but Malkovians.

The shit storm erupted.

I was there throwing shit myself.

So, what the fuck matters about an o instead of an a?

Well, it turns out that many of us had an irrational fondness for our dear clan Malkavian and although the new Ventrue Malkovian bloodline had all the signature disciplines and were loons they lacked the flavor and the name.  And gamers of all stripes should know that there is power in a name.  Years later they made up for it and the Malkavians returned in the Ventrue clanbook Lords Over the Damned.

When we didn’t have Malkavians in the nWoD but I had embraced the new setting I had decided to have a mental patient in the local asylum, a kindred, who insisted he was a Malkavian, not Malkovian and strangely had abilities no one had seen before (Dementiation).  Now, I don’t mind houseruling against the canon but try to keep it sparse because I think published materials should, in general, be a common ground of agreement between Storyteller and player with the understanding that the Storyteller sets some boundaries such as the inclusion of optional bloodlines from supplements and the like.  However, having a single Malkavian that claimed the whole universe ended and then he woke up here and has Demnetation … well, that’s not adding but rather just pointless when they added it all back in.

I’m not complaining mind you.  I like having it back in.  And I will be adding some characters to take advantage of it.  Still, its odd that its taken me this long to get around to it.  Tegen is a Ventrue and one of the three leaders of Khallam and frankly madness is central to the nWoD in a way that it wasn’t to the oWoD.  In the oWoD a few were not just insane but bat shit loco.  The Malkavians.  The Black Spiral Dancers.  Did anyone really try to do the understated madman trying to control his madness in the old World of Darkness?  Not many.  They exalted in the extremes of madness and White Wolf responded with things like Broken Time and the Malkavian Madness Network.  The Network is in a way even eluded to in Lords Over the Damned.

And while a fun idea before I’m looking even more now to integrating that same material with the new Malkavians.  They are quite literally a crack in the mirror of the nWoD facing the oWoD and I like that … a broken mirror.

And the Ventrue are mad fuckers.  Madness is core now thanks to the humanity and derangements system.  Any vampire with a bit of bad luck can be a riddled mess of neurotic behaviors.  Ventrue even more likely so.  And Malkovians?

Ah, so.

Well, Malkovians have been a bit ignored thanks to White Wolf ‘fixing’ things with the Malkavians.  But that’s how a broken mirror is, it’s cracks can twist around.  I’m looking forward to bringing the Malkovians back now.  Are they or aren’t they?  Surely, someone in the world has noticed the odd coincidents of names though the text ignores it.

So, I’ll part with this while I plan for Tegen and his fellow Ventrue of Khallam (or at least the upper crust).  I ditched the Malkovian bloodline weakness in V:tR in favor of the Julii clan one in Requiem for Rome.  Why?  Because combined with the Ventrue clan weakness is further presses that idea of the blood succumbing to madness and the connection between madness and lost humanity.  And furthering the Ventrue connection to the Julii fits in perfectly for my idea of their history – which will be central to an NPC as well of course.

Here Jim is in all his mechanical glory.  I used material from Savage and Macabre, Ancient Mysteries, The Rage, Armory, Armory Reload, Shadows of Mexico, Vampire the Requiem and World of Darkness to build this character.  Aside from the issue of a character undergoing cyclical torpor to keep his blood potency down and maintain his humanity it was also interesting to build a combat monster with restraint, who had once been a shaman and who fought like a werewolf as that was who he learned combat from.

If I have time I will post about his spirit totem and a later version of what Jim might look like if he recruits a new pack, has the benefits of a totem (currently Eyes Among the Stars is withholding his favor until Jim accomplishes some tasks) and the pack tactics that could come from that.  But I’m going to do some new posts first with some other ideas.

For more info look in these posts as well:
About Jim http://khallam.heyokastudios.net/?p=157
History http://khallam.heyokastudios.net/?p=146
Dire-Wolf Devotion http://khallam.heyokastudios.net/?p=160

Vampire Stat Template

Clan: Gangrel
Bloodline: Dead Wolves
Covenant: none
Embrace: ?
Apparent Age: 22

Mental: Intelligence 3, Wits 4, Resolve 5
Physical: Strength 5, Dexterity 5, Stamina 5
Social: Presence 2, Manipulation 2, Composure 4

Mental Skills: Academics 1, Investigation (Dreams) 2, Medicine 2, Occult (Spirits, Werewolves) 4, Science 1
Physical Skills: Athletics (Running) 4, Brawl (Claws) 5, Drive 1, Stealth (Darkness) 5, Survival (Tracking) 4
Social Skills: Animal Ken (Birds, Wolves) 2, Expression (Oration) 3, Intimidation 3, Persuasion (Negotiate) 2, Socialize 2, Subterfuge (Hiding Emotions) 3

Merits: English 2, Spanish 2, Status City 3, Brawling Dodge, Combat Style (Talon and Fang) 5, Combat Style (Evasive Striking) 5, Tenacious Consciousness, Swarm Mind (Rat), Swarm Mind (Bat)

Willpower: 9
Humanity: 4
Virtue: Fortitude
Vice: Lust (for enacting the sensations of his life)
Health: 10
Initiative: 9
Defense: 4
Speed: 15
Size: 5

Blood Potency: 4
Vitae/per Turn: 13/2
Disciplines: Auspex 5, Celerity 3, Vigor 4, Animalism 4, Sublunario 4 [all moon phases], Resilience 5, Protean 5 [2: water, wood, natural stone, processed stone, natural soil; 4: wolf, bat, rat, raven, coyote, owl]
Devotions: Gargoyle’s Watch, Languar’s Denial, Wolf-Man, Dire-Wolf, Instantaneous Transformation, Partial Transformation

Dire Wolf (Protean 4 [wolf form], Resilience 2, Vigor 2)

Jim staged a guerrilla war against werewolves for centuries.  In full war form his strategy was simple – avoid them, and let their rage run out.  However, very often the wolves fought in urshul form with no human society to encourage them to stay in humanoid form.  Jim’s solution was simple – he countered by developing a discipline that built on his Protean’s wolf form to give himself a counter part to an urshul form.

Cost: 1 Vitae (in addition to the base cost for Protean 4, so 2 Vitae total)
Dice Pool: no roll necessary
Action: Instant

The cost of Dire Wolf can be spent in 1 round or spread out over several if the vampire can not spend 2 vitae in a single round but it also prolongs the transformation.  The Dire Wolf form lasts for a full scene and interacts with other disciplines and devotions just as Protean 4 would.  The Dire Wolf is usually one size larger than the vampire themselves (size 7 total) and will gain two extra temporary health boxes in addition to three bonus perception dice, +1 lethal bite attack, a +1 lethal claws attack, may make a bite attack without grappling a foe and doubles the character’s speed.  In the modern nights however this form is obviously unnatural and the vampire does not have a lupine’s advantage of lunacy to protect it from random onlookers.

Kindred interested in surviving are recommended to also activate any vigor, resilience and any celerity they have if they are battling werewolves.

This power costs 24 experience points to learn.

About Jim

The timing of Jim is good. I’ve thought about Jim for a long time.  He’s a powerful and interesting NPC and as a result he’s also a delicate challenge for entry into a game.   While it is nice to put that sort of ancient into a game because it is cool you also don’t want to totally over shadow players.  The timing is also good because the mechanical issue that first brought Jim to my mind came up on the WW forums yesterday.  Someone asked if there were any 6th level disciplines.  I replied that there were and gave a mechanical run down of high level disciplines in the nWoD.  Then they asked if there were any examples out there or player made ones.  One poster commented that they wouldn’t bother since with torpor wiping out things above 5 they were an XP sink.  I can both understand but disagree with that stance.  Ironically, Jim is a creation of exactly that philosophy.  But, Jim is also a creation of an immortal spirit with a very different view of things.

Let me explain.

My argument for exploring high level disciplines is based on a number of factors.  One, high level powers can be very cool and allow a lot of player customization of their character and the fact that a player’s experience and goals can be quite different from their character’s shouldn’t be ignored.  Secondly, the idea that characters will automatically think in terms translatable to game mechanics, think that long term (250+ years excluding diablerie) when many may lose their unlives in that time, identify this as thier own best interest (versus accumulating wealth or knowledge for example) and act in their best interests consistently.  Humans don’t, nor do vampires.  Finally, let’s use an analogy.  Let’s say that the danse macabre is a war.  You can sacrifice so many battles focusing on a long term strategem that you lose the war by attrition.

So, about Jim.

There are a few things to understand about Jim.  One is that he is a monster.  He is built as you’ll see in his stats with over 1,200 points of experience is ancient but his focus has also been narrow.  Sure, he knows a great deal but if you’re looking for secrets that encompass the entire ancient world, the Strix, vampire origins, or far more than you won’t find it here.  What you will find is a combat monster.  It isn’t that Jim is maxed out – there is certainly more that could be done but among his various abilities you will find a vampire who has hunted werewolves for thousands of years.  What he really wants though is family.  He wants to remember being alive.  He wants to see the eyes of children like those of his neices and nephews, children he will never have himself.  At heart Jim is still the shaman of a clan among the great forests that over many centuries migrated south and west.  His Auspex was gained from his shaman powers translating into his vampiric existence.  He hasn’t just hunted on the front lines of a war but night in and out hunted the sands and forests of his existence for the chance to murder.  He is still capable of love, compassion and trust but hunting and violence come more easily now.  Only the fact that those he has hunted have deserved it and the guidance of his totem have kept him from degenerating in humanity.

However, he is also a stranger to the danse macabre.  Until recently he never saw the powers of Dominate, Nightmare or Majesty, never saw Nosferatu, Daeva, Ventrue or Mekhet.  He never heard of the traditions, only the laws given by Eyes Among the Stars.  He doesn’t have much in the way of social merits yet.  His City Status comes from sheer notoriety and he doesn’t know how to accumulate power yet either.  He certainly isn’t a mindless bruiser but he will have a learning curve.  Opprotunities will present themselves and some such as the chance to the learn the Coils of the Dragon will be tempting.  In Khallam he has the chance to make friends again, to find himself part of a society and perhaps refind a part of himself, the shaman, that he hasn’t had much cause to connect to since he became his people’s premier warrior against the Pure.  He has a duty though, to find any that remain of his people and any that remain of the Pure.  He will nurture one and exterminate the other.

He also has the ear of a spirit.  Eyes Among the Stars talks to Jim, the only remaining member of the pack.  At first others of Jim’s blood joined the werewolves and eventually only vampires were left.  His connection to the spirit is very strong.  And the spirit’s goals are it’s own.

Attempts have been made to validate Jim’s story and his tribe of origin but so far all have failed.  If there is any evidence buried in the deserts around Khallam it hasn’t been found yet and it may never be.

Here is what is known.  Shortly after Byron arrived in Khallam a vampire, who looked Indian, appeared and claimed to have just risen from torpor.  The two quickly became friends as werewolves attacked.  The werewolves were members of an indiginous Indian culture.  The vampire who took the name Jim claimed that they had after thousands of years of war had destroyed his people.  Jim was grim, admitting that the battle had ranged over vast distances and his people’s nation had changed names and even languages over that great period of time.  He was born in a place of vast verdant forests but he would stay here where his people had finally met their end.  Jim stayed through the 1920s but it was after he went into torpor again that the werewolves felt emboldened and attacked.  Jim rose again briefly in the 1960s and 1970s but returned to torpor for reasons no one really understands.  Whenever asked Jim would reply cryptically that he was waiting.  In 2009 Jim has risen again and now cryptically will  respond that it is the time to remain.

Appearance: Back Again Jim is a short man, only 5′ 6″ tall and lanky.  He has a dark, dark tan that few people ever see anymore and some might think him black except for his clear aboriginal American features.  Jim’s soul is ancient and if anyone doubts that they only have to see his eyes and peer into them.  He is so old now that Jim doesn’t have to put up barriers.  He will expose his heart to the world but those seeking to capture some secret from him are in danger of falling in.  His soul has aged with him, he can still remember joy and happiness but he has not experienced them in a present tense in so long.  He can still invoke the memories though and do so with a ferociousness that puts shame to the most bon vivant Daeva.  And he knows battle.  Even as a mortal man Jim was intelligent, even wise.  As an ancient kindred he has felt the death of more enemies, dangerous ones, than he can remember and ritualized the experience.  Every footstep, every word, ever breath taken to speak seems like a ritual with Jim, something redone, considered, calculated, planned and done from experience.  It is unnerving for younger kindred to watch an elder so old that he watches the world as if everything is something he can remember from before, every action something done so often he can do it with the precision of an olympic swimmer’s stroke.

The truth of Jim’s history is impossible to verify. Although short his torpors have been numerous enough to put any recollection in doubt regardless of apparent clarity. Industrious kindred can piece together this tale. It isn’t that Jim considers any of it a secret but while he once told great tales by firelight it has been several centuries sine he had any regular conversation, and centuries before since he had anyone that could actually be called a companion.

Jim was born with the gift of second sight, was bright and had a gift for oration and was a competent if not enthusiastic hunter. By the time of his birth the Forsaken of his people (all Hunters In Darkness) had been locked in war with the Pure of another people for longer than memory provided for. However their births had faltered and while many seemed born of wolf blood few with the changing gift came into the world. It was Jim who met in a vision a great spirit called Eyes Among The Stars.

It was Eyes who offered Jim a contract. Jim never speaks of the offer but will tell the result. The tribe discovered that the Pure had tainted them and a curse was upon them. Eyes offered an option for survival. A warrior from a southern land would be near soon. He was tainted with a demon but it gave him strength too and made him need blood. Let the werewolves feed him and he could embrace the wolf blooded and make warriors. The tribe debated. They chose only one to die – Jim. After a few years the stranger moved on and Jim sired new warriors and passed on what he had learned. Eyes Among the Stars passed on laws and soon became the patron of the tribe.  These laws kept the new guardian kindred among their families, made them responsible to the tribe as well as apart, and though they never knew it kept them weaker and their torpors short.

Until Khallam arose Jim hadn’t known there were other vampires. The Gangrel who embraced him had come from the south but where is still unclear. Jim is of a bloodline with ties to werewolves.  In Mexico the bloodline is called the Dead Wolves but it is obviously far older than modern Mexicans claim. Why did this vampire want the blood of werewolves?  Was he of this bloodline already, sire it or did Jim? Not even Jim claims to know.  Perhaps they aren’t even the same blood but a mystic example of parrallel evolution.

But tonight he has awoken.  In a campaign the rush to contact Jim would be significant.  Dreams and portents will tell of Jim’s awakening.  Although he lacks the deep blood and powers of an ancient, the breadth and completeness of his prowess could shift matters greatly for any faction that claimed him.  For his part Jim is disinclined to join any covenant though he might be convinced.  Eyes Among the Stars still exists and speaks to Jim.  Jim wants to see the Forsaken return and will speak to Byron about the nature of werewolves once he learns that they are not unique to this area.  The age of modern movies and media will teach Jim a lot.

Failing to bring the Forsaken to Khallam Jim will try to assemble a pack of his own, of other Gangrel, perhaps even embracing again.  Buried within history books someone might even discover that not all of Jim’s people died.  The earliest Anglo settlers found a small family that survived the last of the Pure’s raids while Jim was sleeping.  Jim would pay much for this information and even more for those who could find the descendants of those few.  Jim will not leave the area, not while the Pure exist so he might need agents – to find the families, to find Forsaken, for many things.  JIm has much he could do.  He is a powerful ally and knows a great deal about werewolves, spirits and Protean powers that he could teach as well.

He would also willingly play on your basketball team.  He loves midnight pickup games of basketball, a game that reminds him of his human life.  Indeed, much of Jim is defined by his lust for his once living days, his willingness to throw himself into that which might remind him of what it felt like to once breathe.

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The powers and bloodlines mentioned in this post make use of mechanics from several books mentioned under each clan below.

Ventrue

The elder discipline of the Ventrue is Constance, as described in the Lancea Sanctum sourcebook and ascribed to the Icarian bloodline.  While the Icarians exist in my world they are a bloodline in the non-mystical sense, a noble legacy of descendants from an archbishop with all the culture described in their writeup but simply no mystical standing.  Constance is a power of the Ventrue, the mental counterpart to to Resilience and the manifestation of the adage that history is written by the winners and the winners are the survivors and the Ventrue always win.  Constance allows them to keep their madness at bay when they must and endure.  There are legends that this power can be taught to other clans while others claim that can only be accomplished through diablerie.

Eventually as their blood further thickens a Ventrue gains access to powers of divination.  Oddly enough there are ancient Ventrue who claim to have walked the world before Rome rose and remember this power as one of the first they learned with the blood as neonates.  Today only the ancient learn it and they claim that only Ventrue can learn it.

Gangrel

The Gangrel as a clan at higher blood potency (four) access the discipline of Tenure attributed to the Annunanku as presented in the Invictus sourcebook.  However, the Annunanku are not non-existant.  As benefits what might be the most ancient of the clans nothing is quite so simple.

The Annunaku are … a bloodline, a covenant and perhaps even the truth of the clan known as the Gangrel.  In addition to whatever other claims are made it is not commonly known that there are in fact small families that still survive in the old world thatcan forestall the need for mortal or stronger blood for centuries if they feed off their own lands.  These same families carry the power of Tenure early in their unlives along with the Annunaku bloodline weakness instead of Protean and the typical Gangrel clan weakness.  In later blood potencies (four and above) they inherit Protean instead of Tenure.  These ancients are said to know how to teach other clans Tenure butit requires a price to be paid to the land itself.

Mekhet

The shadows at greater blood potencies often develop the discipline of Insomnium but only after they have spent time in torpor.  Something about the period of being lost in dream brings out their talent themselves.  Some seem more talented at the epiphany that leads to this discipline than others, especially those who have studied intuitive mysticism such as shamans.  The Alucinor are a cult among the Shadows, or perhaps an order, elders who gather to study and pass along knowledge of the ephemeral and it is said that it is they who have developed a mastery of even further arts that allow the Shadows to walk among the worlds that most do not even know are there.

Nosfertu

The Baddacelli don’t exist in my World of Darkness.  Why?  Simple.  Although the idea of the Nosferatu as the deep crawlers, the horrors that dig below is a great idea I don’t like the idea of the Nosferatu as a blind bloodline.  Frankly, I think its a bit silly in many ways.  However, I do like the idea of them as things that can crawl so deep and lose contact that they effectively become lost in the deep dark.   Freaks in the eternal unseen.  This is a theme very well developed in the Nosferatu clanbook already and the idea of a bloodline whose eyes are gouged out seem a tad silly to me.  Instead the Nosferatu use the dark and the powers of sound given by Mimetismo seem to be a good fit for developing those above theme.  Nightmare, Obfuscate, Nightmare and Mimetismo seems like a horrifying combination and appropriate for the Haunts.  A bit of Vigor just puts muscle behind the monsters.

Daeva

When the Duchagne were found guilty of violating the masquerade many were surprised when it was an elder Daeva of the Lancea Sanctum so vigorously pushed the conviction.  His zealotry pushed the agenda and few questioned his real reason.  The succubi keep their power of Licencieux a deep secret and do not share it with other clans, with many elders considering it a sacred power.  The violations of a few reawakened elders had to be covered up and the lie of a bloodline created to cover it up.