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.

Have you ever been thinking about something, and thought about it, and thought about it and thought about it and it bugged you until it was almost comfortable being bugged by it?

Yeah, that was this post about the Ventrue.  Now, I have to admit I have had devious reasons.  I have an idea of sorts about the history of the Ventrue that fascinates me, a complex scheme for a small bloodline in ancient Italy to rise to status as a great clan and I was going to drop nuggets of it, a trail of blood if you will, here and build it up.  A major part of this was that secondary level of power at blood potency 7, a power of divination among the Ventrue.

So, what is the problem you ask?  Several.  The first is that I write this very casually with a very demanding job and a three very demanding children.  I have to be able to write quickly.  And I wanted a very particular feel of subtle effect to this power which turned out to be at odds with such a potent level of power.  Additionally, the idea I had for the potency 7 power for the Daeva turned out to be complicated for a different reason – it has proved difficult to disect mechanically while still being tasteful.  And the Nosferatu, well frankly their level potency four power has been hard to select in large part because they have gotten the short stick as bloodlines go.

So, a quick change of plans.  I will eventually present everything I discussed but for now I’ll get out the baseline changes and free myself up to also do some other posts that have been on my mind.

Warning: this post is in three parts: 1) Review (brief) 2) Thoughts about Bloodlines 3) Preview of the next five posts.

I’ve finished Ancient Mysteries and Ancient Bloodlines and while split into two books for a number of reasons (economic and logistic I’m sure) these books will be seen as one work by many and for decent reason.  They are certainly paired as their titles would indicate.

I was recently looking at my old copy of Guide to the Camarilla and it reminded me of how far the physical quality of the newer WW books has come though less stylized over all which I miss a bit at times.  I did like the photographs of the relics in Ancient Mysteries which was a nice twist.  The writing was strong but the hooks in Ancient Mysteries could have been stronger.

Reading Ancient Bloodlines made me think about a couple of things.  One, the sheer proliferation of bloodlines.  This now makes the fourth book of nothing but bloodlines (Hidden, Legendary, Chosen and Ancient) as well as them being a staple of all five covenant and clan books.  What bothers me about this is one the idea that players can become overwhelmed by the sheer number of options and the clear need to make them manageable for a given campaign.  Several folks on the message boards have parralleled this to the prestige class arms race of D&D 3rd edition though I think the analogy would have some unfair points of comparison.  I’ll be outlining guidelines for bloodlines for Khallam at a future date for any Khallam based campaigns.

Ancient Bloodlines also made me kind of sad.  The definition of Ancient in the VtR is virtually modern by my definition.  Many of those bloodlines came into existence with in the last two or three hundred years which in the nWoD … well, that long discussion of how VtR creates a difference sense of the scale of time is pretty obvious for the more astute reader and beyond the scope of my comments here.  Suffice it to say that the ‘new’ torpor system makes dates of a thousand years ago virtually unknowable now (unless you’re Zagreus or another of his ilk).  In contrast in VtM there was a real sense of ancient days being open.  Now, there is good and bad.  For the tool kit approach this means that its up to players to explore, its more mysterious, and its more balanced but it also is less accessible and isn’t that part of what is cool about vampires?  Or am I just a history nerd that wants to be able to peer back the mists of history?  I want vampires to be able to be walking history and I want ancients to walk the earth from three thousand years ago.

While there are certainly tools in the Ancients books the flavor still isn’t there.  I will return to this at a future point.  For now, let’s jump ahead to my contribution inspired by Ancient Mysteries and Ancient Bloodlines.  I will call it Ancient Powers and it will be broken into five posts: Ancient Powers of the Ventrue, Ancient Powers of the Gangrel, Ancient Powers of the Daeva, Ancient Powers of the Nosferatu and Ancient Powers of the Mekhet (though not necessarily in that order).

In each one I will take a published bloodline with a special discipline and destroy it, regulating the bloodline to a non-mystical status and taking their special discipline and making it a clan discipline that is only learnable by those of blood potency 4 and above though only limited by their blood potency once they can learn it.  Similarly if torpor reduces their blood potency they can continue to advance the power only once they reach blood potency 4 again though they have any ranks in it one of their new blood potency would have.  I call these Elder Disciplines.

For example, lets say Bob has Blood Potency 4 and is clan Jones and his Elder Discipline is Bowling.  He can learn Bowling up to 5 ranks.  Once he reaches Blood Potency 6 he can learn 6 ranks of Bowling and so on.  Eventaully Bob reaches Blood Potency 7 but has never learned Bowling beyond its 4th rank.  If Bob goes into torpor and reduces to Blood Potency 2 he will awaken with Bowling at 4 but can not learn the fifth rank until he reaches Blood Potency 4 again.

The purpose of these is to build upon clan identity which I think has been diluted by bloodlines a bit and by building upon the central themes.  As a quick aside, and this is written without counting them, doesn’t it seem that the other clan disciplines are nearly common through bloodlines of other clans compared to Nightmare?  Anway….

Then I will list something for Blood Potency 7.  These are the ancient powers and aren’t just additional disciplines but secrets that each clan keeps tightly hidden.  Indeed, often individuals rediscover them as their blood thickens and they keep it secret not even knowing that the power is shared by the blood and not unique.  And they didn’t become elders by being unable to keep secrets.

I’m going to try to post these with some frequency.  Once a day?  It might be hard, there will be some meat in these but I’ll see what I can do.