Vampire The Masquerade Redemption Cheat Codes

[Vanya Lamunyon]

VampireThe Masquerade is an ex-defunct vampire-themed "Gothic Horror" roleplaying game published by White Wolf. The game is about a society of vampires living in modern times, maintaining a masquerade of secrecy to separate themselves from human society, while still preying on said humans.

Which might be entertaining IF it actually had any "Horror" to go with the "Gothic". Unfortunately, due to the average neckbeard's and landwhale's emotional immaturity, the game tone usually ends up as either an angsty angsty BAAAAAWfest or "Snatch, but with Fangs," depending on the players. With the release of 5th edition (a.k.a. V5), that trend of emotional immaturity now comes with rules for players who are "uncomfortable" with certain intense content - in a horror-game (that is also clearly intended for an adult audience - or, at least, that was the original intent of author ReinHagen).

With the 2018 release of Vampire: The Masquerade's fifth incarnation bringing major and unprecedented changes to V:tM's design (such as reining in the power level, simplifying mechanics, and streamlining lore), the grognards have become deeply upset. Much the same as their feelings on Wizards' attempts to update and modernize D&D via the changes in Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, four years prior.

The accepted history of the Kindred is collected in the Book of Nod, which is like the Vampire Bible. The first vampire was Caine, the farmer whom God cursed for slaying his shepherd brother Abel. Caine wandered for a time, refusing to repent for murdering Abel three times, and each time receiving a new curse, which ended up with him nocturnal, harmed by sunlight, and subsisting on human blood. He created the vampiric Disciplines with the help of his father Adam's ex-wife Lilith and went on to create at least three spawn to share his gift/curse.

These first vampires lived in the First City as lords, and eventually as gods over the human populace as worship of true God faded away. The three collectively created thirteen more vampires, creating a web of politics and infighting over Caine's favor that caused much grief and abuse for the humans (slaves fed special herbs for better taste of blood and being bled to death in banquets were commonplace, and enforced dimming of night fires so they could fuck around and kill whatever they want) and the deaths of the Second Generation. Understandably, God got pissed off with the edginess and flooded the world (Basically just the Middle East as Tzimisce can attest, who took his herd to Ukraine), drowning the First City and killing most of humanity there.

Caine and the Third Generation survived, the former cursing the latter for being a bunch of fuckwits who ruined the good thing he had going. The Third Generation shrugged and kept on making new vampires, passing on their curses to their children and become the founders of the clans. The Third Generation became known as the Antediluvians ("Before the Flood") and Caine passed into myth and legend.

Vampires prowled the shadows for millennia, carving out positions of power for themselves wherever they could. Between the falls of Rome and Constantinople was the time of the Long Night, followed by the War of Princes as centralized power was lost. Then the Inquisition came around and started killing vampires left right and center, with the elders sacrificing the younger generations to save their own asses.

This quite badly cheesed off the younger vampires, causing many younger vampires and even a couple elders to go to rogue during the Anarch Revolt; this more or less broke the power of the elders and saw the rise of the two major factions that would last into the modern day: the Camarilla and the Sabbat, who're basically the vampire government and a pack of rabid thugs respectively.

In modern nights, vampires are thought of as fiction. This is thanks to the efforts of the Camarilla to hide the truth and police their members' actions. Among the vampires themselves, the Antediluvians are thought of as fiction. This is, again, thanks to the efforts of the Camarilla to enforce the idea that they're all either truly dead or so deep in torpor they'll never wake up. As the last few generations are barely expressing any clan qualities, the Kindred fear that the prophesied Time of Thin Blood is coming, which heralds the Final Nights and the end of the world.

First of all, being turned to a vampire don't change your personality. At all. You're still the same dude you were before you got embraced. Chances are you're not gonna remain COMPLETELY the same, as the kind of shit freshly turned vampires go through tend to leave emotional scarring, but still, you're not some fallen angel possessing a reanimated corpse.

Speaking of which, let's get the elephant in the room out of the way: your body is a corpse. A literal corpse, time of death being the moment your dying body was given vampiric vitae. Now to go down the list of what that entails, along with other shit what you should expect to deal with:

Fledgling: After the immediate Embracing of a mortal, the victim will become a Fledgling. The newly turned vampire must be able to stabilize The Beast within before gaining status. Ultimately, it is the responsibility of the Sire to ensure that the Childe is even worthy of the Embrace. When the vampire has at least passed through the initial stages of vampiric existence and no longer needs the protection of the Sire, the Fledgling will often be viewed as a Neonate.

That's the idea, anyway. Not every sire & childe has this relationship, though. Some sires, mostly Gangrel and Brujah, just embrace their childer and then abandon them. For the Gangrel this is sort of a sink or swim initiation for the gift they've given; if a Gangrel childe proves themselves a survivor their sire might take them in. The same cannot be said of the Brujah, who are simply the deadbeat parent trailer trash of the vampire world.

Neonate: A Neonate is a recently embraced vampire that has passed through the initial stages of vampiric existence, the fledgling stage. It is the sire's responsibility to ensure that the childe does not embarrass itself or its sire in vampiric society. Derogatorily, a neonate is often called a whelp.

Neonates are generally lightly involved in the true machinations of undead society. They aren't powerful enough to really matter, and are consequently used primarily as pawns by their elders. Conversely, they still have an investment in the mortal world of the 21st century and are less likely to adhere to the feudal character of vampiric society.

Ancillae: Ranking below the elders but above neonates, the ancillae (sing. ancilla) are vampires who have proven themselves as valuable members of Kindred society. Certain ambitious younglings may achieve the rank prematurely. Ancillae often serve as aides and agents for elders or the court. Ancillae usually play their own power games as well, though these are of lesser consequence than the manipulations of the elders.

Elder: While there is no strict definition, one normally must be at least two centuries old, with appreciable claims to domain or a variety of other assets and far removed from their mortal past to qualify.

The choices and sacrifices they have made in order to survive so long instills a degree of amorality and slow caution; it is not unusual for elders to design plans that take decades or centuries before coming to fruition. Such beings are often cold, if not monstrous, and focused completely on their own interests and well-being, though a rare few struggle to maintain their human sentiments.

There is a long-standing cycle of jealousy, contempt and resentment between elder and younger vampires, being especially pronounced between sires and their childer. Elders often use their greater power and influence to oppress those younger than them out of fear of being outnumbered and because most vampires of such age believe they know what's best in the same way that mortal elders feel that theirs is the better way. Younger vampires naturally chafe under such treatment and grow jealous and resentful of the elders' positions and power. It was this cauldron of emotions that gave rise to the Anarch Revolt and all things thereafter.

Methuselah: A Methuselah is a fourth or fifth Generation elder who has existed for at least a millennium or more. Many of these elders are generally old enough to have known their clan Antediluvian personally, and usually serve as lieutenants in the Jyhad. The term is also used to refer to elders who have very little to do with the Camarilla or Sabbat: their machinations are far deeper, subtle, and terrifying. Methuselahs tend to fall into the borderline unplayable characters for Vampire: they often break the rules as they exist, (e.g., Mithras surviving his diablerie by Monty Coven).

A methuselah has several traits that betray him to those who know what to look after. Their speech is in general tinted with an accent of their native dialect, which, in general, has not survived the centuries. Their unconscious body movement has completely stopped and many could be confused with statues when they do not move. Many have also reached a point where the kine's blood can no longer nourish them, forcing them to feed on other vampires.

Antediluvian: The founders of the Clans, ancient and immensely powerful. Most of them lie in torpor and the major factions fear the Final Days of Gehenna will come when they wake up. Each of them is a world-ending event by themselves. Currently the only active Kindred with Antediluvian levels of power are Augustus Giovanni (who diablerised Cappadocius) and Tremere (who diablerised Saulot, but failed to properly end him and risks losing his body to him). Their discipline levels are at 10, the absolute highest. They are so powerful that they can use their disciplines' ultimate abilities, which are so strong that they're all known as "Plot Devices" because they can do whatever the fuck they (or the Storyteller) want to do with them.

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