Bloodlines from Web

Neglatu

The Neglatu rise alone from the dead. Unlike most Kindred, they do not wake to a sire’s welcome. As result, they never accept a moment alone. They surround themselves with other Damned corpses. They create entire nests of revenants to keep them company, and to defend them from those Kindred intolerant of “reckless” Embraces.

Many Neglatu go through their Requiems never knowing the truth of the Embrace; they believe revenant awakening is the only way to create vampires. The revenant Embrace is natural to the Neglatu, so much so that they usually continue to eschew Kindred tradition even once “educated”.

Background: The Neglatu are an unusual line. Usually, bloodlines extend outward along family lines, with occasional infusions of adoptees. Neglatu aren’t even members of a single clan. They’re more a phenomenon. Their story, spread by their few elders and Kindred scholars who study the abnormal, says that they evolved out of a roving swarm of revenants in the cradle of civilization. To hear the Neglatu elders tell it, these revenants were the first vampires. A few of this rabble of unruly dead rose to the top and became full Kindred.

The elders say the Neglatu uplifted themselves. Other, more conventional Kindred believe that they destroyed or fled the vampire that uplifted them. The cynical (and the All Night Society has plenty of those) say that they found a powerful vampire, overwhelmed him as a swarm, and committed Amaranth to uplift themselves.

Over the centuries, Neglatu nests have appeared across the world. Their would-be Kindred never know where they came from. Typically, this leads to similar creation myths for the local broods. In New York, for example, nobody knows where the Neglatu came from, but they’ve known to avoid the subway systems from the night they opened. Their oldest tell of an ancient vampire unearthed in the construction, whose caustic blood both killed and resurrected many of the construction workers. These monsters became the local Neglatu.

Neglatu spread. Eventually, revenant broods grow too large for comfort. A city’s progenitor uplifts her favorite revenant, and sends the new Neglatu out with a fraction of the brood to seed a new branch of the improvised family.

The Becoming: Most Neglatu induct new members when they uplift them from revenant status. To the Neglatu, uplifting does not make a revenant Kindred, it makes her Neglatu. Often, a bloodline member will uplift the most favored of his brood of revenants, in order to expand and branch out. Some of the most ancient Neglatu keep enormous networks of lesser Neglatu and their own broods. These networks make excellent scapegoats and targets for the “legitimate” Kindred of a city.

Requirements: Neglatu must begin their Requiems as revenants. Being uplifted into the line doesn’t have a clan requirement. However, an Avus inducting a former revenant who has already been uplifted must share clan blood with the new family member.

In the Danse Macabre: Many Neglatu maintain only loose ties with their more numerous Kindred. They’ll negotiate territories and assert their right to the revenant Embrace, but otherwise ignore the Danse Macabre. Others jump headlong into Kindred society, simply claiming their broods as childer, without drawing the distinction of their revenant status. They’re often able to maintain this masquerade within a masquerade, as Neglatu revenants have advantages that make them harder to spot than an ordinary revenant.

Bloodline Bane: Neglatu maintain their parent clan banes. Additionally, Neglatu cannot employ the blood bond; they must maintain loyalty through other means. The Agah

The Neglatu gift is the Agah, the “crown.”

When a Neglatu kills a mortal she’s fed from, subtract her Blood Potency from her Humanity when determining if the victim rises a revenant.

A Neglatu does not lose Humanity when uplifting a revenant, so long as she inducts the uplifted revenant into the bloodline.

A Neglatu’s revenants do not suffer the full effects of the hunger that normally curses their kind. A revenant that sleeps within arm’s reach of her Neglatu creator does not lose all her Vitae while she sleeps. Instead, her Vitae only evacuates down to the Neglatu’s Blood Potency dots. So, a Blood Potency 3 Neglatu’s brood awakens each night with three Vitae, or whatever they went to sleep with, whichever is lower. As with all vampires, they pay one Vitae to rise each night.
A Neglatu can grant benefits to her revenant brood. By spending one Vitae, she can divide her Blood Potency however she wishes among any number of revenants. The revenants gain that amount as a bonus on all physical or perception-based rolls. This bonus lasts for the rest of the night.

http://theonyxpath.com/the-shadow-and-the-asp/ Khaibit

You say you know the darkness. You know it like a child that’s read a fairy tale. I know it, because it’s part of me. It’s in my blood. My eyes. My seed. My spit. Unless you know me, you don’t know the darkness. And nobody knows me. Nobody still standing, at least.

The Khaibit are an ancient line, drawn from Egyptian stock. They come from a Mekhet cult that all but died off centuries ago. Their role was initially to serve Set, and to do his will in forcing back some greater, unknown darkness. While the specifics of their role have been lost to the ages, they now have a different calling; they’re the best known line of defense against the Strix.

To fight the darkness, they became the darkness. Set endowed their blood with a darkness beyond the simple absence of light. The blood in Khaibit veins mutates, and becomes an inky blackness they can call forth as a weapon against the unnatural.

Background: The Khaibit stand as one of the oldest known bloodlines. Most that know of them know they come from Egypt, their name meaning “shadows”. In recent history, the Khaibit rose to prominence as a reaction to Strix attacks in South America and the Mediterranean. As cities fell victim to the Owls, a few Khaibit took up the task of fighting them back. While they’re not widely known, they’re a rumor on numerous tongues.

For more on the Khaibit, you can read a thorough history in Bloodlines: The Hidden, and other information in Fall of the Camarilla.

The Becoming: Khaibit are chosen for their will and integrity, and often their ability to fight. However, while the first two are of the utmost importance, the third can be taught. Khaibit often Embrace their prospects directly into the lineage. When outside Mekhet are brought into the line, it’s because of a specific need. Often, recruits are inducted to fill a highly specialized role. For example, a Khaibit may need an infiltrator that knows computer-based intrusion techniques. While they could Embrace a mortal with those skills, it’s impractical to find a good fit that both has the desired skills, and can learn what they need in the time frame necessary.

In the Danse Macabre: Khaibit act as sentinels and bodyguards. While the details of their calling are lost to all but the most scholarly, their abilities have an obvious application in fighting off the Strix. This gives them a protected status in besieged domains, where courts with known Khaibit will overlook most minor crimes they commit. After all, the Khaibit represent their clearest weapon against the Parliament of Owls However, this sometimes goes to extremes. Powerful Kindred will bribe or coerce a Khaibit into Embracing their bodyguards, or acting as an Avus to their associates in order to proliferate further defenses.

Individually, many Khaibit sell their services to the highest bidder. A bodyguard who can stand against not only other Kindred but the yellow-eyed monsters under the bed is a valuable asset. Khaibit are also masters of intrusion and stealth, and can escape situations too sticky for their Kindred.

When Khaibit join the All Night Society, they tend toward the Circle of the Crone as a way of exploring and understanding their spiritual heritage. Some more knightly members join the Invictus.

Nickname: Asps

Clan: Mekhet

Bloodline Bane: Khaibit blood is so attuned to the darkness that they suffer in immense light. In any light bright enough to inhibit normal vision, the Khaibit suffers the Blinded Tilt and lose access to their Udjat gift for the scene.

Bloodline Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Obfuscate, Vigor Obtenebration

The Khaibit gift of Obtenebration expresses their affinity for the darkness within their blood. In addition to the ability to control and shape shadows, Khabit can temporarily become darkness and travel through the darkness. Lastly, they can wield the shadows as a weapon against otherworldly forces. This makes them invaluable against the Strix.

All Khaibit gain the first Devotion, the Udjat, upon joining the bloodline. Additional Devotions have prerequisites as normal, and cost 2 Experiences each. For those that have never seen Obtenebration, it can inspire deep, instinctive fear. The first time a character experiences a clear manifestation of Obtenebration, he must succeed at a Resolve + Composure roll or suffer the Shaken Condition. Udjat

This most basic gift of Khaibit heritage gives them perfect sight in even the utmost darkness. Khaibit never suffer penalties from darkness, and see subtle shifts in heat and movement where others would be blind. They are unaffected by blindness induced by injury or supernatural forces.

By focusing her attention and spending a point of Vitae, a Khaibit can attune her senses to the unseen. This allows her to see spirits, Strix, angels, and other immaterial beings for the scene. This includes beings in Twilight. While she has her senses so enhanced, she’s immune to the Strix’s possession.

Tyet

By opening a vein, the Khaibit can release the darkness within her blood as an instant action, blanketing the area in darkness. With the expenditure of a single Vitae, the cloud of shadow extends out from the wound in a radius a number of yards (or meters) equal to the vampire’s Blood Potency. The Khaibit can expend more Vitae to expand the cloud further from its center. Alternatively, the Khaibit can expel the cloud from her mouth instead of an open wound.

Shadows touching those the Khaibit has created with the Tyet become hers to shape. She can manipulate their forms, absorb them into the cloud, and otherwise mold them to her liking. While the shadows have no physical presence, they can be used to divert, trick, and distract.

Prerequisite: Vigor 2 Pseshkf

This signature gift of the Khaibit allows her to draw the shadows into a palpable form with the expenditure of one or more Vitae and an instant action. She can use this to coat simple tools or weapons. Weapons so coated cause 1 additional lethal damage to physical targets (including Kindred), but cause her Blood Potency in lethal damage to noncorporeal entities, including spirits and Strix. Coated objects add her Blood Potency as Durability, and the number of Vitae spent as Structure. If she possesses Tyet as well, she can manipulate the item coated with Pseshkf as if she were touching it with her hands.

Prerequisite: Vigor 2 Ba

Khaibit can draw shadow to themselves, and become one with the darkness. To use the Ba, the Khaibit must be touching a shadow at least as big as herself (this could include her own shadow in many cases, or shadow created by the Tyet). She spends three points of Vitae, and at least one instant action, or more if her Blood Potency means she cannot spend the entirety in a turn. Once she’s become shadow, she’s immune to anything short of fire, sunlight, the Pseshkf, or things that specifically hurt ephemeral entities. Other ephemera can affect her normally. She is immune to abjuration.

In this form, she cannot directly affect her environment. However, she can activate the Pseshkf if she possesses it, and can assail spirits and other ephemeral creatures. While in this form, fire, sunlight, and other forms of harm cause her two additional levels of damage. She travels at half her Speed, and must travel along solid objects. However, she’s not constrained by anything that wouldn’t stop light.

Prerequisite: Obfuscate 2 Iteru

With this gift, the Khaibit can travel rapidly through shadows. She dissolves into one part of the shadow, and emerges anywhere along the same patch of shade. This can be shadow created by the Tyet. Spend a Vitae reflexively, and the character fades into and out of the shadow instantly. If using this as part of a Dodge action, roll her Dodge with the rote quality once per scene.

Prerequisite: Celerity 2

http://theonyxpath.com/the-jaws-of-the-beast/ Kerberos

Your line traces back to the Camarilla? You have the blood of a lost clan? Dear childe, I have the blood of Typhon running through my veins. I am a king among monsters. You may not have heard of me. But don’t worry your pretty little head — I’ve heard of you.

The Kerberos have mastered the Beast’s interactions with others, and use them to terrifying ends in social situations. They act as feral politicians, savage diplomats, and wild seducers. They refuse to sacrifice ferocity for acumen. They do not mince words. They crush opposition with the weight of their animalistic presence.

Adapt or die. This is a concept many Gangrel know all too well. The Kerberos have faced extinction time and again. Each time, they reinvent themselves. While this causes tradition and history to fade, the Kerberos remember why they came to be, and prefer relevance to righteousness.

Background: The Kerberos go back two thousand years, to the Greek isles. Their progenitor saw too many Embraces for the population. He petitioned the local tyrant for an official role as a gatekeeper, an arbiter for the Embrace. He claimed his sire was Typhon, the Father of Monsters. This afforded him the authority to judge, to determine who did or did not deserve the Embrace. A potential sire would go to him, presenting the childe-to-be.

Over time, the need for his intervention spread and grew. He could not keep his duties up with the swaths of population he needed to cover. He Embraced childer to task with his role elsewhere.

As the centuries passed, a growing number of vampires grew disgusted with him and his childer. They felt it was their own responsibility to choose and Embrace their scions, and none should limit their rights as such. They rose up and destroyed the bloodline founder, and many of his brood. The survivors spread to the winds, and abandoned their mission in their sire’s absence.

Their skill was always to test others and find how they handle the taint of the Beast. Coming to Byzantium in the sixth century, the line found a new role in the form of master interrogators for vampires of the nascent Lancea et Sanctum. They unleashed the Beast on victims, forcing them into submission and demanding obeisance.

This new purpose lasted a handful of centuries, before the New Rome movement painted them part of the pagan scourge looking to infiltrate and conquer the church. Again, they found themselves chased into the wilds, rejected and eschewed by their patrons.

They took on numerous other roles over the years. Each time, that purpose lasted for some time, before ending shamefully. Now, they’re looking for an identity once again. They need a new purpose. Some members of the line lobby to put themselves back in their historic role as judges for the Embrace. Of course, no covenant or rational city would allow such a thing, except from the deepest of shadows, murdering unworthy sires and investigating prospects for the Embrace.

Tonight, they act as social predators and urban monsters, cowing the competition with their fierce Beasts in back alleys and boardrooms.

The Becoming: Kerberos recruit based on social acumen and wise judgment. Even though their role as arbiters of the Embrace has long since faded, they choose with that heritage in mind. Mental and Social Attributes are often primary, with Intimidation, Investigation, and Subterfuge rounding out their most common Skills. They favor Power Attributes (Intelligence, Strength, and Presence) because of their Hound of Hell bloodline gift. Many keep Mentors in the forms of their sires or grandsires. Bloodline members only rarely keep elaborate havens, because of their history of being chased from city to city. Most rise rapidly in their respective Covenants. Consider Covenant Status to reflect this.

Interactions With the Danse: Many Gangrel act as enforcers, bodyguards, or hounds. Kerberos eschew their expected roles, and instead focus on dominating the political arena. They don’t tend to the top of the hierarchies in their respective cities; you won’t see many Kerberos Princes or Czars. But they tend to launch movements. Many take up roles as Senators, Primogen, or Councillors. They particularly shine in covenant leadership, where they intimidate and inspire their charges to compete. Kerberos favor the Carthian Movement because of their often brash dispositions, or the Circle of the Crone due to their affinity for older faiths, like the one that birthed them.

Clan: Gangrel

Nickname: Children of Typhon, Watchdogs

Bloodline Bane: Kerberos wield the Predatory Aura (see Blood & Smoke, p. 91) as if it’s second nature. Against any character not currently subject to a Predatory Aura Condition (Bestial, Competitive, Wanton), they lose the 10-again quality on all non-reflexive actions. This bane never applies to Predatory Aura rolls.

Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Majesty, Protean, Resilience Bloodline Gift: The Three Heads of Kerberos

The gift of Kerberos is an attunement with the Beast, a Predatory Aura honed to a fine, hard edge. All Kerberos gain The Hound of Hell advantage, and can purchase three Merits, the Three Heads of Kerberos to reflect the three Aspects of the Beast: Competitive, Monstrous, Seductive. The Hound of Hell

This advantage, this birthright, gives the Kerberos an edge in any interactions with the Beast. First off, instead of +2, she gains her Blood Potency as a bonus any time she’s pursuing her Beast’s aspect for the scene she’s used Predatory Aura. Secondly, she adds any relevant Three Heads of Kerberos Merit to her dice pool for lashing out. Merit: The Three Heads of Kerberos (• to •••••; Style)

Prerequisite: Kerberos

Your Kerberos character has honed one of her three Aspects of the Beast. Choose which this Merit reflects when purchasing this Merit. You may take this Merit multiple times, each reflecting a different Aspect.

Honing (•): Your character’s Beast comes out stronger when using the chosen Aspect. Add her dots in this Merit when lashing out with that Aspect.

Internalizing (••): Your character can draw the power of the Beast inward, letting herself know what she does to her victims. This gives her a deeper understanding of her capabilities, and the experience of letting the Beast out allows her to hone them. She can take the chosen Aspect’s Condition (Bestial for Monstrous, Competitive for Competitive, or Wanton for Seductive) at any time she’d like, in order to resolve it for Beats.

Cowing (•••): Your character’s Beast demands obeisance. When successfully applying the Predatory Aura, you can choose to forego the normal Condition afforded, and instead apply a variant of the Subservient Condition (see B&S, p. 306) that only applies to commands that would fit in with the Aspect in question.

Striking (••••): Your character infects with her Beast through other actions beyond lashing out. By spending a Willpower point, she can lash out reflexively, so long as she’s affecting the victim with something else simultaneously. Most commonly, this means slashing a victim with her claws while infecting them with the Beast. But it could mean using it while investigating them with Auspex, shooting them with a pistol, while entrancing them with Majesty, while feeding them her blood, while seductively touching them, feeding from them, or any other number of effects.

The Fires of Hell (•••••): Your character’s Beast spreads like a wildfire. Any time she lashes out, you may choose additional victims equal to her Blood Potency to feel the effects. They all must fight or flight against your successes rolled. Note that to use this with Striking, the catalyst action must be able to affect all desired victims.