Ventrue

Organization

Camarilla

The aristocratic Blue Bloods enforce the Traditions and the Masquerade on the lesser breeds.

Discipline:

(Dominate, Fortitude, Presence)

Bane:

The Ventrue are in possession of rarefied palates. When a Ventrue drinks blood from any mortal outside their preference, a profound exertion of will is required or the blood taken surges back up as scarlet vomit. Preferences range greatly, from Ventrue who can only feed from genuine brunettes, individuals of Swiss descent, or homosexuals, to others who can only feed from soldiers, mortals who suffer from PTSD, or methamphetamine users. With a Resolve + Awareness test (Difficulty 4 or more) your character can sense if a mortal possesses the blood they require.

If you want your character to feed from anything but their preferred victim, you must spend Willpower points equal to the character’s Bane Severity ■

Compulsion:

Arrogance
The need to rule rears its head in the vampire. They stop at nothing to assume command of a situation.

Someone must obey an order from the vampire. Any action not directly associated with leadership receives a two-dice penalty. This Compulsion lasts until an order has been obeyed, though the order must not be supernaturally enforced, such as through Dominate.

Members

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Abilities

Disciplines

Dominate

Mind control practiced through one's piercing gaze

Characteristics:

Most Dominate powers require
eye contact with the victim. Once they establish contact, Dominate holds the gaze of the victim until the user conveys their command or commands, barring interference. Catching the eyes of someone actively attempting to avoid the vampire’s gaze requires a contest of the user’s Resolve + Intimidation vs the target’s Wits + Awareness. It is of course impossible to catch the eyes of someone squeezing their eyes shut or wearing a blindfold, but that person should be easy prey to other tactics.

Using Dominate in combat or in other frantic situations is limited to people attacking or otherwise interacting with the user directly, as everyone else’s attention is firmly focused on their own peril.

Unless the user has supernatural means such as Telepathy (Auspex 5) at their disposal, they must command the victim verbally. The victim must be able to hear the user and understand their language.

Without Terminal Decree (Dominate 5), commands resulting in obvious death or serious injury fail automatically. Subjects roll to resist commands resulting in other social or physical harm (such as undressing in public), commands that have a character go against their Convictions, and those that would have negative effects towards their Touchstones or their relationship with them.See individual powers for details. Vampires cannot use Dominate to extract information, as the victim becomes a mindless puppet while under its influence. For example, the Compel command “Speak” results in blabbering word salad, while someone Mesmerized to “tell what you know about the assassin” responds “what you know about the assassin.” Dominate can- not make subjects do something they could not do on command, such as “Sleep.” Ultimately, the Storyteller determines what the Discipline can accomplish, but they should take care that Dominate remains one Discipline of many, rather than the catch-all solution to every problem.

Dominate cuts to the core of vampiric mastery and predation. Thus, vampires must resist attempts to Dominate them. A vampire of lower (stronger) generation can resist Dominate attempts from higher generation vampires by spending a Willpower point, negating the effect completely.

On a total failure on the roll of any Dominate power, that vampire can no longer Dominate that target for the rest of the story.

Dominate threatens Humanity, especially if the vampire has any Principles involving personal freedom or forbidding violations of human integrity. Using it may incur Stains (p. 239).

■ Type: Mental

■ Masquerade Threat: Low. Barring someone Dominating an entire auditorium to jump off the cliffs of Dover, it remains one of the more subtle vampiric powers.

■ Blood Resonance: Phlegmatic. The blood of the submissive or the dominant, masters and slaves, captains of industry, power trippers, cult leaders and followers.

Fortitude - Discipline

Unearthly toughness, even to the point of resisting fire and sunlight

Characteristics

■ Type: Physical

■ Masquerade Threat: Medium.

Eyewitnesses undoubtedly react upon someone taking a terminal beating or a hail of bullets and getting back up seemingly unhurt. Favorite cover-up explanations include erroneous recollection in the excitement (the bullets only seemed to hit), special effects (YouTube prank), or the tried-and-tested “must have been on PCP” rationale.

■ Blood Resonance: Melancholic. Survivors of war, abuse, or misfortune; endurance runners; mountain climbers; infantry and special forces; those with very powerful immune systems.

Presence - Discipline

The ability to attract, sway, and control emotions

Characteristics

Presence affects the emotions of those subject to it, not the minds. While this is useful in that victims are cognizant (unlike Dominate), they are not under the direct control of the user and are thus often unpredictable. In order to be affected by Presence, the subject must be in the physical presence of the user or at least within earshot. The Discipline does not transmit electronically unless the user possesses Star Magnetism (Presence 5). Detecting the use of Presence is very hard unless one has access to Sense the Unseen (Auspex 1) and can even then be too subtle to notice unless one is looking for it specifically.

Presence power effects do not stack, so someone using Awe and Entrancement on the same subject would only add their Presence rating once for any Social-based Persuasion rolls.

In combat, only the Dread Gaze and Majesty powers have any effect, as charm is of little use when someone has decided they want you hurt.

■ Type: Mental

■ Masquerade threat: Low-Medium. A subtle power, people seldom realize Presence has affected them at all. As with most Disciplines, its higher powers can leave puzzled witnesses behind, especially once the effects wear off

■ Blood Resonance: Sanguine. The beautiful and lustful, those completely infatuated with the vampire, models and actors and movie stars, compelling public and private speakers from politicians to car sales men, YouTube sensations and Instagram influencers.