The Blood Bond
Feared by those who have known it, the Blood Bond creates and enforces the most severe allegiances within the Camarilla, both between Kindred and from their mortal servants. The Anarchs generally philosophically reject Blood Bonds between vampires (although exceptions must sometimes be made for the good of the Movement) and some radicals even refuse to Blood Bond mortals.
Anyone who drinks the Blood of a vampire becomes progressively more attached to their donor until finally, after three drinks or more, the Bond reduces them to servile lackeys when in the donor’s presence. Vampires call the one Bonded the thrall, and term the source of the Bond the regnant. When under a completed Blood Bond, the thrall experiences a sense of loyalty, sometimes even infatuation, toward their regnant. They attempt to please their master, becoming wary and eventually even terrified of angering them. Unlike many Disciplines, nothing prevents a vampire from employing a Bond against a vampire of lower generation or one whose Blood is more potent. Many Kindred do not even acknowledge that they’ve been Bound, believing their feelings to be true and even noble.
A mutual Blood Bond, sometimes called a Blood wedding, is not love – it’s obsession and addiction. Abusive and dysfunctional doesn’t even begin to describe how nasty these blood-enforced affairs tend to get after a few centuries, and they are frowned upon (to say the least) in Camarilla society.
Just as in the Embrace, the Blood consumed must be taken directly from the vein of the donor, as it loses its power to Bond in a matter of seconds unless drunk. The drinker must repeat the act on three separate nights with no more than a year between drinks for the Bond to fully form. (During their first year, a childe remains one- third of the way Bound to their sire, having already tasted their Blood once.) A regnant can have as many vampire thralls as they have dots of Blood Potency, and a thrall can only have one regnant, becoming immune to other Bonding attempts while Bound. If a regnant Bonds another thrall above their maximum Blood Potency limit, their oldest Bond with a thrall fades over the course of a week.
Blood Bond System
The Blood Bond gains a Bond Strength equal to the number of times the thrall has consumed the regnant’s Blood (up to a maximum of 6) and decreases by one for each month during which the thrall consumes none of the regnant’s Blood. To attempt something against their regnant’s wishes, the thrall must succeed in a contest of Resolve + Intelligence vs. Bond Strength. If in the presence of the regnant, such defiance requires the test once per turn; if outside the regnant’s perception, the thrall need only make a defiance test once per scene.
Breaking the Bond requires
the thrall to reduce the Bond Strength to 0 (zero) by avoiding their regnant for an extended time. They must successfully make a defiance roll once per session to do so (or more often, if the Storyteller judges that something has recalled the regnant to the thrall’s mind). Few thralls can resist this long, especially if their regnant actively comes looking for them.