Humanity
Humanity measures how close a vampire is to their human life, to specific people that draw them toward life and light, and to human concerns generally. Most vampires lose Humanity as they age, and as the alien Beast within them gnaws away at their sentiments, their memories, and their connections to the daylight world. Barring special circumstances (such as a modifier based on Predator type), a Vampire player character begins with Humanity 7 (for regular Kindred) or 8 (for just-Embraced fledglings).
The Downward Spiral
Vampires are monsters, have no doubt, and even a Kindred with the highest of Humanity scores remains nothing more than a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Nonetheless, as Humanity erodes, vampires not only become capable of, but also actively pursue, ever- more depraved acts. It is in a vampire’s nature to hunt and to kill, and eventually, every vampire finds themselves holding the corpse of a vessel they had not intended to murder.
It is important, then, to know how vampires change as their Humanity scores deteriorate and less and less connects them with their origins. Vampires’ behavior can become so utterly depraved and alien that the very thought of them causes discomfort in others.
Humanity 10
Humans with this score are rare, and the vampires who have achieved it even more so. At this level, mortals and Kindred alike lead a saintly, veritably ascetic life, tightly controlled by ethics and principles support-
ing this fragile condition. The merest selfish deed or thought is enough to topple this state of grace.
Humanity 10 vampires can appear human in other regards:
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Blush of Life is not necessary, because you appear as a pale mortal in good health.
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You heal Superficial damage as a mortal, in addition to vampiric mending.
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You can taste, eat, and digest food as if human.
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You can stay awake during the day as if human,
though you do not lose your normal need for sleep.
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The rate of sunlight damage you take is halved.
Humanity 9
Kindred with Humanity scores this high act more humane than most humans. They seem natural among them; they can think and act the way mortals do, in the same unconscious way an expert method actor would. Killing feels horrible, almost as gut-wrenchingly so as the Hunger in full cry. Many fledgling vampires sometimes adhere to codes more rigorous than they ever held in life, as a reaction against becoming a predator. Older Kindred scoff at this practice, out of callous disdain or to muffle their own regrets.
Humanity 9 vampires can appear human in other regards:
■ Blush of Life is not necessary because you appear ill, but not dead.
■ You heal Superficial damage as a mortal, in addition to vampiric mending.
■ You can taste, eat, and digest rare or raw meat, and many liquids.
■ You can rise from day-sleep up to an hour before sunset if you wish and likewise stay awake an hour after dawn.
Humanity 8
You still feel pain for the hurts you and your kind inflict. Your human guise remains passable; the memories remain fresh, or new instincts for community spring up like green shoots from your long-dead soul.
Humanity 8 vampires can appear human in other regards:
■ You can roll two dice for the Rouse Check to use Blush of Life and take the highest result.
■ Blush of Life allows you to have sexual intercourse and perhaps even enjoy it.
■ Blush of Life allows you to digest and taste wine.
■ You can rise from day-sleep up to an hour before sunset if you wish.
Humanity 7
Most human beings have Humanity scores of 7 or so; vampires at this level of Humanity can usually manage to pass for mortals. Vampires with Humanity 7 typically subscribe to normal social mores – sure, sin is wrong, but dodging taxes and speed limits are not sins. The vampire feels some connection to other beings, even human beings, though more than a little selfishness shines through – just like everyone else in the world, mortal or not. Rules for Humanity 7 vampires are much the same as those for other Kindred:
■ You must make a Rouse Check to use Blush of Life.
■ You cannot have sexual intercourse per se, but you can fake it by winning a Dexterity + Charisma test if you wish (Difficulty equals your partner’s Composure or Wits).
■ Unless using Blush of Life, food and drink makes you vomit; make a Composure + Stamina test (Difficulty 3) to be able to get outside or to a bathroom first.
Humanity 6
Hey, people die; stuff breaks. You have little difficulty with the fact that you need blood to survive and that you do what needs to be done to get it. You might not go out of your way to wreck things or kill people, but you don’t cry bloody tears over it either. Not automatically horrid, Kindred at this stage of Humanity don’t win any prizes for congeniality either. Rules for this level of Humanity work as the previous rating unless otherwise noted, as the human mask becomes more difficult to wear:
■ You cannot have sexual intercourse per se, but you can fake it by winning a Dexterity + Charisma test if you wish, made at a one-die penalty to your pool (Difficulty equals your partner’s Composure or Wits).
■ Even when using Blush of Life, you need make a Composure + Stamina test (Difficulty 3) to be able to keep food and drink down for an hour.
Humanity 5
At this point, you’ve been around the block. Most neonates and some ancillae fall into this range. You’ve internalized pain and anguish, and you begin to accept it as part of existence. You don’t particularly care about mortals one way or the other, except for pets and Touchstones and the like. After all, you’re never going to be mortal again, so why bother? You’re selfish, you lie like its second nature, and you may manifest some minor physical eeriness or malformation, such as an unnatural hue to the eyes.
Rules for this level of Humanity work as the previous rating unless otherwise noted:
■ You suffer a one-die penalty on rolls to interact with humans. This penalty applies to most Social dice pools (including tests for interacting with Touchstones), especially Insight and Persuade, but not to terrifying Intimidation, inhuman Subterfuge (Seduction), or to any test to hunt or kill a human. This penalty also applies to creating art or other humanities; for example, Kindred prose markedly worsens and becomes more florid as they degenerate.
■ Even with Blush of Life, you cannot have sexual intercourse per se, but you can fake it by winning a Dexterity + Charisma test if you wish, made at a two-die penalty to your pool (Difficulty equals your partner’s Composure or Wits).
Humanity 4
Hey, some people gotta die. You have finally begun, even accepted, your inevitable slide into moral sloth and self-indulgence. Killing is more than fine; ask the elders, they’ve been around long enough to see whole genocides ignored. Destruction, theft, injury – these are all tools, not taboos. Physical changes become quite evident as “ashen pallor” shades more firmly into “corpse-like.” Rules for this level of Humanity work as the previous rating unless otherwise noted:
■ You suffer a two-dice penalty on rolls to interact with humans.
■ You can no longer keep food and drink down, even with Blush of Life.
Humanity 3
At this level, cynical and jaded describes you on a good day. You callously step over anyone and anything, stop- ping only to indulge a new hobby for cruelty. You take the safe route, the pragmatic route: kill witnesses and don’t risk trusting anyone you haven’t got your talons into somehow. You genuinely look monstrous, even under the most flattering light. Rules for this level of Humanity work as the previous rating unless otherwise noted:
■ You suffer a four-dice penalty on rolls to interact with humans, as above.
■ You can no longer perform or even fake sexual intercourse, even with Blush of Life.
Humanity 2
Nobody counts but you. Idiots try your patience; worms attempt to take your belongings or attention; mortal meat sacks get in your way and delay your feeding. Only servants and feeding stock exist, and everyone needs to decide which one they are before you decide for them. You do have your hobbies, of course – immortals need hobbies. Twisted pleasures, decadent whims, atrocities, perversions, callous murder, mutilation – so much to do, so few hours of the night in which to do it. By now, every human and most Kindred recoil from your presence.
Rules for this level of Humanity work as the previous rating unless otherwise noted:
■ You suffer a six-dice penalty on rolls to interact with humans, as above. (The penalty becomes four- dice with Blush of Life.)
Humanity 1
Only nominally sentient, you teeter on the edge of oblivion. Little matters at all to you, even your own desires outside sustenance and rest. You might do anything at all, or nothing. Only a few tattered shreds of ego stand between you and complete devolution. You need no speech, no art, nothing but gibbers and splatters of dried gore.
Rules for this level of Humanity work as the previous rating unless otherwise noted:
■ You suffer an eight-dice penalty on rolls to interact with humans, as above. (The penalty becomes five-dice with Blush of Life, but who cares? Not you.)
Humanity 0
You have become the Beast. Your last urges express themselves in a final Rötschreck called the wassail (see Losing the Last Drop, p. 241). A puppet of the Blood, you are a wight, under Storyteller control forever.
The Humanity Track
The Humanity tracker has 10 spaces:
Track Humanity by filling in spaces from left to right. For example, this represents a rating of Humanity 6:■■■■■■
Stains
Humanity only shifts in response to actions with major story significance: Embracing a new childe, damage to a Touchstone, and so forth. The more usual corruptions and deformations of the character’s humanity can cause Stains on their Humanity track. If too many Stains build-up without repentance or redress, a character’s Humanity might drop.
Track Stains by checking off spaces from right to left. For example, this tracker represents a Humanity 6 vampire with two Stains:■■■■■■//
If a character acts in violation of a chronicle Tenet, the Storyteller weighs the severity of the violation. A clear but justifiable or less-than-appalling violation may only incur 1 Stain. A truly bestial act, on the other hand, may incur 2 or even more Stains.
If the Tenet was violated in the service of a Conviction, reduce the Stains gained by one or more.
EXAMPLE:
Joan crushes the head of a person who was trying to reveal her nature to her younger brother. This callous murder would normally incur 3 Stains, but since Joan has the Conviction “my family must be kept out of this,” she gets only 2.
Any extra Stains left over after filling the empty dots on the Humanity track trigger degeneration and cause Aggravated Willpower damage (see below).
Remorse
A character with any Stains marked on their Humanity track at the end of the session makes a Remorse test. Roll a number of dice equal to the unmarked, unfilled dots on the Humanity tracker; for example, a character with Humanity 6 and 2 Stains would roll two dice. The minimum number of dice in a Remorse roll is one; even if the whole track is full, the player can roll one die.
If the Remorse roll results in at least one success, the character has suffered enough guilt, shame, or regret to retain their current Humanity. They remove all Stains.
If the Remorse roll results in no successes, the Beast has won. The character must lose 1 point of Humanity and then remove all Stains.
Degeneration
If a character accumulates more Stains than they have empty boxes on their Humanity track, they become Impaired (resulting in a two-dice penalty to all pools in this case), as they are overcome with regret. In addition, they take one point of Aggravated Willpower damage for each Stain that could not fit in the open boxes.
In this state, the character is incapable of further intentional Tenet violations, and if forced to commit one, they must test for terror frenzy at Difficulty 4.
The Impaired condition remains until the end of the session, when Remorse is tested, as usual. The character can also choose to snap out of it by voluntarily losing a point of Humanity, wiping away the Stains as they rationalize their actions and accept what they’ve become.
Damaging and destroying touchstones
In addition to Tenet violations, other acts endanger the vampire’s Humanity. When such acts occur, the vampire gains additional Stains based on the severity of the occurrence.
EXAMPLE:
After rescuing his Touchstone from the clutches of his rival, Marc makes sure this will never happen again – by removing this vulnerability. In a tearful scene in which he forces his Touchstone to drink poison, Marc suffers 5 Stains – 2 from the murder and another 3 because he destroyed his own Touchstone.
A Touchstone is damaged when something bad happens to them, usually something caused by the Kindred or even something stirred up indirectly by the vampire’s actions. (It’s up to the Storyteller whether a normal disease or job loss counts as “bad” in this case.)
A Touchstone is also damaged if they change in a way the vampire doesn’t approve of: their widow remarries, the priest leaves the parish, the ballplayer moves from the White Sox to the Twins. By trying to prevent the Touchstone from changing, of course, the vampire may make things bad enough to damage the Touchstone anyway.
A Touchstone is destroyed when they betray their convictions (specifically, when they betray the Conviction for which the vampire
values them), when they are killed violently or Embraced, or when something truly disastrous happens to them.
If a vampire directly causes the damage or the destruction of their own Touchstone, the Stains gained increase. Of course, any Storyteller worth their salt creates story and drama that puts pressure on the player to decide between preserving their Touchstone and achieving some vampiric goal.
If, by contrast, your Touchstone dies peacefully or just in the normal course of things, you may be able to transfer your fixation to another human connected to them: their child or sibling, their successor in the position, etc. This change requires a Humanity test (Difficulty 4) while meeting or observing them, and likely requires further story action.
Unless you manage to transfer your attention to a new Touchstone, your Conviction connected to the destroyed Touchstone is lost.
When Humanity Fails
Humanity is what keeps the Beast at bay. Thus, as Humanity drops, frenzy becomes more likely (p. 219). Add dice equal to one-third the vampire's Humanity (rounded down) to their Willpower test to resist frenzy. Humanity also allows vampires to awaken during the day (p. 219).
As Humanity drops, the length of time a vampire spends in torpor increases. The vampire’s ability to interact with humans outside a predator-prey context drops as well.
Losing the Last Drop
A vampire who loses their last point of Humanity, from 1 to 0 (zero), goes out in a spectacular frenzy. All their Physical Attributes increase to 5 for that scene; if they survive this wassail they become a wight, lost to the will of the Blood, and an SPC.
Both Storytellers and players will likely have ideas for a suitably dramatic and characterful final scene for such a vampire; don’t waste the wassail on incidental scenery damage.
Increasing Humanity
Vampires can only increase Humanity by selflessly involving themselves in human life and human concerns. In- creasing Humanity should be a major personal story arc, involving (at least) the gaining of a new Touchstone and the deliberate turning away from Kindred society and power.
Some extraordinarily humane in-game actions (endowing and non-murderously protecting a museum or hospital, for example) might allow a player to buy Humanity with experience points at a cost of 10 x the new Humanity rating. This purchase remains at the Storyteller’s discretion, and some Storytellers might not allow experience points to purchase Humanity at all.
Some of the arts and practices of Golconda may also allow the increase of Humanity, but those remain for the Storyteller to determine and reveal.