Vampires, known to one another as
Kindred or Cainites, possess many of the characteristics that they
are given in folklore and popular culture. They are ageless undead,
vulnerable to sunlight, and are possessed of a ceaseless thirst for
blood. Not all vampire folklore holds true, however: the Kindred are
unaffected by garlic, silver, or running water, and are only repulsed
by crosses and other holy symbols if they are wielded by a person
possessing great faith.
The Kindred are driven by a ceaseless,
predatory hunger, called the Beast. The beast can pull them into a
state of feral blood lust called frenzy. The only thing preventing
the Beast from completely subsuming the vampire's personality into
its own animal desires is the vampire's tenuous grasp on their
Humanity. However, Humanity is anathema to what is needed for a
vampire to endure: any act of violence, from wanton murder to the act
of feeding on a mortal, strengthens the Beast. Every vampire must
thus walk a tightrope between starving the Beast by denying
themselves the blood of the living, and thus making themselves
susceptible to the Beast's frenzies, or indulging the Beast and
further losing their already fragile hold on humanity.
Kindred possess the capacity to use the
blood they have consumed to regenerate from wounds that would be
fatal to a mortal, as well as to boost their own physical
capabilities, but the most potent abilities of the Kindred are their
Disciplines: mystical abilities that amplify their own undead powers,
or work magical effects unique to each Discipline. Each vampire's
capacity for certain Disciplines is inherited from the vampire that
created them, their sire, who inherited it from their sire, and so
on. These lineages of blood, the clans, represent one of the most
fundamental divisions of Kindred society. Each clan has a weakness of
its own however; for example, the Nosferatu are all cursed with a
monstrous appearance, and the Gangrel have physical animalistic
traits.
For centuries, the nocturnal society of
the Kindred have been divided into several sects. The Camarilla,
seeks to conceal itself within the shadow of mortal society, and
enforces the Masquerade to maintain the fiction that vampires are
only creatures of myth. The Sabbat embraces their state as monsters,
and indulges its members' baser instincts and their desire to rule
over mortals in cities where they hold sway. The Anarchs attempt to
maintain independence not only from these two sects, but also
from the oldest vampires: the elders.
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