Kindred (VTR)
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The collective name by which the vampires of Vampire: The Requiem refer to themselves. (VTR: Vampire: The Requiem Rulebook, p 14)
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[edit] Clans
- Main article: Clan (VTR)
There are five clans in VTR, as well as a number of related sub-clans, known as bloodlines. A vampire's clan is determined by the clan of his sire.
- Daeva: Vampires as seductive predators (Interview with the Vampire).
- Gangrel: Vampires as animalistic wanderers (Near Dark).
- Mekhet: Vampires as shadowy, skulking hunters (Bloodsucking Fiends: A Love Story).
- Nosferatu: Vampires as deformed monsters (Nosferatu).
- Ventrue: Vampires as deranged overlords (Dracula).
Each clan covers a broad range of vampiric archetypes. The Daeva, for instance, are both seductive and predatorial, evoking the image of vampires who glide through society as debonair hunters, much like Lestat in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. The Gangrel encompass the theme of the lone, savage and brutal hunters, much like the vampires of the Blade series. The Mekhet are conspiratorial occultists, vampires who hide in the shadows gathering lore and knowledge while manipulating others from afar. Nosferatu vampires are the alienated or disfigured monsters of legend (such as Count Orlok of their movie namesake), while the Ventrue represent vampires possessed of an aristocratic, lords of the night sensibility, like Bram Stoker's Dracula.
[edit] Covenants
- Main article: Covenant
There are five major political factions, or covenants, in VTR:
- Carthian Movement: Vampires who seek a progressive government for their own kind.
- Circle of the Crone: Pagan blood-sorcerers bound in worship of their goddess(es).
- Invictus: Neo-feudalists hungry for power and money as well as blood.
- Lancea Sanctum: Judeo-Christian vampires who believe that God put them on Earth to be monsters.
- Ordo Dracul: A group of vampires dedicated to transcending their condition and becoming more than undead.
There are also a series of smaller covenants.
[edit] Antagonists
A vampire has many enemies, most from within their own clans and covenants. There are some that stand out as being opposed to Vampire society as a whole, and some of the most prominent of these are vampires themselves:
[edit] Powers and Abilities (Disciplines)
- Main article: Discipline (VTR)
Vampiric powers and capabilities which have often given rise to old wives' tales of superhuman speed, strength and endurance possessed by the Damned, along with their piercing gaze, their hypnotic and seductive voices and the unholy power to vanish into shadows and shapeshift into bats, wolves and mist. (VTR: Vampire: The Requiem Rulebook, p 114)
Kindred (the word vampires use for themselves) can use a variety of supernatural powers called Disciplines. These are special abilities associated with their curse which, like their undead bodies, are "fed" in a way by the living blood they take from mortals. Many of the Disciplines provide Kindred with preternatural means of ensuring their continued existence, or of easing the process of hunting and stealing blood from mortals.
Disciplines are generally recognized as common (common place among the Kindred and more than one clan has an innate knack for them), unique (the proprietary abilities of each of the five clans), covenant (possessed only by a specific covenant and never shared with outsiders), and bloodline (known only to the members of a particular bloodline within a clan).
Powers that combine aspects of two or more Disciplines are called Devotions.
