Why is there little to no research or experimentation on revenants?

[Hello]

Clans like the tremere and tzimisce should be focusing a lot of their resources on researching and experimenting on revenants. Revenants can produce their own vitae, and although it is weak, its still vitae.

If either clan was able to find a way to exploit this, one worry of the vampire existence, which is to constantly feed, would be lessened quite a bit. I could see some revenant animals being produced which could better satisfy a vampires appetite than a regular animal, and perhaps be a good substitute for human blood. It may not be able to substitute human blood entirely but it would be a much better back up than regular animal blood.

This seems like something that would be really useful, why don't we hear more about this? The possibilities for something like this seems endless! This could make being a vampire a lot easier.

[CajunKhan]

I suspect the fear of creating creatures with vampire powers who can go out in the daylight makes a lot of vampires nervous. Imagine if creating ghoul families was TOO successful, and genes that allow humans to have vampire powers started to spread to the general populace? You think the SI is dangerous NOW? Imagine a world where millions of people have vampire powers, meaning some of them are going to join the SI, and the SI is going to have a much better understanding of the limits of various powers. Worse, what if eventually every human was a revenent? Literally every human you wanted to feed on had vampire powers? Best to keep them a small, niche thing.

[Hello]

Then they could just limit the amount of revenants allowed to breed. As long as they keep track of how many are bred, and castrate a couple revenants here and there, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Plus blood bond and dominate still work on a revenant.

[Vilenecromancer]

Then they could just limit the amount of revenants allowed to breed. As long as they keep track of how many are bred, and castrate a couple revenants here and there, it shouldn't be too much of an issue. Plus blood bond and dominate still work on a revenant.

You think blood bonds and dominate are perfect? It's possible to grow resistant to blood bonds AND dominate, there are merits for this, which show the flaw in using those two to control the revenant population. The problem with the castration idea is, many Tzimisce 100% already do that. There is no way the most inhuman clan doesn't cull the weak when producing revenants, and restrict breeding. Also to add to CajunKhan point here, there is already a revenant family that betrayed their vampire masters, the Ducheski! They were a Tzimisce family before defecting to the Tremere. The revenants were originally made by the Tzimisce, the most controlling and inhuman clan I've hear of, and this family betrayed them to join their sworn enemy!

Now imagen that situation happened again, but this time the family decides to try and separate from vampire society completely. If word got out about that, everyone would be out to kill that family, EVERYONE! The worse part...there's a good chance the two clans, Tzimisce and Tremere, may already be trying to further their revenants a bit like you said. It's likely limited understanding as science is slow going even for the undead, but it COULD reach this point! This situation could happen, and I love it!

[Hello]

Perhaps surgically implanting tracking devices would be able to limit most escape attempts. There's definitely a ritual for that. Maybe limiting the population of the family in question could also get be a good deterrent for any escape attempt.

Plus if I remember correctly there's a ritual the tremere have that allows them to perfectly clone anyone using a bit of genetic material. Side effect is that clone goes insane after a couple days. But if your going to be studying their physiology, you probably wont care too much about studying their mental state. Anesthetic and steel bindings will probably keep the clone quiet.

[jamiemalk]

I'm a little lost on this question, is there something in particular about revenant blood that you're wanting to harness? It's not actually vampiric vitae, and you need to be alive (or blessed by God) to produce blood, so it's not like vampires would benefit?

[Reasor]

I'm a little lost on this question, is there something in particular about revenant blood that you're wanting to harness? It's not actually vampiric vitae, and you need to be alive (or blessed by God) to produce blood, so it's not like vampires would benefit?

Yeah, I'm reading into the question a premise that revenant blood is somehow better to feed on than blood from unghouled vessels. The idea would make for an interesting house rule or hook to hang a chronicle setting on, but I've never heard of it being supported by the actual text in any edition of the game.

[Thoth]

Revenants are one of those cool concepts that never really got thought through before being written into the setting.

If revenants were implemented more realistically, they would more or less replace Ghouls as the default minions. Think of it like each Clan having its own Revenant house that are generational servants. These individuals are trained since birth with knowledge of the supernatural and utter dedication to their Clan lords. A ghoul would just be an emergency technique to create a minion or retain a promising mortal love interest.

So that would really change the setting status quo, especially since with Revenants you get daylight minions with vampire powers, that don't require vitae upkeep. Can you imagine what the Nosferatu could do with armies of mutated animal revenants? The nosferatu and tzimisce would be the mega army factions in the setting.

If we further extrapolate this trend, that would also mean that the vampire population in general would be even lower than it is now. Why create a childer when you can just use dozens or hundreds of revenants and then simply ghoul whom ever you want to keep you company? Essentially you would have a true vampire, regardless of generation, at the top and then dozens of minions beneath them.

Then again if V:tM was implemented more realistically, most of the setting and clans would be very different, if for no other reason than technology would end up forcing most kindred underground or into underdeveloped nations.

[InspectorG]

The upkeep is murder...

[Hello]

The upkeep is murder...

I see what you did there

Cause your going to have to murder a lot to keep the population small, and hide the fact you're breeding an army of fanatical super soldiers!

Right?..... Right?

[Black Fox]

As originally written, vampires did not create the Revenant families. It turned out they were created by Verbena mages using vampire vitae when the True Black Hand was still primarily an organization of mages with some vampire members. The creation of the first Revenants (700 BC to 300 BC) was around the time when vampires were beginning to gain control of the True Black Hand (around 500 BC). Some time after the True Black Hand created the first Revenants, the Tzimisce developed their own Revenant families outside the Black Hand. Although given the Tzimisce's early involvement with that sect and that their Revenants were located in the same place as the first Black Hand Revenants were born, it highly indicates that the Tzimisce Revenants were probably a result of a Black Hand Tzimisce being careless with the sect's secrets, or that a member left the sect stealing those secrets. And after this time, we don't see new Revenant families - likely a result of the Black Hand no longer being a society of Mages interested in the afterlife, but a vampire organization with only some enslaved mages controlled by the blood bond (and therefore likely not as wise, knowledgeable, or powerful as the previous members).

So originally there was heavy indication that vampires on their own couldn't create Revenants. It required Mages using true magick (albeit using vampire vitae), and that secret is now likely completely lost. (And its likely that it requires only humans to be Revenants and that animals are not eligible candidates). However, with Revised and later editions more or less splitting up the WoD into different game lines that reduced references to each other, this is something most post-DSotBH books forgot or ignored. V20 and V5 seem to treat Revenants as something that can occur naturally given enough time and intermarriage between ghouls, but this was not the original case. And if you go by the original information, it likely means vampires can't do any meaningful research or experimentation on them at all. Only a Mage could conceivably do that.

Furthermore, we see very little evidence that Revenant families can be relied upon to remain loyal to any vampire, a vampire clan, or vampires as a whole. The history of the Revenants has been one of betrayal and destruction by paranoid vampires. Revenant loyalties were split during the Anarch Revolt. Some remained loyal to the elders and were destroyed. Half of the families that defected to the Sabbat were subsequently destroyed by the Sabbat out of fear that they would betray them. And in the Revised plotline, the Grimaldi did betray the Sabbat and defect (plus another family - the Zantosa - were secretly guarding the Antedeluvian the sect thought it destroyed, marking them as traitors too). It turns out that having an independent power source (their own vitae) and insider knowledge of vampires often makes Revenants into dangerous enemies, not useful servants. They end up having their own agenda.

Plus I think Revenants might not be as useful in human society as one may think. People who clearly don't age like normal humans are obviously not human. And Revenants were created in early times when there were few cities. Revenant communities had to be isolated from human communities less their identity be discovered. And its entirely possible their over concentration in Eastern Europe resulted in Lupines identifying the Carpathians as a major center of the Wyrm that lead to the Tzimisce-Shadow Lord wars. They could attract more trouble than they were worth - which is why most Revenants live on isolated estates and don't interact much with humanity OR vampires.

Revenants, as a concept, have changed quite a bit from its origins in 2e to today in terms of their origins and assumptions (as has their creators, the True Black Hand). And while STs can use them however they see fit, I think their original creators did some thinking to make sure their numbers and uses in the setting were limited to avoid some of the issues you bring up.

[Reasor]

I don't mind disclosing my personal preference for casting revenants as heirs to an experiment that got largely discarded, who have to make their own way now. It resonates with the idea of a world that's run down and the ancient legacies were nothing to write home about either. They mostly stick close to their own kind because the outside world would fear and hate them, getting weirder with every passing generation because there's too little contact with normal human society to reel them in. They're the Addams Family, or (in the case of the Bratovich line) the hillbilly murder clans from any number of 70's exploitation movies, not major players in the modern schemes of the ancient monsters who altered their ancestors.

[Vamps Like Us]

So to make a Revenant two ghouls have a baby right? But how does the mom get pregnant if her cycle is frozen? Do they time the ghouling process for ovulation? How does the egg grow into a baby with vampire blood stopping the aging process? I wonder how thought out this concept was.

Edit: Black Fox That's a nice run down of revenants. Guess I should have read the whole thread before posting. It's a shame they went away from the original concept, it makes much more sense.

[Hello]

So to make a Revenant two ghouls have a baby right? But how does the mom get pregnant if her cycle is frozen? Do they time the ghouling process for ovulation? How does the egg grow into a baby with vampire blood stopping the aging process? I wonder how thought out this concept was.

The only thing that stops is the aging, there still living creatures so its likely the rest of the body continues to change.

[AnubisXy]

I was under the impression that Revenants age at approximately 1/4th the usual rate (so Revenants can live up to around 250 years before dying of old age). Or at least that's what it says on the Wiki:

Unlike normal ghouls, revenants are born, not created by drinking Kindred blood. Revenants' bodies naturally produce a weak vampire-like vitae, which sustains their bodies far beyond normal human lifespans (although not immortal, revenants can live to be hundreds of years old; they age at approximately one-quarter the rate humans do), and also gives them the ability to use Disciplines.

So a Revenant's cycle isn't "frozen" their aging is just slowed, not stopped.