Headcanons on Native American Bloodlines

[Raziel]

besides the Tlacique, we lack some info on whatever lurks in the Americas before the other kindred arrived called the Drowned Legacies presented in BJD. as we have little material like the bits of information we have, what are your headcanons/homebrews (V20 or V5) on them and do you have some clans/bloodline you wrote up yourself besides the ones written in the book?

also do they still claim descent from Caine, Llith, Seth or something much obscure?

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

I hope they are not connected to Caine, Lilith, Seth, etc. They should be their own thing.

[Guest]

I hope they are not connected to Caine, Lilith, Seth, etc. They should be their own thing.

Totally agree

[Shakanaka]

I hope they are not connected to Caine, Lilith, Seth, etc. They should be their own thing.

But then tons of people will complain about that just like the Wan-Kuei, lol.

[Raziel]

But then tons of people will complain about that just like the Wan-Kuei, lol.

sounds like how some people reacted to the Dark Age 20th Laibon bloodlines because they are too distinct and barely have connections to the Caine myth which I find amusing

besides, the Ravnos and Setites exist

[CTPhipps]

I hope they are not connected to Caine, Lilith, Seth, etc. They should be their own thing.

Strongly disagree.

All humans come from Africa. The Native American Bloodlines should have their own history after they left the First City.

They should have their own Clans, though.

[Shakanaka]

But the Cainite mythology and IRL theological discourse is distinctly Abrahamic; that by itself is Middle-Eastern and specifically the Levant. We know all humans come from Africa, but what exactly is your point; because last time I checked the First and Second cities have always been keyed to be in the Middle-East. That's the prime reason why all the Elders in the setting now is being Beckoned to this region, right? Native Americans definitely should have their own form of Vampirism if anything else because the Western stuff is too myopic in its origin story being centered around biblical Caine and clashes with other cultures mythologies. This why I enjoyed the Wan-Kuei being something else entirely.

[Dwight]

I hope they are not connected to Caine, Lilith, Seth, etc. They should be their own thing.

If god was going around handing out vampire curses as franchises they wouldn't be bloodlines but whole clans

[CTPhipps]

But the Cainite mythology and IRL theological discourse is distinctly Abrahamic; that by itself is Middle-Eastern and specifically the Levant. We know all humans come from Africa, but what exactly is your point; because last time I checked the First and Second cities have always been keyed to be in the Middle-East. That's the prime reason why all the Elders in the setting now is being Beckoned to this region, right?

The Laibon have claimed otherwise and I think they should probably be considered the experts in this.

But the simple fact is that if we can't separate vampire mythology from its Creation myth of Abrahamic Mythology and it's just the setting. We can't retcon the setting as having nothing to do with it and frankly I think doing so would be a mistake.

Native Americans definitely should have their own form of Vampirism if anything else because the Western stuff is too myopic in its origin story being centered around biblical Caine and clashes with other cultures mythologies. This why I enjoyed the Wan-Kuei being something else entirely.

My opinion is, "They're not vampires then and should have nothing to do with Kindred."

[Raziel]

The Laibon have claimed otherwise and I think they should probably be considered the experts in this.

But the simple fact is that if we can't separate vampire mythology from its Creation myth of Abrahamic Mythology and it's just the setting. We can't retcon the setting as having nothing to do with it and frankly I think doing so would be a mistake.

we literally have vampire clans that contradict the Caine mythology such as the Ravnos and Setites, hell even some bloodlines have vague origins.

is this how talking to a Noddist feels like? good thing i don't do LARP

[Dwight]

is this how talking to a Noddist feels like? good thing i don't do LARP

When you open a can of worms, can't complain what crawls out

[Shakanaka]

The Laibon have claimed otherwise and I think they should probably be considered the experts in this.

Its what the Laibon claim, but the strengths of the claim particularly isn't strong at all with what we're given with. No where in the various tribes and specific ethnic groups in the African continent have had the Abrahamic theological thought process/mythology in their cultures before Abrahamic influences started coming in. The only cop-out people point to is Ethiopia, but they accepted Christianity through prostelyzation from early disciples of Christianity before many polities of Antiquity began accepting it as the state religion. Ethiopia was just one of the firsts to do so along with Armenia, but before that they had their own religions.

Panning it back to oWoD particularly, we know for a fact that indeed, the First and Second cities were in the Middle-East. The Laibon came after when the Third Generation traveled about Europe and Africa after the fall of the Second City. I actually wanted the African Vampires to have a completely different origin from Caine too like what Asia got. The only Laibon clan not related to Caine is just the Bossam and that's it.

we can't separate vampire mythology from its Creation myth of Abrahamic Mythology and it's just the setting. We can't retcon the setting as having nothing to do with it and frankly I think doing so would be a mistake.

It definitely has been before with KotE, why can't the same be done for the Native Americans who DEFINITELY wouldn't have any connection to Caine whatsoever?

[MyWifeIsScary]

Officially, we know there were at least Settites, Nosferatu and Gangrel in the Americas before the invasion of europeans.

Ugh this kind of discussion.

In my view, the european clans are the clans from a european/western asia perspective. The clans exist everywhere, partially. We don't need to go "Well there's 13 (14 cause the Baali are cool) "White" clans so lets make 20 african clans and 16 American clans for diversity's sake" because that's.... fucking stupid, especially after near 30 years of setting.

Now, the clans above make a lot of sense, in that

-Vampires would have to move through vast and barren northern lands, where there were more wolves than people, to reach the americas. Or they'd have to swim, which is more reckless for most.
-Northern america and it's pre-european settlements aren't much suited to most types of vampire.
-reaching the rich lands far to the south would be an ordeal
-all this shit would need to be done without maps or knowledge or... running into lupines.

Gangrel, Nosferatu, Settites, Baali, Lasombra, Ravnos, That african not-gangrel bloodline if they could get through asia somehow... These are the clans that could make it, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Gangrel and Nosferatu killed everything else. Now, yeah, these vampires could sprout more urban bloodlines once they've gotten to the rich civilizations of central america, and it's not entirely the Settites being crazy to think the Tlacique could really just be gangrel they've found something in common with (and In my headcannon there are many many gangrel bloodlines)

[Shakanaka]

The Laibon aren't even separate clans. They are the same as the others. The only one that is different among the Laibon is the Bonsam (not Bossam, my mistake) who don't have anything to do with Caine. They gained Vampirism through some primordial force in the Congo jungle and spread independently. Also before the Drowned became a thing with BJD and basically retconned prior history, the Americas did already have the same clans as before too. I remember distinctly that the Diablerie supplement adventure book dealt with a Gangrel and Nosferatu methuselah in Central America before. Besides the Wan Kuei, there literally have been no "Vampires" with no separate origins at all, so to even complain about it doesn't make sense.

EDIT: Ah, I also found the name of the mentioned Gangrel Methuselah. His name was Mictlantecuthli.

[Pleiades]

I'd make the american vampires be a mix of cainites and kuei jin

cainites would just be...well cainites (or lilins if you want to go the Lilith route), that came from europe (with the vikings or otherwise for the setites),
they're the "newcomers"

the kuei-jin are just people from hell risen from the dead as bloodthirsty monsters,
they don't care much about Caine, though they might care about lilith