Clan changes in the Camarilla: Near objectively terrible ideas.

[Ragged Robin]

I think the Lasombra are probably the weakest written of the Clan defections, to the point I'd suggest it's out and out badly written. Personally I've tweaked it into more of an established Antritribu in the Carmarilla following mass defections, 3rd and 20th have both commented in underlying tensions within the neonates of the clan feeling held back by their Eldars contradictory expectations and unrealistic demands so It wouldnt be much of a stretch for a major splinter groups to cross the isle combining with the Established Carmarilla Lasombra to form a fully fledged clan presence. The Lasombra are still majority Sabbat and it's a certainty that not all the defectors are sincere. the Caramillas demands are genrally more reasonable due to the lack of street muscle in that defectors are expected to tolerate a period of 'prospects' before formal acceptance occurs. Exceptionally infamous Keepers are expected to provide their blood to the local Tremere or some other such gesture of good faith.....naturally the foundation 3 b of the ivory tower: Bribary, Blackmail and Bloodbonds has gone a long way to smoothing things over.

Tangentally I've also made it clear that Clan Heceta is a De jure clan, effectively it's a way of letting everyone save face. Pretty much nobody actually refers to themselves as Hecata except in formal agreements. De facto the clan is a little more than a series of non-aggresion pacts, some common cultural links and the acceptance of the Capuchin as a soft power leader. A Giovanni looking for a warm welcome in a Harbingers chambers is just going to be told to bugger off in some ancient language.....if she's lucky.

Giovanni remain independant, they're still genuinly despised by everyone but are still the biggest perceptage of Hecata.
Cappadocians and Lamia have joined the Carmarilla although they're rather frosty with the Tremere, Toreador and Malkavians due to them refusing to allow them to join the sect at the convention of thorns.
Samedi are independant but have strong Anarch sympathies
Harbingers and millners are Sabbat
Naraja are Ashirra

This effectively allows pretty much everyone to play necromancers without screwing up the clan cultures.

[Spencer from The Hills]

They could, the ST could allow any kind of PC vampire in a Camarilla coterie from a Tzimisce to a Mekhet to a Von Carstein, but if too many players want something contrary to the new metaplot, then maybe the new metaplot has a problem.

You wouldn't have to change the metaplot because that's what it says in the books. Chicago's Brujah community is divided into Furores and Hellenes and the latter includes the sheriff and an ancient primogen. Camarilla features a quote from a Brujah prince. They also have a sheriff and primogen in London. Katherine Weise is the Keeper of a distinguished Elysium in New York. Stockholm alternates between Brujah and Ventrue rule.They are exceptions, but they're a clear precedent and I have yet to see an example of a place where Brujah are subject to enough discrimination to interfere with a player character's agency.

Gangrel are less well represented in V5's Camarilla.

[AnubisXy]

And yet this is exactly what the vampires in the Dark Ages did to protect themselves. They gave up the younger vampires en masse in order to make sure the Inquisition didn't go after themselves. Which is why the First Anarch Revolt started and why the Second Anarch Revolt has stopped being a nuisance but is now an actual threat to the Camarilla.

Honestly, it may be a little TOO direct the one to one parallels of the actions of the Elders.

Even with the "History may not repeat but it rhymes" element.

This is what seems dumb though. It didn't work the first time and in the end the Elders were slaughtered too. That's literally why they created the Camarilla in the first place, because there was the realization that vampires either stand together in hiding their monstrous nature or they all end up dying. That's why they created the Masquerade (the most important and central concept of the gameline). The hunters won't just stop with fledglings, they didn't last time, they'll come for everyone. It feels like in cutting off so many vampires the Camarilla's elders have completely forgotten why they created the Camarilla to begin with.

Vampires can be dumb, but cutting loose lots and lots of vampires at the time when enforcing the Masquerade should be the biggest and most important priority for elders (look what happened to the Tremere's chantry in Vienna - those weren't random fledgelings) just seems completely counter-intuitive and head-splitting stupid.

[MyWifeIsScary]

FoS: need careful watching.
Giovanni: The ghoul families are the only thing that's really a worry.
Assamites: Just the opposite of what the sect wants. Not a popular clan.
Ravnos: Nobody likes em, so they're not really that hard to target. The cost to killing them is low, the benefit is high. They naturally fall to Autuarks and anarchs anyway. What is there to lose?


Really though, the issue is that, well, the Cam can't really order princes to do stuff like this, and the consequences and expenses would be very much on the prince's heads. it's a pipe dream.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Perhaps there'll be better thread to discuss how long it takes to lose an accent.

As someone who naturally developed four different english accents from moving around (my sister was even more susceptible and probably went through six) Not that long, he's already lost the french accent. A vampire should be expected to blend in with the populace: LaCroix is 200 years old, he should know better.

Couldn't you just play a Gangrel/Brujah in a coterie of otherwise trusted members of the Camarilla. Or have the good word/benefit of doubt of a respected local clanmate like Critias or even the prince, in Dublin or Tuscon?

Even if you only need a sentence to explain yourself, you've already put yourself at a disadvantage. You shouldn't need to explain yourself at every turn.

[Sergeant Brother]

Accepting most Clans would probably be okay, I can see some exceptions though. My biggest exception would probably be the Assamites since bth their agenda and their history is too diametrically opposed to the Camarilla. For other Clans, they could get membership but the Clan members would have to behave themselves: which they probably wouldn’t since these Clans aren’t comprised of idiots.

Perhaps there'll be better thread to discuss how long it takes to lose an accent.

Couldn't you just play a Gangrel/Brujah in a coterie of otherwise trusted members of the Camarilla. Or have the good word/benefit of doubt of a respected local clanmate like Critias or even the prince, in Dublin or Tuscon?

They could, the ST could allow any kind of PC vampire in a Camarilla coterie from a Tzimisce to a Mekhet to a Von Carstein, but if too many players want something contrary to the new metaplot, then maybe the new metaplot has a problem.

[monteparnas]

Perhaps there'll be better thread to discuss how long it takes to lose an accent.

The way La Croix talks have little to do with accent. Having an accent and having a good grasp of the language are two different things. People that struggle with it may have intonation problems, or have a weird tempo talking. But La Croix does have a pretty solid grasp of English, his every word and timing is under his control. Or at least as much as would be in any language.

He either couldn't convince a beggar to take his money if his life depended on it, or is so hopeless and miserable with his lot in life that he doesn't even care anymore.

And seriously, I'm going for the later. He's the Camarilla Prince of a city where no one gives a fuck to him or sees the need to pretend otherwise, his best lackeys are a mute Gangrel and an ok Ghoul, almost everyone is more influential than him despite being poorer, and his greatest nemesis in the entire city is a mad inquisitor whose only success was more due to his target loosing the will to live than anything else.

It is not like acting nicer would do him any better, he literally had nothing to lose anymore. His was so low that his best chance at achieving anything was to stick with a neonate that was literally Embraced yesterday and already had more attention from everyone, a better prospect in life and in a few nights more influence in the city.

(i'm just thinking extremes here/playing devil's advocate. I like all the clans, except healer salubri)

For me the question is less about what the Cam want from those clans and more method. Taking a strict stance on those clans would only make then act even worse. Wiping them out in the current era is out of question, open war would only cause more Masquerade breaches, they would be harder to watch as threats and the inner party line would be weakened with the Secular Vampire Government making war based on clan, not to talk about the pressure of conscription.

Also, I must state that my favorite clan are the healer Salubri.

[Shakanaka]

When the Camarilla extends their invatation to everyone it should really mean the ones they don't exterminate with extreme prejudice.

Yeah and if that had actually happened, more numbers for the Sabbat and possibly the Anarchs. Pre-V5 the Camarilla had to pull most of the stops to keep just the Sabbat at bay and barely kept the Anarchs appeased within their own holdings.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Stuff.

I think the Cam should've been harsher to the independents and many of the bloodlines. They only aren't harsher because it'd be a very costly guerilla war and the Sabbat is pain enough. The Cam wants a universal monopoly, and it wants masquerade risks gone. Just accepting all the clans as "full" members invites a lot of problems. Some of the Independents are just fundamentally problematic, and I can imagine hard-liners wanting their extermination, if not more supression. The worst are obviously the Assamites and Ravnos, but the Settites would also encourage the growth of cults and they do break the masquerade at cult meetings and that's going to be quite the risk when every second vampire in your city has their own religion. When the Camarilla extends their invatation to everyone it should really mean the ones they don't exterminate with extreme prejudice.


(i'm just thinking extremes here/playing devil's advocate. I like all the clans, except healer salubri)

[Spencer from The Hills]

His english is solid. He chose to sound like that.


Back on topic:
A good reason to play Gangrel or Brujah because they're the simpler clans.
Not so simple when you have to consider the political ramifications of not being a Camarilla member.

The Assamites and Lasombra replacing them? oh boy. not simple at all. Lots of Baggage.
You need a mix of complex and simple: some people really like the complexities of wizards and clerics, churning through spell books lists and optimizing gives them great joy, but many are put off by such overload and enjoy fighters and rogues. V5 really tries it's hardest to make everything equally difficult.

Perhaps there'll be better thread to discuss how long it takes to lose an accent.

Couldn't you just play a Gangrel/Brujah in a coterie of otherwise trusted members of the Camarilla. Or have the good word/benefit of doubt of a respected local clanmate like Critias or even the prince, in Dublin or Tuscon?

[monteparnas]

The mess with Camarilla, and even Sabbat line-up, have more to do with book publication than anything else.

Camarilla clans are the first clans introduced in the game period. They're the clans of the Core Book. Independents are the clans from the Players Book, nothing else. And they're born as just narrow stereotypes, nothing more, because that was easy to make in the rush to publish the book in the first time. They got development and character growth in later works, but even the Giovanni are no exception, just an easy stereotype to get and sell, while the first seven were far more broad in scope. No different with Tzimisce and Lasombra, they were created just because it wouldn't be fun to make a Sabbat group without new clans, and them develop Obtenebration and Vicissitude first, them draft a clan on top of it. None even make sense because individually they act nothing like Sabbat vampires.

And that's it. The Camarilla was developed as a strictly secular organization that claimed jurisdiction over all vampires. There's no such a thing as "members" in their manifesto, if you're Kindred, you're a member. Among other things because no matter who you are, their main goals all work better by giving you protection under the law to keep you in line than treating you as foreign to their system and giving you free reign to shit everywhere.

Followers of Set? They may want to resurrect Set, Jesus or Elvis, on a nightly basis they're just dealers and there is no reason to drive them out. Giovanni? Why want the mafia to run their own scheme if they can take part on your scheme? Assamites and Ravnos? They'll have to follow your laws anyway, why go through the trouble of fighting them as clans instead of punishing them as individual lawbreakers? And what's better, welcoming anyone that can stay in line without inconvenience, after all making them behave is more important than making them believe.

Saying that any clan would be turned down is foolish in the light of Camarilla goals and methods, even without their declared intentions, but worse because of them. And under Camarilla law no vampire can be just killed by the Prince. There will always be the need for a proper justification, no matter how far-fetched, because this is the law that keeps the stability, and preferably it shouldn't be too far-fetched, waiting for an opening is better than rushing things up and declaring a Blood Hunt or execution for no reason, or worse, for too visible personal reasons.

In the end that's it. Cam clans are Cam because they belong in the Core, Independents in the Player, Sabbat in Sabbat book. And then Revised came with far more strict assumptions and did a lot of stuff, with various degrees of sense or justification, based on too many presumptions about each clan and sect.

[MyWifeIsScary]

I assume La Croix sounds like less of a douchebag in his native French.

.

His english is solid. He chose to sound like that.


Back on topic:
A good reason to play Gangrel or Brujah because they're the simpler clans.
Not so simple when you have to consider the political ramifications of not being a Camarilla member.

The Assamites and Lasombra replacing them? oh boy. not simple at all. Lots of Baggage.
You need a mix of complex and simple: some people really like the complexities of wizards and clerics, churning through spell books lists and optimizing gives them great joy, but many are put off by such overload and enjoy fighters and rogues. V5 really tries it's hardest to make everything equally difficult.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Really, it doesn't take a hundred years to learn basic concepts that dictate your unlife. A good few hours of conversation about the essentials, a month of competent tutelage (princes should really demand a minimum of at least a week or something. Some clans and bloodlines used to claim they took 50 years, but that's gotta just be bullshit to scare the kids). Vampires hunt like, every night or every second night, so by a year, you should be well adjusted. By 5, you should be an expert.

If you've cocked shit up enough that you no longer feel welcome in the Cam... suicide is probably more likely than joining the Anarchs. Resistance in most cities is going to seem pretty futile.

[Theodrim]

Weirdly, I think the Elders often get treated poorly by the setting. I think that anyone who manages to reach the age of 100+ is going to be exceptionally cunning, dangerous, and brilliant. La Croix being the moron that he was doesn't really fit my view of Elders. I sometimes think he's a kind of weird Modius/Lodin hybrid where he's someone who used to be a genius schemer but being obviously set up to fail by the Camarilla has him make some incredibly poor choices.

If the Elders were united, they would absolutely never have anything to fear from the Anarchs. However, my conception (and this is just my conception) is that the thing to remember is an Elder will never hate the Anarchs or work against them nearly as hard as they will another Elder. By the time you reach 100+ in age, you will have lost many friends, loved ones, betrayed your own personal beliefs that you hold sacred, and other things that will leave you with a seething hate of at least one and probably several of your peers.

I personally reconcile this, by playing up what you coincidentally sneaked in there: the distinction between elders as perceived by neonates, and real elders. As in, old and moderate-generation ancillae, versus those who meet the (more or less) formal requirements of being sixth- to eighth-generation and 300+ years of unlife.

As I play it, the ancillae are the consistently problematic age group among all vampires. Old enough to have a few long-standing grudges, powerful enough to throw their weight around, numerous enough to cause real trouble, and almost certainly degenerate...but at the same time, not quite old enough to have taken an elder's "long game" view let alone start playing Jyhad in earnest, and in all likelihood not experienced enough to use their accrued power proportionally or discriminately. In other words, teenagers -- except teenagers capable of feats like brainwashing concert halls full of people at once, or throwing VW Beetles like frisbees.

[CTPhipps]

The biggest problem I have with LaCroix is his intonation. The guy just sounds so incredibly unconvincing. Like he's got a charisma score of 1. His schemes wouldn't win prizes, but they wouldn't seem half so bad if he spoke like a normal person. Combine the Voice of someone who seems to be making fun of what he's supposed to represent and the Animations of Bloodlines 2 and you've got a fool.

I assume La Croix sounds like less of a douchebag in his native French.

Fuedalism isn't really one system. It's an umbrella term/Neologism. I think you should learn more on how they work before you use them to describe problems.

*looks at degree in Medieval History*

Okay dokey.

Edit:

But yes, basically I think the Jyhad's complexities are what makes the Anarchs a threat. The Anarchs on their own will never amount to much because the Camarilla itself is just another tool of the Antediluvians. I very much am of the idea that vampires are always doing the bidding of someone higher up on the food chain with rare exceptions. Anarchs can occasionally score a victory on their own like killing a Prince or Elder that they sacrifice dearly to do so or get extremely lucky in but my take on the First Anarch Revolt is that it only succeeded against the Lasombra and Tzimisce Clans because their Antediluvians WANTED to do some housecleaning.

Even then, the Anarchs made their biggest successes because they allied with the Assamites and basically went, "Bon Appetit."

I love the Anarchs but they will never have any big successes unless they become what they fight. Which is part of the noir feel of the setting. Forget it, Jake, it's Chinatown.