Now Available on STV: Bloodlines: The Ageless

[Baaldam]

I'm thinking that the Hollow Mekhet might have some things to talk with the Nehebkau about unruly malicious other selves that go ah wandering on their own....

Also, Tenth Choir messing with with secrets from Lost Irem? Ikes.

That beggars the question of what Enheduanna might actually be - some form greater Amkhat or lifeless, the mad remant of a Shuankhsen, actually a Shan'iatu in fallen form as she seems claim to be, or just a pile of arcane refuse & detritus grown fertile in its own spoiling?

(Goddamn, she could be something spontaneously risen from the ritually sacrificed carcass of Aset....)

[Demigod Beast]

Making her the equivalent of a spontaneously Embraced Aset would be amazing. Her beauty must’ve been a thing of legend for Azar to shack up with her, while her special status as Azar’s girlfriend made the Shani’atu very uneasy.

[Baaldam]

Making her the equivalent of a spontaneously Embraced Aset would be amazing. Her beauty must’ve been a thing of legend for Azar to shack up with her, while her special status as Azar’s girlfriend made the Shani’atu very uneasy.

Well, if the Deceived's texts can be trusted, she was kind of a pawn of the Shan'iatu in arranging Azar's ascension and unintentional usurpation of Anpu, so it's kind of questionable how much agency or merit she actually had. But yeah, i'd imagine finding their offering arisen and shambling out and about should be quite bothersome for the Shan’iatu.

[Demigod Beast]

Maybe she’s Twice-Cursed due to her spontaneous Embrace, as her body remained but her soul fell to Duat. Over time, this division festered then bore unholy fruit.

[Baaldam]

Maybe she’s Twice-Cursed due to her spontaneous Embrace, as her body remained but her soul fell to Duat. Over time, this division festered then bore unholy fruit.

Have to give Mummy the Curse a longer, deeper read one of those days to look into potential cosmological bits to crossover with Requiem games.

Though truth be told Requiem's kindred are hilarious easy to connect to anything no matter how improbable, considering how they basically are just corpses reanimated through a critical mass of all kinds of magical fallout and arcane refuse festering/infusing them that develop sapience as immediate colateral or later on through sheer luck or dogged persistence in avoiding destruction.

Uratha, awakened, fae, abyssal, maejlin or other - pretty much anything esoteric in pure form or some debased combination can spawn some undead horror if the remains and right/wrong associations are available that, given time and happenstance may or not evolve into something akin to kindred of some kind.

[Demigod Beast]

Prometheans are similarly versatile.

[Baaldam]

As an aside, anyone else gets vibes that Ammut might "just" be the Nameless Empire's personification of the Abyss?

Also, maybe it's just my imagination, but the way the Temakhs of the Deceived are described reminds me in some aspects of goetic demons too.

[Satchel]

As an aside, anyone else gets vibes that Ammut might "just" be the Nameless Empire's personification of the Abyss?

The Abyss is Nu, the formless not-waters of primordial creation, which Ammut's jaws contain along with the world. Ammut is entropy/oblivion/destruction, marshaled most strongly in the parts of the cosmology that want to supplant the bits of existence that aren't a living contradiction or the parts so starved of reality that they twist the world around them if they aren't eating it wholesale. She's got her teeth in a lot of pies, but Mummy's closest thematic neighbors to the Abyss aren't the mummies who serve her directly.

[Demigod Beast]

Are the Ki-En-Gir still tied to the Scelesti?

[Baaldam]

The Abyss is Nu, the formless not-waters of primordial creation, which Ammut's jaws contain along with the world. Ammut is entropy/oblivion/destruction, marshaled most strongly in the parts of the cosmology that want to supplant the bits of existence that aren't a living contradiction or the parts so starved of reality that they twist the world around them if they aren't eating it wholesale. She's got her teeth in a lot of pies, but Mummy's closest thematic neighbors to the Abyss aren't the mummies who serve her directly.

So a force of entropy, that among other things, reels in those things intruding from the Abyss by gobbling them back into its maw, incidentally preserving the borders between worlds that it contains and defines, so to speak?

[Satchel]

Are the Ki-En-Gir still tied to the Scelesti?

Ubar is still described as a place where the veil between worlds was thin and its army was aided by wizards, yes.

So a force of entropy, that among other things, reels in those things intruding from the Abyss by gobbling them back into its maw, incidentally preserving the borders between worlds that it contains and defines, so to speak?

It's more that the Abyss in aggregate destroys meaning and the Lower Depths consume almost everything else they can collectively get their hands on and the Devourer has a stake in both as the force that attempts to bring everything that exists to an end state of silence and stillness. The Judges the Arisen serve are hellish creatures of Duat, but the Rite of Return was devised after gaining an audience with Ammut through torturing Abyss-worshipping sorceror-kings.


This is probably a line of questioning better continued in the Mummy forums rather than in a thread for a Vampire STV product that obliquely references Mummy for fun story hooks, y'all.

[Yossarian]

Hello again! A very late update today, but I thought I'd get it in just in case my COVID booster knocks me out of commission tomorrow. Today/tonight, we're looking at the Amara Havana.

The original version is quite backstory heavy, in a way that I didn't find contributed a lot to actually playing one of these characters. We liked their being the apex warriors of clan Daeva, and their origins as the offspring of gods and demons. So, we tried to deemphasize some of that lore in favour of a more practical sense of what they do. For the most part, that just meant making their history more ambiguous, particularly in their first "In the Dark Eras" entry. Much like the Chandabhanu, we also wanted to divorce them a bit from the caste system, making them a bit less dependent on real-life cultural practices.

Another big change had to do with their Discipline. Sakti Pati has a lot of interesting effects, but collectively, they don't really come together well enough to fit into a 2E-style Discipline. I made the suggestion of turning them into rituals in my outline, but I think the writer's choice to give them Protean with Devotions ultimately fit a lot better. We also swapped out Celerity for Resilience in their favoured powers, which fit a bit better thematically/mechanically.

We also change up their bloodline bane. The original is actually really cool aesthetically, but mechanically nil, so we wanted to preserve the concept but give it some teeth.

As noted in a previous post, there's some overlap with the Kinnaree here. That's partly due to the source material, but in hindsight, I wish I'd distinguished them a bit more cleanly in development. They are different (maximalist warlords vs. karma police), but I can see why one might read the two entries and find similarities, especially considering they're both Hindu-mythology-adjacent Daeva. This is always a tricky thing in development; it's sometimes hard to see the forest for the trees when you're trying to get each piece to fit on its own terms. Plus, overlap is just kind of inevitable with 22 bloodlines! I'm happy with what we ended up with on both fronts, but the perfectionist in me fusses about this sort of thing. And hey, if you do feel they're too similar, use whichever one you like best, or cannibalize their Devotions if you want the best of both worlds.

So, here are the Amara Havana. Tomorrow (assuming I'm not convalescing), let's take a look at the Usiri.

(Also, Cherubic may want to add some thoughts, as this was one of their bloodlines!)

Amara Havana: The Ones You Fall Before

“Fight me here and die well — or the Prince’s assassins can set you ablaze. Your choice.”

Vampires are the ultimate nocturnal predators. This is a truism that’s been passed down from sire to childe since time immemorial. To survive, the Kindred must be devious and underhanded, forever lurking in the dark. That’s just what predators do to survive. A tiger has no concept of fighting fair. A tiger who abides by a code of honor — who refuses to stalk and hide from its prey — will die.

Lesser Kindred tell themselves such things to soothe the pain of their existences in the twilight hours before daysleep claims them, but it’s a coward’s way of looking at their condition. Look at the might of the All Night Society. See how frail a human is before it, how their minds collapse under the slightest psychic push, how their ribs crack from a mere brush of a dead hand, how one can turn their world against them with a word. You are not meant to be some lesser beast lurking in the shadows of the city; you are blessed… if you’re willing to accept it.

This is the way of the Amara Havana, Guardians who, by their own billing, were created by a goddess and a demon to be neither. They are both the left and right hand of the Damned. Ostensibly, they defer to the prince of their domain; they’re warriors, after all, and their place is to lead on the battlefield, not in thrones… but in practice? Well, Daeva will be Daeva. At the peak of their power in the halls of India’s All Night Society, they were perhaps too influential in for anyone’s comfort but their own, Embracing almost exclusively within the kshatriya caste in their heyday. They were to be both wise and mighty, to mingle within the courts and dazzle with beauty and wit, then to lead the charge on the battlefield and leave trails of broken bodies in their wake as a warning to those who might oppose their domains.

Those nights are long gone, but the Asura remain. They still teach the same stories and nudge their childer into the same roles, to be warriors and protectors of the night and, at times, of mortals who are sufficiently… valuable to Kindred causes, eschewing the usual underhanded tactics other vampires prefer: An assassination would reflect poorly on them, but an outright duel gives their doomed target a chance to prove their worth. More importantly, it gives the Guardian a chance to prove her power — preferably with witnesses. Skulking around in the dark picking off kine to feed upon is dishonorable; better to gather mortals with the good sense to respect her and make her nature clear. Only the best of the herd are worthy of this, of course, but all kine need to eventually acknowledge they’re in the presence of the divine. The especially lucky might even get to fight alongside her.

This, at least, is the theory, one that rarely pans out in practice these nights. The mightiest elders of the Amara Havana have either met Final Death or lie in torpor to avoid facing the modern world, and the youngest scions are left to try and make their way, reconciling what they’ve been trained to do and think with the practical reality around them. After all, the nights when the common man would readily accept the presence of a god are never coming back, and the preening arrogance and lack of subtlety the Amara Havana cultivated are now far out of favor — if not outright dangerous — for the Kindred around them. The neonates of the bloodline have begun to quietly move away from traditional practices as the few remaining elders sleep the ages away in the hopes of some night waking to a better age.

Their remaining childer are often locked into roles as bloody-handed enforcers for whatever faction in the city gives them the best offer. The most idealistic yearn for the nights of openly claiming to be half-gods, or playing vigilante and protecting certain human communities for the low, low price of their unquestioning devotion. This behavior never tends to last long; a Requiem of constant violence and danger brings the Beast too far to the forefront. But, given the reputation that’s trailed them for millennia, it’s not as if they have many other choices.

Why you want to be us

Power, beauty, influence, the blood of gods and demons alike — it’s the best of all possible worlds, if you can shoulder the burden of divine heritage. Everyone will revere you, fear you, or envy you. Either way, you’re taking center stage.

Why you should fear us

You know what happens to those who stand up against holy power, don’t you? Look at the deeds of Mother Kali, the one who birthed us. Legions of demons turned to a messy pulp of gristle and sinew before her. Even Shiva the Destroyer, in all his terrible glory, couldn’t stand against her might. Move out of our way or you will be the ash on the ground we walk.

Why we should fear ourselves

All the chest-beating honor is nothing more than smoke and mirrors when you get right down to it. Dress up the tiger in gold to hide his stripes, but they’re still there. He’ll still eat you if he’s hungry enough…

Nicknames: Guardians, Asuras, Vyaghra (“Tigers”)

Bloodline Bane (The Bloodstained Curse): The world recognizes the blood-soaked nature of the Amara Havana, whether they want it to or not. Unless her player succeeds a Humanity roll or spends a Willpower, whenever an Asura feeds on someone for the first time, the victim begins to see phantasmal visions of blood that trail wherever the Asura goes, granting him the Obsession Condition with regard to tracking her down. This usually manifests as bloody handprints and footprints, but sometimes may include more fanciful ones that hint at past violent encounters the vampire has inevitably entangled herself in. Whether this makes the Asura an awe-inspiring god of war or a monster necessary to put down is a matter of perspective, but it certainly makes her hard to miss.

Disciplines: Majesty, Protean, Resilience, Vigor

In the Dark Eras (Excerpt)

To the Strongest — 330–320 BCE (DE1, p. 68): As Alexander’s empire expands, so does the body count, and thus, as they always do, the dead rise. Creatures called daeva follow in the wake of the invader Greeks, often the corpses of those they slaughter, soldiers and innocents alike. They sup upon the carnage, and some take a great liking to battles where death is meaningless. A few believe the Goddess Kali favors them, and that they have been tasked with hindering her enemy, the demon Alakshendra. The forms they take from the shifting earth befit her brutal magnificence. They say they are different from the other dead, and perhaps they are right.

New Devotions (Excerpt)

The Amara Havana have many ways to conquer. Called Shaktipata after the Hindu concept of conferring spiritual energy upon a person — it’s unclear if the irony is intentional or not, even among Asuras — these Devotions made the Amara Havana the fiercest Kindred warriors in ancient (and modern) India.

Gift of Indra
(Protean ••, Vigor •, Resilience •)

Someone too clever by half might assume the best way to take out a warrior is to catch them unaware and away from their panoply. The unfortunate truth is that a Guardian is never unarmed.

This Devotion costs 2 Experiences to learn.

Cost: 1 Vitae

Dice Pool: None

Action: Instant

Duration: Scene

The Amara Havana extrudes his dead flesh, blood, and bone from his body to fashion a terrible weapon. The exact form of it varies based on the personal preferences of the Guardian himself, but most commonly it will resemble a sword or a trident, which were the weapons of choice for Durga herself. This weapon has a Durability and weapon modifier rating equal to the Guardian’s Protean dots, and its Size cannot exceed 2.

If she has not created the weapon already, once per scene, the vampire can use this Devotion reflexively and for free upon taking lethal damage, which will cause the weapon to blunt some of the impact of the blow. The Asura may choose to reduce either the weapon’s damage modifier or Durability on a one-for-one basis to reduce damage from the attack.

[Yossarian]

Well, the booster doesn't seem to have hit (yet?), so let's take a look at the Usiri while we have the chance.

So, I pretty much knew what we were going to do with Hypnagogia from the get-go. Like so many bloodline sleep/hypnosis/memory powers before it, it was just Dominate with a different coat of paint — much of it is covered by The Lying Mind — so that was an easy switch, one which the author made without my prompting; always nice to be on the same wavelength. The big changes had more to do with the Fog of Eternity, or the lack thereof. Since that's a setting element that's much more ambiguous in the current edition, we had to make sure this bloodline was still relevant. Like the Agonistes (who are referenced in the write-up) we tweaked what the Usiri are doing with all those sleep powers, though we didn't have to adjust as much as I'd first assumed when looking over their write-up. The author of this one also did the Mnemosyne in Strange Shades, so he also had to be careful not to step too far into their thematic realm (they also get a reference!)

No big lore changes here beyond the Fog-adjacent issues. The original Usiri serve is a fun counterpart to the Bak-Ra: the latter are convinced they aren't charlatans but everyone believes otherwise, and the former are the opposite.

Nothing big changed in development. I don't remember if I mentioned this above, but the initial plan for these bloodlines was to include one of the historical covenants in each of the "In the Covenants" sections. That idea ended up not working very well; there weren't quite enough covenants, and later periods didn't really have any, which either meant including a lot of Gallows Post entries* or stretching what little we had to draw on very thin. However, many/most of those covenant descriptions survive as "In the Dark Eras" entries or story seed sidebars. In this particular case, the One Thousand and One Nightmares entry was about the Fir'awn specifically, so I just adjusted that to be more general.

So, take a nice rest with the Usiri. Tomorrow, let's look at our last (!) old bloodline: The Geheimen!

Usiri: The Ones Who Make Your Dreams Come True

"Shh. Go back to sleep..."

Torpor is a reality for all Kindred, should they survive long enough to experience it. The Sleep of Ages is a daunting prospect, if not downright terrifying: to slumber for years or even centuries as plans crumble from neglect and rivals prosper in your absence. Then there are other, less-understood dangers. Some Kindred awaken with missing memories, others with past events warped beyond recognition, and still others with entirely new personalities to better adapt them to the modern nights. No one knows why these afflictions occur, or how to prevent them, which makes entering a long stretch of torpor something even ancient vampires dread.

Fortunately, the Usiri have returned to protect and guide their Kindred safely through torpor and back into wakefulness… for a modest fee.

The Guides say their traditions date back to the heights of the Egyptian Kingdom, though their reappearance in the All Night Society is a relatively recent phenomenon. According to the Usiri, Kindred who fall into torpor experience a spiritual journey through the Underworld, one where they must battle dark entities and their own inner demons for the right to return to the waking world. Trauma from these encounters is what causes the personality changes some Kindred experience upon waking, and the Usiri, Chosen of Osiris, can shield the mind from these dangers with their rituals.

As to be expected, most domains greet these claims with a healthy dose of skepticism, but the number of compelling testimonials from the Guides’ clients are only increasing. An immaculately dressed woman with gold-rimmed pince-nez guides Invictus knights back from violence-induced torpor with their minds sharper than ever. A skeptical Acolyte experiences her calmest night in decades after an Usiri priest in soft gray robes soothes her Beast while she sleeps. A Guide with a loud shirt and sonorous voice watches over a beleaguered Carthian lobbyist during a monthlong torpor, and the Firebrand awakens with the zeal of a youth that’s centuries past.

The fact that all these Kindred only began to have troubles after the Usiri appeared in their domains is, of course, a coincidence. The bloodline’s apparent ability to provide succor to troubled Kindred minds has earned them the somewhat sarcastic moniker “Therapists,” but it’s taken the label in stride. Indeed, some progressive Usiri make a point of modernizing their methods, adopting the trappings of current psychological practices and minimizing the Egyptian mysticism. For all their soothing words and kind smiles, however, the Usiri are still Haunts, and they feed on fear. They prey upon the insecurities of their Kindred, using words of caution to plant seeds of doubt that bloom into a creeping dread of the unknown. That they really believe it’s for their client’s own good doesn’t change the fact that, very often, the terrors the Guides calm are ones of their own making.

So, are the Usiri wise spirit guides dedicated to shepherding Kindred through difficult times, or are they sly hucksters preying upon the paranoia of vulnerable vampires?
Why not both?

The Usiri bloodline truly is ancient, and they were known among the old Kindred of Egypt as Warriors of the Dead, respected far and wide for their ability to protect slumbering minds. They were also complete charlatans. These clever Haunts developed unprecedented powers of mental manipulation and used them to construct elaborate horrors within victims’ minds, working them into a state of panicked terror. Only at the peak of this fear would the Usiri relent, appearing in their victim’s dreams as saviors, claiming to have interceded on their behalf against the torments of the Underworld. At the height of their power, every court had at least one Usiri advisor, and no Egyptian elder would think of entering torpor without the Warriors of the Dead at their side.

Everything changed for the Usiri upon the Roman invasion of Egypt. A flood of foreign Kindred arrived, dismissing the Egyptian gods as masks for their own, and the “Warriors of the Dead” as tricksters and liars. Now, the words of invaders would not be so easily believed, but with the forces of Rome and Greece also came the Mnemosyne and Agonistes, Shadows whose unique abilities objectively revealed Usiri’s rituals were all lies, their role as “guardians” a total sham. Exposed, the deposed Warriors of the Dead were hunted down or exiled, and within a century or two, they were largely thought to be extinct.

Not all the Usiri met Final Death, however. A handful survived by, ironically, retreating into deep torpor, intending to emerge only when the world had forgotten their lies. When they awoke many centuries later, these weakened elders sought to rebuild their power, but this time, they would add an extra layer to their deception by having their childer believe in what they were doing. All Therapists Embraced in the modern era have had faith in their “mission” installed in them by their elders, who are the only ones who remember the truth. Those same elders hope to raise their bloodline up to a place of power again, by stealing secrets from sleeping Kindred just as they did millennia ago. This time, however, there will be no fall.

Why you want to be us

You feel the call of the Underworld every night, and you want to better understand its mysteries. You want security from torpor and its dangers. You want an understanding of your nature that few ever receive. You want others to look to you for deliverance from their fears, along with the power to grant or deny it as you see fit.

Why you should fear us

We are the Chosen of Osiris, He who governs the dead. Including you. Do not interfere in the sacred duties of His Guides — it’s only by His grace that you return from the Underworld each night with your mind intact. A Guide can lead you out of peril just as easily as into it. Choose wisely.

Why we should fear ourselves

We know we shouldn’t question; it’s not our place. And yet… if we’re so beloved by Osiris, why did He let us fall? Why are we met with suspicion and disbelief? We think we knew the answers to these questions once, but those memories slip through our fingers like sand. We claim to be Guides, but have we been lost all along?

Parent Clan: Nosferatu

Nicknames: Guides, Chosen of Osiris, Therapists, Warriors of the Dead (historical)

Bloodline Bane (The Curse of Osiris): For a bloodline that sells its ability to provide other Kindred peaceful journeys through torpor, the Guides don’t rest so easy themselves. Every time an Usiri sleeps, her player must roll her Humanity, or else she experiences intense visions of the Underworld and the souls trapped there. If she fails, she is tormented by horrifying, yet compelling, chthonic images and [REDACTED]

Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Nightmare, Obfuscate

In the Dark Eras

To the Strongest — 330–320 BCE (DE1, p.68): The Chosen of Osiris cult is among the most powerful factions of the dead in Egypt, even rivaling the Followers of Ra. Trusted advisors to pharaohs both living and lifeless, the Warriors of the Dead ruthlessly crush and discredit any who doubt their wisdom, but they grow more arrogant and careless with each passing night, so certain of their invulnerability. They don’t know it yet, but the meeting of lands and cultures brought about by Alexander will be their doom. Culture shock brought on by an influx of foreign Kindred will shatter the mystery of the Warriors’ abilities, and they will begin to be questioned for the first time in centuries. Also arriving with the young king are mages, whose arcane insight and influence will begin to erode that of the Warriors of the Dead. For the Chosen of Osiris, it is the beginning of the end.

Bloodline Gift: Hypnagogia

Whether other Kindred believe in the Usiri’s mysticism or not, there’s no denying the Guides have some peculiar abilities. Chief among these is Hypnagogia, a way to touch the minds of sleeping or torpid Kindred. The Usiri claim their patron god allows them to follow the spirits of these vampires into the Underworld in order to shepherd them safely through its many challenges. While most other Kindred scoff at this, they don’t have another ready explanation for how the Guides do what they do.

By anointing or feeding a subject, an Usiri can [REDACTED]

Story Seed: Scholars, Guides, and Thieves

Both the Mnemosyne and Agonistes have survived the intervening centuries from their initial confrontation with the Usiri, and it’s likely both or either groups of Shadows have intact records of the Guides. The Agonistes are, and remain, guardians of knowledge, and they opposed the Warriors of the Dead because of how they twisted the truth of events to suit their own ends. If the bloodline’s elders were to become aware that the Usiri are up to their old tricks, they would almost certainly take steps to thwart them once again, and with their own insights into torpor, they’re in a unique position to do so.

The Mnemosyne, on the other hand, are nearly unrecognizable compared with when they first encountered the Guides. Now they’re the Mind-Thieves, using stolen memories to extort and blackmail other Kindred. With most of their elders long gone, it’s unlikely that any waking Mnemosyne know of their bloodline’s connection to the Guides, but Usiri elders certainly remember them. Currently, they’re divided as to whether they should simply conceal themselves from their old rivals or attempt to strike a deal. The current incarnation of the Mnemosyne is much more likely to try and work with the Usiri (for a cut of the profits) rather than expose them, but could there ever be enough trust between the two lines for an alliance to work? For more on the Agonistes, see Bloodlines: The Devoted, p. 7; for the Mnemosyne, see Strange Shades: Mekhet, p. 43.

[21C Hermit]

So the demons Usiri claim to combat are false. But even lies and falsehoods and masks can come to life in the broader world of the Chronicles… cue [insert your favorite psychic-chthonic-infernal horror from gameline A here]

[Yossarian]

So the demons Usiri claim to combat are false. But even lies and falsehoods and masks can come to life in the broader world of the Chronicles… cue [insert your favorite psychic-chthonic-infernal horror from gameline A here]

But It’s All Fake... Right?

The Usiri are charlatans; always have been. They have no divine patronage or mission from Osiris, if that god ever even existed. Everything they do can be explained by their Disciplines and some clever tricks of the blood.

And yet…

The Underworld is very real, and the Guides do seem to have ties to it. Most modern Usiri believe in their mission, and while that faith is largely the product of mental conditioning, it still holds power. It may very well be that while the rituals of the Guides began as pageantry, they’ve since made a connection to something with real power in the Realms Below that’s providing them with guidance and patronage. If that’s the case, what is this entity’s goal, and why is it so interested in torpid Kindred?

tencharacters