Rin Nyx
One Thousand Club
Ah man, I'm not so sure on this one... what's behind the doors? But then the hallway with the crypt....ahhh, what do? >.>
Ahhh.....3? I guess?
Ahhh.....3? I guess?
-
This section is for roleplays only.
ALL interest checks/recruiting threads must go in the Recruit Here section.
Please remember to credit artists when using works not your own.
Fandom Vampire: The Masquerade: Chapter 3: Setting Aside Grievances
- Thread starter Birdsie
- Start date
Archdemon
Some random dude on the Internet
2. We need to know what's behind the closest door to us, then we shall go back and check the other one. Well that's how I think we should proceed, never leave a Dungeon unexplored.
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Y'know, I think we could really use a Ghoul of our own. I'll start working toward that in our next adventure whatever it may be.
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Oh, and yes, it has to be a Japanese girl. Definitely. One that's also into anime. We'll have a Ghoul, a kohai AND and a ninja apprentice.
Captain Gabriel
Three Thousand Club
Seconded
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Dalamus Ulom
Captain Gabriel
Rin Nyx
Archdemon
Your feet slowly move back and you swiftly make a full turn. You face the first door you've seen upon your entry down here. With slow, careful steps, you approach the wooden construct in front of you. The handle is metallic, somewhat rusted, and very old. You give it a solid but hesitant pull and open the door... to see nothing. Before you is an empty room with what appears to be metallic tools for opening and sealing graves and the crypts you've seen on your way here. There's also a few spare shovels and tables. You close the door just to be safe and turn around once again.
Now, you check out door number two. It creaks as you open it. You peek inside and notice a member of the undead with no legs present. He's very slowly crawling about from one wall to the other, but didn't notice you in the slightest.
- Kill it.
- Leave it.
You go through. The walls of the room are roughly six meters tall, definitely more than the average building Each and every single wall, from the feet to the very ceiling has a carving that is big enough to fit a body, and indeed, a large amount of these shelves have bodies on them, each one rotten in varying degrees. In front of you is a short corridor that leads nowhere and only has more of these shelves, and to your left is yet another, similar corridor. To your right, however, there is a yet other corridor. From it, you hear silent sounds with your Auspex which slowly seems to be fading. You can't exactly discern the nature of these sounds.
Since there is no other choice, is there anything you do before proceeding down the hallway?
- Refreshen your Auspex with focus on Hearing. (-2% vitae.)
- Boost 1-3 of your Attributes through blood. If so, which? (-5-15% vitae.)
- Write-in.
Captain Gabriel
Three Thousand Club
1 and 1.
Your feet slowly move back and you swiftly make a full turn. You face the first door you've seen upon your entry down here. With slow, careful steps, you approach the wooden construct in front of you. The handle is metallic, somewhat rusted, and very old. You give it a solid but hesitant pull and open the door... to see nothing. Before you is an empty room with what appears to be metallic tools for opening and sealing graves and the crypts you've seen on your way here. There's also a few spare shovels and tables. You close the door just to be safe and turn around once again.
Now, you check out door number two. It creaks as you open it. You peek inside and notice a member of the undead with no legs present. He's very slowly crawling about from one wall to the other, but didn't notice you in the slightest.
As you close the door and look back, the thing that awaits you is the larger room in front of you.
- Kill it.
- Leave it.
You go through. The walls of the room are roughly six meters tall, definitely more than the average building Each and every single wall, from the feet to the very ceiling has a carving that is big enough to fit a body, and indeed, a large amount of these shelves have bodies on them, each one rotten in varying degrees. In front of you is a short corridor that leads nowhere and only has more of these shelves, and to your left is yet another, similar corridor. To your right, however, there is a yet other corridor. From it, you hear silent sounds with your Auspex which slowly seems to be fading. You can't exactly discern the nature of these sounds.
Since there is no other choice, is there anything you do before proceeding down the hallway?
Vitae: 71%
- Refreshen your Auspex with focus on Hearing. (-2% vitae.)
- Boost 1-3 of your Attributes through blood. If so, which? (-5-15% vitae.)
- Write-in.
Rin Nyx
One Thousand Club
Seconded
Archdemon
Some random dude on the Internet
I also agree.
Archdemon
Some random dude on the Internet
That kinda reminds me of that ghoul you can get in the actual Bloodlines game. You know I think it's the Redheaded chick with glasses. We should totally do this and in our Weebness we clearly fall in love.
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Dalamus Ulom
Captain Gabriel
Rin Nyx
Archdemon
You quickly stab the undead in the back of the head with your katana before he had any idea you were int he room.
~
You focus a little portion of the vitae flowing in your body and refresh the Auspex in your ears. As expected, your intake of sound becomes clearer and improved. You listen to the sounds at the end of the hallway... they are footsteps. Several pair of feet and they are no longer as chaotic and random as those of the zombies you've encountered. Indeed, you sense a premeditation in these steps. And then...
... CRACK...
They stop. A chill runs down your spine. Both pairs stopped suddenly as you stepped on a bone and cracked it. Did they hear you? Do they know of your presence? Did Obfuscate work, or did it fail you? The door slowly opens up revealing a black figure at the end of the hallway. Clearly, he's coming out to investigate the sound. Since he'll be focused on investigating the sound, you have very little chances of actually hiding, obfuscate or not.
What do you do?
- Hide on one of the empty shelves for dead corpses. Maybe she'll pass you by?
- Upgrade your Attributes and yell a mighty warcry before running in the person's direction and stabbing your katana through their chest. If so, which attributes? (-5-15% vitae.)
- Throw three shurikens in that general direction as a distraction before running back to the surface for support.
- Write-in.
Last edited:
Rin Nyx
One Thousand Club
Well, we don't want to be too hasty when it comes to the stabby-stabby stuff, they could have valuable information!
Can we hide in the corner or in a shelf or something, then when the person starts to pass us by, reach out and grab them, covering their mouth so they can't call out? Maybe have a kunai pointed at them so they're less likely to resist. Then we can ask questions and whatnot!
Can we hide in the corner or in a shelf or something, then when the person starts to pass us by, reach out and grab them, covering their mouth so they can't call out? Maybe have a kunai pointed at them so they're less likely to resist. Then we can ask questions and whatnot!
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Doing stuff like this won't always work. Let me remind you we're not the only badass vampire in the world...
Hehehe....
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Dalamus Ulom
Captain Gabriel
Rin Nyx
Archdemon
(Since no one else voted yet, I suppose I'll just go with Rin's idea. Also, time for exposition on vampiric abilities. Also, it seems the MC is fucked.)
There is no other way. You had to do it stealthily. With haste you threw your katana onto an empty shelf meant for the corpses and laid there, taking out a kunai knife, closing your eyes and preparing to strike. You were hoping your Obfuscate would hold up.
You hear another footstep and the distant creaking of wood, meaning this person has now entered the hallway. Even though you don't breathe anymore since you're dead, you took a breath in, just to comfort yourself.
As the oxygen enters your body, you slow down your body's processes. Your teacher told you that as a vampire, you can deliberately enter a state called torpor. It is a death-like state where the vampire's mind slumbers, making his body into more a corpse than a human. As you were already taught, a vampire is simply a walking, cursed dead body kept together by a dark force that used to be the mind of the person that the body belonged to. A vampire's body is a vessel that isn't quite dead, but not quite alive. Rather, it is somewhere in between. That is the curse Caine received for killing his brother Abel and thus inventing the art of murder.
Although powerful, vitae is what regenerates the vampiric body and keeps it "living" if you can call it that. Torpor is the state in which the substance of blood is withheld from the Cainite's body, disabling his "life" functions and allowing them to slumber for even hundreds of years to awaken in a more interesting era or to simply rest for a night. When vampires are hurt excessively or have no vitae, they enter torpor and awaken after a period of time that depends on how close to humanity they are. The closer to the Beast a vampire is, the longer their torpor takes, and in order to awaken, they also need some vitae. By voluntarily focusing and holding back a large portion of your vitae from invigorating your body in a life-like state, you can appear more like a dead corpse. This is called voluntary torpor.
In other words, to shorten it down, you manipulate your body to look more like a dead body than a living man. This state is called Volunatry Torpor. The opposite of Voluntary Torpor is a state called Blush of Life, where a vampire instead speeds up the flow of his vitae and expends more of it to force it to restore his body's dead tissue even faster than normal. The Blush of Life is the opposite of torpor. In it, a vampire feels much like a human. They can breathe, have sex, and also eat and digest food. This state, although somewhat costly in vitae, is a great indulgence, although difficult to maintain for long periods of time, especially if the vampire in question has little self-control. From what you know, Clan Toreador is the Clan that has the best control over the Blush of Life and practices it often so that they can better fit into mortal society.
This is also the same way that a vampire can heal his wounds quicker than mortals, or enhance his strength to volumes above peak-human. By rerouting the vitae through the vampire's body through conscious effort, they can lump the large amounts of vitae in places of wounds, or in their bones and muscles to force the body to become stronger. Technically, if you had enough skill you could enhance your strength far beyond human ability (5 points) for just a little bit of vitae (0.1%) however that would take either much experience in the technique itself or a much more potent vitae. The former can be achieved through age and effort, whilst the latter required a lower generation as blood potency increases. Currently, you lack both, as you were a vampire for only a few months and your 12th generation holds you back from achieving greater power. Your healing factor is somewhat efficient and effective, but your boosting of attributes is still very lacking.
Either way, voluntary torpor is much more controlled than a torpor the vampire enters by having no blood left or by being excessively hurt, as with voluntary torpor you can control when you awaken and you have more knowledge of your surroundings than with the involuntary variant.
As such, it is only logical that in a time of stress like this, where you don't want to be detected, you want to appear like a dead corpse.
You enter voluntary torpor...
...
Within moments, you awaken. The man is about to walk past you and hasn't noticed yet. Good... one... two... three...
You jump out with your hands and hold the man by the mouth, covering his face to keep him from calling help. With your other hand, you drive a small kunai slightly into the side of his neck to let him know he'll be done for if you drive it deeper in... but...
Chomp.
He bites into your hand and gives it a thorough suck. Shit. He's a vampire. You feel a portion of your vitae drained. You try to hold it back. Damn it. You can feel the blood moving through your veins and entering his mouth. Your instincts kick in and you stab the kunai deep into his neck. Unfortunately, vampires are much harder to kill than mortals, as they are already dead bodies.
Vampire fangs also deal tremendous damage. Aggravated damage, that is far more potent than lethal damage from a gun. You can't heal wounds like these with vitae. You'll have to wait until they heal themselves and avoid leaking too much blood. Although usually, you like pain, this is not a good pain. It's unpleasant. Not good. You dislike it.
You kick the man away from yourself and get up from the shelf, screaming in pain and stepping back constantly. You feel the Beast Within. It wants to control you, to take vengeance. Succumb to it and drive the wave of frenzy? Your eyes glow with a red wave of bloodthirst. The wish to take back your blood from him.
- Yes! Vengeance shall be mine!...
- No! I must hold back! (Difficult willpower check.)
"What do we have here? A little, bitsy, itsy... ninja?..." He smiles and chuckles. His face is old, putrid. His body is decomposing and yet -- you haven't heard of a vampire Clan with these characteristics. Clearly, whoever this kindred is, he's not from one of the 13 mainstream Clans. Rather, he comes from one of the minor bloodlines. Yet you can't discern his Clan Weakness. It seems he already has yours figured out. He has a small wound on his neck now, but it regenerates very quickly, so fast that you can almost see the skin regrowing with your bare eyes.
"Hmph," you frown. You hide your kunai into your suit and instead arm yourself back with your katana. "Now, now. I don't have time to deal with you, but I thank you for the little snack," he clicks his fingers. You hear a series of groans around you... from every direction.
You look around. The dead bodies around you begin to twitch and shake. Soon enough, each and everyone one of them slowly move in deliberate, yet slow and uncontrolled motions and begin getting up. You, standing in the crossroads of this crypt is now surrounded by an army of zombies. In addition, your left hand is completely useless.
This is bad.
What do you do?
- Upgrade your Attributes, if so, which? (-5%-15% vitae.)
- Heal your Aggravated wound, or at least try to. (-30% vitae and a very difficult Stamina check. If the check fails, the wound isn't healed but the vitae leaks out of the hand anyway.)
- Slowly back out and run toward the surface, hoping the undead haven't risen everywhere yet.
- Fight.
- Write-in.
Vitae: 45%
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Also, if you guys want to remain and fight, I advise to let the Beast overtake us. We don't risk losing humanity, but we get a small buff to our strength, speed, and other such things, in addition to a natural killer instinct for as long as we ride the wave of frenzy. The Beast Within, after all, is a much better predator than some lowly human.
Archdemon
Some random dude on the Internet
I'll wait before I give my vote out. Just to see if anyone has any better ideas on how to engage.
Dalamus Ulom
Childe of Malkav
Hold the phone, that guy should be wanting to bone us right now. I mean, when you drink the blood of a vampire, the drinker ends up liking the vampire they drank blood from.
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Not exactly. The effect isn't instantaneous, and it isn't exactly mind control either. It just means the person has a slightly better predisposition and a mental link to the dormitor they drank from. In fact, the chances of this guy becoming a recurring villain have just risen by 20%. Only 3, very deep drinks over the span of one month produce an effect that can even remotely be called control over the person bonded and it still degrades rather quickly.
In fact, the effect can even be opposite depending on the drinker, and instead of love, they might develop another intense emotion for the person they drank from, like hatred, or fear. The latter (fear) is most common when drinking from powerful ancients, like Antediluvians. A sip of Antediluvian blood would boost our blood pool to 1000% because of how potent it is and how closely connected to Caine's own curse it is. But it's also likely that with that one sip, we'd become the Antediluvian's sworn servant, out of fear, love, and other passionate emotions. Only if we fully diablerized him would we obtain the full extent of his power without being too held back by any intense emotions, but even then, the power of an ancient in the veins of a Neonate like us has even chances of burning our soul apart and making our body a new vessel for said Antediluvian, as it is likely to grant us his powers. Heck, it might be a weird mix of the two.
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
To add on top of that statement above. The reason most people bonded feel love is because they start out liking the person they drink from. One doesn't exactly agree to enter a blood bond willingly, so if a Tremere drinks the blood of his Master to prove his loyalty, the emotion is likely to be loyalty. Same goes for Ghouls. If you're giving them blood because they're hurt and need help, the emotion is likely to be love, or compassion. And so on.
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Archdemon
Some random dude on the Internet
I'm just waiting cause I don't know what to do.
Captain Gabriel
Three Thousand Club
5. Strike a deal with him: propose to reveal some of the Camarilla's secrets but secretly use this opportunity to take time to heal yourself.
(Since no one else voted yet, I suppose I'll just go with Rin's idea. Also, time for exposition on vampiric abilities. Also, it seems the MC is fucked.)
There is no other way. You had to do it stealthily. With haste you threw your katana onto an empty shelf meant for the corpses and laid there, taking out a kunai knife, closing your eyes and preparing to strike. You were hoping your Obfuscate would hold up.
You hear another footstep and the distant creaking of wood, meaning this person has now entered the hallway. Even though you don't breathe anymore since you're dead, you took a breath in, just to comfort yourself.
As the oxygen enters your body, you slow down your body's processes. Your teacher told you that as a vampire, you can deliberately enter a state called torpor. It is a death-like state where the vampire's mind slumbers, making his body into more a corpse than a human. As you were already taught, a vampire is simply a walking, cursed dead body kept together by a dark force that used to be the mind of the person that the body belonged to. A vampire's body is a vessel that isn't quite dead, but not quite alive. Rather, it is somewhere in between. That is the curse Caine received for killing his brother Abel and thus inventing the art of murder.
Although powerful, vitae is what regenerates the vampiric body and keeps it "living" if you can call it that. Torpor is the state in which the substance of blood is withheld from the Cainite's body, disabling his "life" functions and allowing them to slumber for even hundreds of years to awaken in a more interesting era or to simply rest for a night. When vampires are hurt excessively or have no vitae, they enter torpor and awaken after a period of time that depends on how close to humanity they are. The closer to the Beast a vampire is, the longer their torpor takes, and in order to awaken, they also need some vitae. By voluntarily focusing and holding back a large portion of your vitae from invigorating your body in a life-like state, you can appear more like a dead corpse. This is called voluntary torpor.
In other words, to shorten it down, you manipulate your body to look more like a dead body than a living man. This state is called Volunatry Torpor. The opposite of Voluntary Torpor is a state called Blush of Life, where a vampire instead speeds up the flow of his vitae and expends more of it to force it to restore his body's dead tissue even faster than normal. The Blush of Life is the opposite of torpor. In it, a vampire feels much like a human. They can breathe, have sex, and also eat and digest food. This state, although somewhat costly in vitae, is a great indulgence, although difficult to maintain for long periods of time, especially if the vampire in question has little self-control. From what you know, Clan Toreador is the Clan that has the best control over the Blush of Life and practices it often so that they can better fit into mortal society.
This is also the same way that a vampire can heal his wounds quicker than mortals, or enhance his strength to volumes above peak-human. By rerouting the vitae through the vampire's body through conscious effort, they can lump the large amounts of vitae in places of wounds, or in their bones and muscles to force the body to become stronger. Technically, if you had enough skill you could enhance your strength far beyond human ability (5 points) for just a little bit of vitae (0.1%) however that would take either much experience in the technique itself or a much more potent vitae. The former can be achieved through age and effort, whilst the latter required a lower generation as blood potency increases. Currently, you lack both, as you were a vampire for only a few months and your 12th generation holds you back from achieving greater power. Your healing factor is somewhat efficient and effective, but your boosting of attributes is still very lacking.
Either way, voluntary torpor is much more controlled than a torpor the vampire enters by having no blood left or by being excessively hurt, as with voluntary torpor you can control when you awaken and you have more knowledge of your surroundings than with the involuntary variant.
As such, it is only logical that in a time of stress like this, where you don't want to be detected, you want to appear like a dead corpse.
You enter voluntary torpor...
...
Within moments, you awaken. The man is about to walk past you and hasn't noticed yet. Good... one... two... three...
You jump out with your hands and hold the man by the mouth, covering his face to keep him from calling help. With your other hand, you drive a small kunai slightly into the side of his neck to let him know he'll be done for if you drive it deeper in... but...
Chomp.
He bites into your hand and gives it a thorough suck. Shit. He's a vampire. You feel a portion of your vitae drained. You try to hold it back. Damn it. You can feel the blood moving through your veins and entering his mouth. Your instincts kick in and you stab the kunai deep into his neck. Unfortunately, vampires are much harder to kill than mortals, as they are already dead bodies.
Vampire fangs also deal tremendous damage. Aggravated damage, that is far more potent than lethal damage from a gun. You can't heal wounds like these with vitae. You'll have to wait until they heal themselves and avoid leaking too much blood. Although usually, you like pain, this is not a good pain. It's unpleasant. Not good. You dislike it.
You kick the man away from yourself and get up from the shelf, screaming in pain and stepping back constantly. You feel the Beast Within. It wants to control you, to take vengeance. Succumb to it and drive the wave of frenzy? Your eyes glow with a red wave of bloodthirst. The wish to take back your blood from him.
As the man stumbles back, kicked away from you, he looks back at you with a frown, his tongue swiftly moving across his teeth and fangs, collecting your tasteful blood.
- Yes! Vengeance shall be mine!...
- No! I must hold back! (Difficult willpower check.)
"What do we have here? A little, bitsy, itsy... ninja?..." He smiles and chuckles. His face is old, putrid. His body is decomposing and yet -- you haven't heard of a vampire Clan with these characteristics. Clearly, whoever this kindred is, he's not from one of the 13 mainstream Clans. Rather, he comes from one of the minor bloodlines. Yet you can't discern his Clan Weakness. It seems he already has yours figured out. He has a small wound on his neck now, but it regenerates very quickly, so fast that you can almost see the skin regrowing with your bare eyes.
"Hmph," you frown. You hide your kunai into your suit and instead arm yourself back with your katana. "Now, now. I don't have time to deal with you, but I thank you for the little snack," he clicks his fingers. You hear a series of groans around you... from every direction.
You look around. The dead bodies around you begin to twitch and shake. Soon enough, each and everyone one of them slowly move in deliberate, yet slow and uncontrolled motions and begin getting up. You, standing in the crossroads of this crypt is now surrounded by an army of zombies. In addition, your left hand is completely useless.
This is bad.
What do you do?
Health: 71%
- Upgrade your Attributes, if so, which? (-5%-15% vitae.)
- Heal your Aggravated wound, or at least try to. (-30% vitae and a very difficult Stamina check. If the check fails, the wound isn't healed but the vitae leaks out of the hand anyway.)
- Slowly back out and run toward the surface, hoping the undead haven't risen everywhere yet.
- Fight.
- Write-in.
Vitae: 45%
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
One does not "heal" an Aggravated wound.
Captain Gabriel
Three Thousand Club
Birdsie
The God-Emperor of Mankind
Yeah, no shit. With 5% chances of success and 95% chances of massive blood loss.