Vampires: 101

The Kindred

For the Kindred, cities are urban collections of territories and domains that stand as illuminated points against the greater backdrop of the wilderness and the places in between their safety. For vampires, the paradigm is almost medieval. The cities are their homes, and everything that’s not a city represents some sort of danger.
Outside the city are packs of savage Lupines, vast fallow areas where there is no blood to be found, and the unquantifiable strangenesses endemic to a World of Darkness. Modern technology eases those dangers somewhat, but most Kindred are effectively trapped in cities, where they gild their cages with elaborate games of prestige, social status, and vendetta
To that end, much of Vampire takes place in urban environments. Why should the Kindred risk starvation in the untamed wild when those badlands confer no status upon their masters, and when a frenzied werewolf may well come rampaging across the landscape, leaving dismemberment in his wake? Truly, vampires are uniquely acclimated to city domains, and the cities are the places that hold the most of their most precious resource in vitae.

The Embrace

Upon the Embrace, the fledgling’s senses sharpen, displaying to her a richness of visual colors, auditory distinction, tactile fineness, and olfactory alertness that mortals senses are too limited to discern. The most important of all, however is taste — taste becomes the new Kindred’s primary sense, and with it she engages the pursuit of a single taste to the exclusion of all others: vitae.
Mortal blood. The mortal dies, and in her places rises a member of the undead, a Kindred. With this unholy rebirth comes a host of new potential, from the mystical powers known as Disciplines that Kindred possess to the quintessential vampiric ability to use blood for a variety of supernal purposes.
Thereafter, nothing is the same for the fledgling. She’s no longer mortal, but a new member of an elaborate society of the Damned, who have their own complicated codes of behavior, their own customs, and seemingly endless rules and protocols that dictate who is subservient to whom and under what circumstances. Even for those who rebel against the system — Anarchs, ungovernable Autarkis, and any number of other rogues — a pecking order must exist. The only place it doesn’t is when only one vampire claims the domain… and if that vampire just performed the Embrace, well, there’s no longer only one vampire there.
The trappings of the fledgling’s mortal life can no longer support her. In the short term, the new vampire now requires blood to sustain herself, and surrounding oneself with vessels of sustenance whom one loves will inevitably result in bloody ruin. In the long term, while the new vampire will remain deathless, unchanged by time, those around her will age, wither, and die. The easiest course, most sires agree, is simply to turn one’s back on the mortal life that no longer offers anything but tragedy and a reminder of the damned state of the undead.

A Beautiful Corpse

Once a vampire is Embraced, her looks are frozen in time. Her skin will be unnaturally cold to the touch and become paler as she ages, but she will look the same in a thousand years as she does on the night of her Embrace. However, her body does not work like it used to.
As mentioned previously, nearly all Kindred are unable to eat food after the Embrace, vomiting it up almost immediately — only blood will sustain them. Over time, most of the vampire’s bodily fluids will be replaced by blood — the Kindred sweats a thin sheen of blood when nervous, cries tears of blood when sad, and makes a god-awful mess during sex.
Blood has other, unique uses for vampires. Besides needing it for sustenance, Cainites can mentally direct the blood to various parts of her body, “spending” it to perform a variety of feats. She can heal herself, mending scrapes, cuts, and slashes in moments.
She can also enhance her physical capabilities, making herself stronger, hardier, or more agile for a short period of time, and fuel the mystical powers at her command. Her blood can also create new vampires through the Embrace, and enslave the minds of mortals and even other Kindred. Some vampires can also spend blood to appear human once again: make their skin rosy and warm, mimic breathing, and even allow her to have sex once again (although intercourse pales in comparison to the ecstasy of the Kiss).

The Beast

Of course, there’s a downside as well. Inside every vampire lurks an impassioned, hungry creature that is the opposite of the Man. It is the Beast, and the Beast knows only three activities: kill, feast, sleep. It is the roiling, inchoate desire every Kindred feels to slay her prey rather than taking just enough.
It is the inevitable urge to be what the vampire is a predator who doesn’t answer to the will of men or hide from their numbers. When the Beast takes control over a vampire, she is said to enter a state of frenzy, directing the Cainite into a response of fight or flight.
But the Beast isn’t a simple animal soul; it can be sophisticated. It knows that the war against the Man is one that, given time, it will inevitably win. Thus, in young vampires, the Beast is often a savvy creature, willing to take small victories here and there because in the long term, they lead the Kindred down the path of greater degradation and subservience to the Beast.
Tonight the Kindred destroys property, tomorrow she kills with reticence, the night after that she kills with relish. By the time the Man has eroded and the Beast holds sway, there is little rational consciousness left to the Cainite in question. Kill, feast, sleep is all that remains in a vampire dominated entirely by her Beast.