Ventrue
Something dead approaches. It moves with the calm of someone who already knows the outcome. It stalks as bold as a revenant lion. Bullets and threats slide off its skin, raindrops on obsidian. Eyes like the tinted windows of a luxury car, mouth like an iron maiden, smile like a blood-stained crown. Those tinted windows roll down. Its words violate you. You’ll put that gun to your head if it asks. Its voice is full of chains and meathooks. You dance like a marionette, as it leads with all the grace of storybook nobility. In obeisance and despair you realize Prince Charming is Bluebeard.
The Ventrue are rulers, yes, but more than that they’re winners. They’re the best and the darkest, the lords and generals of the night. They don’t ask, they take. You start, they finish. They come, they see, they crush.
History is written by the victors, and the Lords are always writing. Just ask. They love their histories. They will tell you how the blood of deities and kings distilled into Vitae in the cradles of civilization. They will speak of Troy — of the lares and mares, the household gods and lingering shades of the dead who protect the noble families. They will teach you how to read between the lines of the epic poem, the Aeneid. They will show you how Aeneas vs. Achilles is a metaphor for the Man vs. the Beast. They will speak of their divine inheritance: the five-fold aegis and the mastery of men and animals. Flip the pages and watch a parade of triumphant cadavers marching down the centuries. Eternity is a banquet held in their honor — wassail! wassail! — and the wine, that is the life, is ever flowing.
See the raggedy king. He wears a crown of barbed wire and a patchwork coat of many colors. The park is his kingdom. Beggars, buskers, and animals all bow to him. The living statue, the pickpocket, the stray cats, the raccoons, they all make up his court. He knights some of the street folk, with a vermiculated blade, before giving them a bent chalice of his blood which he calls “the grail.” There are some who think him mad. His subjects do not.
See the big boss. Meeting the man himself is a tedious ritual. You have to know a guy who knows a guy. You have to get past goon after goon. There is a hidden smoke-filled room, past several other smoke-filled rooms, a nasty nesting doll of power. There he is. Broad shoulders form a power-house V in that pinstripe power suit. You tremble as you step forward, kiss his emerald ring. He is the apex and the fulcrum. All the city is his pendulum. City aldermen, criminals, Christ…everyone spends time in his pocket. He flushes red as he talks, and you shiver. In awe, you barely notice the little old woman, sitting as still as death in the corner — the one he looks to before giving every opinion and answer.
See the guru. She has a warm smile and manic enthusiasm. Her infomercials haunt the night. She has a line of self-help books. Her voice hypnotizes countless people through her self-actualizing CDs. They follow her on all the social websites. The product really works. She builds fortresses of confidence within her followers. But that fortress erodes and crumbles if they spend any time away from her influence. Dependence can sound like self-reliance, if you spin it right. They need more. They fork over cash to go to her seminars. They learn how to sell her products. Her influence spreads like a happy epidemic. Waves and waves of the herd, all conditioned before they even meet her. Their blood is enriched and seasoned with a special balance of nutrients she sells to them.
See the director. In the black box theatre, he is God. It begins with the desperate actors lining up for auditions. His approval means the world. He commands them. He gets inside, tinkers with their clockwork. He manipulates scenery and people, weaves them all together to form a vision, manifesting fantasy as reality. Night after night, and his Kindred ask him why he wastes his time when there are more important games to be played. He smiles and says, “Practice makes perfect.” And they cannot deny the power of his voice and gaze, over that of the city’s more serious dead.
Let the other clans toil and trouble. The Lords shall exalt.
Carpe noctem!
Why you want to be us
Oh, come on. You’ve never wanted to run the show? You’ve never wanted to go into a conflict knowing you’ll come out on top? Of course you have; and as a Ventrue, you will.
Why you should fear us
The Gangrel might chase you down, but the Ventrue walks calmly towards you, shrugging off your pathetic attempts to hurt him. No weapon or words will stop him, but his quiet voice will freeze you where you stand. He’s going to get what he wants, and it doesn’t matter who gets hurt, because it won’t be him.
Why we should fear ourselves
What if no one could say no to you? Maybe it would feel great at first. For many of the Ventrue, it does. They command their lessers, and are unquestioned. But what resentments lurk behind those mesmerized eyes? Again, better to be feared than loved…but what if the Ventrue are just despised?
Nickname: Lords
Clan Bane: The Aloof Curse
Excellence breeds contempt. When people are puppets for your will and buildings are play pieces on a grand game board, it is hard not to become distant. It is so very easy for you to become detached from those people, places, and things that keep the Man secure in your breast.
Favored Attributes: Presence or Resolve
Disciplines: Animalism, Dominate, Resilience
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