The Hounds of Actaeon

He's bleedin' out, somewhere. You'd be amazed at how far they can run even after they been shot in the side."

Savage and Macabre - Gangrel

For many Damned, the hunt is a simple thing, a thing of whim, subsistence without a plan. A vampire enters the night, finds a target and then he feeds. Lather, rinse, repeat. The Gangrel tend to do things a bit differently: One pack of hungry Savages might harry prey into a pit trap and then slowly descend upon their captive meal, while another lone Gangrel might instead let his hunger get the best of him to the point where he’s little more than a rampaging thing of pure craving, a thing that hunts without grace.
The Hounds of Actaeon — or, simply, the Hunters — have their own way of putting blood in their bellies. They hunt like humans hunt animals: with rifle or Spear, with arrow or 12 gauge. It isn’t for sport, not for most of the Hunters. No, this is about feeding. About performing a sacred duty that goes back a long ways, indeed.

Culture

Culture and cultural heritage

History and Culture: The story of this bloodline’s nativity is right there in the name: They are, they believe, descended from the Hounds of Actaeon. In case you don’t know the story, it’s this: Actaeon was a Theban hero and friend to the centaur called Cheiron. He was also an able hunter, but one day he made a grave error. The Hero came upon the goddess Artemis bathing, and he stared in awe at her nakedness. She saw him ogling her and cursed him with a threat: he shall never speak again (so as not to tell anyone what he saw), or he would pay for that transgression. Of course, when Actaeon heard the calls of his own hunting party, he cried out.
Oops. That’s when Artemis turned his hunting party into vicious hounds and turned Actaeon himself into a stag. The hounds tore apart the stag. Whether true or not, the Hunters of this bloodline believe that technically, the hunting party wasn’t turned into actual hounds, but into starving Kindred, and Actaeon was not turned into anything but what he already was: a human being filled with precious blood.
The “tearing him apart” portion of the story is the Hounds’ greatest shame, though. One of the bloodline’s chief conceits is to recognize that the attack on Actaeon was a graceless, frenzied attack. An indiscretion in which the purity of the hunt is lost. And so, they attempt to recapture that purity through regular hunting parties where the prey is, nearly always, human, the “Most Dangerous Game.” They hunt the way the Native Americans might have, or how more thoughtful human hunters might now: with Spear, arrow, rifle or shotgun. They track prey. They aim to kill, not to wound. They pray over the body whether still alive or dead. And, most importantly, they endeavor to use all parts of the “animal.” Blood is food. Fat goes to soap. Skin makes a kind of leather that can be used as clothing or cording (tendons, too, make for good cord, cord that can go toward holding a blood skein at one’s side or can help string up dead prey to let it “bleed out”). Bone makes for simple weapons or armor (though is most commonly used for decoration, given that Hunters generally dress like woodsmen or sportsmen). While heads make fine trophies, rarely do the Hunters keep trophies unless the prey was of some note.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

The Hunt Has Many Faces

Baiting: The Hunters bait the prey and wait in hiding. The bait must take the form of what the target wants, hence it’s important to know the target quite well. Will the prey go for a bag of money? A passed-out sorority girl? A loved one bound to a tree?
Camouflage: Evolution favors those who can blend with the background, as it makes them better hunters or safer prey. Here, the Hounds of Actaeon favor Camouflage for the former, but it’s important to note that Camouflage is only truly successful when the Hunter isn’t moving. Humans sense shapes and subjects by movement, and the more still or slower a Hunter is, the more likely he is to fool the prey.
Deerstand: Okay, so they don’t hunt deer, but some Hunters will track prey from an elevated position. In rural areas, they might wait while concealed in trees or lurk on rocky overhangs. In urban areas, cities have no lack of “high spaces” — awnings, ledges, fire escapes and so forth.
Driving: Also called “harrying prey.” Involves one or two vampires frightening or spooking prey into an area where the rest of the Hunters wait.
Persistence Hunting: Some Hounds do not hunt with rifle, shotgun or bow. They simply pursue a victim until the victim can no longer run. This ancient Paleolithic practice is easy for the vampires, as they do not grow fatigued, and a human can only run so far for so long. Eventually, the human drops. Eventually, the Hunters feed.
Shining: Also called “blinding.” The goal is to blind a target — not difficult for the Hunters, given most hunting parties occur at night away from lights, so it’s easy to disturb a target’s visual sense and stun them with a sharp flash of light. Many use bright spotlights of high candlepower.

Major organizations

Reputation: Those who know of the Hounds grant them a reputation of mercilessness, of vicious blood hunts and callousness. Yes, that’s true for some, especially those who let their Beasts get the better of them, but that’s not the standard. The Hunters aren’t particularly human, and they have Humanity scores to match their actions. But they aren’t cruel. They don’t torture. This isn’t a personal thing. It’s about food. It’s about use. About a sacred tradition and honoring their predatory graces. Sometimes, they come across as downright icy about it, having written off any moral compunctions that might come with the act of hunting human beings. Still, though, the reputation is as wild hunters out of control, mad packs of brutal thugs stalking and torturing prey.

Nicknames: Hounds, Hunters, Poachers

Parent ethnicities

• Gangrel

Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Obfuscate, Protean, Resilience
Weakness: The curse of the frenzy supposedly incurred by Artemis (see below) still haunts the Hounds of Actaeon: any roll to resist a hunger frenzy is penalized by -3 dice.