Bloodlines — Confessio Sanguinis
The Clans
Thirteen lineages walk the long night. Some hold court, some hold grudges, some simply hold on. What follows is what every neonate is expected to know, and what every elder pretends to have forgotten.
Brujah
The Learned Clan — Rebels and rabble-rousers
Also called: Rabble, Hellenes, Rebels
Idealists turned brawlers. Once philosopher-kings of Carthage, now firebrands and street prophets. Their fury is both a weapon and a wound.
They remember Carthage as a paradise of equals between the living and the dead — and they remember its salting by the Ventrue. Every Brujah carries that grudge under the skin, even those who would deny it. In modern nights they front the Anarch Movement and supply the Camarilla with its loudest critics from within.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Brujah, killed by his own childer
- Disciplines:
- Celerity · Potence · Presence
- Bane:
- Bane of Rage — difficulty roll to resist frenzy is one die harder.
- Compulsion:
- Rebellion — the next action must defy whatever authority just spoke.
- Archetypes:
- Street agitator, fallen scholar, biker philosopher, union enforcer, exiled idealist.
- Organisation:
- Loose, factional, allergic to hierarchy. Local cells, ideological cliques, no central council.
Gangrel
The Outlanders — Beasts in shape and soul
Also called: Outlanders, Animals, Strays
Wanderers of moor and forest. They wear claws, fur and fang as easily as cloaks. Closest to the Beast — and most honest about it.
Long the scouts and outriders of the Camarilla, they walked out of the Tower in the 20th century after one too many betrayals. Many have since drifted toward the Anarchs; others keep their own counsel in places no city Kindred would willingly go.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Ennoia, said to sleep beneath the earth itself
- Disciplines:
- Animalism · Fortitude · Protean
- Bane:
- Bane of the Beast — each frenzy leaves a bestial feature; lose one Attribute dot per feature until next session.
- Compulsion:
- Feral Impulses — speech reduced to gestures and snarls; mental and social pools penalised.
- Archetypes:
- Lone wanderer, biker nomad, ranger of forgotten roads, urban hunter, witch of the wild.
- Organisation:
- Refuse formal courts. Gather in 'gangs' or moots — temporary, blood-bound, fiercely autonomous.
Malkavian
The Lunatics — Oracles of madness
Also called: Lunatics, Madmen, Oracles, Children of Malkav
Every Malkavian sees what others cannot — at the price of what they wish they hadn't. Their truths are often correct, and almost always unwelcome.
Their founder is said to have shattered his own mind to glimpse the future, and his blood carried the wound forward. They are tolerated in every court because no court can afford to ignore an oracle, no matter how cracked the vessel.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Malkav, whose mind is said to still whisper through the blood
- Disciplines:
- Auspex · Dominate · Obfuscate
- Bane:
- Fractured Perspective — every Malkavian carries a permanent derangement that surfaces at the worst times.
- Compulsion:
- Delusion — perceptions twist; rolls relying on senses are penalised until the delusion is acknowledged.
- Archetypes:
- Mad prophet, traumatised savant, conspiracy theorist, gentle ghost, inscrutable jester.
- Organisation:
- The Cobweb / Madness Network — an unspoken telepathic murmur that links them across cities.
Nosferatu
The Lepers — Spies of the deep places
Also called: Sewer Rats, Lepers, Orlocks, the Hidden
They dwell in tunnels, sewers and forgotten attics. No clan trades in secrets like the Nosferatu — and few hold so many.
Cursed at the Embrace, they made of their exile a stronghold. The SchreckNET — their private digital web — keeps them ahead of every other clan when it comes to mortal infrastructure, secrets and surveillance.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Absimiliard, who hates his childer for what he made them
- Disciplines:
- Animalism · Obfuscate · Potence
- Bane:
- Repulsiveness — the Embrace twists the body; no Attribute, magic or trick can hide what they are at close range.
- Compulsion:
- Cryptophilia — must learn one new secret before any other action will satisfy.
- Archetypes:
- Information broker, sewer prince, tunnel-warden, shunned scholar, blackmailer of princes.
- Organisation:
- Tight kin-networks called warrens; share information freely with each other, sell it dearly to outsiders.
Toreador
The Degenerates — Artists and aesthetes
Also called: Divas, Artistes, Degenerates, the Roses
They love mortals as one loves a sunset that never returns. Their salons set the fashion of the night, and break it just as surely.
From the Renaissance onwards they have been the smiling face of the Camarilla, the clan that hosts the parties and pays the artists. Behind the lacquer they are as ruthless as any Ventrue — they simply prefer their daggers gilded.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Arikel (Ishtar), patron of beauty and ruin
- Disciplines:
- Auspex · Celerity · Presence
- Bane:
- Bane of Beauty — confronted with something beautiful, the Toreador must succeed at a roll or be transfixed.
- Compulsion:
- Obsession — fixates on a single subject; everything else becomes a distraction to be brushed aside.
- Archetypes:
- Salon hostess, fading rock star, gallery owner, prima ballerina, decadent poet.
- Organisation:
- Salons, courts and patron-circles. Closely woven into Camarilla high society and mortal cultural elites.
Tremere
The Warlocks — A pyramid in ruins
Also called: Warlocks, Usurpers, the Broken Pyramid
Once architects of vampire occultism, now scattered after the fall of Vienna. They remember every ritual — and every grudge.
Mortal mages of House Tremere drank Tzimisce vitae and unmade themselves into a clan in the 12th century. For eight hundred years they were the Camarilla's sorcerers; now their pyramid is rubble and they survive on reputation, ritual, and what they can salvage.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Tremere himself, once a mortal mage who stole the blood
- Disciplines:
- Auspex · Dominate · Blood Sorcery
- Bane:
- Severed Pyramid — Tremere blood no longer creates true Blood Bonds; clan loyalty is now a matter of will, not vitae.
- Compulsion:
- Perfectionism — must redo the last action better, accepting penalties to recover lost rigour.
- Archetypes:
- Cold occultist, defrocked initiate, librarian of forbidden things, oath-bound investigator.
- Organisation:
- Once a strict pyramid of Houses and Chantries; since the fall of Vienna in 2008, four splinter Houses (Carna, Goratrix, Ipsissimus, the Rump) compete and conspire.
Ventrue
The Kings — Self-styled aristocrats
Also called: Blue Bloods, Patricians, Kings, Tyrants
They believe leadership is their burden by right of blood. Often they are correct, and often that is the problem.
They wrote the Traditions, or claim they did. From senatorial Rome to corporate boardrooms they have always preferred the seat at the head of the table. Their rivalry with Brujah is older than any city still standing.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Ventrue, the Lawgiver — author of much of Kindred custom
- Disciplines:
- Dominate · Fortitude · Presence
- Bane:
- Rarefied Tastes — each Ventrue feeds only from a specific kind of mortal; all other vitae is refused on sight.
- Compulsion:
- Arrogance — must take command of the situation, by force of will or status, before doing anything else.
- Archetypes:
- CEO, Old Money patriarch, party whip, judge, banker of impossible debts.
- Organisation:
- Strictly hierarchical: directorates, councils and courts. Provide most of the Camarilla's Princes.
Banu Haqim
The Children of Haqim — Judges and assassins
Also called: Assamites, Judges, Saracens
Inheritors of an older order of justice. They have joined the Camarilla — an arrangement neither side fully trusts.
For most of recorded undeath they were the assassins-for-hire of the Middle East and a thorn in the side of the western clans. The Convention of Thorns ended one war; the modern accord with the Camarilla may yet start another.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Haqim, the Just — judge of his own brood
- Disciplines:
- Blood Sorcery · Celerity · Obfuscate
- Bane:
- Blood Addiction — tasting Kindred vitae risks an addiction; resisting requires escalating Hunger checks.
- Compulsion:
- Judgement — must enact a punishment, however small, on the next being who transgresses.
- Archetypes:
- Sharia jurist, contract killer, secret-police interrogator, exile of Alamut, scholar of forbidden law.
- Organisation:
- The Schism: many joined the Camarilla in the 21st century; loyalist sects still serve the old fortress at Alamut.
Hecata
The Family — Necromancers united
Also called: Necromancers, the Family, Graverobbers
Cappadocians, Giovanni and lesser death-cults, bound at last under one name. They speak with the dead because the dead, at least, do not lie pleasantly.
Augustus Giovanni diablerised his sire Cappadocius in the 15th century and turned the clan into a banking dynasty. In modern nights the surviving necromantic lines have buried that grudge — for now — to face the threat from the East and the rising tide of wraiths.
- Origin:
- Founders: Augustus Giovanni and the surviving Cappadocian, Harbinger and Samedi lines
- Disciplines:
- Auspex · Fortitude · Oblivion
- Bane:
- Painful Kiss — the feeding kiss is agony; mortals struggle, scream, and rarely return willingly.
- Compulsion:
- Morbidity — must fixate on death, decay or a recent corpse to the exclusion of any pressing matter.
- Archetypes:
- Mortician, mafia heir, spirit medium, voudoun houngan, necromantic scholar.
- Organisation:
- Clan-as-family: Giovanni mafia houses, Harbinger occultists, Samedi mercenaries, lesser death-cults under one banner since 2004.
Lasombra
The Magisters — Masters of shadow
Also called: Magisters, Keepers, Shadows
Once first among the Sabbat, now seeking refuge in the Camarilla. They do not believe in mercy, only in weight — and they have learned to apply it.
Their Iberian and Italian houses ruled the Sabbat for five centuries. With the Beckoning thinning their elders, the survivors made a pact with the Tower — and now sit in courts that, a generation ago, would have hunted them on sight.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Lasombra, drowned in his own abyss by his childers' hands
- Disciplines:
- Dominate · Oblivion · Potence
- Bane:
- Distorted Image — they cast no reflection in any mirror or lens; technology stutters, glitches and refuses them.
- Compulsion:
- Ruthlessness — failure is unacceptable; must reattempt at any cost or impose harsh consequence on a subordinate.
- Archetypes:
- Cardinal in exile, corporate raider, cult leader, abyssal mystic, iron-fisted regent.
- Organisation:
- Once the spine of the Sabbat; in modern nights many have defected to the Camarilla as an organised power bloc with their own agenda.
The Ministry
Followers of Set — Tempters and corrupters
Also called: Setites, the Faithful, Serpents
They do not own you by force. They lend you what you most desire, and let the debt do the work.
The old cult of Set has rebranded itself for the new century — less serpent-priest, more revolutionary preacher. Their goal is unchanged: free the world from every chain it pretends to need, and claim the bond of every soul they liberate.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Set, the dark god of the Egyptian night
- Disciplines:
- Obfuscate · Presence · Protean
- Bane:
- Aversion to Light — bright light, even artificial, inflicts penalties and aggravated damage more readily than for other Kindred.
- Compulsion:
- Transgression — must encourage another to break a personal taboo or law before resting easy.
- Archetypes:
- Cult-leader pastor, drug lord, sex-trade broker, freedom-fighter prophet, archaeologist of forbidden faiths.
- Organisation:
- A modern church of liberation through indulgence; temples in every major city, openly courting the Anarchs.
Ravnos
The Daredevils — Wanderers cursed by sun
Also called: Wanderers, Charlatans, Daredevils
After the Week of Nightmares, only a thin line endures. They keep moving — they have to.
The Week of Nightmares burnt most of them out of unlife. Those who survived inherited not just the clan name but its curse — a restlessness so deep that staying still is, for them, a slow form of suicide.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Zapathasura / Ravnos, slain over India in 1999
- Disciplines:
- Animalism · Obfuscate · Presence
- Bane:
- Doomed — if they linger more than a few nights in the same haven, sunlight will find them; the Beast itself draws the dawn.
- Compulsion:
- Tempting Fate — must take the most dangerous available course of action, even when a safer one exists.
- Archetypes:
- Stunt thief, refugee fixer, traveling con artist, doomed lover, last-of-his-line storyteller.
- Organisation:
- No real clan structure remains; loose lineages and 'families' that share roads and rumours.
Tzimisce
The Old Clan — Dragons of land and flesh
Also called: Fiends, Dragons, Old Clan
Lords of the Carpathians and worse places. They reshape what they touch — body, ground, and lineage alike.
Once the great rivals of the Tremere, then the dread engine of the Sabbat, now scattered. The Old Clan loyalists insist they were never Sabbat at all and intend to reclaim their lost fiefdoms — by any means, including means that no other clan would dare consider.
- Origin:
- Antediluvian: Tzimisce, said to inhabit the soil of the Carpathians itself
- Disciplines:
- Animalism · Dominate · Protean
- Bane:
- Grounded — must rest each day surrounded by a substantial measure of something they consider 'theirs' (native soil, kin, treasure) or suffer aggravated damage.
- Compulsion:
- Covetousness — must take possession of something belonging to another before any other priority.
- Archetypes:
- Boyar landlord, flesh-sculptor surgeon, monastic occultist, eastern warlord, koldun shaman.
- Organisation:
- Voivodates and old dynasties of eastern Europe, plus a renewed Old Clan loyalist movement that rejects both Sabbat and Camarilla.
Caitiff
The Clanless — Orphans of the blood
Also called: Trash, Pandars, Orphans, the Clanless
They claim no sire, or were claimed by none. In the nights of the Beckoning, their numbers grow.
Once they were a curiosity. As elders are pulled east by the Beckoning, the Caitiff multiply: too many neonates Embraced in haste and abandoned. The Camarilla calls it a plague. The Anarchs, unsurprisingly, see recruits.
- Origin:
- None — sire unknown, abandoned, or denied
- Disciplines:
- Any three Disciplines, none guaranteed; no in-clan affinity.
- Bane:
- Outcast — no clan backs them; status is denied by default and Influence rolls in Kindred politics are penalised.
- Compulsion:
- None native to the clan; varies by individual.
- Archetypes:
- Abandoned childer, runaway, mongrel street vampire, self-taught upstart, accidental Embrace.
- Organisation:
- None. Some bind together in 'broods' for protection; most are alone.
Thin-Bloods
Duskborn — Last of the lineage
Also called: Duskborn, Mercurians, Chameleons, the 14th Generation
Far from Caine, close to mortal. They walk in the dawn-light when no other Kindred can — and pay for it in every other way.
Their existence is, to many elders, the literal sign of Gehenna — the prophesied weakening of the Blood at the end of nights. Some Thin-Bloods believe this, and act accordingly. Others just want to survive the next sunrise.
- Origin:
- Generations so far from Caine that the curse itself is fraying
- Disciplines:
- Thin-Blood Alchemy and fragments of ordinary Disciplines, learned painstakingly.
- Bane:
- Diminished Vitae — most clan strengths are denied; many can walk in twilight, eat food, or even sire mortal children, but none of it reliably.
- Compulsion:
- None fixed; instead, every Thin-Blood develops a personal Mercy or Affinity that defines them.
- Archetypes:
- Drug-trade alchemist, daywalking investigator, scared neonate, prophet of the Gehenna war, freelance fixer.
- Organisation:
- None. The Camarilla hunts them; the Anarchs use them; the Hecata study them.