Possible New Clan/Bloodline Histories

I compiled a list of what I think would be sensible new clans/bloodlines to include. I intentionally avoided those that only appear in the Dark Ages (like the Noiad for example).

Brujah
- Osebo: Auspex, Celerity, Potence

Gangrel:
- Ahrimane (female only): Animalism, Presence, Protean
- City Gangrel: Celerity, Obfuscate, Protean

Malkavian:
- Daughter of Cacophony (female only): Dementation, Fortitude, Presence
- Second Edition: Auspex, Dominate, Obfuscate

Nosferatu:
- Samedi: Fortitude, Obfuscate, ???

Toreador:
- Ishtarri: Celerity, Fortitude, Presence

Tremere:
- Baali: Obfuscate, Presence, Thaumaturgy

Ventrue:
- Anti-tribu: Auspex, Dominate, Fortitude
- Lasombra: Dominate, Obfuscate, Potence

I'm also thinking of Ravnos as a Gangrel history (Animalism, Fortitude, Obfuscate) or Malkavian history (Animalism, Dementation, Fortitude) but neither really fits.

For the Samedi I'm really unsure how to represent Thanatosis. There is no good match among the existing disciplines. Thaumaturgy is the only one that can be related in any way (because Thantosis is sort of Mortis and Mortis is magic and so is Thaumaturgy), but even that doesn't come close at all. So I'm thinking about just ditching it alltogether and throwing in either Auspex (if the speculations that Samedi evolved from Cappadocians that escaped the Giovanni are true) or Potence (a common physical discipline).

Weaknesses would mostly stay the same, with the following exceptions:
1) Ahrimanes can't ghoul Heather. They keep the Gangrel weakness otherwise.
2) Daughters of Cacophony have 0 Perception and can't increase it.
3) Bali have a -3 Humanity penalty.
4) Lasombra have scripted Masquerade breeches whenever they and a mortal are both within a radius of a reflective surface.

Good ideas.

As for my five (euro)cents...

Ravnos cannot be considered Gangrel Bloodline. Both lines may have common ancestor, but on 2nd Generation level, not 3rd. Besides, there is little love lost between these Clans. On top of that, there is no Charlatan without Chimeristry, and it runs into the same Discipline limit as Thanatosis.

With guides us into the provinces of the Samedi. In my opinion it is either Auspex or Potence for them. Thaumaturgy is too far fetched.

My last concern is with female only Bloodlines. But it is in accordance with PnP rules, therefore kosher.

Feral wrote:

Ravnos cannot be considered Gangrel Bloodline. Both lines may have common ancestor, but on 2nd Generation level, not 3rd. Besides, there is little love lost between these Clans. On top of that, there is no Charlatan without Chimeristry, and it runs into the same Discipline limit as Thanatosis.

You are right of course, but the Ravnos wouldn't be a bloodline. It would be a proper Ravnos pretending to be Gangrel/Malkavian just like the Lasombra is pretending to be Ventrue (because it's safer or whatever). And we would pretend the Obfuscate/Dementation actually is Chimerstry. But like I said, I'm not satsified with either option so I'm ready to abandon the idea. I only put it in for the sake of completeness.

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With guides us into the provinces of the Samedi. In my opinion it is either Auspex or Potence for them. Thaumaturgy is too far fetched.

Agreed. I'd personally go for Auspex because it makes them more different from Nosferatu.

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My last concern is with female only Bloodlines. But it is in accordance with PnP rules, therefore kosher.

Actually, now that you mention it, for the Daughters of Cacophony the V20 book states that they are "mostly female" so you could have male ones too (though they'd be called Sons of Cacophony).

Ahrimanes however were exclusively female. They are also problematic because technically they shouldn't be able to embrace which doesn't fit the intro, but we can ignore it for the sake of having more bloodlines to play.

Or we could leave Ahrimanes out. They are an officially extinct bloodline, even though they only showed up in the 90s. And more importantly repalcing Fortitude with Presence isn't going to have much effect on gameplay because both are defensive disciplines. One reduces the damage that you take while the other reduces the damage that your enemies inflict, but the end result is much the same (you're harder to kill). It would only make sense to have them in if Presence was significantly changed.

Then I would vote for dropping Ravnos altogether and going with the other Bloodlines.

To be completely fair, and I'm sorry about this Feral, but there's nothing in the rules saying that either Ahrimanes or Daughters cannot embrace or turn males.

In the Daughters of Cacophony Bloodlinebook, it states that the males were purged from their clan because one of them didn't want to sleep with Diana, a childe of the founder of the bloodline culminating in her order to kill all males in the bloodline. They were even nicknamed as Baritones.
Considering that this is 300 years after she made that order, I think it's allowable for at least one or two males within the bloodline...given that word never gets back to Diana about it. Or they would be incredibly short lived if others found out.

As for the Ahrimanes, it never touches base on why they don't turn males. They just don't. But in the book it stated that the founder popped up at a manor with some companions, and at least one of them were male.

As for the Daughters weakness, why not put a limit on Perception and Wits rather than lowering Perception to zero? I know the music is distracting, but it can't be THAT distracting.

SaulottheGentle wrote:

As for the Daughters weakness, why not put a limit on Perception and Wits rather than lowering Perception to zero? I know the music is distracting, but it can't be THAT distracting.

Because the weakness needs to be significant. Limiting two attributes to 2 or 3 is much less impactful than setting a single one to zero. It also provides a less unique experience. Plenty of characters would have no more than 2 in Perception and Wits anyway, but 0 Perception is not something you'd normally get.

Though I suppose you could get something like a -2 penalty to Hacking, Lockpicking, Inspection, and Sneaking instead (feats that require attention and concentration). This would actually be quite limiting in the early game when dots are still few and would pretty much force the Siren to go social (or combat).

Maybe I'm missing the point but what's the idea with the pretending?

I remember offkorn's PnP mod used to pretend a lot of things. What's the purpose of playing a clan if you have nothing clan related, even a discipline. Is it simply for renaming purposes or am I missing the big picture here?

It would have been an excuse to have a history that swaps out one discipline for another. But keep in mind this post was made way back, before it was possible for players to pick up an extra discipline during character creation. That change greatly reduced the incentive to have discipline swapping histories.