Help me make a player regret her actions

Player in my coterie, a Ravnos, was paranoid about giving a Koldunic Sorcery a point of her vitae as payment for a minor ritual the sorcerer performed for her, so broke off one of her fangs and offered that instead. I as ST was shocked enough to accept it without thinking.
My original plan had been to merely keep it out there and eventually let someone track them down (as they had done with the Gargoyle they are chasing) through it, but now I want something more.

Plot:

The Gargoyle they are chasing recently broke his blood bond to the London Chantry, and is fleeing into Tarnow. One of the coterie is the grand-childe of the gargoyles master, so is being forced to 'reclaim or dispose of' the gargoyle. It was the blood-thiefs idea to seek out the local Sheriff and ask if he had any idea, which led them to begging favors of Voivodes. They technically got more than they had planned on (knowing where the gargoyle has nested the three days), but this payment modification implies a heavy social response as well as a fun opportunity for arcane retribution.

Anyone have any good ideas for the mystical side of this? I haven't spent too much time in and around Koldunic Sorceries, but a fang is rather personal to kindred. I'm already planning on not letting it heal normally, but not sure quite what to do with it.

EDIT: I'm not wanting to beat the player down for this, the title comes off a fair bit strong. I more want to impart a bit of that "Personal Horror" and tie things back to the attempt to avoid repercussions. I want to scare this Ravnos, not kill it or cripple it (story-wise).

malak wrote:

Player in my coterie, a Ravnos, was paranoid about giving a Koldunic Sorcery a point of her vitae as payment for a minor ritual the sorcerer performed for her, so broke off one of her fangs and offered that instead. I as ST was shocked enough to accept it without thinking.
My original plan had been to merely keep it out there and eventually let someone track them down (as they had done with the Gargoyle they are chasing) through it, but now I want something more.

Plot:

The Gargoyle they are chasing recently broke his blood bond to the London Chantry, and is fleeing into Tarnow. One of the coterie is the grand-childe of the gargoyles master, so is being forced to 'reclaim or dispose of' the gargoyle. It was the blood-thiefs idea to seek out the local Sheriff and ask if he had any idea, which led them to begging favors of Voivodes. They technically got more than they had planned on (knowing where the gargoyle has nested the three days), but this payment modification implies a heavy social response as well as a fun opportunity for arcane retribution.

Anyone have any good ideas for the mystical side of this? I haven't spent too much time in and around Koldunic Sorceries, but a fang is rather personal to kindred. I'm already planning on not letting it heal normally, but not sure quite what to do with it.

Wow. Much wow.

Bad idea in the part of the Ravnos player. With the fang (as any other item holding deep personal meaning) the Koldun might reach the Ravnos with rituals over any distance. Go to the withewolfwiki for ideas on rituals. Worese still, with the fang, just like with Vitae, the Koldun might learn the True Name of the Ravnos. That gives almost unlimited power over the subject. As in making a slave...

For source material as to how things work, Clannovels Tremere and Tzimisce are great. Read on the wiki on Tzimisce customs and pleasantries. Was the Tzimisce offended? Ought to be... The Ravnos' distrust was very rude by Tzimisce standards. Did the Koldun show he was offended or kept the injury to himself? Old Clan would have...

Alittle sick idea: would it integratewell into your Story if the Ravnos started getting, say, urges? Compulsions? Or maybe out of a sudden became a target for Assamites? More subtly, maybe our poor Gypsy got his Animalism working erraticaly? As in working normally, unless truly needed? Or another Discipline? Or woke up in a basment, not knowing how he got there? Strapped to a table, as in the introduction to Clanbook Tzimisce?

Posibilities are endless...

Feral wrote:

Wow. Much wow.

Bad idea in the part of the Ravnos player. With the fang (as any other item holding deep personal meaning) the Koldun might reach the Ravnos with rituals over any distance. Go to the withewolfwiki for ideas on rituals. Worese still, with the fang, just like with Vitae, the Koldun might learn the True Name of the Ravnos. That gives almost unlimited power over the subject. As in making a slave...

Not going that heavy-handed with things. I don't want to remove a long-running character for something so 'trivial'. Plenty of rituals that can now be done, though. I kind of think moreso than just vitae.

Quote :

For source material as to how things work, Clannovels Tremere and Tzimisce are great. Read on the wiki on Tzimisce customs and pleasantries. Was the Tzimisce offended? Ought to be... The Ravnos' distrust was very rude by Tzimisce standards. Did the Koldun show he was offended or kept the injury to himself? Old Clan would have...

Oh yeah, one of my players is worried about the insult, but they are either Malk of Caitiff (coterie doesn't know, nor does the character) so the others consider it simple paranoia when he makes these comments.

Quote :

Alittle sick idea: would it integratewell into your Story if the Ravnos started getting, say, urges? Compulsions? Or maybe out of a sudden became a target for Assamites? More subtly, maybe our poor Gypsy got his Animalism working erraticaly? As in working normally, unless truly needed? Or another Discipline? Or woke up in a basment, not knowing how he got there? Strapped to a table, as in the introduction to Clanbook Tzimisce?

Posibilities are endless...

These things are what I am interested in. Anyone have an idea of how to convince a player that her own Chimerstry is real? That would be . . . fun.

You don't have to follow the standing rules to the letter. You're free to make something up - have you seen Looper?

For example, the Ravnos suddenly sleeps badly. After a few nights he realises he has Nightmares flaw. After a week or so, difficulty rises, dice loss doubles, it's getting worse and worse, to the point where he cannot function normally and has to come back and pay the price with the interest.
Or what Feral said, his - or his new - compulsion gets worse and worse... you know the drill

I'm thinking of horrid nightmares combined with an aversion to feeding will do it. I plan on requiring a willpower expenditure to feed from someone, as every time she bites she will see/feel/taste spiders or other bugs flooding out of the wound ( a twisting of her own chimerstry combined with the nature and purpose of her fang). This will continue until she a) goes and apologizes, b) pays the vitae, and c) performs a minor boon for the offended sorcerer. After this, I still have her fang floating around to pass between people and use to jerk her chain with, and she knows it at that point.
What do y'all think of this approach? I will allow for non-breathing sources of blood to be used, if the player tries to go that route (I have previously had a couple bloodstones in the chronicle, and blood banks are real although none of my players have tried that yet.).


Incidentally, I have not seen Looper. What is that?

I like your approach...

Try to jerk the chain subtly and unexpectadly, avoiding jumpscares. You know, like in building the suspense...

I haven't seen Looper either...

Looper is a good movie with that Levitt guy playing young Willis. It's a bit time-travely and obtains an awesome and greatly disturbing scene of convincing a guys future-self through his present-self. Use your imagination and enjoy the nightmares.

Anyways, what you say sounds like a plan, enjoy torturing your Ravnos.

Feral wrote:

I like your approach...

Try to jerk the chain subtly and unexpectadly, avoiding jumpscares. You know, like in building the suspense...  

I don't intend to go from 0 to 100 on this, that makes for adventure horror, not personal horror. I already have some nightmares in place for two of the coterie (those with auspex or thaumaturgy) because, you know, the Carpathians. Tossing nightmares at the Ravnos will leave only our Ventrue without them. His character has previously and repeatedly made a point of stating that most of the issues the others have are from drinking "unclean" blood, even when it makes no sense. ("Oh, you can't heal that sunburn overday? Must be all that diseased blood you drink. You are having to spend half of your blood just to clean up the other half. Get something on antibiotics next time.") So that could add a fun additional level to this for a bit. In terms of the spiders and things, I think that on night three or so she feeds normally, but is unnerved by feeling things crawl across her face, similar to 'sunwebs'. Then she has a nightmare of the swarm coming out. Next feeding she makes a willpower check (that means nothing, but scares players) and can feel worms inside her mouth, even though she knows they aren't there. Bigger nightmare Third feeding will need a willpower check just to make the bite (diff 0, more for the role than any result) and will see something. More nightmares. After that I will require willpower expenditures to try to feed and the nightmares become things crawling out of her own mouth or fang. Real time this will likely take two months to go through, so the buildup will last a while.

As for the fang itself, I'm going to let it heal slowly across a fortnight, and my Torrie is a rules-lawyer (a good one, not problematic), so I expect that slowed pace to become incredibly clear rather quickly.

I was for the personal horror meaning, not adventure one the whole time, my fiend

Maybe expand a bit... Could the Ventrue be so assured in his obsession with clean blood he gets a tiny weeny Dereangement when he sees another member of his Coterie to go "poisoned"...? I know Iam malicious. You will thank me later

Hmm, I'm not sure about expanding THAT clan weakness to a full fledged Derangement, especially when the player has done such a great job actually using his weakness. This will likely be used for ages as his proof of his preference, though.

Then again, I'm still not convinced that the two aren't the same clan. Malkav? Are you actually the Ventrue progenitor as well?

So, they now think I'm leading them into the Week of Nightmares! This worked both better and not as well as I had hoped.
My Ravnos is temporarily side-stepping the feeding issue by blood-bonding herself to the coterie to the second level, so that buys her six feedings, but DAMN that's a major step. The roll to try to feed has her scared piss-less, I didn't expect that so much. She made six successes, so convinced herself the difficulty was five or so. I'm not sure what made her think that drinking from the party would work, but it fits my plan of "non-breathing" blood sources, so I went with it.
The Torrie sees a crippled Ravnos and got excited about WoN, which only scared the Ravnos more. I'm not planning on heading that way, but if the players seem to want it, I may.
The caitiff wants to get to coterie back to the Sorcerer to ask what happened, but everyone else just wants to avoid the powers that be, for now at least. Depending on who by Ravnos hits Blood Oath level 2 with first, that may tip the scale.

Does it ever? Isn't there fun in letting the story derail from time to time and develop itself? At this moment focusing on the Ravnos

Wow, the 'I'm screwed, let's screw me more!' tactics! I'd encourage other players to go full retard on her and go for level three That way, when the blood curse it's over (and it will end at one moment, or she'll die and it'll be of no consequence), the Ravnos will have something to remember it by.

How about not going for the Week of Nightmares, but encouraging the paranoia? You know, fuck with them. (Here the curse could even spread a bit, as Feral suggested, y'know, 'cause of blood bond.) Up to a point where they have no option but to go to the sorcerer.

Nudging them to go to the Tzimisce and confront their fears in the process looks like a good idea. Do it subtly, and the results could be fun.

Bloodbonding to avoid feeding issues. Sounds to me like treating the pox by inflicting cholera...

I know, right?