Vampire: The Requiem



A tabletop roleplaying game in the New World of Darkness line. Players take the roles of vampires, people Cursed with eternal (un)life, supernatural power, and -- oh, yeah -- bloodlust and a fatal sunlight allergy.

Vampire: The Requiem began in 2004. Instead of the previous game's thirteen (and then some) clans, clans being the most distinctive feature of White Wolf's system, it was whittled down to five "archetype" clans, though they have tons of bloodlines that were created from those five. Masquerade's two sects, the Sabbat and the Camarilla, were replaced with five "covenants", effectively setting up an X/Y axis with far more options numerically than Masquerade. Then there's the fact that each covenant has tons of factions (see below).

== Since Vampire: The Requiem unlives on and doesn't breathe tropes, it's not unfitting that each clan and covenant is a trope unto themselves, though some supplements add a few more...variations. Here's a quick cheat sheet in case you feel like diving in. Includes the names of the clan splatbooks; covenant splats are just called the same as the covenant. ==


 * Daeva: The Spiritual Successors of the Toreador clan from Masquerade (indeed, they have a bloodline called the Toreador) mixed to some extent with the passionate Brujah (coming to Requiem as a Gangrel bloodline), the second most evil clan (right behind the Ventrue), and nicknamed Succubi (aka Horny Devils) by the other Clans...which pretty much summarizes their whole concept. In their Clan Book it is stated that they're "stronger, faster and sexier than you". Even before the embrace they are already attractive humans after it they become an Inhumanly Beautiful Race, partly because of their discipline, Majesty, that allows them to bedazzle people with their presence. The clan book does make a point of the fact that anyone who knows enough about the Daeva (including the Daeva themselves) tends to find something off about them because their beauty is artificial and they are incapable of love. One of the illustrators noted that the Daeva are essentially sex objects rather than people. Sourcebook: "Kiss of the Succubus".
 * Gangrel: All but unchanged from the Clan of Masquerade, but unlike their previous incarnation, they have no ties at all to the Werewolves (except for the Bruja) and little to no harmony with nature. However, their bond with the Beast remains the same, if not stronger: while other clans tend towards more...human evil, the Gangrel do boast some savage monsters, including one of the "iconic" (to borrow a term from D&D) characters, The Unholy. Sourcebook: "Savage and Macabre".
 * Mekhet: A clan of psychic vampire ninja. They have a huge fan base because they vaguely resemble several Masquerade clans that weren't carried over and are a blank slate deliberately. Sourcebook: "Shadows in the Dark".
 * Nosferatu: The original Nosferatu from Masquerade were physically repulsive. The recreation of the clan can be visually "normal" (in the loose sense of the word), but very disturbing in one way or another. At least one non-player character of middling importance in New Orleans is in fact beautiful...perhaps too much so... Sourcebook: "The Beast That Haunts The Blood".
 * Ventrue: They are the aristocracy of the vampire society. They are always at the top and their motto is, essentially, "We Always Win", although that is normally followed by some semantic wrangling about how they won in the long run. Unlike their Masquerade incarnation they are not picky eaters, but the responsibility of ruling over the Damned has put a great toll on their ever weakening minds . Sourcebook: "Lords of the Damned".
 * Julii: They're expies of the Ventrue (or is it the other way around?). Created by the Strix, servants of the god Mars, in return for sweet, bloody glory. The clan was wiped out when the Julii started to humanize as a whole. There's a few ideas about how both the Ventrue and Gangrel may have descended from them, among other theories.
 * The Wicked Dead: Vampires who aren't Kindred, brought-up in the book of the same name. Their Blood Potency is 0, so each time they meet a "true" vampire, they cower in fear. Notable examples:
 * Ghûls: Arabian mages who have gained immortality, as well as alchemy and a few other powers, at the expense of cannibalism. They're also...not undead. In fact, they probably have it better than Kindred.
 * Jiang Shi: Chinese hopping corpses, formerly human mages as well. They only have access to Celerity, Resilience, and Vigor, but in return they're not destroyed by anything other than fire (upon "death," they teleport to their graves, torpid, at full health). They are like ghosts in that they cannot stray too far from their anchors, otherwise they'd teleport back. Of course, they can use living beings as anchors...
 * Fomorsae: Emotion eaters who feed on self-loathing and body issues. Getting fed on by them causes a person to look more and more beautiful... at the cost of their life force, leading as many times as not to a beautifully preserved corpse. Ironically, the Vitae so gained is stored in fatty deposits, meaning that the Fomorsae are, to the last vamp, horrendously obese and ugly themselves. They're also the exception that proves the rule of Blood Potency 0, since they do have one or higher points in it...and they know Dominate.
 * Strix: Owl-like specters with the ability to possess corpses, the living, and vampires-though they prefer the last, seeing as how the others quickly degenerate into uselessness. They claim to be metaphysical embodiments of the Beast, although they are pragmatic and amoral rather than instinctual and savage. They have personalities to match, being utterly self-centered libertines who use, abuse, and defile both their stolen bodies and those around them mainly to see what it's like. They initially appeared in Requiem for Rome to avenge the broken promise of the Julii to be the best monsters they could be, but in Wicked Dead, they've made their return. Now unburdened by purpose, the Strix now do whatever they please, with their former mission now a favorite game of theirs-"See How Inhuman We Can Make The Kindred While Disrupting Their Society."

Oh, and there's the covenants, too.

 * The Invictus: Deadly Decadent Court. If we're dead, they reason, we might as well rule the world while we're at it. Or at least the city. Sheer force of meritocracy (Invictus screw-ups do not last long) generally makes them competent administrators, but since the faction code of ethics can be summed up as "Ain't got one" and their attitude towards political maneuvering is "Machiavelli might have been good at this if he'd ever been Embraced", Invictus-ruled territories are classic examples of ''At least The Trains Run On Time."
 * Lancea Sanctum: Corrupt Church. Vampires are vampires because God needs monsters to tempt people and punish them if they succumb. The name doesn't make sense in Latin, hence the Retcon that it was originally "Lancea et Sanctum". They can range anything from Catholic (most common) to Jewish and Muslim in pomp and circumstance. Strangely, there's a faction out there that have merged with the Circle of the Crone in venerating a mother goddess of Jesus figure. The result? Knight templars with vampire, cleric, AND witch abilities. Get a second PDF sourcebook with The Testament of Longinus, their holy book.
 * Ordo Dracul: Our Vampires Are Different with more than a hint of Evilutionary Biologist. Vampires may be vampires, but frankly you're not just trying if you intend to stay like that. We can use the scientific method blended with occultism to get rid of all the annoyances...such as that little sunlight allergy. They make heavy use of a student-mentor program. Have a second sourcebook, Rites of the Dragon, supposed to be Dracula's account of his Requiem and the founding of the Ordo.
 * The Carthian Movement: Suffers from Russian Fashion. If we're dead, they reason, there's no reason to just give up on mortal society. We can use their innovations to make our unlives better. Typically the goal of taking over the city and ruling it by their chosen method (which can be anything from strict Representative Republicanism to clan-based tyranny) follows shortly. Ironically, while Invictus-ruled cities generally tend to have the Carthian dissidents be the least amoral vampires in town, the Carthian-ruled cities detailed in the setting so far have all set new world records for going downhill fast. Apparently they make far better gadflies than administrators.
 * The Circle of the Crone: Wicked Witch. A pagan Goddess-worshipping coven-ant that espouses vampires are vampires because they're perfectly natural (in the way that leeches are natural) and that's cool. And suffering and persecution makes us stronger. That's just as well, as they've been persecuted a lot (especially by the Lancea Sanctum) throughout history. On the other hand, they're a bunch of monsters who revel in their monstrosity and just learning their blood sorcery distances you from humanity, so they did sort of deserve it. This covenant has the most factions, with everything from man-hating lesbian feminista Wiccans to Lousiana voudunists.

There are also two NPC (in theory) only groups. In most games, they'll just be trying to kill you. Yes, they've got sourcebooks too, just like the Covenants.

 * Belial's Brood: Infernalists, self-titled the Forsworn, that believe that they should lose all traces of humanity and give themselves over to the Beast/the Biblical Satan, the monster that lives in them. Tend to have rather short life expectancies; to quote Shadows of the UK, "Members of Belial's Brood often labour under the delusion that they can go toe-to-toe with an enraged Uratha." The smart ones, on the other hand, usually tend to be just as subtle, if not more so, then VII. Their splatbook elaborates and contains many interesting squicky demon powers with the Unfortunate Implication that they're the covenant closest to what vampires are truly supposed to be, and adds a philosophical side. Their splatbook also retcons the whole infernalist thing to just two factions, and gives us these groupings:
 * The Nameless - An apocalyptic cult that believes Belial is the greatest MORTAL man to have ever lived (i.e., a Jerkass), and treat him as a Buddha-like figure. Their mission: find Belial's descendants, and help them destroy the world in whatever way they can.
 * The Mercy Seat - Expy of various Gnostic groups, they believe there are three worlds, and the World of Darkness is the worst one, filled with hate and anger. Belial is the evil ruler of the WoD, referred to as the demiurge. He cannot be worshipped so much as appeased, and they all hate him. They truly believe they deserve to go to Heaven (the next world), but Heaven has limited seats. The solution? Damn others to Hell so only they can move on!
 * The Roaring Serpent - They believe Belial was a man Embraced by the Biblical Satan, and so go out into the world doing things that would make it collapse under its own weight, just as Satan would want. This usually involves the spreading of dangerous ideologies (some claim they're responsible for the phenomenon we call racism).
 * The Pandaemonium - You know the description of Belial's Brood as infernalists? These are them. They think he's a demon lord who patrons vampires in the name of the Adversary, the anti-Creator.
 * The Throne of Smokeless Fire - A group founded by a group of Sikh Muslims and an (surprise!) angel of fire named Asa'el. They walk the "path of flame:" rage, dominance, and power, all in the name of their combination of God (not a devil) and Social Darwinism. They have the most elders (that's not saying much) and are obsessed with becoming the best in absolutely everything. They're known to hunt even other Belial's Brood members.
 * The Scarlet Rite - They're basically a pleasure cult focusing on sex and drugs. They somehow get Investments despite not really caring much about Belial, and it is this reason that the other members of the covenant don't respect them.
 * VII: They engage in terrorist acts against other vampires, and their minds can't be read beyond getting the image of the roman numeral 7. Beyond that, there is no canonical explanation for who VII are. Well; there are several, but they all contradict each other. They could be normal vampires infected with a mind-control meme, the members of the Seventh Clan (the now-Dead Julii being the Sixth), or a bunch of Vampires annoyed that a party in Camarillan Rome was cancelled. Various suggestions for what they could be have been seeded through the books; the VII book gives 3 contradictory possibilities.
 * The Ancient Covenants : Fantasy Counterpart Culture. Referenced as early as the Bloodlines: the Hidden book, but now only recently detailed in the Ancient series, these are the covenants that don't have the influence of the others, but are still very strong. Most are not based in English-speaking areas. Examples:
 * The Indian Covenants - Basically a vampiric version of India's Hindu caste system. Your clan and maybe bloodline determine your varna (caste), which in turn determines your role in the Requiem. It is possible that Indian Kindred can actually strip you of your bloodline, and therefore change your caste. For example, if you're a Ventrue of the Canda Bhanu bloodline, you're a brahmin instead of a vaisya, or a kshatriya if you're a Daeva of Amara Havana stock. You can also be a kshatriya if you're a Rakshasha Nosferatu.
 * It seems Baron Cimeterie's dream of a vodoun-based covenant have come true, because one is mentioned in this series.
 * There's an East Asian covenant in Ancient Mysteries that has what seems to be...the Coil of the Beast?!
 * And there's a Daeva bloodline, the Carnival, which also functions as a Covenant for its members, though it's still a bit too small to truly be considered as such.

Now with Character Sheet, fans are highly encouraged to edit.

Aside from the Clan and Covenant sourcebooks (even ghouls get one, called, simply, "Ghouls" -- much like how the Covenant sourcebooks are named after the Covenants), Vampire: The Requiem has a fair amount of sourcebooks. The "Bloodlines" trilogy (The Chosen, The Hidden, The Legendary) covers yet more varieties of bloodline. The "Ancients" duology (Ancient Mysteries, Ancient Bloodlines) covers the past of vampire society and the vampire "race", as well as what happens to a vampire as it ages. The Night Horrors books specifically written for the Vampire line cover strange new forms of vampire (Wicked Dead) and particularly infamous and/or ancient vampires (Immortal Sinners). City of the Damned: New Orleans covers the World of Darkness's version of The Big Easy, particularly how it looks through the eyes of the vampires who claim it for their own. It shouldn't be confused with "Damnation City", which is about designing cities in the World of Darkness and how vampires can rule them. "The Blood" is the Player's Guide to Vampire: The Requiem. "Nomads" looks at Kindred who take up a nomadic lifestyle, while "Coteries" looks at how and why groups of vampires get together. The "Requiem Chronicler's Guide" is a toolbox for building various types of chronicle, and "The Danse Macabre" takes the toolbox to the next level, ranging from personal to global, and providing an array of new rules. Finally, "Mythologies" covers stories told amongst the undead about their possible origins, unique abilities and creatures that go bump in the night, while "Requiem for Rome" and "Fall of the Camarilla" are a duology describing the last major vampire organisation and how it all fell apart during the collapse of the Roman Empire.

And then there are the PDF supplements. "Ready-Made PCs" is Exactly What It Says On the Tin, a set of ready-to-play characters, "Invite Only" covers how to build Kindred social interactions and gatherings, and "New Wave Requiem" is a historical supplement for the 1980s. The "Vampire Translation Guide" is a quick and dirty guide to converting between Requiem and Masquerade.

This game features examples of:
"It feels awful. Humanity is no pleasant thing. Denying the Beast feels sick, wrong, tainted. The vampire concentrates overmuch on all the wrong things she’s done and recognizes herself for the monster that she is."
 * Affably Evil - The Spina, a Daeva bloodline whose unique curse makes them obsessed with politeness. Their unique Discipline, Courtoisie, encourages this -- you can ignore attack penalties by announcing your intent, use your Social Traits for combat dice pools by having a conversation in mid-battle, and at the pinnacle, tell another vampire off so hard they bleed.
 * Some of the factions are definetely not good, but they seem cool enough to hang out with. The Reformers of the Lancea Sanctum, for example.
 * Age Without Youth - The Oberloch bloodline.
 * A God Am I - Every member of the Asnam bloodline. To wit, the Asnam are a Daeva bloodline whose special abilities allow them to make a ghouled human appear prettier than he really is, transfer blood or willpower to or from one of her ghouls over large distances, sleep in the body of a ghoul and prepare a child in such such a way that, when the Asnam suffers Final Death their soul is transferred into the body of the child. They are also true egomanics, which allows the Storyteller to grossly underplay the difficulty of a task up to two times per scene.
 * Animal Eye Spy - Animalism 4's ability.
 * Animorphism - Clan Gangrel.
 * Apocalypse Maiden - This is either the Crone, or a potential daughter of hers. No one's entirely sure.
 * Ascended Demon - Golconda. Maybe.
 * Badass Bookworm - Besides the inherent badassery that comes from knowing certain Coils (such as learning not to frenzy and how to minimize damage from fire and sunlight), the Ordo has an entire group of these known as the Sworn of the Axe. They were founded by Mara, the most violent of the Brides of Dracula, and they will gladly kill you if you threaten the Ordo.
 * The Baroness - The female Ventrue
 * Bastard Boyfriend - This is what a ghoul's regnant is by default.
 * The Beautiful Elite - Deconstructed by the Daeva
 * Being Good Sucks - Not all the time; it's more that Evil Feels Good. However, the opposite of the Gangrel Red Surrender--which may or may not even be real, but which is rumored to exist--results in getting penalties where the Surrender gives benefits and vice versa, for a single night once per week...and one other ironic twist:

"Members of the Invictus occasionally refer to the Lancea Sanctum as the Second Estate, itself a perversion of the historical first and second estates."
 * Bittersweet Ending - Ending a story like this is par for the course.
 * Blessed With Suck - It is not fun to be a vampire. Those who disagree tend to become ash in the wind one way or another.
 * An interesting case study of this are Bloodlines. Bloodlines can be born from a vampire getting incredibly old and powerful in blood manipulation, allowing them to create a special Discipline or make an Out of Clan into an In Clan Discipline, making it cheaper to buy. The downside? The vampire and likely most if not all of their progeny now get an extra Weaksauce Weakness, even if they don't want the spiffy new powers! It's no surprise that a good number of bloodlines were created as a result of said founder surviving a particularly nasty Curse.
 * Of particular note are the Kallisti, a Daeva bloodline outlined in the Invictus sourcebook. On paper, they are the ultimate social manipulators, with Dominate, Majesty, and a bloodline Discipline called Perfidy, which is basically emotional control geared towards causing as much chaos as possible. Plus, they have access to Celerity if things get dicey. The catch? Their bloodline weakness is that their blood doesn't cause Vinculum. This doesn't sound too bad until you realize that since vampires (once they reach an appropriate age) can only feed from other vampires, any elder would give his left arm for a blood slave that he can drink freely from without any emotional ties. The Invictus practically keeps them as pets, letting them play tiddly winks with local politics as long as their elders can tap their veins whenever they please. If you're a Kallisti, and word gets out about the weakness of your bloodline, expect a long stay chained up in an elder's basement as he farms you for blood.
 * Blood Bath - One bloodline of vampires, the Galloi, bathe in blood to make themselves more beautiful.
 * Macellarius and Noctoku feeding habits are this trope. Noctoku, at least, can absorb blood through their skin.
 * Bomb Throwing Anarchists: Subverted with Belial's Brood: The Forsworn are anarchists, and they do throw bombs, but their sourcebook shows that they actually don't view chaos as an end in and of itself-it's actually part of their Pursuit, the philosophic journey towards the platonic ideal of "the Beast".
 * But Not Too Foreign - A plot point introduced in Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners. The character Emily Eupraxus Washington was inducted into the ancient Roman Eupraxus bloodline, who are treated as the figureheads of the Invictus Covenant. Emily's half-Japanese, and is portrayed as an ineffectual ruler and moe blob. The plot is that the elder Invictus are largely racist feudal Europeans, but they dare not act against their crown jewel. The younger Invictus, on the other hand, love Emily because her combined lineage and bloodline show that the Invictus is capable of adapting to the modern world. Allegedly, the Japanese ancestry also pleases a large part of the fan base.
 * The Caligula -- Plenty of princes fulfill this role.
 * Came Back Wrong - The Nosferatu. Some are The Grotesque, but most simply have something about them -- eyes that are an unnatural color, an odor, the way they move, or even an aura about them -- that is just not right.
 * The expanded rules on draugr give us larvae: Kindred who, whether by curse or accident, are brought into the Requiem at Humanity 0.
 * Then you've got the Hollow Mekhet. Rather than being Embraced on the cusp of death, they were Embraced several days after. However, this has given them time for their ba to depart, which means they cast no shadow, don't reflect in mirrors or resolve on any film medium, can't be heard over a phone or tape recorder... oh, and their ba is still pinned to this mortal coil, can do all these things, and will make the Mekhet's nights living hell if it's not placated with the right rituals.
 * Canis Latinicus - "Lancea Sanctum."
 * Cannibal Clan - The Oberloch bloodline seem to be based on the Cannibal Clan types you see in horror movies like the The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but are actually derived from the redneck thing. A truer cannibal clan would be the Noctoku, who feed on other vampires exclusively, or the Macellarius, who do that occasionally, but really emphasize the family unit.
 * Card Carrying Villain: Belial's Brood is fully aware that they are evil by human standards, and they could not care less.
 * The Casanova - The male Daeva.
 * Chinese Vampire - This would be the Jiang Shi variant of vampire. They even make use of the genderswap power legends speak of, but is often forgotten in modern portrayals.
 * City of Adventure - New Orleans
 * Classical Movie Vampire - One of the three elder vampires claiming to be Dracula is a fellow nicknamed "Hollywood Drac." He's described as looking like a cross between Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee, and is pictured wearing the traditional white-tie evening clothes, black cape, and pendant.
 * Color Coded for Your Convenience: The Invictus from Florence has a formal dress code that includes the use of of differently colored sashes for each clan, the Daeva use red and gold, the Gangrel use red and brown, the Mekhet use indigo and silver, the Nosferatu use black and green and the Ventrue use purple and gold.
 * Cosplay - People who play in the LARP version of the game, Mind's Eye Theater, often dress-up as their characters or major NPCs. The actual rulebook for the LARP even uses pictures of some players cosplaying as New Orleans mainstays Pearl Chastain and Baron Cimetiere, who himself is cosplaying Baron Samedi.
 * Crapsack World - Especially for humans.
 * "Especially?" No, thank you, I'm perfectly fine with being a blood doll as opposed to having to deal with a society entirely composed of Manipulative Bastards and an Enemy Within, thank you very much.
 * Some humans take issue with this state of affairs and have developed potent tools towards that end-such as a device that essentially makes a vampire's unique metabolism self-destruct in rather graphic fashion. Not So Harmless indeed.
 * Crippling Overspecialization - The Moroi bloodline are a group of uber-predators kept as assassins by the Ordo Dracul. They boast strength and toughness beyond even undead norm, they have both Obfuscate (vampiric stealth) and Animalism (animal control), and they're an option for both Gangrel and Nosferatu, meaning that they have relatively easy access to Protean, though it's no longer in-clan. They also have murderous urges even more powerful than other vampires that take up most of their concentration, and while they're not precisely deformed, they have yellowish skin and their air of menace allows even oblivious humans to understand there's something wrong with them. So yeah, good if you want to fight, sneak, or assassinate, bad if you want to, say, carry on a normal conversation, or do more than basic math.
 * Crossover - It doesn't involve metaplot since it doesn't exist in this iteration of the WoD, but it's still worth pointing out!
 * The Dead Wolves bloodline from Shadows of Mexico are wolf-blooded who just so happen to have been Embraced before the First Change. Sort of. So I guess Big Screwed Up Family as well? Their bloodline discipline references the mechanics for the various moons and their related skills in Werewolf as well.
 * The Bohagande bloodline are tricky gamblers whose founders consist of a cowboy Gangrel with a crow instead of bat form, and what is basically a Shoshone Acanthus mage. They even make use of Mage's sympathetic magic system with their bloodline discipline, so bonus points for that!
 * The clanbooks make references to vampires fighting against people in black fatigues carrying the symbol of Sagittarius (the Cheiron Group's field division) and hunters bearing marks of a shield and spear (Aegis Kai Doru).
 * The Nests valued by the Ordo Dracul are all but explained as being the same as Werewolf loci and Mage sanctums.
 * Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Lancea Sanctum, a group of vampires that follow the teachings of Longinus, the legionnaire that they believe stabbed the actual Jesus from the Bible with his spear, as some kind of dark vampire messiah.
 * Horrifically, Belial gets similar treatment. Dracula, too.
 * Not entirely true with Dracula. He's not The Messiah to the Ordo Dracul, he's just a really smart guy they all want to emulate. It's a bit more like modern physicists idolizing Einstein or Maxwell, or rock musicians looking up to the Beatles.
 * Cursed With Awesome: At least frankly that's how most groups play it.
 * Ghuls tend to see themselves as this: They are cursed to be necrophages for eternity in return for their dark sorcery as mortals...at the age they were cursed...with Functional Magic intact...CharmPerson...and the complete lack of anything resembling the Beast. It's at that point that the silver lining gets so thick you can't see the cloud.
 * Darkest Africa: Requiem for Rome has a section detailing how a game set in sub-Saharan Africa might be like. it's described like this trope, but it may be justified.
 * Dark Is Somewhat Less Evil: The Mekhet hate fire and sunlight even more than other vampires, and the Nosferatu are literally impossible to like. They're also the clans with the least amount of mental effects the Beast has on them, so it's easier for them to be good...which isn't saying much
 * The Dark Side -- Quite a few:
 * The Gangrel get the Red Surrender, which allows them to yield more power from going into Frenzy. Problem is, it also makes it harder to succeed at non-bestial skills... oh, and it's addictive.
 * Belial's Brood get Investments, demonstrations of their symbiotic relationship with the Beast and their understanding of vampiric nature. If things like tearing off your hands to serve as puppets or climbing up walls with your fingers weren't obviously creepy enough, they get easier to buy the lower your Karma Meter goes.
 * Deadly Decadent Court - Any Elysium. Pick an Elysium.
 * Deaf Composer - Any vampire cooks, by virtue of having normal food taste utterly rancid.
 * Democracy Is Bad - The Invictus don't believe in democracy, as it's easy to subvert with their psychic Disciplines. The Invictus Emperor story is actually a Space Whale Aesop about this.
 * Demonic Possession - Dominate 5: any human so possessed this way tends to go insane or even catatonic.
 * Pick a Strix. Any Strix. Chances are he's done this at least once, probably more.
 * Depending On the Artist: As different artists are commissioned to work on the same characters, this trope is in full effect.
 * Deprogramming: What it takes to break some Dominate powers.
 * The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: The core book informs the curious just what would probably happen if one of the Kindred found themselves at the bottom of a deep-sea trench or in outer space, with parentheticals asking just what kind of chronicle you're playing for this to come up.
 * Six years later, the Infinite Macabre supplement was released.
 * Ghouls has detailed mechanics for conception and gestation... in the context of breeding humans as blood slaves. The author even directly states that having a player character use these rules is an (his words) exercise in cruelty.
 * Dhampyr: Covered in "Wicked Dead", they are the result of dark rituals and an unnatural obsession for a vampire to procreate. So long as the parents are one mortal and one vampire, normal gender requirements are void. The female partner can even impregnate the male partner -- naturally, this is death for a mortal man. Dhampyrs themselves are pretty much Blessed With Suck; they can deactivate Disciplines without even realising it and vampires that drink their blood have to regurgitate it before they can use their powers, but at the same time a vampire that drinks a dhampyr's blood goes nuts, often becoming obsessed with the dhampyr to boot.
 * Did Not Do the Research: The nickname given for the Invictus is "The First Estate". However, that refers to the Church. Aristocrats are the Second Estate.
 * There's text in the corebook that suggests this is intentional on the part of the Invictus:

"Elders rarely move to Chicago, because elders rarely move, because Kindred who move rarely survive to become elders. Thus, when one shows up, people notice. It’s not just the Harpies, not just the courtiers, not just the hooked-up Invictus Ventrue political hacks. Any Kindred who talks to any other Kindred is likely to hear rumors, no matter how half-baked or illogical. No matter how faded the truth may be from cycling through Chinese Whispers, every Kindred with even the faintest fear of his own kind will hear: something big is coming."
 * Downer Ending: This is the default ending for most chronicles (personal horror game, remember?). The authors make it a point to remind the readers every now and then.
 * An Esoteric Happy Ending is possible and actually referenced a lot: Ascended Demon. Most unfortunately, this ending type involves reaching a point of power and age where you no longer think like a human.
 * Dying Like Animals - Almost every human is a Bat, the vampires are all Moles to humans and Mice to their elders, and Hunters are the rare humans who can see past the masquerade and try to stop the bad supernaturals.
 * Dysfunction Junction - Enforced by the Predator's Taint rule. Basically, vampires are meant to be solitary hunters, and thus the Beast tries to go into either a rage or a fear frenzy upon running across another vampire for the first time (the type of frenzy depending on whether the triggering vampire is of lower or higher Blood Potency, respectively). A roll is made to avoid this, but if it fails, well... It can be also be bypassed entirely if both possess the second level of Obfuscate.
 * Empty Shell - What excessive uses of Dominate can do to a person.
 * Enemy Within -- All vampires suffer from The Beast, animalistic, id-like force with a hint of supernatural malice, that attempts to compel them into immediately satisfying their instinctive urges, such as craving for blood, fear of sunlight or anger at a slightest provocation, no matter the circumstances. Its motives can be summarised as "Hunt. Kill. Feed. Sleep. Repeat."
 * Hollow Mekhet have another Enemy Within: part of their soul is detached from their body and exists in reflective surfaces. They can only subsist on carrion and stagnant water and generally do not like their hosts.
 * There's also "The Other," from the Vampire: The Requiem Storyteller's Guide, which can optionally replace the Beast, and is a bit like the Poisonous Friend within.
 * Enlightenment Superpowers: The Ordo Dracul's Coils seem to qualify, granting limited freedom to vampiric weaknesses.
 * Mr. Fanservice: Solomon Birch is Chicago's resident LS leader with a Dark and Troubled Past who insists on not wearing shirts. He has a lot of scars due to self-flagellation and is portrayed as The Woobie.
 * Even Evil Has Standards - Members of the "Romanist" belief (the theory that the first vampires arose spontaneously from certain members of the Julio-Claudian Caeasers) sometimes wonder if Nero might have been the first Daeva... they invariably go back to speculating that the Daeva's founder was either his mother, Agrippina, or his aunt-in-law, Messalina. The reason is that general consensus is, simply; Nero was far too much of a jerk to have become the founder of the Succubus clan. Such a petty, preening poseur is nowhere near charismatic or attractive enough to be the founder of the Succubus clan, who, for all their glitz, only an idiot mistakes for vapid fools.
 * Evil Feels Good - Humanity is lost by not showing remorse for misdeeds. And the Red Surrender, a Gangrel-only mindset that gives the beast a little more free rein, feels really good.
 * Evil Tastes Good - Feeding causes a vampire to get an adrenaline rush/orgasm.
 * Evil Twin - The Hollow Mekhet are haunted by their Ka (the reflection/shadow from Egyptian mythology). It doesn't want to kill them (because that would kill it too); it wants to make them suffer...
 * Evil Versus Evil - In a game where you are a Villain By Default in a society based on The Social Darwinist trope and the game's system tries to make it really hard to play The Atoner, you get this.
 * Ventrue has a running narrative about a dead girl who's trying to protect herself from the strix by performing alot of really creepy ritual killings around places full of negative feelings. She claims the rituals are from the only ones that can fight the strix, the equally mysterious "Perfecti." That's basically Belial's Brood.
 * Evil Virtues: Part of what makes Belial's Brood such an effective organization is True Companions. This is in contrast to every other Kindred in existence.
 * Fan Disservice - The cover of The Wicked Dead has a Lesbian Vampire blood orgy. It's not sexy.
 * Fan Service - Justified since it's explained that the art for the books is often commissioned before the written material is finished, so the pictures will sometimes not match the text! The end result is that we get illustrations of sexy vampire girls (and guys!) for no appreciable reason.
 * Fantastic Drug: Vampire blood. Just don't mention this to most of them. They're kind of sensitive about it.
 * Solace, from the Mythologies sourcebook. Basically, it makes a vampire feel like they're alive again.
 * Bloodroot is about as fantastic as you can get -- it's a vampire-specific narcotic from another dimension.
 * Fantastic Fragility: The allure of Bloodlines is they give their members a fourth discipline (sometimes unique) at in-clan cost, making it much easier to gain terrifying new powers. The downside? A whole new weakness to bog you down, ranging from nuisances like not being able to embrace men (Qedeshah) to the crippling like not having fangs or the kiss (Norvegi).
 * The Qedeshah weakness is a bit more than a nuisance. They also can't produce the effects of the kiss and their bite is, in fact, more painful than it reasonably should be. Any who do attempt to embrace someone of the male persuasion end up with a black, slimy pile of goo where their prospective childe once stood.
 * Fantastic Racism - The clanbooks bring up the idea that the Daeva and Ventrue are the top of vampire society, while the Mekhet are looked down upon. The Gangrel are equated with dogs, and Nosferatu? Worms.
 * The Lancea Sanctum faction called the Crimson Cavalry is the Christian Identity Movement with vampire clans taken into consideration. Wow.
 * The Deucalion bloodline of the Ventrue is all about this. They believe the Ventrue are truly superior to other clans, and their response to this ranges from "help the other clans get over their weaknesses" to "lord over them like the wastes of blood they are." Their bloodline-exclusive Discipline relies on inflicting exaggerated versions of the clan weaknesses on other vampires... but the book mentions that no one in the line has unlocked the fifth level, centered around the Ventrue tendency towards madness, because that would require admitting the Ventrue are flawed.
 * Fantasy Axis of Evil - The Vampires as a whole belong to the Fallen among the other "races" of the New World of Darkness, but this trope can also apply to the five Clans. You should note, however, that they may might not fall squarely under each category...
 * Savage: The Gangrel may be considered both Savages (indeed, their nickname) and Eldritches, because of the greater influence The Beast have on them.
 * Eldritch: The Nosferatu due their appearance, but a little Crafty by nature.
 * Humanoid: The Daeva or, even, the Ventrue, but it suits better the Mekhet since they lack true uniqueness.
 * Fallen: All over the Daeva with a hint of Humanoid because they blend easily among mortals.
 * Crafty: The Ventrue and their machinations/lust for power, but they do show a dash of Fallen.
 * Fantasy Counterpart Culture - Invoked to emphasize that Kindred were once mortal, and that they love their old lives alot, thank you very much.
 * The Indian covenants.
 * The Crimson Cavalry are the Christian Identity Movement from the US, UK, and South Africa.
 * The Lancea Sanctum has variant creeds associated with Judaism, Islam, and other branches of Christianity.
 * The Amanotsukai is Shinto with vampires.
 * Fate Worse Than Death - Ultimately every vampire will surrender to their beast and become either a mindless beast or a careful predator. For some that is a Fate Worse Than Death but for some (just read the Belial's Brood description above) it's a blessing.
 * Final Death
 * Five Races - The five vampire clans. Complicated by the fact that there was a sixth clan, the Julii, in ancient Rome, who replaced the Ventrue, and that the Mekhet have an alternative clan weakness in the form of the Hollow, introduced in their clanbook.
 * The Force Is Strong With This One: How vampires sense each other's Blood Potency.
 * Foreign Fanservice - Requiem for Rome portray the Daeva as sexy Middle Easterners.
 * For Science - The stated motive behind many of the more horrible thing the Ordo Dracula do. For example, "Following the Dragon's Tail," which involves murdering a frequently randomly selected innocent, just to observe the effect of the murder on the victim's friends and family. An expanded version, called "Counting the Dragon's Scales," involves a number of vampires and coordinated mass slaughter, and is intended to allow the study of what happens when an entire city collectively craps itself in terror.
 * They also entertain ideas about Embracing people completely unprepared for vampirism (suicides, the disabled) for the reason of seeing whether or not the Beast's survival urge can overcome their mentality.
 * For the Evulz - One of the most deranged things introduced in the game is a ghoul family called the Crassus. Unlike most ghoul families, these guys are pretty awesome. They're a 6,000 member family with tons of cash, connections, fame, and Kindred disciplines. They're called the Caesars, and sometimes the royalty of America. They have their hand in everything from insurance to Mob wars. But there's a catch: see, this family was created when a Ventrue dude named Lysander agreed to paying a Roman gambler's debt, but in return everyone in his family is now a toy for Invictus members. Only a few individuals in the family know this. And by "toy," we mean the Invictus can beat and rape the hell out of them whenever they want to vent out some of their frustration (or the lulz), only to return the poor Crassus member to their normal life as if nothing has happened. The Crassus are noted for being incredibly resistant to the thought of anything supernatural, even their own powers, so they always always rationalize these regular degradations as some "evil uncle paying a visit." The fluff actually encourages this behavior: the Crassus are consistently portrayed as vain and snot-nosed rich kids that "need to be taken down a peg or three"! But wait, it gets better! All Crassus ghouls can have their choice of either the Ventrue or Daeva weakness. Clearly, being part of a rich family sucks in this world.
 * The Crassus estate actually has an insane asylum for all their family members who were unable to use thier money and power to fix themselves up from all the rapes. Their estate has a wing with a coterie of Invictus in it, as well... This family is doomed.
 * They have created two more ghoul families specifically for the Crassus to piss on? It just never ends. One family is perpetual butlers with undeveloped vocal cords, who are systematically killed the second they become self-aware of their condition, and the other is a purpose-bred family of pit fighters knowing no life outside the arena.
 * Or, a Crassus can spend his Staff merit on other Crassus ghouls. Think about that for a second.
 * Then we have the Strix, who being The Unfettered now, primarily prosecute vampires for this reason.
 * A Strix in the opening of the strix chapter speaks of his decaying possessions, and how he/she doesn't know who he really is anymore, or why he does all these terrible things. "...and I wouldn't have it any other way."
 * Fridge Brilliance - The dead girl plot in Ventrue actually reference Belial's Brood mechanics and fluff to fight the strix. You know what that means!
 * Fridge Horror - All over the place, which is saying a lot when the game is already about horror.
 * A relatively mild example: independent Moroi (see Crippling Overspecialization). Most are kept on a short leash by the Ordo Dracul; most of the rest were killed. However, this means logically that there are those of the bloodline that didn't want to be leashed killers, enough that they refused...and were powerful enough to avoid destruction. This is actually discussed--bringing in or bringing down such creatures is sometimes tasked to disposable coteries that are more trouble than they're worth--but the implications aren't really delved into in-text.
 * The Ghouls. It's hidden right on the surface, but when you make a Ghoul, you ruin a persons life as thoroughly as any addiction. The horror is explored in the Ghoul splatbook, with a Ghoul so desperate that he drinks the menstrual blood of another, recently fed, ghoul. But otherwise the horror you wreck on this person is just implied.
 * Even more so: It's implied the reason the Duoloi, the ghouls who serve Belial's Brood, are so loyal is because of how well they're treated compared to mainstream ones. Yes, you read that right-the Card Carrying Villains treat their ghouls better then every other vampire in existence.
 * Fully Embraced Fiend: Belial's Brood is composed of vampires who have collectively decided "screw humanity" and become the best monsters they can be.
 * Game Face
 * Glamour: The Majesty discipline.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom: The Strix's Glamour Failure when they're doing the Demonic Possession gig. They're owls, owl eyes flash in light...etc. Unfortunately, they're Dangerously Genre Savvy enough to know this, and more social members of the race can make non-possessed people do that to.
 * Gothic Punk: Less so than the Old World of Darkness; it's more Gothic Horror, although traces remain
 * Such as the outfits. Dear gods, the outfits...
 * Gratuitous French: Licencieux's power titles are all in French.
 * Half Human Hybrid: Very much averted. Ghouls are never anything but alive or fundamentally human. That doesn't stop the Cainite Heresy from Hunter calling them Half-Vampires, though.
 * Played straight in Wicked Dead, with the introduction of the Dampyr. Thing is, each and every Dampyr is a walking curse incarnate, designed to utterly shatter a vampire's unlife... and thanks to the nature of their powers, the Dampyr are often utterly oblivious to the effects they have on the vampires around them. Most aren't even aware vampires exist.
 * The Hedonist: Potentially every Daeva.
 * And definitely every Strix.
 * Hermetic Magic - Cruac and Theban Sorcery
 * Only for Cruac's "default" mode. Cruac actually has rules for shaping it to fit any culture's view of magic.
 * Csalad and Gilded Cage, ritual Disciplines involving ley lines.
 * Hindu Mythology: The Indian Kindred claim the myths came from mortal's experience with vampires.
 * Historical Villain Upgrade: Well, there's Longinus and Dracula. Additionally, the Mekhet claim the one who created their clan was none other than the mad witch-pharaoh...Akhenaten?!
 * Horror Hunger: Vampires and blood, among whom the Noctuku in Requiem take it to new levels. They're not only blood drinking monsters, but addicted to cannibalism. That's right, they need to eat the flesh of the living (animals, humans, and vampires) or suffer crippling hunger pains and worsening social and mental abilities. Worse, they still can't digest, so it all comes right back up.
 * Arguably worse are the Macellarius, who aren't addicted to cannibalism, but do it anyway for the heck of it.
 * According to the "Mythologies" sourcebook for Requiem, any powerful vampire has a reason to be tempted to eat human livers. If they can keep it down overday, then they'll "dilute" their blood, allowing them to drink less powerful blood (so a Blood Potency 7+ liver-eater no longer needs to feed on other vampires) for a time. Of course, it only lasts about a fortnight to a month, and then they need to eat another liver.
 * Horny Devils: The Daeva.
 * Hot Blooded: The Tianpian Xiao, who share the weakness that they must periodically use their bloodline discipline to release excess emotion into the people around them. If they fail to do so, the emotional buildup eventually renders them useless.
 * Hypnotic Eyes: Dominate.
 * I Hate You Vampire Dad: Considering the Embrace doesn't need to be consensual, it's not surprising that a number of vampires are less than fond of their sires. Add on to this the fact that many vampires become jaded, inhuman and extremely manipulative, and you have a decent chance of having a permanent, mystical tie to someone you really wish would take a long walk at sunrise.
 * I Love the Dead: One way the Sangiovanni bloodline weakness can manifest, though it's considered impolite to bring up such topics when the bloodline meets formally.
 * I'm a Humanitarian: The Noctuku, a bloodline of the Nosferatu whose members have a taste for the flesh of other vampires. They regulary have to consume another vampire's flesh (even though they can't keep it down and don't gain any nourishment from it) or risk going into a hunger frenzy.
 * What makes the Noctuku really fit that trope is that they actually don't need vampire flesh; pork and lamb will do just fine, but no, they just prefer other vampires.
 * There's also the Macellarius, a Ventrue bloodline of villainous gluttons whose extra weakness is they bloat to obesity shortly after joining the bloodline and keep going year after year. While they gorge themselves on just about everything, they also eat their victims alive instead of just drinking their blood, as their unique powers allow them to convert raw flesh into extra nutrition. Considering that Vampires cannot digest anything other than vitae, and must eventually vomit up anything else they eat as a bloody slurry, the ends to Macellarius dinner parties tend to be messy, to say the very least.
 * In the Blood: This is actually the premise of the Shadows of Mexico setting. It even points out that racism, of all things, is somehow rooted into the land and is considered a valid mental derangement along with obsessive compulsive disorder.
 * A potential Prince for Mexico is Malintzinita, a daughter of Cortez and La Malinche. She's torn between her native roots and Spanish culture. She created a bloodline that emphasizes this.
 * The Xoxocti versus Daeva plot mentioned above.
 * The Ventrue clan in Mexico is viewed as perpetrators of the Spanish conquest. Their nicknames are tiranos (tyrants) and invasors (invaders).
 * The Lancea Sanctum branches in Mexico are generally more accepting of those who worship the pagan gods of the region. This is because those gods are potentially their precursors.
 * In the Invictus, your vampiric ancestry (grand-sires and above) determines how easily you can be accepted. This applies to all Invictus domains, not just in Mexico.
 * A good many bloodlines are, quite frankly, Cursed with Suck and the core book makes it clear that if a vampire has a sire or grandsire in said bloodline, they may "reflexively" join despite not wanting to. Some kindred will often go to great lengths trying to avoid this by running away or joining a (they think/hope) less sucky bloodline.
 * The Melissidae bloodline are known to not do anything if their childer run away. They just assume that the blood will take care of itself. So far, it always has.
 * Jabba Table Manners: See the Macellarius bloodline in the I'm a Humanitarian entry above.
 * Joke Character: The Players, a bloodline with so many drawbacks and weaknesses that they scare other vampires - nothing can be that weak without some dark surprises, can it? (They're largely a winking poke at Vampire fanboys.)
 * Karma Meter: The Humanity rating, which displays how close your character is to the Beast.
 * Killed to Uphold The Masquerade: Usually happens when Mind Control powers just wont cut it, and blood bonds aren't a safe enough option.
 * Kill It With Fire: Vampires' greatest weakness next to sunlight and Genre Savvy mortals.
 * And if you take the Coil of Banes' legendary 4th tier, Averted Trope.
 * Linear Warriors Quadratic Wizards: Generally, the Kindred who focus on developing the physical Disciplines get outclassed really badly by Kindred who develop the psychic ones, which they then use to recruit Kindred who focused on the physical Disciplines. Really, would you prefer to spend 3 dots on Resilience, or 3 dots on Dominate so you can control three guys each equal to Retainer 3? (Eventually one can reach a level in the physical where you become a juggernaut even against psychic powers...but it takes a while.)
 * Living Doll Collector: Depraved masters of Dominate.
 * Although not technically living, the Sangiovanni like to create animated puppets out of corpses. With high enough levels of Malvolio, their bloodline discipline, these zombies can remain indefinitely without decomposing, and they can even gain a semblance of intelligence, to serve their undead masters better.
 * Mad Scientist: White Wolf, of course, put Dracula in this game! It's worth noting that they've emphasized the whole Dracula = Mad Scientist thing from the Stoker novel, though, as opposed to his other incarnations...
 * Malevolent Masked Men: Many Nosferatu like to wear masks, either to conceal their disfigurement or just to creep people out. "Unyielding Mask" is a purchaseable Nosferatu Merit, a mask permanently affixed to the wearer's face that protects him from mental control by other vampires and grants him a bonus to the social skill of his choice. How a vampire with a mask permanently stuck to his face is physically able to feed is left unaddressed.
 * Manipulative Bastard: The Daeva. So much that this habit will eventually suck away their emotions.
 * Masquerade: Vampires have codified this into an explicit Tradition, and the Invictus covenant is intent on making sure it stays upheld.
 * Metaplot: Not nearly as much as the last game, but increasing references to the Strix (and the possibility that they have had a prominent effect on shaping the Kindred) as well as hints of their imminent return (culminating in them being given stats and details in Wicked Dead) might just about qualify.
 * The Ventrue book references the end of Vidal's control of New Orleans, as well as the maybe-Final Death of the Baron.
 * Mighty Whitey: An extremely egregious example is given in Circle of the Crone. The Japanese faction, the Amanotsukai, were once led by a Dutch girl during the early days of Japan's collapsed isolation. She was made leader after the Japanese sun goddess Amaterasu protected her from burning to death by the sun. I'm sure there must be a reason why the author felt it worth mentioning she was a Dutch girl, but I just can't find it.
 * Dutch traders were among the few foreigners who had contact with Japan...and could have brought vampires with them?
 * Although that's true, this trope is about an Anglo outperforming a non-Anglo on their own terms, for dubious intentions. Ketsuekihime, the Dutch girl, was actually hunted down by the native Japanese Acolyte vampires for reasons unknown, and is then made a Cruac master as well as their leader by their own goddess, also for reasons unknown.
 * Mind Rape: High level Dominate qualifies. While altering memories or even possessing someone might be done for the greater good, using Dominate to condition someone is always a sin against high-to-mid level Humanity, no matter how well intentioned you might be in doing it.
 * The Duchange bloodline's La Touche Illusoire power lets a Kindred launch a psychic pattern of touches, prods, and caresses on some victim. On an exceptional success, you can LITERALLY rape someone with your mind! Higher levels allow you to hit someone with intense pain (or... the exact opposite) and completely recolor their emotional perceptions, to the point of having someone adore you as you advance on them with a chainsaw.
 * Monster Lord: Bloodlines and elders with high Blood Potency, obligating them to act monstrously to other monsters.
 * The Ventrue would have you believe that each and every one of then is one too.
 * Kindred with Animalism and a whole lot of ghouled dogs, which are referred to as Hellhounds.
 * Multiple Choice Past: Both individually and as a "species":
 * Going into torpor is a traumatic experience at the best of times, and even when it's done voluntarily a vampire tends to experience terrible nightmares during the course of the long sleep. It's not uncommon for a vampire to develop total amnesia when he awakens, and while this is the worst case scenario, even if your memories do survive mostly intact, they're often distorted and confused. It's easy for a vampire to become convinced they lived a life very different to the one they actually led.
 * And because there are no vampires from ancient times with wholly reliable memories, the clans each have multiple legends about where they came from and who created them. This also sets the stage for the storyteller to bring story elements completely from left field if they so choose, as there isn't any one canon origin story.
 * My Beloved Smother: The Qedeshah Bloodline, who incorporate the scariest aspects of motherhood.
 * My Significance Sense Is Tingling: The New World of Darkness in general is fond of the notion that when something big happens, even people who don't believe in the supernatural feel it. From the Chicago sourcebook, when discussing the prospect of an elder moving to a new city:

"Mess with their heads. Get it so the victims love their keepers, will do anything for them (even better if they can work one of the couple against the other--so sweet, that betrayal)."
 * Mythology Gag: In Vampire: The Masquerade, Mekhet was the name of a mysterious being who may or may not be a secret Antedeluvian with epic conspiracy theories. The clan of the same name keeps the mystery alive, to the point that it may be their new hat.
 * The first example Ventrue in their clanbook is an upstart, arrogant entitled brat with the surname LaCroix and unorthodox methods that ruffle his superiors. An expy Sebastian LaCroix, really.
 * In Kindred of the East, Malaysia was a lawless, dangerous place ruled by the Golden Court of the Penangallan Queens. In this game, they're exactly the same, even down to the title. The only difference is they now work for the largely European Invictus. Another reference to the Kuei-jin is the elevation of larvae. Awfully similar to what that game did for chih-mei.
 * Netorare Genre: It's not surprising that this occurs. Netorare is usually just implied with the art and a few throwaway lines, but there are some large, heart-breaking plots that emphasize it.
 * Ancient Bloodlines speaks of a vampiric Babylonian priestess' lesbian lover being taken from her forcibly by the En emperor. Turns out the lover eventually fell for her abductor in typical NTR fashion. Unlike other netorare stories, the priestess got her revenge on them by creating the Iltani and edimmu.
 * The trope is taken Up to Eleven with the Honeymoon Hijackers Charles and Charlene Greengrass. They were kidnapped and turned into vampires on their respective wedding nights by cruel sires, with their spouses killed. Charles and Charlene meet one another ten years after their abductions, instantly recognize the predicament of the other, and fall in love. They diablerize their sires, escape vampire society, get into a scary codependent relationship, then perform netorare scenarios and serial killings on any recently married couple they can find.

- Night Horrors: Immortal Sinners, pg. 74


 * Coming full circle, Charlene cheats on Charles. He doesn't know, but she wants him to. The Aristocrats!
 * Nietzsche Wannabe: Forsworn who bother explaining themselves tend to come off like this, what with the obsession with "the lies of society" and such. As far as vampires go, they're probably right.
 * Our Ghouls Are Creepier: They're the blood-addicted human slaves of vampires.
 * It gets worse. The Vitae drives ghouls to love their masters, no matter what. Only extraordinary hatred or long-term deprivation of blood has a shot at breaking this bond, which means a lot of vampires feel perfectly okay with abusing their ghouls in ways that would get them put on trial in an international tribunal, were they doing such things to a prisoner of war rather than their blood-addicted servants. Also, since the blood allows for regeneration, don't expect pity for any injuries you may suffer from the depravities of your vampire master, or anything that might happen to you while performing the duties your master expects of you. Obviously, many ghouls are not right in the head.
 * Not to be confused with Ghûls, who are Arabian wizards who are immortal. superhuman an canibalistic.
 * Our Vampires Are Different: All vampires share the same common weaknesses, but each clan has a unique new weakness and each Bloodline (a sub-group of a clan) has an extra one. Some are more traditional for others; the Zelani, an offshoot of the Daeva, can't enter homes uninvited (mainly due to the horrible crimes inflicted on their progenitor by her sire during a home invasion).
 * Wicked Dead offers up a number of non-Kindred vampires ranging from the Mnemovores, who feed on memories, to the Jiang Shi, the fabled "hopping corpses".
 * And the Ordo Dracul are working on making themselves more different, getting rid of or lessening those certain weaknesses in particular.
 * Chronicler's Guide, a book written to give suggestions and ideas to Game Masters to create games, is the embodiment of this trope: There is a section that deals with making the vampires clanless, with suggestions of how to create new vampiric features and weaknesses. Another section suggests making the Beast into the calculative, manipulative Other and discusses the possible implications for the chronicle. Last but not least, there's a section dedicated to revamp the whole system to make vampires the utter debased monsters they are.
 * Owl Be Damned: The basic form of the Strix is an owl made of shadow and ash.
 * Parental Incest: The Ghoul splatbook has a vampire that keeps her Ghoul in check by a combination of sex and denial of blood. Y'know, typical vampire stuff. But by the end we find out that the Ghoul is her own father, who took this state upon himself so that he could forever watch over his daughter.
 * Partial Transformation
 * People Farm: Shadows of the UK present a vampire conspiracy involving hunting down recent immigrants to the UK and harvesting their blood repeatedly in stalls for use as easy food and fantasy-style healing potions.
 * Plaguemaster: The Morbus Bloodline. Subverted in that they HAVE to spread illnesses because they can only feed from the diseased.
 * Power Born of Madness: The Malkavians of the oWoD became a Ventrue bloodline called the Malkovians in the new WoD. The basic concept is mostly the same, though they don't have Dementation anymore, but a form of Domination that is known to induce madness in its victims.
 * Actually the madness is induced in the instigator, not the victim--the bloodline's weakness is that any time their mind control fails, or works too well, they themselves have a relapse of the crazy.
 * And with a recent Ventrue splatbook, Malkavia is now a disease that affects vampires causing madness and allowing access to Dementation. It's fitting because the whole Ventrue clan is now crazier than dropping acid in Disneyland.
 * Power Perversion Potential: ...have you been paying attention to a word on this page?
 * For added Squick, how's about those Sangiovanni, what with the built-in OCD that makes them freak out when they're not around corpses? Yes, some of them do like corpses that way, why do you ask?
 * Powered By a Forsaken Child: The Mercy Seat's practices are a Trope Codifier.
 * Psychic Powers: Aura Perception, The Spirit's Touch (aka postcognition), Telepathy Astral Twilight Projection from Auspex Discipline.
 * Psychic Surgery: One variant of the VII faction can do this... for good and ill.
 * Rage Against the Heavens: The Rakshasa bloodline's ultimate goal is to destroy the gods Because Destiny Says So!
 * Red Baron: The Unholy. The Red Sultan, as well.
 * Red Right Hand: All of vampire Clan Nosferatu, albeit less so than in Vampire: The Masquerade.
 * Reed Richards Is Useless: Both averted and played straight numerous times. Many vampires have the power to change the world--but most don't, despite canonically having the means and desire. Vampires are beings locked in stasis, and they in fact don't do well with change.
 * Reptiles Are Abhorrent: An alternate creation mythology for vampires is that they are descended from the son (Lilu) or daughter (Lilit/Lilitu) of Eve and the Serpent of Eden. The suggestions for tweaking the game in manners implying that this could be true are: adding asps and pythons to the "default forms" (wolf and bat) for Shape of the Beast (or even replacing wolf and bat); making it easier to ghoul snakes; rendering vampires immune to snake venom (by core rules, it's one of the few natural toxins that do affect them); and letting vampires paralyze with their gaze as an innate, non-Discipline power.
 * Scare Em Straight: This is essentially what the Lancea Sanctum's declared Divine Purpose for Vampires is. Vampires are Damned to not feel God's grace, but still remain in the shadows of His Creation to make sure those still blessed with His love (read: mortals) don't start to revel in sin and wander too long in the dark places of the world. If they do, well, Vampires have an arsenal of ways to make mortals high-tail it back to Church.
 * Screw the Rules I Have Supernatural Powers
 * Sense Freak: The Strix in modern times. Also, the Duchange, whose bloodline weakness specifically invokes this.
 * Seven Deadly Sins: Mentioned in the Requiem Chronicler's Guide, one way to interpret each of the clans is that they are symbolic of one of the seven deadly sins. Daeva represent Lust, Gangrel represent Wrath, Mekhet represent Envy, Nosferatu represent Sloth, Ventrue represent Pride, Julii represent Gluttony, and Seven represent Greed.
 * Shirtless Scene: Common in the splatbook art, particularly for Solomon Birch and Duce Carter.
 * Shout Out: Newer books contain references to popular websites and memes like Image Boards, Live Journal, LO Lcats, and YouTube. The dhampir chapter of Wicked Dead was a goldmine in particular.
 * Don't forget the NPC based on the guy who runs Bogleech.com
 * The art for the Moroi bloodline from the Ordo Dracul sourcebook is clearly meant to be Jared Nomak.
 * The Players bloodline has art of a girl cosplaying as Anita Blake.
 * This is also present in their in-universe fiction: 'A Hunger Like Fire' has Persephone in a club playing a techno song with the refrain "The system... is down! The system... is down!"
 * The Danse Macabre book has various "Masquerades" listed for characters wishing to strength the illusion that they're mortal. One of them is Youth. Among the possible concepts listed is "Righteous Dude", and feeding targets include "the sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, wastoids, dweebies, dickheads."
 * Shrouded in Myth: The Unholy, most famously.
 * Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: It's just barely on the middle-ish area. A really determined Kindred could potentially go their entire Requiem without killing...but just about every "biological" and social factor is against them. Feeding requirements only get tougher with age, the Beast means every emotional stimulus can potentially lead to murder, the Danse causes most neonates to get callous, fast. And all their powers make it so very easy to get corrupted.
 * Ironically, the Ordo Dracul, the covenant with the most tools to minimize the curse that makes the above so slanted to unfriendly, are also one of the likeliest covenants to turn a member into an amoral creature that cares nothing for humans or morality.
 * Sourcebook
 * Space Whale Aesop: The point of the Invictus Emperor story, as well as why the Invictus doesn't like democracy, seems to be the aesop that Kindred magic makes it easy to subvert democracy and support Social Darwinism, so why even bother?
 * Special Snowflake Syndrome: There's entire books filled with bloodlines.
 * Spiritual Successor: The game tries to capture the vital essence of "Vampire: The Masquerade" while still being its own, independent entity.
 * Stages of Monster Grief: Varies, but the Circle of the Crone and Lancea Sanctum are particularly devoted to promoting their dark sides, while the Ordo Dracul wants to transcend it (whatever that may involve). Belial's Brood just want to have fun and paint the town O positive.
 * State Sec: The Sworn of the Ordo Dracul are like this. They have their own bracnhes with their own spheres of influence that overlap and override with non-Sworn members. In the event that the Prince is an unSworn Dragon, the Sworn can use him as a puppet and the Prince will pretty much let them.
 * Status Quo Is God: The Lancea Sanctum and the Circle of the Crone accuse each other of being the Religion of Evil, the Carthians think the Invictus is The Empire, the Invictus thinks that the Carthians are Dirty Communists, and the Ordo Dracul thinks that everyone else is Too Dumb to Live. However, it's not like those factions are ever at war or anything. They just do politics...
 * Stepford Smiler: Any vampire, but especially the Daeva
 * There's also the Melissidea bloodline. They often have beehive hairdos. With actual bees. Their Dominate stops working so well on humans, works better on bugs, and they take advantage of the fact that their insides are unused to act as colonies for insects. Oh, and they can make a Vitae based honey that turns those who eat it into part of their Hive Mind. They were supposedly wiped out because of the danger they posed to Kindred society.
 * Straw Feminist: The Daughters of The Goddess one of the many Circle of The Crone factions.
 * Super Powered Evil Side: Each Vampire's mind and soul are also home to a Beast, which consists of nothing but mindless impulses of rage, hunger, and just enough self-preservation to hide from the sun. Falling into a frenzy means that this Beast takes control, granting extra strength and some resistance to mental control, but at the cost of being controlled by hunger/anger/fear for the duration. A Vampire can attempt to "Ride the Wave" of the Frenzy, allowing him a small measure of control, but it's by no means a sure thing.
 * There's also the Red Surrender which Gangrel can perform, which allows them access to the talents of the Beast for extended periods of time, at a cost of some control over their actions and addiction to the way it feels.
 * The Invictus Covenant book introduced the Sotoha, a bloodline of not-quite samurai (they prefer the term "Retainer") who gain all the benefits, but few of the flaws, of going into frenzy. Control over direction, the ability to reason...but things still gotta die, and they can become a little...focused...on that. Don't forget they're Ventrue, so there's extra crazy! Which is unfortunate, because some of them remain in this state for years...
 * One of the books presents an optional alternate version called The Other, which is much more intelligent and is actually a voice in the vampire's head trying to take control. When he goes into Frenzy, the vampire is much more calm and collected now because the Other is in control, although a lot of the mechanical results come out much the same.
 * Total Party Kill: This can happen very easily early on if several members of a coterie blow their Predator's Taint roll when first being introduced to their covenant members.
 * Un Equal Rites
 * The Unfettered: The Strix seem to have stuck around after the Julii died, and not having a purpose anymore, now do whatever they please. Being what they are, this is not a good thing.
 * The ultimate philosophic goal of the Forsworn is to become this.
 * Unstoppable Rage: Vampires when they frenzy
 * The Vamp: The female Daeva, literally. And everyone else.
 * Vampires Are Sex Gods: Well, they are. The Players bloodline also uses the phrase "dark gods of lust."
 * Video Game Cruelty Potential: Um, read this whole page...
 * Villain By Default: Belial's Brood. They were added to the setting only to serve as Obviously Evil straighforward antagonists with little characterisation or information about how their society works. Averted with their splat, which makes them a full-fledged Covenant.
 * The Virus: Vampires, mostly.
 * There's a fun scenario where a Burakhumin causes a zombie apocalypse with his skill in Getsumei.
 * Wolf Man: Gangrel, kinda. Only one bloodline in Shadows of Mexico can actually go half wolf/half man
 * World Half Empty: The oppressive helplessness of the setting is what appeals to many.
 * You Are Worth Hell: Some people join their Kindred lovers in undeath, fully understanding the horrible existence to come, under the impression that their love is indeed worth hell. In the case of the Lancea Sanctum, their main creed actually does believe that hell awaits! But they Embrace out of love anyway.