Vampire: The Requiem Second Edition

THE SHADOW AND THE ASP
Open Development, Vampire: The Requiem
Rose Bailey - March 24th, 2014, 9:28 pm

As I mentioned last time, we’ve been experimenting with different ways to design bloodlines, based on the new mechanics and design patterns employed in Blood and Smoke. The first in the series was an all-new line, the Neglatu. The second updates an old favorite from Bloodlines: The Hidden. Here are David Hill’s Khaibit.

Khaibit
You say you know the darkness. You know it like a child that’s read a fairy tale. I know it, because it’s part of me. It’s in my blood. My eyes. My seed. My spit. Unless you know me, you don’t know the darkness. And nobody knows me. Nobody still standing, at least.

The Khaibit are an ancient line, drawn from Egyptian stock. They come from a Mekhet cult that all but died off centuries ago. Their role was initially to serve Set, and to do his will in forcing back some greater, unknown darkness. While the specifics of their role have been lost to the ages, they now have a different calling; they’re the best known line of defense against the Strix.

To fight the darkness, they became the darkness. Set endowed their blood with a darkness beyond the simple absence of light. The blood in Khaibit veins mutates, and becomes an inky blackness they can call forth as a weapon against the unnatural.

Background: The Khaibit stand as one of the oldest known bloodlines. Most that know of them know they come from Egypt, their name meaning “shadows”. In recent history, the Khaibit rose to prominence as a reaction to Strix attacks in South America and the Mediterranean. As cities fell victim to the Owls, a few Khaibit took up the task of fighting them back. While they’re not widely known, they’re a rumor on numerous tongues.
For more on the Khaibit, you can read a thorough history in Bloodlines: The Hidden, and other information in Fall of the Camarilla.

The Becoming: Khaibit are chosen for their will and integrity, and often their ability to fight. However, while the first two are of the utmost importance, the third can be taught. Khaibit often Embrace their prospects directly into the lineage. When outside Mekhet are brought into the line, it’s because of a specific need. Often, recruits are inducted to fill a highly specialized role. For example, a Khaibit may need an infiltrator that knows computer-based intrusion techniques. While they could Embrace a mortal with those skills, it’s impractical to find a good fit that both has the desired skills, and can learn what they need in the time frame necessary.

In the Danse Macabre: Khaibit act as sentinels and bodyguards. While the details of their calling are lost to all but the most scholarly, their abilities have an obvious application in fighting off the Strix. This gives them a protected status in besieged domains, where courts with known Khaibit will overlook most minor crimes they commit. After all, the Khaibit represent their clearest weapon against the Parliament of Owls However, this sometimes goes to extremes. Powerful Kindred will bribe or coerce a Khaibit into Embracing their bodyguards, or acting as an Avus to their associates in order to proliferate further defenses.

Individually, many Khaibit sell their services to the highest bidder. A bodyguard who can stand against not only other Kindred but the yellow-eyed monsters under the bed is a valuable asset. Khaibit are also masters of intrusion and stealth, and can escape situations too sticky for their Kindred.

When Khaibit join the All Night Society, they tend toward the Circle of the Crone as a way of exploring and understanding their spiritual heritage. Some more knightly members join the Invictus.

Nickname: Asps

Clan: Mekhet

Bloodline Bane: Khaibit blood is so attuned to the darkness that they suffer in immense light. In any light bright enough to inhibit normal vision, the Khaibit suffers the Blinded Tilt and lose access to their Udjat gift for the scene.

Bloodline Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Obfuscate, Vigor

OBTENEBRATION
The Khaibit gift of Obtenebration expresses their affinity for the darkness within their blood. In addition to the ability to control and shape shadows, Khabit can temporarily become darkness and travel through the darkness. Lastly, they can wield the shadows as a weapon against otherworldly forces. This makes them invaluable against the Strix.

All Khaibit gain the first Devotion, the Udjat, upon joining the bloodline. Additional Devotions have prerequisites as normal, and cost 2 Experiences each. For those that have never seen Obtenebration, it can inspire deep, instinctive fear. The first time a character experiences a clear manifestation of Obtenebration, he must succeed at a Resolve + Composure roll or suffer the Shaken Condition.

Udjat
This most basic gift of Khaibit heritage gives them perfect sight in even the utmost darkness. Khaibit never suffer penalties from darkness, and see subtle shifts in heat and movement where others would be blind. They are unaffected by blindness induced by injury or supernatural forces.
By focusing her attention and spending a point of Vitae, a Khaibit can attune her senses to the unseen. This allows her to see spirits, Strix, angels, and other immaterial beings for the scene. This includes beings in Twilight. While she has her senses so enhanced, she’s immune to the Strix’s possession.

Tyet
By opening a vein, the Khaibit can release the darkness within her blood as an instant action, blanketing the area in darkness. With the expenditure of a single Vitae, the cloud of shadow extends out from the wound in a radius a number of yards (or meters) equal to the vampire’s Blood Potency. The Khaibit can expend more Vitae to expand the cloud further from its center. Alternatively, the Khaibit can expel the cloud from her mouth instead of an open wound.
Shadows touching those the Khaibit has created with the Tyet become hers to shape. She can manipulate their forms, absorb them into the cloud, and otherwise mold them to her liking. While the shadows have no physical presence, they can be used to divert, trick, and distract.
Prerequisite: Vigor 2

Pseshkf
This signature gift of the Khaibit allows her to draw the shadows into a palpable form with the expenditure of one or more Vitae and an instant action. She can use this to coat simple tools or weapons. Weapons so coated cause 1 additional lethal damage to physical targets (including Kindred), but cause her Blood Potency in lethal damage to noncorporeal entities, including spirits and Strix. Coated objects add her Blood Potency as Durability, and the number of Vitae spent as Structure. If she possesses Tyet as well, she can manipulate the item coated with Pseshkf as if she were touching it with her hands.
Prerequisite: Vigor 2

Ba
Khaibit can draw shadow to themselves, and become one with the darkness. To use the Ba, the Khaibit must be touching a shadow at least as big as herself (this could include her own shadow in many cases, or shadow created by the Tyet). She spends three points of Vitae, and at least one instant action, or more if her Blood Potency means she cannot spend the entirety in a turn. Once she’s become shadow, she’s immune to anything short of fire, sunlight, the Pseshkf, or things that specifically hurt ephemeral entities. Other ephemera can affect her normally. She is immune to abjuration.
In this form, she cannot directly affect her environment. However, she can activate the Pseshkf if she possesses it, and can assail spirits and other ephemeral creatures. While in this form, fire, sunlight, and other forms of harm cause her two additional levels of damage. She travels at half her Speed, and must travel along solid objects. However, she’s not constrained by anything that wouldn’t stop light.
Prerequisite: Obfuscate 2

Iteru
With this gift, the Khaibit can travel rapidly through shadows. She dissolves into one part of the shadow, and emerges anywhere along the same patch of shade. This can be shadow created by the Tyet. Spend a Vitae reflexively, and the character fades into and out of the shadow instantly. If using this as part of a Dodge action, roll her Dodge with the rote quality once per scene.
Prerequisite: Celerity 2

Had another look at it. I'm not happy with the idea that they are Strix beatsticks, but then, I'm not a big fan of the Strix. They were really interesting in Requiem for Rome, but after that, they get worse and worse, as the idea is seized upon, taking them from being the reason one of the Clans was created (and destroyed,) to one that hates vampires, but is secretly trying to become them as well. It starts to muddy the waters of the idea that each Clan has a separate origin and creation. If it wee a case that they were haunting the Ventrue, saying to them that they are the children of their fruits, that they are the founders of their clans... then you have something interesting right there, and something that works. Are they really the creators, or just saying it for their own goals? And if they are lying... what are their reasons for doing so? If they are telling the truth, why emerge now? And what are they wanting from the Ventrue... and can they afford to refuse any demands from them?

But enough of my issues with the Strix... The Khaibit have an extra layer to them now. If you have other monsters and supernatural threats in the City, then they might be able to fight them off. They then have a purpose for existing, and that would strengthen the bloodline.This is something they lacked in the original write-up, a sense of direction and purpose. And they make sense as bodyguards and protectors, and I feel there is a huge amount that can be done with them, untapped potential. How do they recruit their childer? Is it just an Embrace, or is there a period of training, moulding and shaping their minds and bodies to fulfill the potential their would-be Sires saw in them originally? Maybe she is just an average looking, plain office worker who is in a dead end, and not really going anywhere... but if she is taken, Ghouled and made to exercise and train... after a year she is a honed weapon, her mind looking at everyone as a potential threat, assessing the people around. Are they threats? Are they unwitting hindrances to the mission her Sire-to-be gave her? If she fails, would he punish her... and how? Spending the night in an bathtub filled with ice cubes, whilst reciting a mantra over and over, having to ignore the freezing temperature? Or maybe it is something else, more... inhuman? And after her years of training is over, and she realises she is nothing like the plain office worker she once was, does she look in horror at what she has become... or does she feel pride and accomplishment, and pleasure that her Mentor saw the spark of potential in her, and he saw fit to turn it into a fire?

So much is there, and what we have is just the tip of the iceberg. Some bloodlines are only really going to need ten or so pages to flesh them out. The Khaibit are a bloodline that could have an entire book dedicated to them, and you would find that there were still plenty of questions to ask after reading it. I suspect this is why they are so popular, and one of my favourite things from Requiem.

Then there is Obtenebration... It goes int "hunt the Strix" mode a bit, and we all know by now what my sentiments on them are by now. That said, you can rework them to get rid of those elements... and they have cracked the nut. If you look back to VTM, and see the Lasombra's version, you see that it was something that could be deeply frightening and powerful... but was quite clunky. V20 has improved it quite a bit... but you end up feeling that there is something missing from the equation. They have found the answer, and have given a brilliant framework. Why only five Devotion powers, though? There could be lots more! Like turning a person's shadow into a spy, going around and gathering information on those being observed... as an example.

In short, there is a lot given to us, but also a lot more potential unrealised.

Just my take on it.