This month’s book is “Beckett's Jyhad Diary.” This is a sourcebook that is meant to be a bridge between v20 and v5 by discussing the metaplot. To discuss the book, you can use the tag #WOD book club and/or #WOD book club - beckett's jyhad diary. Or, you can comment on this post itself.
i’m going to try so hard to be open minded about v6 because i don’t want to become one of those legacy players who hates new editions simply because they’re not the edition i already like but at the same time WHAT DO YOU MEANNNN
vtmblr help me settle a debate
which method of vampire feeding is most *ethical*? (definitions under the cut)
alleycat
bagger
cleaver
consensualist
osiris
sandman
scene queen
siren
extortionist
grim reaper
trapdoor
tithe collector
Voting ended onAug 1
how you define ethical is up to you, but you have to pick one.
i’m using the v5 predator types as shorthand for the common ways that vampires feed, but I’ll write a brief description of them under the cut, and you can assume them to be somewhat flexible as definitions. i’m excluding blood leech and farmer because i think it’s only equal if we assume feeding from humans, rather than animals or other vampires.
please explain why if you can i’m so curious
alleycat = feeding with brute force, using physical strength and intimidation, often out in the open
bagger = consuming preserved blood, most commonly from blood banks
cleaver = feeding from your family or close friends (or someone else’s)
consensualist = never taking blood not willingly given. not always honest about why its being taken (e.g. taking blood via a fake charity blood drive or involving blood in the kink scene) — but can tell their victims the whole truth
osiris = feeding from fans or followers (as a celebrity)
sandman = feeding from the sleeping
scene queen = feeding from a specific subculture
siren = feeding exclusively during sex, or what the victim believes is the lead-up to sex
extortionist = acquiring blood in exchange for services (usually security or protection)
grim reaper = feeding exclusively from those near death (in hospitals or hospice care)
trapdoor = luring victims to their location
tithe collector = getting other vampires to deliver victims to you, and then returning those victims to them
Maybe this is churlish of me, but I'm already biased against V6 because I'm expected to sign up to and use a specific platform if I want to know jack shit about it.
You need to understand how reluctant I was to even start running games over Discord, for fuck's sake. I only cracked because I don't have enough local friends who match my freak and it was better than not playing at all. I like a stack of physical books, notes on paper, and being in the same room. I don't like fumbling and groping my way through An User Interface at the same time as trying to roleplay. And I really don't like "the future of your favourite game is exclusive to A Platform."
(Earlier this week I had a new player ask if I was technophobic. I'm starting to think I might be. I've used computers all my life and as such I greet any Guff from them with narrowed eyes and a threatening hand reached for the off-switch.)
personally I'm a big fan of the moment a vampire gets Embraced being a metaphor for a sudden, irreversible trauma. maybe you thought you knew what it would be like but you couldn't have understood the actual enormity; maybe it was an accident or something completely out of your control. either way this event happens to you and you are changed forever
now your emotions are unstable. your anger is all-consuming, your fear takes your body away from you, and always always always you are a danger to others if you can't control yourself from what you want and need. you can no longer be in the daylight living a typical life, so your social world completely changes and so does the environment. you might be stuck now with cold empty streets and buildings. you might cling to clubs and bars are the only places where you get to be around people living their lives. in some severe cases, you can't even look at yourself anymore, or perhaps the figure in the mirror is someone you don't recognize. your past identity and way of being has been taken away, permanently
you do what you have to in order to survive. and your new way of surviving, the only way you can exist, is something society finds disgusting or fetishizes. it doesn't matter what other people think because it's all you can do anyway. your new "community", those who most understand what you're going through, are themselves traumatized and suffering, in a constant state of victim and perpetrator. maybe they want to help you but maybe they want to use you. maybe you want to be kind but now your very nature makes real consent and honesty difficult, so in some ways you are a user and abuser too
do young vampires think about their last "normal" day? was it perfectly mundane, with no warning that it would be the last one? if they could have that day again, would they try appreciate all the little details like the warmth of the sun and the taste of lunch better this time? or would they try desperately to change their fate and avoid what's coming for them? well. you can't change the past. you can only do what you can with what you have now
it’s about being queer it’s about surviving assault it’s about alienation and most of all it’s about how everyone who loved you before might not be able to even look at you now, no matter how many times you try to explain that you didn’t ask to die and you didn’t ask for that death to leave you only half-eaten when it got bored of you.
This is without even mentioning the broader metaphorical implications of disease and contagion; foreign invasion; colonial or imperial violence; interpersonal abuse; generational trauma; religious trauma; violent cultural assimilation; repressed or suppressed desire; the fear of no longer being able to recognise or relate to someone you love; and on and on and on.
Vampirism is a flexible metaphor that reflects the anxieties and desires of its age and its authors, and I love that for it!
*jason carl voice* here in los angeles, people go about their nights as usual. some of them might even eat burger. meat. bread. lettuce. tomato. maybe even a little ketchup, if that's their taste. but you kindred..... enjoy no such thing.....
my actual vampire hot take is that if you're going to be a 'vegetarian' vampire (a vampire that only drinks the blood of animals) you MUST have hunter education. i'm so sick of people being like oh well predator animals are mean and scary because they kill cute 'harmless' animals like NO they're crucial for the environment and if you're going to hunt animals for blood you still need to stick to regular people hunting guidelines and only hunt things that are in season and abide by your areas bag limits
vampire that did a detailed study about whether vampires can get prion diseases and concluded they can't and preferentially hunts animals with chronic wasting disease. and then incinerates the corpses.
Fanart for the Canada by night VTM liveplay podcast!
(Val and Everett's talented and amazing players are @deltastic and @r1ch-uncle-5keleton, whom you can find right here on Tumblr)
yesterday i was confronted with the implications of unliving hive and the fact that ghouled insects can breed and their babies will probably also then become ghouled and then breed. and they don’t die of old age so you’d just have an exponential number of bugs. what on earth keeps the number of bugs in check?? i guess they’re still vulnerable to predation and resource scarcity but even so whatever area you’re in is going to have a ridiculously high population of this species. and if they prey on other creatures they’re going to have a huge advantage because of the vitae. oh my god. [turns to my clanmate] are we wreaking havoc on the local ecosystem?
Love the idea of a Nosferatu elder driven to topor because their unliving hive grows too large for them to maintain and drinking them dry no matter how much they kill.
Though, it's also pretty well established ghouls who share a domitor get jealous and possessive over their master, even animal ones. Makes me wonder if the swarms are self-predating in competition for the vitae in a way that keeps their numbers more stable. Paints a chilling image, instinct compelling them to keep breeding but the need for vitae making them eat their young to maintain their access to sufficient vitae. A microcosm of the cannibalistic nature of vampires passed on to even their smallest servitors.
At the very least for eusocial insects I can imagine when a new queen would typically split off to find a new hive there's just a few days where the hive inside the Nosferatu is tearing eachother apart to determine which gets to keep living inside and which is forced out.
*Adds ghouled bees are swarming and seeking new vitae sources to a list of good masquerade breach story hooks*
nosferatu 1: hey you’re not looking too hot are you alright
nosferatu 2: [audible buzzing when they open their mouth] ugh no my hive made a ton of queens this year and now they’re fighting for dominance :/
anyway hmm self-predation is a good point but some won’t physically capable of that (like the moths my nosferatu keeps). maybe since they can choose when exactly to lay eggs they usually just lay them far away to avoid competition. i imagine this would still be giving the outside population a boost in numbers and god forbid you introduce an invasive species somewhere 😭
i was explaining certain vtm mechanics to my mom so that i could tell her about my campaign and when i got to true faith she rolled her eyes, but then i told her "your faith can be in anything! you just have to believe in it hard enough" and she goes
"Flat Earth."
a whole new world has opened up to me. i can give conspiracy theorists true faith. made up of nothing but delusion. this is the funniest fucking thing ever
