#vtm lore

[mrsqadiral-asmai]

I don’t give a fuck what the actual lore is in VTM, in the south one of the Elysium HAS to be in a Waffle House.

[possessedopossum]

you mentioned on your toreador post that you were taking requests and also you mentioned the malkavians, so I’m curious how you’d interpret them. how would they fit into the ashirra? would their tendency towards prophecy and mysticism lead them to Sufism like the toreadors or do they have something else going on?

I think fundamentally, Ashirra Malkavians aren't that much different from others. West Asia wasn't backwards when it came to mental health at all, scientists of Islamic Golden Age wrote very extensively on the topic. Ibn Sina and Al-Razi described what we would call mania, depression and psychosis today, and distinguished between melancholia and madness. The oldest manuscript on bipolar disorder, "Treatise on Melancholy", was written in 10th century by Ibn Imran. If anything, Golden Age Ashirra should be better than Camarilla, not worse. The stygmatizing, institutional model we know today comes from Western colonial powers.

The first archetype that comes to my mind when thinking of Ashirra Malks is a dervish who appears to be mad, yeah. The Malamatiyya are a perfect fit, they cultivated blame ("malama") as a spiritual discipline and broke conventions to humble their ego and root out hypocrisy. But that can't be all ofc.

I think a good angle for an Ashirra chronicle is the question whether vampirism, and therefore Malkavian affliction, is a physical sickness or a test from God. The region has strong arguments for both positions, since it's deeply religious and has a history of scientific discoveries that were centuries ahead of Europe. Islam as a whole is less hostile to the supernatural, the Quran and Hadith very explicitly recognize the Jinn as sentient creatures who are capable of both good and evil, so it is not a stretch to think of vampires who don't want to part with their Muslim identity. Yet, even those of Muslim identity understand the importance of scientific method. A potential story hook is a Golden Age scientist trying to study the supernatural and cure a Malkavian of their affliction. Characters don't know that they're characters in a ttrpg and that the affliction isn't gonna go away. I'm always against giving characters too much info about the world, there is no worldwide understanding of vampiric condition, clans and the patriarchs in my headcanons. Everything is regional and viewed from the lenses that sound the most normal to the time of somebody's embrace. There's another post about Ashirra as a whole if you're interested.

There's a very interesting but often ignored religious concept of predestination, and I speak about Malkavians as much as about vampires as a whole bc they are linked in this. Keep in mind that this is a Sunni belief. Think of God like someone watching a movie for the second time, He already knows exactly what will happen on screen, but the characters are still making their choices for the first time. Nothing about this belief is evil, it still assumes that individuals have free choice. But in certain people, this belief sometimes becomes very ugly. A vampire might attribute everything bad that happened to them to God, that He already knows that the vampire in question is irredeemably evil and is punishing them accordingly. It must hit Malkavians harder bc they have been punished twice, with vampirism and mental illness. This is not a mainstream Sunni belief, this is actually a major sin (despairing of God's mercy), but it might be a belief some characters genuinely hold. It is also possible for an individual Malkavian to seek purification and even martyrdom, if they believe their condition to be a spiritual test.

Modern nights should be especially bad for Malks bc they often treat religious and scientific as incompatible. OCD-like compulsion could create a lot of inner conflict because of the concept of waswasa, the whispers of doubt. They really could think Shaitan is talking to them. Or other characters who know about their compulsion might think this way. Though once again, this is not the opinion of the majority. I just think it's a great theme to explore.

VtM doesn't understand how history works, my biggest gripe is with Kindred having a unified opinion on themselves, their clans and progenitors, when realistically, people shouldn't know shit about Malkav. A Kindred from 8th century Baghdad might believe that Malkav was a man of black bile and extreme humours disbalance, and a Kindred from a 13th century Persian Sufi order might believe Malkav was a saint who cloaked himself in madness to protect his station from worldly fame. And a Salafi Kindred might believe that Malkav is Dajjal, the false messiah who will be slain by Prophet Isa at the end of times. The pragmatic view from any rural area of any time and place might be that Malkav is a powerful Jinn who was bound by a sorcerer or a saint, and his madness is simply his nature bleeding into his host. I think WoD's lore about the Jinn is cringe and irl Jinn are more interesting and do more justice to the region. A modern secularist Kindred might think Malkav was a man with a severe neurological condition mythologized by pre-scientific age, and that vampirism itself is a virus. Any esoteric Kindred might think that Malkav witnessed the cosmic truth of the world and had his mind shattered. This type of Kindread will certainly treat ravings as coded revelations.

The best Ashirra companions for a Malkavian character, imo, are Banu Haqim, Toreadors and Lasombra. BH can be both compassionate scientists and extremists wanting to destroy them, Toreadors are more likely to treat them as humans and not a walking proof of any philosophical concept, since their main concern is beauty, and Lasombra have great potential for an esoteric approach. Zahir/Batin dichotomy (outer and hidden meaning) works very well with Lasombra's theme of darkness, also black is a Shia color, and the color of Abbasid court.

Canon and fanon love to depict friendship between Malks and Nosferatu, and I would strongly advise against that. Nosferatu being an Ashirra leader is honestly laughable in itself. Inner virtue compensating for outer deformity is a Protestant trope, it has little place in Ashirra. In Islam, especially so in Persianate world, beauty isn't a mask for virtue, it's virtue made visible. The Sufi tradition held that divine beauty manifests in the physical world, and ugliness, by contrast, was seen as a sign of spiritual ugliness and a distance from God.

Nosferatu look like shit, it would make more sense for them to be called najis, ritual impurity, than respected for inner virtue. If a Nosferatu has permanent wounds festering with pus, they're perpetually unclean and exiled from religious community. Their prayer doesn't count bc they can't perform wudu, ritual ablution, this is much darker and existential than western "woe is me, I'm ugly". A Malamati-like Malkavian might be friends with a Nosferatu, but that would be a minority stance. I think most would rather not make their social position worse. Btw Nosferatu are better to be associated with the ghoul, the actual middle eastern "vampires". They're the Jinn that haunt deserts and graveyards, feed on corpses and turn into hyenas or young and attractive men and women to lure people to their deaths. Works well with their animalism and mask of a thousand faces.

If you want darker stuff, check the monastery of St Anthony of Qozhaya in Lebanon and its cave of the mad (people were chained in a cave in expectation that the saint will come and cure them). Also you can check mad caliph Al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah for inspiration, he's called the Fatimid Nero for his insane decrees. You can even make him a vampire or related to supernaturals in any other way since he disappeared under mysterious circumstances. For a time he forced Cairo to sleep during the day and work during the night. Holy fools are called majdhub, they were very common in Syria and Egypt between 16th and 18th century, a holy fool Malkavian might be an advisor who is allowed to call out the local leader on their bullshit and survive that only because of their holy fool status. But perhaps the most interesting idea is to divorce Malkavians from the western idea of mental illness altogether, and to make them truly Islamic by basing their affliction on stories like the one about the love between Majnun and Layla. Majnun literally means "madman" and "Jinn-possessed". He is a man consumed by emotion so vast and overwhelming that it breaks the frame of ordinary human existence, his madness is a state of transient divine ecstasy he can't contain. So a Malkavian can be Majnun, whether in love with his Layla, God, an idea or a place, and the love unmakes them in a way that looks like madness to others. There are several degrees of love in Sufi tradition, ishq is the one that overwhelms all reason.

There could be lots of interesting conflicts on the topic whether Malkavian ravings are false gospel, glimpses of ghayb, the unseen world, or bad brain chemistry, and since I don't want Ashirra to be Camarilla but with turbans and set in Cairo, that's what I would focus on. The most Islamic concept of a Malkavian character to me is an Umayyad era official who fell in love with a Christian nun from Jerusalem, walked into the desert bc of his obsession and got embraced there. An ancient, half-mythical figure who appears in Ashirra cities to deliver cryptic prophecies of doom sounds cool as fuck to me.

[storytellersnotebook]

-- The Traditions --

Believed by some Kindered to be handed down by Caine himself, The Traditions are the fundemental laws of The Camarilla, whom have historically been one of the most powerful groups since the 15th Century. Their influence is so wide that most Kindered cultures have been touched by The Traditions, such as presentation, the Blood Hunt, the parcelling of land and, most vitally, The Masquerade. A rough equivalent under the Sabbat is the Code of Milan and Anarch societies maintain order by following related, more mutable rules. In modern nights, the local Prince fulfills the role of the Elder.

First Tradition - The Masquerade -

'Thou shall not reveal thy true nature to those not of the blood.' Doing so shall renounce thy claims of the blood. [Hide the existance of vampires.]

Second Tradition - The Domain -

'Thy domain is thine own concern.' All others owe thee respect in it. None may challenge thy word in thy domain. [A Kindered's hunting ground is their own territory, and they rule is absolutely.]

Third Tradition - The Progeny -

'Thou shall only sire another with the permission of thy Elder.' If thou createth another without thine Elder's leave, both thou and thy progeny shall be slain. [Sire only with the permission of ones Elders.]

Fourth Tradition - The Accounting -

'Those thou create are thine own children.' Until thy progeny shall be released, thou shall command them in all things. Their sins are thine to endure. [Until childer are released, their actions are the responsibility of their sire, giving insentive to mentor them.]

Fifth Tradition - The Hospitality -

'Honour one another's domain.' When thou comest to a foreign city, present thyself to the one who ruleth there. Without the word of acceptance, thou art nothing. [Honour the domains of others, and present oneself to the ruler of any domain entered.]

Sixth Tradition - The Destruction -

'Thou art forbidden to destroy another of thy kind.' The right of destruction belongeth only to thine Elder. Only the Eldest amongst thee shall call the Blood Hunt. [The right to kill a Kindered is reserved for the Eldest in a community. Only they may call for a Blood Hunt.]

[edinburgh-by-night]

The Fringe Festival, known to cause Edinburgh's population to quadruple for an entire month has unwritten guidelines for residing Kindred when it arrives every August.

Performers are considered off-limits to being hunted or indeed embraced, due to the potential heat their disapperances could bring. Too many variables could be a Masquerade hazard. As such, they are protected and any Kindred that violates this rule will be punished with True Death, by decree of Camarilla elders. This protection does not, however, extend to stage crew or promotional staff.

Kindred are forbidden from participating in the Fringe Festival to entice victims. This is a performing arts festival, with many actual acts wishing to get noticed - completely going against the ethos of secrecy. Many broken Masquerade near-misses have been caused by too many bold and overly-ambitious Kindred.

Kindred are forbidden from feeding on more than three tourists for the entire month of August. There are a lot of vampires in Edinburgh and it is a tourist hotspot, but too many too quickly would eventually look suspicious.

Because of these tight restrictions, many local Kindred actually migrate away from the City Centre due to not wanting to walk on eggshells while hunting.

[veepadeep]

First tablet post! Ignore the hands, you don’t see them. It’s the *viibes*

My Trujah again! Gonna post more stuff about her later.

[priapocalypse]

Vampire: the Masquerade Musings:

The Hecata Curse

I find it interesting that the formation of the Hecata in V5 saw the Giovanni curse spread to the other clans of death (I know it didn't do this with every member, but still). The painful bite bane is not Cappadocian - it was inflicted on Augustus Giovanni by Lamia as he diablerized her. I'm omitting lore on who these people are, but I can go into detail if anyone wants it.

So... how did the other clans of death develop this bane? The antediluvian Cappadocius was the originator of the entire bloodline, so each clan except for the Giovanni and Nagaraja (who were Euthanatos mages that created themselves without Capp's specific blood) had a variation of their founder's curse that gave them the appearance of a corpse. What changed?

Well, in lore, it's strongly implied that Cappadocius was not actually diablerized, but instead became a power wraith in the Shadowlands, where he could further his quest to diablerize God (#goals), and that during the 6th Great Maelstrom in 1999, he was finally destroyed (there's a bit in one of the wraith books about a "captain doshus" or something). That's also the time when Augustus disappeared and the Harbingers broke free of their prison in Kaymakli.

Skip forward to the V5 timeline. Augustus is supposedly dead, and Lamia *may* have been resurrected. Why did Augustus' specific curse appear in all the clans who formed the Hecata? Did Uncle Auggie really die, or did he finally succeed in diablerizing Cappi and become head of the bloodline? Or did Lamia inflict her curse anew, spreading to all clans of the Hecata, even the Nagaraja? Ooor, is Lamia the actual founder of the bloodline? So many interesting questions. I have theories, but I'd love to hear what others think!

[tzimisce-suggest]

The Salubri were innocent

You don‘t have to tell us. It was Clan Tzimisce that extended their hospitality to Clan Salubri when the Usurpers started their witch-hunt against them.

[royal-mortician]

on the ventrue clan curse...

it’s a commonly held misconception that ventrue need to feed on kine with a high social status.

ventrue develop discerning tastes on an individual basis. a single ventrue will “lock onto” a particular type of blood as long as it’s specific enough (”I only eat doctors” “I only eat lawyers”, young men, virgins, etc). it’s not based on the kine’s pedigree or net worth, but rather the idea that only this particular type of person has blood that can satisfy the ventrue’s thirst. true enough, the ventrue antediluvian was cursed with the following words:

Behold, my proudest childe whose

own pride betrayed him.

Let the blood of the humble

sicken him and give him no

substenance.

but the chief idea here is exclusivity. some ventrue will go as far as to deny their clan weakness being a curse at all, but rather simply rarified tastes that the “lesser” clans simply “don’t get”. the supposed existence of truly devastating obsessions among some ventrue - to the point of only being able to feed on a single individual, period - probably says otherwise.

the clan curse does not extend to vampiric vitae, however. diablerie is always possible, even if the only mortal blood one can drink is “mailmen cowboys who lost their memory by being shot in the head but surviving”