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Welcome the wondrous, dark and gritty world of Vampire. Vampire: The Masquerade is the first game in the Classic World of Darkness line, and because of it, has the most content, and perhaps the most convoluted metaplot and design choices of its sister games.

Vampire is a game about Gothic Horror,  Gothic Horror, in it’s distilled, non-nuanced sense, is a set of fiction that simultaneously romanticizes and fears the concept of death, our mortality and the sensation of horror. Gothic Horror takes a look into the psychology of a murderer, the feelings and sensation of the damned and what it would feel like to die.

In this vein, Vampire is a Gothic Horror story about a society of vampires that live beside mortals. This is what specifically the world of darkness is – it’s the mortal world by night, ruled by vampires in their courts. That idea of “what the world is like by night” is carried throughout the entire line of games, but it originates from this franchise. But before going into what vampires do at night in our modern nights, let’s talk about what a vampire is.

About 4000 years ago, there existed a man named Cain. He had a brother named Abel, and because of whatever reason you’d want, Cain killed Abel. This made God mad, and he cursed Cain to become a vampire renamed him Caine, to separate him from the pre-vampire Cain. Caine’s mark made him unable to die but require blood to sustain him, and he could share his curse. Caine sired (Became the ‘parent’ of a vampire. The parent is a sire and the spawn are known as a childe.) 3 vampires and then just fucked off from the earth. These 3 vampires then sired 13 children and too fucked off from the earth. We assume that Caine and his children still exist, but we’ve no idea of where and what. These 13 vampires however, collectively known as the Antediluvian’s, are the First of the clans you belong too. So, if you were Gangrel, you’re antediluvian is Gangrel. And like Caine and his 3 children, a lot of these Antediluvians are also just missing. Now, after thousands of years from that event, you’re here.

This quick story should be all you need to know about the history of vampire. It explains two key concepts incredibly quickly in a way a vampire would know it. Generation, or your blood purity, is how many generations you are away from Caine. Clan is what antediluvian you hail from and what powers you have. Now, with that out of the way, let’s talk about sin and the beast.

The original sin of Caine is what caused vampirism – which resulted in his body being unable to be handled in God’s Presence (The Sun). His childe each had their own sins, which were inherited by the 13 clans, who had their own sins in turn. The breed of vampire you have has an inherent weakness that came from the antediluvian, from the Malkavian Madness to the Gangrel beasthood. So, a modern vampire inherits the clan curse based on who their Antediluvian was, as well as the Mark of Caine.

Compounding this is the concept of the Beast. With Caine’s curse came the beast, or the final acceptance of how damned one truly is. It’s no mystery to anyone that vampires don’t have souls, and are nothing more than reanimated corpses. The only thing that stops you from being a soulless Beast that only exists to feed and live is your humanity.  Truly think about this. As a vampire, you stop aging from the moment you were turned. You don’t need food and only require a certain amount of blood. You gain a bunch of special powers from being able to dominate mortals to being super strong and fast and far, far beyond. Within the first 100 years of your ‘curse’, if you’re anywhere near competent, you’ll be able to be rich beyond your wildest dreams and have anything you desired. Without a doubt, you’ll get bored, and you’ll stop seeing people who live as anything more than food.

This mentality is the measure of humanity that comes with a character. Newly turned people still have a semblance of the mortal they used to be, but as you get older, it becomes harder to remember your mortal life and easier to just accept the predator you are. The fight with the beast at first seems easy, but after the first year it gets dull. After the hundredth year, what’s stopping you from playing with your food?

Now, we’re in a spot to talk about the modern vampire, but I think it’s more prudent here to talk about the society you’re going into than you yourself right now. Otherwise, the next spot won’t make much sense, and I’ll need to be referencing something that makes no contextual sense.
We discussed by now three key concepts. The Curse, The Beast, and Immortality. With these 3 things combined, The World of Darkness comes to three conclusions. The first is to hold onto the strands of your humanity by creating a society (The Camarilla), to accept the beast and keep it at bay by making yourself more than human (The Sabbat) or living each day to its fullest (Anarchs/Independants). After thousands of years, vampire society is based on just different methods to accomplish the same thing – to not become a beast after a millennia of not being able to die.

 Thanks to the beast and the actions of your ancestors, mortal society wants to kill you and are fully capable of doing so. Not just because you drink blood, but because the beast unnerves people around you, and facing off the desire to just kill and gorge yourself on mortal blood. Hell, other vampires also fear you, since a vampire can not only drink the blood of humans, but of vampires. And one that drinks and kills a vampire in such a way commits a sin known as Diablerie – the act of sucking out the soul of their victim. This has many benefits to the killer, least of all gaining access to the powers of the victim, and if the victim was of a generation closer to Caine, the killer’s blood purity raises.


Now, before we talk about the three factions, we need to take a quick side on the actual act of siring/creating new spawn. To a vampire in general, siring is a bad proposition. If you liked a mortal enough, you could make them drink of your blood and they would become addicted and obsessed to you. You could dominate them and make them fall in love with you. You yourself wouldn’t be able to love (You don’t have a soul) but you can desire and obsess.  But actually creating a vampire requires killing a mortal, and giving them some of your blood to replace theirs. This in turn creates someone with free will who not only hunts in your turf, but you are responsible (in most societies) for nurturing. You’ve created another predator that requires food, and might reveal of your existance. For _most_ vampires, creating a new spawn is generally frowned upon. It’s been 2000 to 3000 years since Caine. Vampires are only on their 13th generation. Please remember this snippet, going forward – creating a new vampire doesn’t create a friend for the sire, really. It creates new competition, a new mouth, and a new person who could screw up the masquerade. Oh, and don’t forget, many new vampires Diablerize their sires.

Now, we can talk about the Factions, and who best to lead us but the Camarilla? The Camarilla is the society that most players will be part of, as it follows human society closely. They uphold the idea called the Masquerade, which the game is named after. The idea of the Camarilla is to be a part of human society by pretending to be human. They do not take kindly to people revealing their vampiric nature since that attracts attention to their existence, and new vampires who do are swiftly and quickly killed and their acts covered up. The Camarilla in that sense are vampires who hold onto humanity by pretending to be humans, or as beasts masquerading as people. They hold most of the clans underneath its wing, and to occupy people have a strict hierarchy of rules. But since all vampires are predators, it’s almost become a game to members of the Camarilla – everyone below wants to kill you and take your place, and everyone above fears everyone below, or wants to use them to kill who’s above them on the pecking order. Its mentally insane, but it gives immortals something to do.

The next faction however is the rejection of this notion. Rather than pretending to be humans, Vampires that accept the beast and find a way to feed it without becoming a mindless killer embrace the society known as the Sabbat. The Sabbat is a major contention point, but let’s talk about what it’s meant to be ideally before we talk about how its actually played. The sabbat are vampire supremacists. They do not believe that vampires ought to live in the shadow, but there are more humans, and more people capable of killing vampires, than there are vampires. Sure, an individual vampire might be able to kill a group of humans, but the mortals have a number advantage – and don’t burn in the fucking sun, nor have to sleep during the night or morning, unlike what a vampire is forced too. If the sabbat had its way, they wouldn’t be ‘quietly ruling human lives’ like the camarilla, but enslaving all of humanity for their desires and needs. The main clans that follow the sabbat hold this into their very nature, and refuse to be bound by the rules of mortals. Most sabbat are clever, and do things discreetly – but they can understand the need of just causing chaos, as they don’t care for the masquerade. This is the part where most players will screw up the sabbat, and instead of playing sadists or intelligent killers, will play a concept that’s frowned upon called a shovelhead. Whereas most vampires need to be responsible for their childe, you can in fact create something called a shovelhead – a human that was whacked on the head by a shovel, killed, and made into a vampire to just exist and kill things before they die to the sun and turn to ash. Because of this, many people view players who want to play the sabbat as Chaotic Evil murderhobos, rather than the Choatic Evil “I want to watch world burn and do evil for evil’s sake” people they were made to be.

And then you get the independants, who basically just want to survive. They’re really not worth talking about outside of the fact they exist, since each of them are varied on their goals, and you would be better off reading their own splats. Special mention however goes to the Giovanni, who are basically Vampire Mafioso’s who are the “don of dons”. If you’re considering an independent, look at Giovanni first.

With society out of the way, let’s talk about the modern vampire. A vampire is going to be part of a society, since we do not allow shovelheads. And a major part of creating a vampire is the reason for embrace. Earlier, I mentioned that creating a vampire is generally a bad idea for a sire. You are responsible for them, and there’s a very real chance they will make you look bad in society, or worse, turn on you and diablerize your soul. Love isn’t a thing that really exists for vampires since you don’t really have a soul, and if you were obsessing over someone, they’d be a better target to be ghouled or just mentally dominated. A ghoul, quickly, is someone who drank of vampire blood and is obsessed with the vampire. A lot of ‘the vampire loved me and turned me’ concepts should really be ghouls – and we will not be allowing them. So, the question is, why would a vampire sire someone? The answer is inherently selfish – they only really embrace people that would further their plans. Even Toreador’s, who noticeably ‘fall in love at a heartbeat’, don’t embrace their lovers. They embrace artists or people who ‘deserve’ immortality for creating art. The best Toreador’s embrace artists who want to commit suicide, to make them suffer. When thinking about your character and the reason to embrace, realize you’re being inducted into a society that doesn’t really want you there, and the sire would like you to be killed after your use is up. The average joe is a terrible mistake to sire, but someone who’s at the forefront of business acumens and incredibly rich and able to handle a book? Probably prime vampire material. A vampire would much prefer to make a vampire instead of a ghoul when they believe the person has inherent worth to their plans as a whole – and not one specific thing. If you’re only ‘heavy muscle’, ghouling is generally a better choice, but if you’re a trained soldier capable of infiltrating and fighting, you’d be a better vampire. This is double for sabbat, who historically do not embrace. They do not like humans, and would rather torture people than ‘gift them with immortality’. Sure, shovelheads are fine, but they die really quick. But creating a new sabbat means this person is inherently cruel, or their existence would be a benefit for the Camarilla, and they’d be better off being twisted into the Sabbat then killed.

Now, you’re a vampire that’s cursed into a society that doesn’t want you, with a beast that prevents you from being human – and you’ve got what the gothic horror of vampire is. It’s coming to terms with an immortality and life that hates you. You might be powerful, but it doesn’t mean much when it doesn’t really matter, and the only way to go ‘up’ in society is to kill the people above in a way that doesn’t incriminate you. You want to diablerize your sire, and your sire’s sire to be the strongest you can be – but being caught is dangerous. You cant make friends with mortals, since they’d realize quickly you’re a vampire (he never goes out in the morning, doesn’t eat food…) and your ‘friends’ would be people obsessed with your blood or mentally dominated to say they like you. Your goal is power and living your life, after all --- but the question vampire really poses is, is life worth living? If so, is your unlife worth living?

Before I do end this primer, I want to talk about a few misconceptions. One of the big ones is that vampires don’t ‘really’ have emotions, and the whole lover types fo vampires don’t actually exist. Most of them are only after the blood, and while they can have sex – they gain nothing from it but pretending to be human. Early, young vampires might participate, but it costs them blood to pretend to be human, and they don’t even ejaculate. Vampires don’t really love, they obsess. It’s not so much having a lover, is that no one else can have them.

The second is murderhobos. Just don’t play them, they aren’t fun, and a properly made sabbat is a serial killer with a method – not a mad dog.


Welcome to the dark world of Vampire. It’s incredibly enjoyable, especially the splats that compose it, but also tends to be confusing if you don’t accept the inherent darkness.