Vitae is the substance that fuels a vampire's existence. It is nothing less that the blood of others stolen and condensed inside the vampires undead form into a mystically potent thick ruby red ichor. Hunger for blood to create the vitae that fuels a vampire's unlife is the paramount and most all consuming drive that kindred feels.
Kindred may spend Vitae as a reflexive action, the limit to which they can do this in a turn is determined by their generation. A kindred may store as many points of Vitae in their system as their generation permits, more vitae does not mean a greater quantity of blood in their undead bodies, all kindred fully gorged on blood have the same physical quantity within them (10 fluid Ounces), but rather lower generation kindred have more potent vitae which can do more with less. So 1 point of vitae for a generation 13 vampire is 1 oz while for a 7th generation one point would be 0.5 oz.
A kindred's vitae is incredibly potent, when someone ingests another's vitae they feel themselves enter a heady, euphoric state. Vitae can give those who partake in it a high better than any others, though the potency of the effect increases the lower the generation of the vampire is question is. Mortals and other Supernaturals can easily become hopelessly addicted to vitae, while Kindred (and to a lesser extent Ghouls) seem to have an innate resistance to become slavishly addicted junkies, even still they find the substance intoxicatingly alluring.
Vampires always want to feed if they're under their Vitae maximum, but they are hungry anytime their total vitae reaches 7 minus their composure dots (minimum of 2), and starving when their blood pool is empty. A kindred who is hungry, or completely drained of vitae might be driven into wassail, see the page on Frenzy for more.
Uses of Vitae
Activating Disciplines
One of the most straightforward uses of Vitae is to activate certain disciplines which have a vitae cost.
The Blood Bond
Kindred can use their Vitae to create a potent connection known as the Blood Bond. Its one of the most wondrous and terrible properties of Kindred vitae is its ability to enslave nearly any being who drinks of it three times. Each sip of a particular Kindred’s blood gives the Kindred in question a greater emotional hold over the drinker.The kindred must feed his victim a point of vitae, after that he has entered one of the three stages of the Blood Bond. The kindred must return to her victim on another night and deliver a second dose increase the bond to the second stage, and finally on a third separate night to increase the bond to its third stage.
First Stage - The drinker begins to experience intermittent but strong feelings about the vampire. She may dream of him, or find herself “coincidentally” frequenting places where he might show up. All childer have this level of bond toward their sires, for the Embrace itself forces one drink upon the childer; they may love their “parents,” hate them, or both, but are rarely indifferent toward them.
Second Stage - The drinker’s feelings grow strong enough to influence her behavior. Though she is by no means enslaved to the vampire, he is definitely an important figure in her life. She may act as she pleases, but might have to make a Willpower roll to take actions directly harmful to the vampire. The vampire’s influence is such that he can persuade or command her with little effort
Third Stage - Full-scale blood bond. At this level, the drinker is more or less completely bound to the vampire. He is the most important person in her life; lovers, relatives, and even children become secondary to her all-consuming passion. Anytime a Thrall tries to act against her Regnants interests he must roll. Spend a willpower point and roll Resolve to even attempt it.
Those in a Full Blood Bond are known as "thralls," those commanding a full blood bond are known as Regnants or Domitors.
The blood bond is true love, albeit a twisted and perverse version of it. Ultimately, we can’t reduce the vagaries of love down to a simple “yes/no” system. Some thralls (particularly people with Conformist or other dependent Natures, or with Willpower 4 or less) will commit any act, including suicide or murder, for their beloved; other characters have certain core principles that they will not violate. A full blood bond, once formed, is nearly inviolate. Once bound, a thrall is under the sway of her regnant and her regnant only. She cannot be bound again by another vampire unless the first blood bond wears away “naturally.” A vampire can experience lesser (one- and two-drink) bonds toward several individuals; indeed, many Kindred enjoy such bonds, as they create artificial passion in their dead hearts. Upon the formation of a full blood bond, though, all lesser sensations are wiped away.
A blood bond can be broken, though this requires the thrall to not only avoid the regnant entirely for an extended period of time, but also spend great amounts of Willpower to overcome the addiction.
The Blood Buff
When a kindred is embraced their physical attributes cease to be an expression of their muscles and bones and more of an expression of undead nature. Kindred are usually (but not always) roughly as strong, fast, and tough as they were in life upon first being embraced, the reasons for this are unknown. After the embrace a kindred by become permanently more physically potent quite easily so long as her player as the required XP.
However, another method that kindred display is the Blood Buff: for 1 Vitae a kindred can increase all of his Physical Attributes by 2 for a turn. This addition to attributes does not count towards your base attribute generational limit, however it cannot raise your physicals over twice your attribute Maximum (which only really comes up at 8th generation or lower).
Healing
Kindred do not heal like living beings, no amount of hospitalization can close up dead wounds. Instead this must be accomplished with vitae. Kindred heal their health boxes right to left like all characters, so you must heal less severe forms of damage before you can get to the more severe type.
Bashing Damage: 1 Vitae spent will heal up to 2 points of Bashing Damage.
Lethal Damage: 1 Vitae spent will heal 1 point of Lethal Damage.
Aggravated Damage: 5 Vitae Spent will heal 1 Point of Aggravated over the course of 3 days. Each point of aggravated takes a seperate 3 days.
Counterfeit Life
Kindred can for a scene use some of his blood to simulate some aspect of a human body. Activating any of these has a cost associated with it determined by your Humanity/Road/Path rating and lasta a scene.
-Activate Autonomic Responses: Kindred don't actually need to breath or blink. When this is active a kindred will reflexively breath, blink, and some some vitae will simulate a weak pulse.
-Keep Food Down: A kindred can use some of his blood to invigorate his stomach so he can swallow food. This does nothing to stop the fact that all food tastes like burnt ash to a kindred unless they have the eat food merit or are under the effects of domino of life.
-Warm the body: The most common use of this ability. The kindred can use this to warm her undead body so she feels like she's someone with a low body temperature. This use will invigorate all her dead flesh and organs, making sex possible (with lubrication). When a kindred does this her skin tone will flush to someone who is just rather pale. Kindred with the Blush of Health merit who use this ability find that merits effects are enhanced even further.
-Simulate fluids: At all times so long as the kindred isn't hungry some of the blood in her body is being magically transmuted into fluids that allow her to masquerade without looking like she's an engorged cranberry: fluid in her skin to keep it from going papery dry, aqueous humors in the eyes, saliva in the mouth. This aspect of counterfeit life expands on that, when is activated some of the kindreds blood with transmute itself into some fake simulation of real bodily fluids: for the rest of the scene she will sweat, bleed when wounded, cry tears instead of blood, have sexual fluids, and even urinate if he wanted to.
Embracing
Another use of the vitae is to create progeny. To embrace a new vampire you drain them of all of their blood then feed them a vitae while their body is warm. A newly embraced vampire has all existing blood bonds shattered and is blood bound to the first degree to their sire. They are one generation higher than their sire. The embrace is taxing on a vampire, every embrace beyond the first in the span of a month costs a kindred a a willpower dot.
Creating Ghouls
The vitae can be used to create and maintain ghouls, mortals who are gifted a bit of a vampires supernatural power. The vampire simply feeds a mortal a vitae and spends a willpower point. From then on the mortal is a ghoul but must be fed a vitae every month to maintain her state. See the page on Ghouls for more information.
Replenishing Vitae
Kindred replenish their vitae by drinking blood. Pretty much as simple as that. Kindred have retractable fangs that can pierce a prey's flesh easily. Once bitten his victim is overcome by The Kiss, an orgasmic feeling that washes away all pain and discomfort, making the vessel putty in the kindreds hands. Supernatural Creatures and Mortals with high willpower can resist the effects of The Kiss with a successful Resolve + Composure roll. Most people affected by the kiss find their memories of the event fuzzy and difficult to recall, those who can remember generally reconstruct their memories to make more sense "Oh yeah, he bit me and it felt amazing, man he's just really good in bed!" Mortals can find themselves becoming addicted to the kiss, those that do are known as Blood Dolls
When a Kindred feeds he takes 1 Pint of blood from his victim a turn, unless they are a vampire then he takes 1 point of vitae a turn.
If the character feeds but is currently Hungry or Starving a frenzy check is necessary to see if the character enters wassail while feeding. If the player fails this roll, the character continues to gorge on the vessel until she is completely sated and may keep going. Hungry and Starving characters may also be prompted by wassail checks at moments they could potentially feed.
Hunting and Feeding from Humans
Human blood satiates the beast deeply. To hunt a vampire makes a Hunting roll which can vary depending upon the way in which the character describes themselves hunting. Someone stalking the streets for lone mortals might roll Wits + Streetwise, where as someone seducing a a club might roll Manipulation + Presence. A successful roll means you spend half a night hunting and get one vessel for every success, an exceptional success or higher means that it only takes you a quarter of the night.
Humans have as many pints of blood within them equal to their size multiplied by two, so most humans have 10 pints of blood, which could become 10 points of vitae. A vampire can take 1 pint of blood from a healthy mortal and simply leave them woozy, taking two pints of blood will leave most healthy humans in shock and could be disastrous to those weaker, sickly, or impaired. Taking between 3 - 4 pints of vitae from a human leaves them in shock and in desperate need of hospitalization. Taking five or more pints of blood will kill a mortal in most situations.
Each point of blood taken from a mortal deals 1 lethal damage.
Feeding from Animals
Animal blood is not as nourishing to the beast as human blood. It provides only a fraction of the nourishment that human blood does, even if there is a much greater volume of it. A vampire who feeds too much on animals also makes his beast insatiably hungry, making Wassails far more common and harder to resist. Kindred who feed exclusively on animals night after night will find themselves fighting Hunger Frenzy even when full. Rumors exist however of magical abilities, talismans, strange disciplines, or even certain meditative practices that can cause animal blood to be as nourishing to vampires as human blood.
Feeding from other Supernaturals
Supernatural blood is funny, sometimes its effects can be dramatic, sometimes it can do little. Some is incredibly delectable to vampires, while some can be foul. The most commonly known about is werewolf blood. Werewolf blood causes a kindred to grow as hot as a feverish mortal all through his body, engorges desires in the kindred for sex and violence, gains them +2 to strength and stamina for the night, but also make it much harder for a kindred to resist anger frenzy while making even slight provocations provoke the beast and force a kindred to try to fight it. 1 pint of werewolf blood, even if it isn't fresh, will give the kindred 2 vitae and deliver the above mentioned double edge sword.
Feeding from other Vampires
A vampire can feed from another vampire, swapping vitae at a 1 for 1 ratio, unless there is a significant difference in generation. A particularly low generation kindred being fed on by one a few steps higher than him could provide the feeding kindred with two or more vitae for every one drank from the kindred being fed upon, of course the reverse is also true. However this doesn't really come up at all if both of the kindred kindred in question are between 8th and 15th generation, such things only coming into play when a kindred of 7th or lower generation is involved. Feeding on kindred also brings with it the risk of developing a blood bond.
The Blood Sympathy
Blood calls to blood. Relatives by blood share a certain amount of mystical sympathy; they can feel one another at their most important moments. They sometimes feel strong sensations and emotions from their relatives, including frenzies, the pain of violent torpor, and the shame of crushing defeat. This is rarely with clarity; it comes in the form of cryptic symbols, daymares, and hallucinations. Only the strongest ties —such as those between sire and childe — result in clear messages. The various effects depend on how many steps removed the two characters are.
Principal Sympathy: This step is for sires and their childer exclusively. Sires and childer enjoy a +2 on all sympathy-based rolls. This level of sympathy has no range limits; sires and childer feel each other world-around.
Primary Sympathies: This step is for siblings, grandchilder, and grandsires. Twice-removed Kindred receive a +1 die bonus on all sympathy-based rolls. Sympathy affects any relative on the same continent.
Secondary Sympathies: This step is for cousins, a sire’s siblings, great grandsires and great grandchilder Great great gransires and great great grandchilder. Secondary sympathies are also known to sometimes develop amongst other direct blood relative that reside in the same area for long periods, or even pairs that are fully blood bound to each other for long periods. No bonus is gained.
When prompted, a character may roll to detect blood sympathy. She may also spend a point of Willpower to force sympathy and detect a specific relative, assuming they’re within the range allotted by their tie. The kindred rolls Wits + Blood Potency + Blood Sympathy if successful the character connects with the relative. She gets a vague impression of the character’s mental state, and his general direction. Finally she knows if he’s reached torpor or Final Death but not which, unless an exceptional success is gained. As well as feeling the sensations of their relatives, vampires are more capable of using their Mental Disciplines and Blood Magic on those with whom they share blood ties. If a vampire uses a mental discipline on a relative, add the blood sympathy bonus to the roll. It is rumored that blood magic rituals to make the sympathetic bond stronger are how certain clans like the Tremere or the Assamites keep their house in order.
Sympathy comes into effect automatically any time a vampire’s relative enters torpor or suffers Final Death. The feeling washes over the vampire and she senses her relative’s state in vague, often symbolic terms. As well, characters can initiate sympathy to feel out their relatives states of being if they are once or twice removed. Each success allows them to contact a single relative; the relative must still make the roll to detect sympathy. Any particularly powerful emotion can trigger sympathy, at Storyteller discretion. This is less a foolproof detective tool, more a dramatic device. Any time a relative suffers a horrible fate, sympathy may cause frenzies.
Its thought that the elders, the true elders, have a much greater understanding and control of the effects of Blood Sympathy than most cainites sired in the last few thousand years, able to reach down their entire bloodline with their psyche and pluck them like chords. "young" vampires who can do the same are practically unheard of and usually can only perform similar feats under special circumstances.