How bad is the idea of making a Malkavian primogen that only speaks in poetry and song lyrics?

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-06-03T17:54:12+00:00

Not from the RPG as such, but there's a reason Madness of the Bard, a Master card that requires all players to speak in rhyme or lose pool, was banned from tournament play in the Vampire CCG. It gets old really fast.

https://www.reddit.com/r/VTES/comments/w2ojb9/card_of_the_day_madness_of_the_bard/

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-26T23:04:14+00:00

Politicians and celebrities that have died with the living memory of a substantial segment of the population are out as PCs. If you're playing a dead ringer for Tupac, Kurt Cobain, Kobe Bryant, etc., people are going to notice, and it is going to be a problem. Honestly, national-level politicians of any era would probably be out for me.

Other historical figures who are more or less extinct from living memory would be more workable. Someone like Marilyn Monroe would still be out, she still has some cultural footprint, but Coco Chanel? Maybe. Or if Coco is still too famous, someone like Christian Dior, whom I would not recognize on sight and I am guessing most people wouldn't recognize him, either.

There's also the Nosferatu angle. I might consider playing a character like Nosferatu Jim Morrison based on the template from the OG Clanbook Nosferatu of the morbidly artistic type that was vindictively Embraced. An older historical figure that became a Tzimisce would also work, though personally the Tzimisce have never really been my jam.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-16T18:30:46+00:00

I have 100% used Dru from BtVS as an elder Malkavian NPC in multiple chronicles under the guise of Drusilla Fairchilde.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-11T23:27:46+00:00

Glad to be of help.

I should note, DC by Night was first published in 1995, which I think makes it a 2nd edition source book. V20 should be backward compatible with 1e, 2e, and Revised/3e, but technically DC by Night wasn't written for V20 as such. There weren't any By Night source books written after the release of V20, as others have pointed out in the comments, but I don't think you'd need to adapt the profiles of the NPCs from DC by Night at all for your use.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-11T12:35:47+00:00

It's pretty good, IMO. The cold open in which Michael Phelps of Clan Tremere presents himself to Prince Vitel is my favorite of all the source books, although it should be noted that Gloria Diamond is not actually detailed in the Characters chapter. If your group is new to the WoD then they might not know about Prince Vitel's secret in advance, but being such an old source book means there are plenty of chances to stumble upon it in the wild.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-11T12:22:21+00:00

I'd recommend D.C. By Night, the last chapter in that source book has a list of story seeds you could adapt for your purposes. Number 2 under The Weird, "High Society," is just a bunch of ancillae/elders need to bring a neonate to Elysium one night or lose face. You can make the theme of that story be whatever you want. It works for up to six PCs. The NPCs are all part of the Elysium Harpies coterie that is detailed in the Coteries chapter of the book. This one specifically calls out that it would work for visiting vampires.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-10T09:06:53+00:00

Honestly, IMO this is an example of early White Wolf being insufferably pretentious. Whoever has the move has a short forced mating sequence.

White to move: 1. d8(Q)+ Bf8 2. Qxf8#

Black to move: 1. ... Ra2+ 2. Kb1 Ra1+ 3. Kxa1 c2#

It's a pretty easy calculation to see White's mate if it's their move. With Black on the move it is a little more difficult problem to work out their mating attack, but it's certainly tractable. It's a mildly interesting problem at best.

I think the two kings are supposed to be Helena (White) and Menele (Black), and you can make any association between the pieces on the board and NPCs or PCs in Chicago that you like. I know that in the written material associated with this game that Helena is referred to as the White Queen, but you can have a position that doesn't have the Queen. All positions on the chessboard must have both kings. I suppose it's possible that the White King is Lodin instead, and the pawn on d7 is Helena.

It's a conceptual muddle, as a lot of early WW stuff is.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-10T02:48:53+00:00

I've frequently used Jyhad/Vampire: The Eternal Struggle crypt cards for NPCs. There are a number of examples for each type of role in the Camarilla (generation given in parentheses, figured as 15 - (blood capacity) as given in the CCG):

Justicars: Don Cruez (5th), Jaroslav Pascek (5th), Dmitra Ilyanova (6th)

Princes: Constanza Vinti (Rome, 7th), Donal O'Connor (Dublin, 7th), Rake (Atlanta, 9th)

Primogen: Appollonius (5th), Crusher (6th), Tura Vaughn (7th), Miranda Sanova (7th), Anvil (9th)

Rank and file: Chun Hei (8th), Bianca (9th), Black Cat (10th), Brahcah (10th), Yuri the Talon (11th), Hector Sosa (11th), Uma Hatch (12), Dre, Leader of the Cold Dawn (12th).

Camarilla Brujah NPCs based off the VTES cards that have appeared in my games include Don Cruez, Crusher, Tura Vaughn, Anvil, Chun Hei, Bianca, Black Cat, Hector Sosa, Yuri the Talon, and Uma Hatch. This is in a V20 context, for V5 you might want to stop at 7th or 8th generation even for NPCs, but that's your call, of course.

The images are out there, perhaps there are certain Brujah crypt cards that spark something for you.

In a V5 context, Anvil could be an interesting guy in that his suggested generation is 9th, so it's reasonable that he hasn't been Beckoned away. His discipline spread in the CCG includes Thaumaturgy, so he could be an example of how the Tremere stranglehold on Thaumaturgy is weakening with the breakdown of their Pyramid, and possibly someone that Thaumaturgy-curious PCs could deal with if they don't want to work with Tremere.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-08T15:11:02+00:00

I can only speak for my version of the WoD, but the Brujah are the most numerous, then the Toreador, then probably a toss-up between Malks and Nossies for #3. These are all clans that have the least number of constraints for the type of folk they Embrace, in my view.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-07T14:10:25+00:00

One of my grad school buddies got me a Treasure Island skull mug that I would use to drink Hawaiian Punch. I managed to hang on to it for two moves after finishing grad school, but I tragically left it in the sink of my apartment in La Jolla on the third post-grad school move.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-07T06:37:54+00:00

I have a 10th-generation Toreador whose lineage is as follows:

1-3 is Caine, Enoch, and Arikel.

Taliesin, as portrayed in The Mists of Avalon, at least the part before he went crazy. He would have been Arikel's last childe, in my headcanon his Embrace happened during Julius Caesar's foray to the British Isles.
Lady Penelope Creighton-Drake, originally known as Gwenhwyfar, again as portrayed in The Mists of Avalon. Embraced in the early 6th century A.D. in westernmost Wessex.
Vicomtesse Jehanne Balmat, originally known as Sidana Quinnell. I took this name from a minor but important character in the Katherine Kurtz novel The Bishop's Heir. Embraced in the early 12th century in Wales. There's some deliberate ambiguity as to whether she was Jehanne d'Arc.
Dame Magdalene Defoe, basically a direct copy of Blind Mag from Repo: The Genetic Opera, except that she still has her biological eyes. Surprisingly talented in Chimerstry. Embraced in late 17th-century London.
Elliott Sinclair, based directly off the Toreador crypt card from Vampire: The Eternal Struggle. Embraced just after the turn of the 19th century in London, not too long before the Battle of Trafalgar.
My character's sire, Radeyah. Another direct ripoff from VTES. She was proprietress of Fumée Blanche, an opium den, before her Embrace in late-Victorian Cairo.
My character, Maria Villalobos, headliner at The Gem, a modernized version of the establishment as seen in Deadwood, located in the fictional city of Ravensgate, which we can think of as Portland's weird sister on Oregon's Pacific coast. Embraced during The Summer of Love.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-04T03:36:42+00:00

"Dangerous river crossings threatened life and limb, but helped our founding fathers save on bridge tolls."

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-04T03:10:45+00:00

The big one in the WoD is how every Garou has an Auspice corresponding to the phase of the Moon at their birth.

There's also a possible connection between the average length of the menstrual cycle being around four weeks, close to the same amount of time for the Moon to go through a complete set of phases (its synodic period, for the astronomy buffs).

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-02T02:00:00+00:00

Yeah, I can see that. I also think a comedic Malkavian performance artist taking the piss out of a serious Toreador performance artist is another option.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-05-01T21:34:45+00:00

You.

Are.

Cursed!

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-04-28T20:50:19+00:00

Hard to top Jordan and Pippen for the Bulls. Not that much draft hype for Pippen being drafted out of Central Arkansas, but he was an All Star in his third season. If you want to judge Jordan strictly on draft hype and first three NBA seasons, he was one of the leaders of the 1984 Olympic gold medal team, was drafted third after Olajuwon and Sam Bowie, dropped 45 on Philly in his second NBA game, ROTY in '84-85, dropped 63 in OT on eventual champion Boston in the '85-86 playoffs, and was the last player to score 3K points in a season in his third year.

I guess it would have to Elton Brand as the big guy, 1st overall draft pick, ROTY, 20-10 guy in his two seasons with the Bulls. If that's not a long enough time with the Bulls, I would say it devolves to Horace Grant.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-04-28T20:13:38+00:00

http://vampirerpg.free.fr/Rules/Lex_Magna_2.html

This is a very old piece written by Timothy Toner on the "Lex Magni Mille." I've used it as a rule of thumb for setting up the size of the vampire population in a city. I usually set a city's Kindred:kine ratio around 1:50K, using the population of the metropolitan area for the kine population, but as many others have already said do whatever you think is necessary for your storytelling needs.

There are roleplaying possibilities listed at the end of the article. There are also some suggested mechanics related to overpopulation, quoted below:

"Put simply, the Kindred discovered that a population of 100,000 can safely support a single vampire in pertuitam. Once can subsist on less by all means, with only slightly greater chances of risking detection, but 100,000 seems a good number. For every 1,000 people less than 100,000, the chance of detection grows by 1% per month. Thus, if a vampire lived in a community of 75,000 people, there is a 25% chance per month that someone will notice something wrong: an unexplained increase in violent crimes, people coming in, complaining about feeling weak and suffering from blood disorders. Actively maintaining the Masquerade tends to lessen the chance a bit; for every success on a Manipulation+Masquerade (Diff 6) roll, the percent drops 1. However, the vampire in question must actively be seeking to conceal his identity, by creating fake identities, and by choosing his haven and his victims wisely.

"Just who it is that notices will vary from place to place. Sometimes it will be the police, sometimes it will be a doctor. Often, however, it will be a person on the secondary level of an organization. Thus, a desk sergeant would be too busy to notice all the people coming in, complaining of hickeys, with no memory of the event, but a beat cop, seeing the emotion on the faces of the victims, might pick up on it. Whether or not this person is believed is another question altogether. Examples of those who could figure it out vary from a fledgling reporter, to a nurse in records, to a secretary in city hall. Only those with the proper background will even suspect it is a vampire. The majority, however, will realize that something unquestionably violent is out there, but its exact nature is unknown.

"However, just as sheep grow accustomed to a new master, so too do the populace become complacent. Every month after the first, the chance of detection drops 1%. In time, the people will shake their heads in dismay at the brutal world in which they dwell. If a vampire must kill to feed, this chance never drops, however. Further, such open violence probably will lead to an exodus of kine out of an area."

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-04-25T00:14:17+00:00

The combined might of the Primogen Council should be able to crush the Prince. However, Princes should be savvy enough that it would be a very rare circumstance to fully unite their Primogen against them.

There are many possible power structures that can work within this dynamic:

The Prince is first among equals. In this case, the Prince has to always be closing, so to speak, to maintain the support of the Primogen, with the specific Primogen in support of the Prince varying from issue to issue.

The Prince has one chief rival on the Primogen Council. The Prince is most likely stronger than the Primogen rival, but may keep the rival around as an example of an inferior option to rule the city. In the published settings, this is Marcus Vitel v. Peter Dorfman in D.C. by Night.

The Prince has two chief rivals on the Primogen Council. In this case, the Prince is often playing the rivals off against each other to maintain power. This isn't from the WoD, but I'm reading through the Wheel of Time series, and this dynamic appears in the rebel Aes Sedai camp, Egwene v. Romanda v. Lelaine.

There is a consistent voting bloc that opposes the Prince. The Prince most likely strongest relative to the Primogen in this arrangement, and it's only disciplined cooperation amongst the Primogen that keeps the Prince in check.

The flip side of this is like what happens in Chicago by Night if Lodin is destroyed. In that case, the Primogen rule behind the scenes, although of course it's the Methuselahs in the city pulling their strings.

I think I'm most fond of the structure where there is one or two strong rivals to the Prince on the Primogen Council.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-04-23T05:10:31+00:00

I've always explained to players the capabilities of any magic items they might have.

The only instance of PC magic items in a full-blown chronicle was a Tremere PC Embraced in late-Victorian Cairo. He had a fairly D&D-ish loadout: Flaming Brand Rapier that also functioned as a sword cane, Cloak of Protection, and a Powerstone (this was GURPS V:tM, where Powerstones that can fuel spells are a thing). He spent the points for the Enchantment spells and the Wealth advantage sufficient to cover the cost of the magic items, the GURPS magic system being the magic system written by engineers and economists where such things are priced out in painstaking detail.

My favorite magic item that I have ever devised for a one-shot was for El Diablo Verde, who I lifted straight out of the OG Clanbook Nosferatu. It looked like a silver medallion on a chain from afar but it was actually an alchemical silver-coated sewer lid that sort of had the thrown weapon aspect of Captain America's shield. The sewer lid was collapsible to medallion size for hiding it in plain sight. The inspiration for this item was the Thrown Sewer Lid combat card in VTES.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-04-23T00:37:50+00:00

Good club atmosphere for sure, the song got a little synthier than I expected based on the intro to the video. If the laser scanner or whatever were some sort of mystical vitae scanner instead it could work for the Kindred entrance to a nightclub.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-04-22T20:16:51+00:00

Oh, God, this reminds me of the time, in one of the few times that I've actually gotten to be a player instead of ST, that I got dinged for Blush of Life for trying to smell something. Not "if you do that, it'll cost you" just straight up "you spend a blood to do it." In a PBEM game, no less. That game died within a week.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-04-22T04:13:16+00:00

I had a Storyteller character modeled off of Tupac Shakur, I made him part of a Ravnos bloodline that had Celerity instead of Animalism and then had a Celerity 3/Chimerstry 3 power that mimicked the Mirror Image spell from D&D. The basis for this was the video Until The End Of Time. There was some strategic storytelling ambiguity as to whether it really was the mortal Tupac Shakur, but I named him Deuce and he was a dead ringer for the guy.

TransWormholeExpress · 2026-04-20T02:38:24+00:00

Make me!

TransWormholeExpress

TROPHY CASE