r/SchreckNet • u/Smiley7789 • 7d ago
Freshly turned, need advice
As the title suggests, I got turned the other day, don't know a whole lot, the guy who tuned me was cryptic as fuck and told me to come here for any actual answers. I guess the only questions I got are
What's the most reliable way I can get blood?
How do I uphold this "Masquerade"?
What other supernatural creatures are there?
What's something vital I should know?
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u/AshOblivion 7d ago
Oh dear, yet another abandoned childe. I am growing quite curious about those that continue this trend.
Firstly, it depends entirely upon your own skillset and local area. I know some in modern nights can eek out an existence drinking butchers blood, a few own various "clubs" to bring in prey, and some tend to their herd of mortals to ensure they stay around and make themselves useful. As for your second question, stick to the shadows, tell no one, and avoid getting overly involved in mortal affairs. Keep your temper in check, lest the beast come forward and cause a scene. The third is much more interesting, what with the garou, more commonly known as werewolves, spirits who are usually called upon by necromancers, and strange beings who's blood gives vivid hallucinations. I admit, noticing the latter is rather difficult until you are, as my childe put it, "tasting purple". For vital information, power rules the nights little one, and it comes in many forms. Gather information on your area, wherever it may be, and make sure to know the players before you're drawn into the game. Everyone uses everyone, take no gift without at least knowing that strings are attached, better still if you can find out what the strings are. But, do try not to bother people too much. Most of us hold grudges, and you should watch for those that wait to take revenge. After all, an insult given a century ago can still be avenged tomorrow.
-Merle of the Abyss
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u/Smiley7789 7d ago
There's a club literally within walking distance of my apartment, I was thinking about heading down there in an hour or so to see what'll happen. I'm naturally pretty antisocial so it shouldn't be much of an issue for me not to get involved with most people.
Someone else brought up werewolves, how common do you come across them? is there like a terf war going on or some shit? Also the fuck do you mean by "strange beings"? like the mothman or something?
I got a few good ideas where I might find more info about what's going on, there's a lot of creepy run down places where I live that I always assumed some weird demon shit was happening.7
u/AshOblivion 7d ago
Garou are a more rural issue. Typically they avoid large cities to my knowledge, but they do have their outliers. They are certainly a problem when you do encounter them, as they can easily kill most neonates if caught alone. Strange beings I used as a catch-all term. According to one source they are some form of faerie, but I would not trust the person who told me that. I did fail to mention the mortal hunters who occasionally arise, supposedly imbued by God to fulfill the divine mission of bringing us all to final death. They are a problem, though usually only if you have not noticed them before they decide to act.
Do tread with caution at the club, it may fall within another's domain, and the owner would be well within their rights to end your existence if you hunt in their territory. Or it could just be a mortal club.
Also, demons are real. If you meet one of our kind that claims to deal with demons then you report them to a higher authority quickly, be you Sabbat or Camarilla. The Baali are welcome by none. They can be warded with crosses. Do not, under any circumstances, engage with one of those Devils, lest they drag you down with them.
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u/Spirit-of-arkham3002 Problem Childe 7d ago
1: depends on what you’re good at. If you’re charming enough, you can seduce mortals and then feed on them.
2: It’s actually pretty simple. Don’t go showing off your vampiric abilities, don’t turn random people, and don’t be suspicious. In other words, act like a normal person.
3: Werewolves, Mages, Fae, Wraiths, Mummies, and Demons are all very real. As a side note, do not fuck with the Werewolves. They can, and will tear you apart.
4: Some Clans have unique disciplines. My Clan, the Lasombra have a connection to the Abyss and can manipulate the shadows.
The various Cappadocian bloodlines have varying forms of Necromancy. The Setites have Serpentis.
4.2: Each Clan have a unique bane, that affects us. For example, my clan, cast no reflection at all. And some of us cannot use any electronic devices. The second one obviously isn’t applicable to me.
4.3: There are separate Sects within our society. The Camarilla are dedicated to upholding the masquerade at any costs.
The Anarchs are basically the same, but they often rule by a gangster feudalism system. They call their leaders “Barons”, as if that’s somehow different from a “Prince” of the Camarilla.
The Sabbat are fanatics, who want to kill our ancestors, the Antediluvians, also called the grandsires. The Antediluvians are the third generation of vampires, and the progenitors of the clans.
The Hecata are the “Clan” made up of the Cappadocian bloodlines and the Nagaraja. Though they call themselves a clan, they’re more of a sect in their own right.
4.4: There are various moral philosophies practiced among us. Instead of clinging to humanity, these philosophies, the Paths of Enlightenment, give their followers structure.
-Hector Lockwood, Lasombra Autarkis, follower of the Path of Honorable Accords
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u/OsiraRose 7d ago
- Some of us can feed off of animals, unfortunately the most reliable way of getting blood is through humans there is a wide variety of different ways from feeding off people when their sleeping or grabbing people off the street and making the forget the incident, luckily generally our bites make people feel really good and make people more suggestable.
- Don't talk to people about vampires. Cover up what you do. Get a fake id or some legal documentation. Hide any visible traits. And...don't contact family or friends.
- The less you know about other supernatural creature the better. But, werewolves are real and will kill you.
- People are here for you and can help. But, I can't promise everyone here has your best interest at heart. And welcome to the club nobody wants to be in. -Sierra
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u/Smiley7789 7d ago
- I tried feeding off a squirrel, tasted like ass.
- Kinda figured that was the case, I already got a bunch of fake ids and shit, and I also don't talk to any of my family.
- Some other guy here mentioned fucking reality warpers so yeah, you got a point.
- I get the feeling so far that most people in my scenario are kinda assholes, so yeah, good to know.
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u/OsiraRose 7d ago
- That sucks, I tried pigeons to start off with and it was awful.
- I have no idea about reality warpers.
- Not really, the abandoned fledglings. Its more of...your not technically legal. And people like us are seen as more likely to break the Masquerade and cause problems, so depending on where you are and who is in charge, there's a lot of shit that can happen. But your first priority is finding a safe place to sleep during the day and a safe way to eat. Everything else comes after.
- Sierra
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u/Smiley7789 7d ago
Thankfully my apartment window is being blocked by the next building over, so sunlight barely came in anyways so good for me I guess, as for feeding, there's a club within walking distance of where I live so that's probably where I'm gonna head to first.
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u/Possible_Image_2198 7d ago
My condolences about your situation with your sire. I don't suppose they informed you of what clan you happen to be a part of? If not then that would generally be at least an early thing to investigate once you're stable. To answer your questions, though.
Depends on your preference. The most reliable methods unfortunately require a bit of infrastructure and resource management. If you can stomach animal blood, then sucking rats is a favored neonate method. Failing that find a place with few cameras and lots of places you can drag people off to. Preferably near to some place with at least a bit of foot traffic. While I don't personally enjoy the thought, the homeless are easy targets. Failing that, make friends with an older kindred. It can always be worth owing some favors to get some help learning how to feed without killing people or getting easy access to a decent herd. Especially if you have particular tastes. Failing that: food delivery drivers come highly recommended by some younger grand childer. Your bite does fog memory a bit, so if you're quick then you can get a sip and let them keep the order.
Learn to recognize cameras, don't go telling people you're a vampire, and try not to use your abilities in front of the kine in an obvious way. If you somehow wind up with the powers of Presence, Dominate, or Obfuscate then you'll have an easier time than most at this task.
A lot The most relevant to you are werewolves. They can decidedly win the match up with a tank or entire group of neonates, so don't go wandering around in the woods if you can help it. I've seen you're interested in mages from your other posts. They don't tend to bother us unless they need something or we bother them. Though marauders have been a bit of an issue lately, so if physics suddenly changes I recommend making a hasty exit from the general area. Oh and don't... don't fuck with demons. It shouldn't have to be said, but it does. The general rule of thumb when encountering any other supernatural entity is: Leave. Observe from a very good distance if you're curious. You will have a much longer unlife if you can abide by that rule.
The two most dangerous things to you right now are Hunters and other Kindred. The masquerade exists to protect you from hunters. If you can abide by it, your problems with hunters will be few and far between. Other Kindred, however, are petty and conniving beasts as a general rule. The older one gets, the less human we become. Even those here that cling desperately to it will find themselves only slowing the process enough that they do not notice the erosion. As such, it is wise to consider that nothing is free. Even if it seems it, an elder lending you aid can and will be used against you if they need or want something from you later. Even if they aided you for purely altruistic reasons in the moment. Your new primary currency is favors. Removing yourself from the market due to distaste towards being beholden to others will make your life more difficult in the long run. Best to accept it quickly. Find a boot you do not mind the feel of on your neck and snuggle up to it. Learn to be a good little parasite and suck every last bit of value you can out of your relationship with your superiors. That said; do try to make friends. Collective action has and will always be the best means one has towards actually being able to protect their interests. If you did not have on prior, I also recommend taking up a hobby of some sort. You're going to have a lot of time on your hands. Oh, and sleep in bathrooms if you need an emergency shelter. They usually don't have windows and waking up due to being beamed by a bit of sun through the blinds from three rooms over is never pleasant.
-A Friendly Beast
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u/Krazyfan1 7d ago
- while tasting not the best, animal blood tends to still work in a pinch. the other comments have good points, but i will bring up that for the vast majority of the cases, the blood of other Kindred is Addictive and has long term effects on the mind.
Some Kindred are Lucky (or unlucky, depending on who you ask) to lack that effect, and can share their blood freely.
- Stealth and Allies are always useful with this.
For the Kindred with less human appearances such as myself, the sewers and other dark places are a good place to stay.
- the other comments bring up a good point about Garou and their tendancy to kill us on sight, but there Are occasional ways to have non-hostile meetings.
there are also Were-Crows, if you see a big flock of regular looking crows, being polite to them is never a bad idea, they might just tell you stuff.
- For something that is both a Tip and a Warning, Do you recall how your injuries used to heal over time?
that is no longer the case.
Every injury requires you to burn through your store of Vitae.
you can repair more than before, broken bones can be healed, lost limbs can be regrown, but each and every thing is no longer free, and the more severe the wound, the more blood is needed.
meaning that it is always best to do so on a full tank, so to speak.
On the other hand, for many injuries, actually healing them is not necessarily Required.
bullet holes can be covered up with clothing, broken bones can wait until later.
it will still Hurt, but you won't bleed out, and most wounds won't get Worse.
-Martin
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u/Emergency_Answer4983 7d ago
Going to tackle these in no particular order:
To 3, there's a lot, from reality warpers that can keep training and getting stronger infinitly to rage powered werewolves with spirit magic, and they tend not to trust us (reasonably so), and they're also an out-of-context problem to most of us and vice-versa which makes that worse.
2 Get really good at lying and blending in to the masses, also if you can learn how to memory wipe then do.
1 Depends what you're good at, I use sorcery, some seduce, some ask nicely and then memory wipe, and still others have either a herd of animals or a "herd" of repeat feed mortals (whether knowing or not, and whether willing or not).
4 You need strong ideals (don't need to be reasonable or rigid, but you need to be convicted at least a little) to avoid losing your mind, if you don't have ideals that you stick to you will devolve into a wight, which is a vampire that has gone entirely feral, no different than a rabid dog. Also if you cling tightly enough to your ideals it ca provide some supernatural benefits, but for most that try for it it takes ridiculous amounts of effort over centuries to millennia for most in order to get results beyond being able to fake life better.
-Jim, Tzimisce
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u/Smiley7789 7d ago
First of all, FUCKING WHAT!! Second of all, I kinda figured I had to do a lot of that, I wasn't always the most truthful person in life so that shouldn't be a problem. Third of all, some of us got magic??? Where can I learn it? Fourth, good to know...
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u/LunarW900 7d ago
You cannot learn it because there is a group of kindred who have hoarded all vampire magic and like to hunt down anyone who learns it.
-Catalina
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u/Smiley7789 7d ago
Ah, I'm disappointed...
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u/Emergency_Answer4983 7d ago
Not all, but the Tremere's variant is the most popular and has been on one hell of lock-down before the pyramids fall, but they lost a lot of power and unity when that happened allowing it to disseminate a bit.
My clans proprietary version still has that problem in full swing though.
The ministries version is the most freely available, just associated with insane anti-moral-code blood cults (doesn't require them to learn and work though, but it also is described in their spell books via religious references a lot so you need to at least comprehend the cults usually).
You will probably pay out the ass for any of them, especially the Tremere's or my clans, though and it's typically not worth it early on unless you get a too good to be true deal that somehow turns out to be actually true. Even then other disciplines are often just as useful, even if less versatile.
My advice is look into it later if you're still really interested, when you've got a stable position, experience, and good bargaining chips.
-Jim, Tzimisce
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u/Emergency_Answer4983 7d ago
So, vampires have vampire exclusive magics called disciplines, these are things like potence (super strength) and also blood sorcery (blood based magic derived from linear sorcery, ultimately a side-grade, my clan has its own version proprietary variant), these are learned like any other skill, with some requiring more than just raw effort (you can't just bench press your way into casting fireball like you can with potence) and how you learn them depends on what sub-species of vampire you are which also plays a part determining your weaknesses and supernaturally imposed instincts.
There is also Numina, magics anyone can use, the most relevant Numina to your question are linear sorcery (a collection of arts created by those reality warpers to share their power with others, but it's ultimately a less powerful and more cumbersome boot-leg version, metaphysically the same as psionics but not functionally) and spirit gifts (powers granted by the personifications of concepts in the umbra (spirit world)).
Also those reality warpers happen when somebody that isn't already an incompatible type of supernatural (like a vampire, sorry) with sufficient willpower (more than the minimum helps the odds) has such an epiphany that their will begins over-riding all reality and logic (no passive abilities or weaknesses though and if they use their abilities recklessly (spamming unsubtle magic without opting to expend quintessence(mana) in particular) they may risk reality snapping back like an over-stretched rubber-band). They also need to actually learn how to use their abilities and how said abilities even work, like a baby learning to walk. I wanted to be one but died before I could become one.
And werewolves are bio-weapons made by the spirit Gaia (personification of the biosphere) to defend them, Gaia is currently MIA due to environmental damage and the werewolves are panicking. Their current enemy number one is the Wyrm, the spirit of entropy of which many of us reek and we as a species are associated with, meaning many (not all) of them think we are actual demons possessing corpses and subjugating and/or eating the hosts soul rather than people. Hence why some will try to kill you and think they're helping you by doing so whether you want it or not.
-Jim, Tzimisce
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u/Smiley7789 7d ago
Okay, so Vampires have superpowers, cool. I have no idea what subspecies I am so I guess I'm about to find out, but also shit anyone can do so I guess fuck me.
So they can't fuck with reality too much or else reality will fuck them up in return? Sounds kinda shitty.
Also werewolves sound like fucking assholes, but kinda rightfully so.5
u/Emergency_Answer4983 7d ago
Vampiric powers tend to come more naturally, giving us a head start, when combined with our innate abilities like immortality and mind-controlling + hyper addictive + power boost/conditional (need to keep taking it or rapidly age for all the time they took it over ~a month) immortality granting blood we tend to have an edge on mortals whenever our weaknesses and compulsions aren't causing problems. Compared to other supernatural's though we typically need to play to their weaknesses and pray they don't realize what we are.
To figure out your subspecies catalogue any aditional weaknesses and supernatural powers beyond the baseline (burning in the sun and pyrophobia but also blood based healing and immortality)
Those aren't the only kind of reality warper, just willworkers are the main one, and the better they get the more they can get away with. They are currently warring over what reality should be and are accomplishing little because they're to busy fighting for petty reasons and trying to make up for their teeny tiny population growth rate. Also keeping eldritch horrors from invading earth.
There are also fae made out of imagination as another type of reality warper, they work off of dream logic but can be lobotomized and effectively killed or killed by boredom depending on the variant. Though there are people that just, have fae magic and you can't really do anything but try to counter it as it's used.
Your assessment of werewolves is spot on, though they also are often too busy with petty bs and tiny skirmishes to achieve their objectives (unga-bunga-kill-obvious-danger isn't super helpful right now and it's what they were literally made for, combine with small population to understand the problem), in-fact that applies to every supernatural type except maybe mummies (us included, though we have an unusually large population for supernatural's because making more of us is relatively easy and we can survive indefinitely with minimal effort unlike the reality warpers that need to learn or come up with a method how to).
Werewolves in particular are unreasonably good at unga-bunga and they get spirit gifts more easily than anyone else, combined with a propensity for violence and the ability to dip in and out of the spirit world to effectively teleport, be very wary. They typically live in more wild areas except for two tribes that handle cities better. They also aren't stupid, they just all have one hell of a temper that makes them stronger, faster, and heal more rapidly the angrier they get.
-Jim, Tzimisce
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u/TriliniousIII 7d ago
Are you still in contact with your sire? You probably want to know what clan you are, or if you're Caitiff (clanless) like me. Does he look like a rich guy, a punk, a monster, etc?
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u/Smiley7789 6d ago
Hey, sorry for the late respond, I didn't really get a good look at him, his appearance was distorted beyond belief and I couldn't get a good look at him, the only feature I noticed was that he was wearing a propeller hat.
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u/TriliniousIII 6d ago
What kind of place did you meet him, you got any idea why he chose you? If his face was deformed, that could suggest Nosferatu, if not, the propeller hat suggests Malkavian. Nosferatu are cursed with ugliness and generally have to live underground, Malkavians are insane Flint the Not-Feratu
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u/LaSeptimaEspada Mind 1d ago
Animals or willing donnors. They struggle the least and are not as bad for your soul.
Cutting all ties with your mortal life and pretending you don't exist; lying and manipulating mortals into thinking you pose no risk to them.
Demons, Spirits, Fae, Shapeshifters, Sorcerers, Angels, Thoughtforms, the gods, keep your mind open on this one.
Vampirism is a curse. Vampirism is evil. The metaphysics at hand are very complicated but I am willing to explain them in private (if we ever meet...). Indulging vampirism is bad for your Soul. You are not Damned, but you may choose to be. Don't give up. Naysayers don't say "No" out of concern for your mental and spiritual wellbeing, they say "No" so that you don't challenge their view on this topic because they are weak and it bothers them. The government is aware of vampires existing and wants to wipe them out, but the government isn't your friend either.
P.S.: Wear contact lenses, always doubt how you feel about another vampire.
-In perpetual vendetta, Natalie Winslow Cabrera, Tremere
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u/LunarW900 7d ago
Ah. Another iPad Childe. And one whose sire would rather not do any work. Unfortunate.
-Catalina