[Vampire: The Requiem] Kindred Physiology: Considerations

Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition

Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Kindred Physiology: Considerations

The following is a rundown of vampires work in the most basic sense for the RPG game Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition, part of Onyx Path's Chronicles of Darkness (nWoD 2.0)

The following are things presented throughout the VtR source books that have nothing to do with stats or rules but are represented in the stories and excerpts that are found throughout. They are very real considerations that should always be kept in mind when playing or interacting with Kindred in the World of Darkness.

Vampires are not human
From the moment of their awakening following the embrace, they are profoundly aware that they are different. It is more than just facts such as lack of heartbeat, pulse, or warmth. It is a complete physiological change that can be felt from the first few seconds and stays with them their entire requiem.

Some of the more mundane aspects of this difference are:

1. Bodily Functions

Your organs and glands, including your heart, do NOT work. Therefore you do not breathe, eat, sigh, swallow, blink, fart, or pee. With the Blush of Life, a vampire can force blood to parts of the body to artificially to add normal pallor to the skin, breathing, blinking, pulse, and temperature which can simulate mortal life.  Many younger vampires still blink and breath out of habit but its completely unnecessary and if they are distracted they may stop those ticks.  Older vampires usually have to make a conscious effort to remember to breath and blink but may have more practice at pretending to be human.  Just remember this when you are playing - 'She sighs and says…' is technically wrong. You do need to draw in air when you speak, but that is not the same as breathing, and that spoken breath will not steam on cold winter air, because…

2. Circulatory System

Your blood does not circulate, and your cells do not burn energy, therefore you are cold to the touch. Only the unobservant will fail to notice this even when just shaking hands. A freshly fed vampire will be somewhat warm for up to an hour, provided they consumed a lot of blood in the feeding (half to a full amount of blood found in a person. If it was only a small amount (a pint or two) then it makes no difference - you're cold. At best a vampire will feel room temperature, about an average of 70F or 20c, nearly 30% colder than a normal human being. Your heart does beat about 10 times a minute but this is sporadic, it really only pumps a few times if you are expending vitae on something.  The Blush of Life can be consciously activated to simulate higher body temperature and pulse rate.

3. Bodily Fluids

You do not have saliva or any other bodily fluid. The only way to mimic these things is to force blood through the appropriate tissues (usually Blush of Life). All orifices of a vampire are normally dry unless recently lubricated with blood. That means that any contact with these orifices for another person is either dry and cold, or bloody and cold. Think about that before you kiss, or whatever. Blood is used to produce plasma or saline aspects for tears (though reddish in larger quantities) and saliva.  Blood can be expended (Blush of Life) to engage sexual organs to function normally however the only fluid involved is plasma and blood.  A vampire can heal bite marks on a victim by licking the wound, this is because Kindred saliva has their Vitae in it and vitae heals humans almost as well as vampires.  This is also why being bitten by a vampire is usually extremely pleasurable (this is called the Kiss), the bite carries a lesser strength addiction similar to being feed straight Vitae.

 4. Organs

The outer tissues of a vampire's body are unusually dry compared to humans, since all endocrine systems have ceased functioning and when not in use the blood is pooled in the head and torso. This is part of why fire is a real fear for them (beyond the supernatural bane aspect). A burn for a human is a blistering and cracking of the skin under heat. For a vampire a burn means catching on fire! A vampire can be as easily ignited as the wick of a candle, even with a common match or lighter. The only way to prevent this, is to waste precious vitae (at least a point) to force blood near the surface of the skin, and even then it is a risky undertaking. Therefore vampires avoid fire and their beasts push them to keep away from it except in cases of great need or concentration.  The sight of fire readily engages a strong fight or flight response in vampires.

5. Fatigue
The feeling of being 'tired' for humans arises from a buildup of what are called 'fatigue poisons' in muscles and brain. These are waste byproducts in the cells and blood that come from cellular activity, and once they reach a certain level, they impair function and the body shuts down to clean them out. These are the same chemicals that cause 'muscle burn' when exercising. Since a vampire's cells do not function this way and burn nothing, no such poisons are produced. Therefore a vampire never feels tired or fatigued (save perhaps mentally, which is psychological, not physical as the brain is not producing waste chemicals either). From sundown to sunrise, you are at your peak. You never experience fatigue, aches, stiffness, muscle cramps, or any other side effect of activity. You feel 100% at all times as long as you have a sufficient amount of blood in your system. Mechanically this is represented by Strength dots directly correlating with the strength table when it comes to lifting or carrying things and Stamina need not be rolled and it rarely relevant to tasks). A vampire can run at top sprint speed all night without an issue.  The only restriction is that the rising of the sun compels a vampire to find shelter and return to a torpor state during the day.  This compulsion can be fought and some vampires have the fortitude to remain awake during the daytime or awaken early during daylight hours.

6. Sustenance
The vampire body no longer requires human food or drink. It gains no nourishment from these things, and by consequence it will not react to them with feelings of longing when they are present. Food does not smell good any longer, except in purely psychological ways. Its all salt, water, and ash. The vampire body does require not human blood, however, human blood is the best. Therefore, humans smell like food. No vampire needs to be told the difference between a vampire and a mortal under normal conditions, one strong whiff of either one and the hunger or predatory aura will supply the answer. Vampires can eat  but must spend a vitae to stimulate the stomach to hold it and it must be purged later (vomiting the mess). They can spend another vitae to turn a little of the blood into an acidic enzyme to break down the food but it essentially wastes the blood to burn the food. The waste is slowly secreted from the body as tiny quantities of a neutral ash-like substance over the course of daytime sleep as the blood forces the foreign substances from the body and returns them to their natural state.  Being a vampire means being in a bodily form of death/stasis.  While a vampire sleeps (in which they appear completely dead) any changes such as haircuts, tattoos and any other bodily changes are reversed unless the vampire expends willpower to keep one of these changes.

7. Scent
Speaking of scent - the human body produces scent in dozens of different ways, from hair oils, skin oil, sweat, breath, body order, pheromones and other, less savory expulsions. The entire combination of scents produces a unique signature smell, just like in any other animal. Vampires have none of these means of producing scent, but it does not mean they are without a distinct smell. Most importantly vampires would smell like blood, especially near their mouth and nose, and they would smell like the environments in which they spend their time. Foreign scents like smoke and incense still cling to them normally, and if they wear perfumes or use common toiletries like shampoo, then all these smells combined will form a unique scent for each vampire. Odor doesn't cling to their dead skin very readily and so most of the scents will probably be coming from the hair or clothing.

8. Skin
A vampire's skin is unusually pale and smoother than in life the Kindred was in life. The paleness comes from the fact that there is no blood circulating near the surface. The smoothness comes from the same effect that is observed in corpses where the skin takes on a smooth and waxy feel shortly after death. It is possible for a vampire to expend vitae and make themselves appear more human with the Blush of Life, but they would not be inclined to do this except when hunting, interacting with kine or otherwise only when absolutely necessary. Vampires also don't leave any dead skin tissue or traceable DNA behind.  Lost blood loses its supernatural aspects very quickly once it leaves the body and DNA testing would reveal the dead blood cells and fragmentary DNA from the many different people the vampire has fed on.  Without skin oils they don't leave fingerprints either.

9. Drinking blood

Vampires do 'swallow' blood in the conventional sense, but this is a muscular effort of the body akin to a vacuum cleaner, not an effort of the throat. The organs at the end of the esophagus contract and this pulls blood in. This is why an entire humans blood supply can be consumed within 20-30 seconds with a small bite mark.  If a vampire desires they can tear a larger hole in a person and drink even faster but at the cost of painfully maiming the victim.  When a vampire bites someone it induces the Kiss which causes the victim to be lost in a swoon of euphoria and disorientation.  Many can't recall actually being bitten or rationalize what happened.  While not as addictive as being fed Kindred blood, the Kiss alone can induce kine to want to be bitten again.

Taking all of these things into consideration, it becomes easy to see that a vampire would be unable to delude themselves into thinking they are still human. The fact that their body just doesn't react the way it used to in so many different ways would make any attempt at pretending to be mortal a waste of time and a source of inevitable frustration and depression

10. Images
Due to some unknown and supernatural aspect of being Kinred, a vampire's reflection is blurred strangely where one would normally see the skin, hair and the face of a person.  With concentration and the expenditure of concerted effort the vampire can appear normal for a short amount of time in these reflections.  This also includes any pictures or video of the vampire and makes them very hard to track historically or for criminal prosecution.

But those were just the mundane aspects of the change, consider:

A vampire awakens from the embrace feeling very different than they did in their last moments of life. They are no longer in cooperation with their body in many ways, they are now in complete command of it, save for the hunger and their beast.  And as they age this body control increases.  If they wish to remain still they can appear unnervingly inanimate, providing an advantage to stealth that normal people cannot duplicate.

11. Strength

A vampire awakens feeling stronger, faster, and with a keener of sense and mind, than they ever felt in life.  This is because they are no longer distracted by the disposition and function of a living body. This part of the change is not necessarily represented in any stat changes or mechanics, but it is nonetheless true for any vampire. In many practical ways they are superior to their former mortal selves.

 Consider strength as an example. The human body does not have a set strength capability, it has a limit that is defined by health, preparation, level of fatigue, and a dozen other attributes that make the actual limit of any person's strength a fluid and nebulous thing. There are large men that lift heavy weights in competition professionally and have lifted as much as 700 lb. (320 kg), once, in a bench press. But when they are forced to do many lifts in a short period of time, what they can lift drops to around 500 lb. (225 kg) or less. This falls back to the fatigue chemicals and activity impairment. It is functionally impossible for a human being to work at their maximum capacity for more than a few tasks at most. Doing it too many times creates the restrictive chemicals which prevent the body from hurting itself. Without these chemicals a person could tear themselves apart.

Now, consider the vampire - they have no impairment that prevents them from using their maximum potential in every task if they so desire. So it is possible for a vampire to exert themselves completely in feats of strength, making them seem to be up to twice as strong as they used to be. This has no effect on the upper limit of their strength, which doesn't change until they learn the Discipline: Vigor or exceed normal attribute limits imposed by Blood Potency. This simply means that they can operate at that limit all night, without ever getting tired. The blood makes them tough and durable so that they don't tear themselves apart from the effort.  Any micro muscular tears or damage to the body through physical effort is repaired instantly by the blood.  They can also Call upon the Blood, expending it to temporarily increase their strength to preform truly amazing feats of strength for a moments.

12. Speed
Likewise a vampire will seem to be twice as fast on their feet as they used to be when they are forced to run. Why? Because the average human can sprint for a few seconds at a speed roughly twice what they can maintain in an extended run. After those few seconds, the muscular fatigue forces them to slow down. Another factor in running is cardiovascular fitness, if your lungs and heart are out of shape or impaired in any way, they can't supply oxygen as fast as the muscles need it, and the muscles slow down. Vampires do not breathe, and never suffer fatigue, therefore their running speed is in essence their sprint, around 12 mph (19 kph) for the average reasonably fit human of average size.  The Discipline: Celerity can be learned by any vampire which will propel them to transhuman levels of speed and deftness.  Also, any vampire can Call upon the Blood to increase their Strength and Dexterity for very short periods of time, making them quicker than mortal limitations.

13. Senses
What about the senses? Why would they be better? This is a bit more nebulous, but in the case of the big three (sight, hearing, and sense of smell) it relatively easy to explain.

Sight - human eyes dry out when they stare, they water, and they are irritated by various elements in the air quite easily. Combine these things with eyestrain, blinking, and a dozen other factors, and you will see that focusing sharply is difficult at best for the human eye. Since none of these considerations apply to the vampire, it is also easy to see why they would seem to experience clearer and sharper sight. Add to this that vampires have the supernatural advantages of being able to see in darkness and low-light.

Hearing - this one is even simpler. The human body's organs produces a great deal of 'white noise' that we simply become accustomed to, and usually don't even register hearing - heartbeat, pulse, fluid shifting, breathing, etc. Everything they hear is strained through this web of noise produced by their own physiology, much like listening to one person at a party. When all of that noise is removed, it suddenly becomes obvious that the person they are listening to is actually shouting. So too does the vampiric ear seem to be more keen, simply because all the 'white noise' is gone.  Also part of their nature their hearing is specially optimized to pick up breathing and heartbeats of living things in their vicinity.

Smell - humans receive scent data from molecules in the air that they breathe in. Simple enough. But they breathe OUT again almost as quickly, by necessity, and therefore reduce the amount of sensory input they can get from any one breath (this is the reasons that animals, especially dogs, breath shallowly and rapidly when scenting, they cram as much as they can as quickly as they can into their nose, with a minimum of exhalation). Since vampires don't breathe out - well, you can see where this is going.  Additionally, vampires are literal blood hounds.  Their physiology is optimized to pick up on the smell of blood, like a shark smelling a drop of blood a mile away.

Senses can also be superlatively heightened by the Discipline: Auspex.

14. Vitae - Vampiric Blood
These factors add to the inhuman and unnatural sense that vampires have of themselves, but they are by no means the largest indicators that they have changed. One factor remains, and within it are many attributes that combine to make the blood the largest and most pressing sign of the new vampire's status.

The Blood is everything to a vampire. It is every meal, every breath, every thought, every feeling, every action they have ever or will ever take. It is their first, last, and only requirement, their best friend, and at times their worst enemy. Without it they simply cease to exist. The Blood is their power, their drug, their means to live and their reason for living. Its the thing that animates them beyond just being a corpse.  The blood, in many ways, IS the true vampire, it simply is animating a corpse like a hermit crab living in a shell. And the Blood brings with it the hunger, and lurking behind the hunger is the beast that all vampires fear to some extent.

The Blood, which vampires call 'vitae', infuses their entire body. It takes the place of their circulatory system and bonds with their nervous system. Vitae doesn't flow the way human blood does. It's simply there, to be used as needed. It allows them to move, to feel, to think, and to do things no mortal could dream of. It is the most precious thing in existence to a vampire. They never waste it, and they use it carefully, because getting more isn't exactly easy.

15. Hunger and Hunger Frenzy
If they run low through exertion or stupidity, they begin to battle the hunger frenzy, that driving need to have more before it's too late. The hunger from the beast is not a sensation like human hunger or thirst, it is more akin to the drive for self-preservation in an animal, that instinct that will cause a wolf to gnaw off it's own foot to escape a trap, the same kind of drive that will cause even the tiniest creature to turn and bite viciously when cornered. The unthinking, unreasoning, uncaring need to survive. Woe to the vampire that let's the hunger get too strong, because then the beast takes over, and that hunger/anger/fear is personified. A vampire in frenzy will gladly rip the head off their own lover to drink from the fountain of their gushing neck, they would rend their own children in half to get at the blood hidden in their small bodies. Nothing is more important to the beast than survival. Nothing.

16. The Taste of Blood
The average human finds drinking blood somewhat distasteful (it tastes of copper and salt water), except where culturally tolerated or encouraged, but to the vampire blood is more than just a necessity. It is more potent and delicious than the most powerful drug or the finest of meals. Nothing can compare to the all-consuming ecstasy a vampire feels when drinking, or the high that stays with them long after the meal is finished. It is a permanent and absolute addiction that instantly becomes the center of their lives. A vampire never treats blood lightly unless they have gorged themselves to the point of bursting, and they can never ignore it. Even the thin trickle from a mortal's cut finger sings a siren call to the senses of a vampire, distracting them, drawing their attention. Open bleeding has been known to drive vampires into a feeding frenzy, they simply can't help themselves. They can smell blood in a room the same way a human being can smell dinner cooking, and they never fail to take notice. Vampire blood (Vitae) is even more addictive, even to other vampires, but drinking it drives too even greater blood addiction and slavery to the one you drink from in the form of a blood bond.

17. Hunting
Vampires face a problem to their need for blood, however, due to the world they live in. Getting the blood they need is generally socially unacceptable, and they must be careful in how they go about it, lest they wake up with a stake in their chest in time to see the ax descending on their neck. If they want to maintain absolute secrecy, they have to hunt carefully, lure potential meals away from spectators, take what they need but not enough to endanger life, then somehow hide the fact of what they've done from the victim as well. If they accidentally bleed someone dry they have to deal with an exsanguinated body Some vampires are blessed with powers of the mind to help accomplish these tasks, others have to rely on subterfuge, wits and the power of the Kiss to get by. A particularly active vampire may have to spend half the night just in the hunt, since their hunger demands more than what just one victim can provide (if they don't want to kill the kine). For this reason some vampires will keep Herds, groups of people kept solely for the purpose of feeding and bribed on blood addiction or the pleasure of being bitten. Having a Herd raises its own problems, because the vampire needs to care these people somehow and ensure their silence. No matter how they do it, the quest for Blood, for survival, becomes the driving force in a vampire's every waking hour and flavors every aspect of their Requiem.

18. Losing Humanity
Despite all of these very real and immediate changes, there is one thing, and one thing only, about a vampire that doesn't change right away. The one thing that becomes a curse that makes all the other curses of vampirism pale by comparison: their emotions, morals, social conventions, and human nature.

For a time, often a long time, vampires still feel the way a human would. Their hearts love, laugh, hurt, and cry just as though they were mortal. This is the ultimate bane of the vampire, to be a monster by nature and design, but to be human at heart.  As they go on, they discover that they cannot truly obtain the same level of emotion they had before.  Part of this is the radical changes in bio-chemical make-up of their undead bodies.  The other part is that their soul is now unable to experience true emotion, only the memory of it (like a shadow of what should be felt).  Emotions fueled by the beast are still authentic and are amplified: anger, fear, hunger, rage, paranoia but these are less than helpful.

They can feel from their first seconds of requiem the truth of what they've become. They can often see it. From those first moments they begin a struggle between their new natures and their old inner selves. The hunger demands blood, and will kill to get it, but the human within recoils from the horrors that they now find themselves capable of. Guilt, remorse, regret, horror - these things plague new vampires as they feel the monster within clawing its way to freedom. Murder becomes a temptation and a horrifying inevitability they must wrestle with. They look at former friends and smell the blood in their veins, becoming wracked by disgust that they could think of a friend or lover as food, and a secret terror that comes from the knowledge that if they lose control just once - that friend will die by their hand. If they retain their humanity long enough, they watch people, places, things they love age, rot, and die as their own immortality carries them onward unchanging.

For these reasons many withdraw from human society quickly, but many more struggle with the terrible slide away from being human, and experience pain and heartache like they never suffered in life. Some try to turn to their own kind for comfort or cling to Keystones that anchor them in the mortal world.

Vampires view each other as potential threats, competitors, and enemies. At best there can be alliances, carefully plotted and jealously guarded. The demands and pressures of requiem make no vampire trustworthy, and many other factors, such as the blood bond, render them downright suspicious. This emotional minefield often drives vampires to complex and manipulative ends to try and create some form of lasting security for their dying hearts. They sire childer and try to hold them to themselves, sometimes by binding them with the Blood. They will surround themselves with ghouls that have no choice but to love their domitor, and they will even trick and seduce other vampires into the bond. Ultimately it all fails. In the end the vampire must face the crushing weight of hunger and the march of ages alone, and make their peace with it whatever way they can. Virtually none of them survive this ordeal with more than a shred of their humanity intact, and the loss is like a surgery without anesthetic that lasted centuries.

To fight this horrible tide, most vampires embrace artificial passions to keep themselves feeling 'alive' inside. This zealous pursuit of stimuli to stave off the death of their human side has become so ingrained in the whole of vampire society that it has overtaken and become the very shape of that society. And so it goes, through every possible version of human expression, mirrored and refined to a grotesque art by the immortal souls fearing the darkness within - revenge, trickery, deceit, love, madness, the list goes on. In the end, every vampire is defined by what makes them inhuman, and what they do to try a fight that inevitable truth.

Eventually, when the ages where them down or their blood has become so potent they must feed on their own kind (and are still subject to blood addiction and bondage) they give themselves the Final Death or go into Torpor. Torpor becomes a lucid dream of fact and fiction. It can be as maddening as staying awake. Memories of ancient centuries get blurred with dreams and it can drive the humanity away.

19. Vampire population (speculative)

Most newly Embraced (called Neonates) either die from their own stupid actions or self-destruction.  Those that survive the first 50 years tend to stabilize the descending curve.  After that only the very old vampires tend to eventually destroy themselves when immortality becomes unbearable as the curve slopes slowly downwards.  Despite immortality, this creates a curve average vampire lifespan.  Most vampires are neonates and not even half of them will reach the 50 year mark (and make up approximately 50% total population (no one has ever been able to confirm this, just a wild as guess (WAG)).  Ancillae make up the 40% after that (50-250 years), 9% are 250-500 years old, 1% over 500+ years (they really are the 1%) and only a tiny sliver 0.0005% have lasted a millennia.  It looks like a pyramid scheme... and the Invictus would say that this is how it should be.

Those estimated percentages would also include those in Torpor, old vampires that are sleeping their blood potency down or trying to escape the Danse Macabre for at least a little while.  Perhaps 20% vampires are in Torpor at any given time.

If you consider the world population that live in urban centers (about 54% of 7.5 Billion, and approximately one vampire for 100,000 people which radically fluctuates from city to city), then that means there should be around 40,500 vampires on earth and 32,400 are active, the rest in torpor.

I highly recommend reading The Blood: VtR Player's Guide if you want to know more about what it feels like to be a vampire.

[Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen] LA: The Ring & the Fringe

Out of Character (OOC):
Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen
Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition
Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler
Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Los Angeles:

The Lay of the Land (Part 5)
The Ring & the Fringe

“Perhaps no city in modern times has been so universally envied, imitated, ridiculed, and, because of what it may portend, feared.” – Encyclopedia Britannica

Adapted from source material from the fan-made Los Angeles: City of the Damned and the video game - Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines.

Los Angeles City Building Posts:

LA: A City on Fire

LA: City of Dreams

Demons in LA: The Dream Factory

LA: Downtown

LA: Hollywood Extended

LA: North & South Downtown

LA: Old LA & Diversity District
LA: The Ring & The Fridge

The Ring of Regents

The second “ring” of Los Angeles is a little more difficult to qualify. Stretching roughly from Encino through Burbank, around Pasadena and south to Long Beach as well as the Pacific coast from LAX to Ranchos Palos Verde, the Ring of Regents is a vast and widely varied area. These domains lay on the fringe of the vampire court’s influence, and technically are held by supernatural beings that serve as regents bound to honor the dictates of the Prince. And while many of the beings who claim domain in these areas are regents of the Court who were given their lands and titles by various Princes, this is really only a technicality. While some of these regents do regularly attend Court, enforce the Prince’s law, and honestly strive to be dutiful vassals, just as many could care less. And in reality, without the expressed permission of the regents in question, there is precious little that either Court or covenants could do in these areas. The Ring of Regents is a place where ambitious young vampires can be turned loose with promises of feeding rights and regency should they succeed; and complete oblivious should they fail. These domains also serve as a useful buffer to the lawless lands beyond.  The Ring of Regents also includes Encino, Burbank, Long Beach, Ranchos Palos Verde and Anaheim.

City: Anaheim/Site: Disneyland

Anaheim, California, home of the “Happiest Place on Earth” (though Orlando, Florida might contest this) is strange for one very unusual reason: strange things don’t seem to happen here. Even as the city decays around it, this oasis remains untouched by the horrors of the Fallen World. Vampires cannot stand the area around Disneyland, Lupines avoid it like the plague, ghosts do not congregate here, and even mages report feeling uncomfortable. And no one is entirely certain why. The park is not located on a place of power, it does not seem to be holy ground, and no evidence of magic or a curse of any kind has been found. And yet every so often, when an overconfident vampire, foolish mage, or brave werewolf does try to carve out a hunting ground or lair here the attempt inevitably ends in failure, sometimes quietly, sometimes violently. This has led some to wonder if this land is not so much free of horror but rather protected by something even more horrible. If so, what price do residents pay for the peace they enjoy?

Site: Angeles National Forest

The Angeles National Forest was, in fact, the first national forest to be established in California, a fact that the locals are quite proud of. The forest’s 694,187 acres includes almost the entire San Gabriel Mountain range, providing the striking backdrop to the city of Los Angeles. Topography on the forest ranges from mountain peaks over 10,000 feet to low-lying canyon bottoms at a mere 1,200 feet above sea level. Dense pine and fir stands cover the higher elevations, while shady riparian areas and broad expanses of chaparral cloak the foothills and lower elevations. It’s a breathtaking sight, and incredibly popular with both visitors and locals, drawing over 3.2 million guests a year. In addition to numerous campgrounds, over 500 miles of trails, and designated hunting and fishing areas, the Forest also sports six ski resorts and is quite popular as a location for Hollywood films.

But the locals understand that for all this grandeur, they are best advised not to spend the night beneath its branches, or at least to stay in well-traveled areas. Every year foolish individuals, or unknowing tourists, do just that. The lucky ones even wake up the next morning. This is very much an “urban forest,” and not just because Los Angeles borders it on all sides. For every tourist looking to gawk at nature and every local just looking to get away from it all, there are two businessmen, politicians, or criminals who look to the forest as a way to conclude a dirty deal or dispose of evidence. With nearly 700,000 acres of land and over 500 miles of nature trails, it’s not hard to do either. The Forest Service is woefully inadequate to the task of policing this domain, and for the most part they don’t even try. The more studious rangers will patrol the trails to look for any signs of trouble, but all they’re likely to find is a bit of trash and the occasional body. And beyond these well-defined areas of the park the patrols are almost non-existent.

Dark things, and not just vampires, roam this forest after night falls. For vampires, the Forest is almost a feeding ground in its own right, and were it not located in the Fringe more would probably hunt here. Even so, it does serve as a common stopover for nomads and other travelers, particularly of Gangrel, looking for shelter and blood. Several packs of werewolves also dwell here, but they are easily avoided and generally don’t look to start a fight. The same remains true or the handful of mages and “witches” that make use of the forest for their rites and rituals. But all stay clear of this land’s regent, the dreadful Lady of the Forest. Azrael, a particularly old and angry vampire, claims the Angeles Forest as her own domain and kills all those who claim otherwise. Even the Court has extended a loose regency over the forest to her, though this far out such a proclamation is little more than a placating gesture.

Symbol of the Forest Lords

Not much is known about the mysterious group of vampires known only as the Forest Lords. Many dismiss them as myths, little more than the campfire stories bandied about by nomads or fanciful tales told to keep neonates in line. Many Kindred know better, but even they don’t know much of this group. The unbound in the Fringe know the most, and that can be boiled down to three facts:

1) The Lords seem to have ties to several local packs of werewolves, and maybe even a cabal of mages.

2) The Angeles National Forest is their domain, and they do not tolerate trespassers.

3) All of these powerful, feral vampires owe allegiance to an even older and more powerful vampire whose true name has been lost.

Thought to number about half a dozen or so, including their undisputed leader Azrael, the Forest Lords do not much participate in goings on in Los Angeles. The forest is their domain, their haven, and their hunting ground and they are loath to leave it, suggesting to some that they might be part of the obscure Annunaku bloodline. But when one of them does venture into the city, the wise simply get out of the way. Only once has Azrael ever attended Court, and then it was only to drag in the brutalized and torpid body of a fugitive who tried to take refuge in her forest.

Other entities have been spotted in the park: Magath spirits of synthetic and organic resonance due to the collision of urban and wildness, Azlu, and Abyssal entities from a Scelesti garden somewhere deep in the forest.

The Fringe

A no-man’s land.  It doesn’t get any lower that this. If a vampire finds themselves in the Fringe, then odds are they burned all of your bridges in L.A. proper and had better get used to being unaligned. It’s not that these territories are all that violent, or that vampires from the center never travel there (though it is rare), it’s simply that this far from the known centers of power, wealth, and blood the Fringe seems a barren wasteland. This is, of course, not true, but out here the vampire court’s influence goes from slim to none very rapidly. A few, very few, areas are under the control of formally recognized regents, but these regents controlled their domains long before any formal recognition. Indeed the Court’s “recognition” of these lords and ladies was more a recognition of reality than anything else.

Rather loosely defined, the Fringe is anything beyond the Regent’s Ring out to the far edges of the suburbs. In reality, though, the Ring itself is in constant flux as old regents fall and new ones rise, and several powerful packs of Lupines are known to roam the fringes of the city, keeping the vampire population in the farthest reaches very low. Eventually you just hit the Edge, where the city gives way to the wilderness of mountains and desert. The Brujah are strong in this area, riding the south desert highways by night while packs of werewolves keep the mountains and the north under their claws. Although its reputation has certainly grown, the Fringe is nevertheless a dangerous place for vampires. There is blood to be had, but feeding is not nearly as easy as it is in L.A. proper. And while many consider it an advantage that the Court and covenants hold no sway here, it also means that the only justice available is that which you are willing or able to dish out. The unbound rule here and individuals scratch out what territory they can. The Fringe is also the home of malcontents and fools who thought that the city’s reputation for the strange meant they could ignore the Veil. It is also widely believed that large bands of nomads move through the Fringe, temporarily settling before moving on again.

For a mage, the Fringe is where Left-Handed, Nameless, Apostates, Banishers and other malcontents resided before the concilium fell, and many still remain.

City: Palmdale

Elizabeth Lake

Palmdale is in the center of northern Los Angeles County. The San Gabriel Mountains separate Palmdale from the City of Los Angeles proper.  Its population was 152,750 at the 2010 census, up from 116,670 at the 2000 census. Palmdale is the 33rd most populous city in California. In 2013, the Palmdale / Lancaster urban area had an estimated population of 513,547.

Site: Elizabeth Lake

Elizabeth Lake is a natural lake that lies directly on the San Andreas Fault in the northern Sierra Pelona Mountains, in northwestern Los Angeles County.



Sketch of Lake Monster

Legend has it that a monster lives in Elizabeth Lake (17 miles west of Palmdale on Elizabeth Lake Road). It was said of old that the Devil himself created the lake and kept one of his pets in it. The stories go as far back as the 1830s when Don Pedro Carrillo abandoned a ranch on the lakeshore after a mysterious fire. In 1855, Americans settlers tried moving into the area but later abandoned it claiming that it was haunted. Not long afterward, Don Chico Lopez and two other men claimed to witness the ascension of a huge monster with bat-like wings from the lake. Lopez also abandoned his lakeside ranch, selling out at a loss. He claimed that his livestock were quickly disappearing. Rancher Miguel Leonis, who later acquired the lands, also claimed to sight a griffin-like creature over the lake. In 1886, yet another rancher, Don Felipe Rivera, claimed to see a beast over the lake. There have been no similar sightings reported since the 1880s.

Aboleth Acamoth in Twilight Form

The creature has been described as having bat wings, the neck of a giraffe, the head of a bulldog, six legs, a length of at least fifty feet, and emit a horrible nauseating stench. Several ranchers and owners of land around Elizabeth Lake abandoned or sold their property at losses to get away from the beast. Supposedly Spanish missionaries dubbed the lake Laguna del Diablo and Indian Legend also supports the rumors that the Devil created the lake. Part of the lake is situated directly over the San Andreas Fault.

What is the monster that lives in the lake?  It could be a large cryptid, an ancient enemy of Werewolves, or even a slumbering Acamoth… Chimera knows it as the location of an Acamoth known as the Aboleth.  But Acamoth do not usually move around or have a physical form. 

Site: The San Andreas Fault

The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly 800 miles through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip (horizontal). The fault divides into three segments, each with different characteristics and a different degree of earthquake risk, the most significant being the southern segment, which passes within about 35 miles of Los Angeles.

Mystically speaking L.A. is an interesting place, a fact that probably wouldn’t surprise many. But geomantically speaking it is an absolute treasure mine to those who know how to use it. The San Andreas Fault brings energy up from deep within the Earth where it meets with the power of the Pacific Ocean. Combined with the sheer energy of the city, and the buried blood of its past tragedies, the night air practically sings with power. Of course, there is a downside to all of this. The massive amount of energy available means that Los Angeles is a tangled snarl of ley lines that even the finest mystics and mages would be unable to untangle. As such, even though the city sports numerous nodes, many of them shift and even dissipate rapidly. Some move as often as once a month, a rare few even faster. This unstable nature means that permanent nodes and hallows are extremely rare. Interestingly enough, the most powerful hallows remain in public buildings and have not moved since the Conflagration.

The San Andreas Fault is one of the most powerful leylines in the world.  This massive Leyline runs for a thousand miles along the coast of California.  It is part of the reason for the shifts in Hallows and the resonance that leaks in from the ring of Fire.  It is exposed in Palmdale, on the other side of Los Angeles and that is where its immense power can be tapped into.

City: Calabasas

Calabasas is a city in Los Angeles County located in the hills west of the San Fernando Valley and in the northwest Santa Monica Mountains between Woodland Hills, Agoura Hills, West Hills, Hidden Hills, and Malibu. As of the 2010 census, the city's population was 23,058, up from 20,033 at the 2000 census. The city was formally incorporated in 1991. It is noted for its wealthy residents and gated neighborhoods.

Site: The Leonis Adobe

Leonis Adobe, built in 1844, is one of the oldest surviving private residences in Los Angeles County and one of the oldest surviving buildings in the San Fernando Valley.  In 1961, the adobe had fallen victim to vandalism, and its owner applied for a permit to raze the structure and erect a supermarket in its place. 

Preservationists succeeded in having the adobe declared a Historic-Cultural Landmark (the first structure in Los Angeles receiving the designation) in 1962.  It is known as one of the most haunted sites in Los Angeles County, and it was profiled in the British paranormal television series Most Haunted in 2005.

The adobe was restored and is operated as a living museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.

Miguel and Espiritu Leonis originally inhabited the restored adobe. Miguel was a Basque immigrant who aggressively ranched much of the western part of the San Fernando Valley. He acquired a bad reputation for his harsh treatment of any perceived intruder or squatter on his land (much of which was legally public domain), hauling them to court and jail or allegedly just shooting them on the spot. He became one of the most hated men in the county. He died in a wagon accident in 1889, but it was rumored that he had been murdered. Miguel left almost nothing to his Indian wife, Espiritu, in his will, forcing her to fight his relatives in court over possession of the adobe and lands. Local authorities, having little interest in the well-being of an Indian woman, drew out the case until her death in 1906. Afterward, her son from a previous marriage acquired the property but agreed to sell to Miguel’s relatives in 1922.

Shortly thereafter, reports of strange noises and untraceable odors began to occur. Now it’s a rumored desecration site and haunted by demons.

Liminal Spaces

Raves

Rave in an abandoned warehouse

While more sophisticated people prefer the more famous clubs like Confessions or the Asylum, many supernatural denizens of Los Angeles prefer their entertainment to be a bit earthier and a lot less restrained. The massive parties known as Raves are quite popular for this reason. Usually held by teenagers and other young people in abandoned warehouses and hangars; it’s a place to meet and greet, as well as a venue in which loud music, drugs, and sex are easily available.

Hallows & Leylines

Mystically speaking L.A. is an interesting place, a fact that probably wouldn’t surprise many. But geomantically speaking it is an absolute treasure mine to those who know how to use it. The San Andreas Fault brings energy up from deep within the Earth where it meets with the power of the Pacific Ocean. Combined with the sheer energy of the city, and the buried blood of its past tragedies, the night air practically sings with power across the entire Pacific Rim. Of course, there is a downside to all of this. The massive amount of energy available means that Los Angeles is a tangled snarl of ley lines that even the finest mystics and mages would be unable to untangle. As such, even though the city sports numerous Hallows, many of them shift and even dissipate rapidly. Some move as often as once a month, a rare few even faster. This unstable nature means that permanent nests of power are extremely rare.

Leylines and Hallows in Los Angeles tend to drift and change, flare up and flare out as time goes on.  But some Hallows have stayed the same, concentrated on large public works buildings in the downtown area.  The only constant ley lines are the Ring of Fire and the San Andreas Fault.

Infrastructure

The major Freeways of Los Angeles and indeed most of the west coast is part of massive systems of God-Machine infrastructure.  Layers upon layers of systems from redundant power grids, telephone systems, etc.  Everything builds upon power from something else.  The Hallows were engineered.  They are junk, sabotaged in subtle ways or made to rapidly.  As a result they don’t work well and brownouts, systemic system errors, and other general weirdness happen quite a bit.  LA is a huge hub of the God-Machine and powerful angels guard its systems.  However demons hide between these colossi and the whole system is one major failure away from a total system crash that will trigger another earthquake the likes of which will cause California to drop into the sea…

The Undercity

Unlike many other large cities, Los Angeles does not have an extensive underground network of tunnels. Subways exist (notably the Red and Orange Lines), but most public transportation is conducted by above ground rail or bus. Large sewer networks and access tunnels have, of course, been carved, but the massive tunnels of the old sewers have been bricked up for years. For reasons no one can positively identify, Los Angeles is a city that avoids looking underground. There are, of course, many practical reasons (from geology, to finance, to economic viability and government corruption) for this, but many cannot help but wonder if something else is responsible.

Nosferatu in Warrens

Regardless of the efforts of city government and police to keep things quiet, stories persist. Stories of abandoned tunnels, storage bunkers, lost crypts and forgotten platforms constructed or discovered when the subways were first being carved, only later to be sealed away. And if you look out the window in just the right spot you can catch a glimpse of strange things as the train passes. Abandoned platforms, empty tunnels, boltholes, fallout shelters, and even stranger things.

For example, a proposed line to Santa Monica was abruptly abandoned during construction. Officially a geological instability that resulted in the loss of a boring machine created concerns about the tunnel’s safety, thus forcing its closing. Unofficially, the workers that had built the tunnel were given a generous severance package, quietly split up, and then let go. The tunnel plans have subsequently been “lost” by the Department of Transportation. Other stories from the 1940s discuss the discovery of a body washed out into the bay. Although not a terribly uncommon event, a subsequent search of the sewers discovered several other bodies (mostly of the homeless) that appeared to have been mauled to death, though zoologists failed to identify what had inflicted the wounds. The animal responsible was never found, but workers reported seeing strange things and hearing odd noises out of the shadows. Four months later the Department of Sanitation ordered several sections sealed off without explanation. In the seventies some of these tunnels were reopened and searched by police, but within a few weeks were sealed again. No one, not even work crews, have set foot in the tunnels since.

Huntspawn

Most people scoff at such tales, and even the preternatural community is skeptical, but beware the underground, just in case. Hopi legends were said to describe a race of “lizard people” ((Servitors of the God-Machine)) who built three great underground cities near the Pacific Coast, including one beneath Los Angeles, some 5,000 years ago. In 1934, mining engineer W. Warren Shufeld took up the cause of researching these legends and locating the cities. Shufeld reported that the city beneath Los Angeles was laid out in the shape of a lizard that extended from Dodger Stadium to the downtown Central Library. Using a device Shufeld called a “radio X-ray,” he claimed to have located tunnels and a treasure room beneath Fort Moore Hill in downtown Los Angeles. After acquiring funds to do some excavating, Shufeld obtained permission from the authorities to drill a 350-foot shaft. The work was interrupted by cave-in concerns and, shortly thereafter, Shufeld disappeared.

Larger Huntspawn

Still, the curious urban explorers flock into the subways and the old sewers seeking some inkling of the truth, whatever it may be. Most return with nothing but filth, or perhaps some interesting stories. Others never return at all. A small group of loosely aligned vampires, known as the Tunnel Rats, do make their lairs underground in the Warrens beneath Hollywood, but these strange Kindred do not speak of what, if anything, they have ever encountered. Yet the filthy, bedraggled, and more than slightly insane look that many of these vampires sport leads some to wonder...

Homeless squatters will sometimes break into parts of the Undercity for shelter, especially in the more dilapidated parts of the city.  The Mysterium believes there is an Temple from the Time Before but it’s protected by bestial guardians that patrol the sewers ((Huntspawn)).  Rumors or lizard people go hand in hand with the urban legend of finding huge alligators in the sewers.  Swarms of rats and other vermin under control of the Tunnel Rats patrol the dark and Beshlu gnaw verges into the Shadow.