[Vampire: The Requiem 2e] Primer: Mandragora & Lacrima

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

Primer: Mandragora & Lacrima

Sources: The following text has been taken from the Vampire the Requiem: Ghouls supplemental book adapted for Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition corebook.

Creating Mandragora

Mandragora are ghouled plants, and consequently must be purchased as retainers, just as any other ghoul. Unlike other retainers, 'growing' them is an Intelligence + Science (Botany) roll, or Presence + Animal Ken (Plants) roll. A Kindred with the 'Of Rose and Thorn' devotion may add their Animalism to either roll.

Only especially hardy plants can be turned into Mandragora. (The ones gardeners despair of, because they're so very hard to kill!) Failed mandragora die quickly, usually over a period of a few hours. Green turns to brown, and healthy leaves and vines shrivel as if blasted by heat. The soil takes on a rotten smell like that of a bloated corpse.

As with any ghoul, creating Mandragora requires three vitae to be spent over three different nights, as well as a point of Willpower. Unlike other ghouls, Mandragora also require an Intelligence + Science (Botany) roll with each vitae. At least one success must be achieved on each roll in order for the ghouling to 'take'.

Also unlike other ghouls, the tags for Mandragora are always set.

Daeva Mandragora get Lacrima, Survival, Persuasion.

Gangrel Mandragora get Lacrima, Survival, Brawl.

Mekhet Mandragora get Lacrima, Survival, Stealth.

Nosferatu Mandragora get Lacrima, Survival, Intimidation.

Ventrue Mandragora get Lacrima, Survival, Expression.

Sustaining Mandragora

Mandragora are always controlled by vitae. The plant requires neither sunlight, nor water, nor fertilizers: only Vitae. The number of dots put into the Mandragora represents its size, with larger plants requiring more Vitae.

These are the most common kinds of Mandragora, but do not represent a complete list.

Roses (•)

Almost all varieties of rose are hearty enough to sustain becoming mandragora, regardless of the size of the plant, length of thorn or style and color of the bloom. Roses take on a few unique conditions once imbued with a vampire’s essence. First, a mandrake rose’s bloom changes. No matter what its original color was, the bloom becomes what some growers call a black rose, even though the color is actually a deep, dark crimson. Second, a rose blooms only after being fed blood. A blood-born bloom continues for a full month after the feeding. Third, a mandrake rose becomes more susceptible to a dark fungus found on the leaves called blackspot. Blackspot doesn’t kill the rose (as it might if it were not mandragora), but it renders some leaves warped and bent with shadowy spots crusted upon them. Roses require one Vitae per month to sustain.

Teasel (•)

Teasel is a thistle with small, sharp spines and little violet flowers. It’s not a particularly attractive plant, but some Kindred favor it because it doesn’t need to be cut or otherwise damaged for the gathering of lacrima. This plant (also sometimes known as Venus’s Basin) has several upper leaves that join around the stem and form a cup. Once, the Greeks favored drinking the collected rainwater from this botanical basin for its unproven medicinal properties. As mandragora, water doesn’t necessarily collect in this cup, but lacrima does. Over the period of a week, this floral bell fills with the rusty sap. This sap figures into a few of the more esoteric rituals of the Circle of the Crone. Teasel requires one Vitae per month to sustain.

English Ivy (• or ••)

Also known as Hedera helix, English ivy is an invasive plant that winds about trees and other flora and is sustained almost like a parasite. The natural version grows quickly, carpeting a forest floor in what is generally termed an “ivy desert,” destroying any biodiversity present. The mandrake version of this plant is somewhat different. The process stunts the ivy’s out-of-control growth and tends to reduce its potential spread to that of 10 square feet or so. Also, the vine itself tends to grow fatter (sometimes as fat as a man’s thumb) to help contain the mandrake’s lacrima. Starting with a young and small patch of ivy requires only one Vitae per month. Larger patches (those that measure more than three feet square) require two.

Water Lily (• to •••)

This particular family is aquatic in nature, and so has a worldwide distribution. Yet given its aquatic nature, the average water lily is a damned costly variety of mandrake to maintain. Only the most determined of the Damned bother with the upkeep of water lily mandragora, and even then, they ensure that their enemies find a home deep between the rhizomes of their beloved pond plants. Euryale ferox is an Asian species notable for the sharp prickles that cover its exposed parts. Regardless, the water lilies that survive ghouling take on some disturbing traits, such as the drifting of their floating leaves towards anything possessing blood. Their prickles will actively bend around small animals and the gigantic Victoria amazonica lily can actually bump unaware swimmers hard enough to pierce their flesh with the prickles covering the edge of its leaf, effectively drawing blood. The rhizomes that form the base of the water lily will reach up for any prey that passes nearby, and can entangle a drowning man with little effort, should he succumb to their sharp points. Depending upon the size of the plant, it can require anything from one to three vitae per month to live. When sent to sleep among the lilies, a person is usually bound in rope and weighed down with a heavy weight at either end. The weights are rarely retrieved.

Black Locust (•••)

Few trees seem to be able to sustain the mandrake condition. Many affected trees die — their bark turning black and their leaves withering off the branch. The process takes anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Moreover, not many Kindred are willing to invest the time and Vitae necessary to feed a whole tree. One tree remains a certain survivor, however, should a vampire choose to take the step of making it mandragora. The black locust tree is an aggressive, robust tree. Its bark is darkly colored and lined with small thorns. The branches are crooked and twisted (appearing doubly so in winter, when the leaves are gone). Black locusts become even stranger looking as mandrakes. The branches twist further, the thorns grow one or two inches longer, and the leaf covering becomes sparse and inconsistent. Some Ordo Dracul Kindred are said to have a brooch featuring a silhouetted image of a thorny black locust. The reasoning for this is as yet unknown. Such trees require three Vitae per month to sustain.

Willow (•••)

In England, willow trees are associated with bad things. Old stories tell of willow trees stalking behind travelers at night and snapping their necks with their drooping boughs. Yet elsewhere, they are valued as symbols of wisdom. Whatever the case may be, the genus known as Salix has been found to be a valuable source of mandragora by the Kindred that know of plant ghouls. Their loose boughs mean that they can more easily wrap around a mortal's neck, and their ability to take root from cuttings means that a potential mandrake can be placed anywhere that's moist and/or cool. The southern gentry of the Invictus take a particular liking to willows, as do the eldest of the Chinese Invictus. A willow tree requires three vitae a month to sustain it.

Lacrima

Lacrima is a rust-colored fluid that runs thick, less like fresh blood and more like older, congealing Vitae. It even smells like thickening blood, exuding an acrid odor of decay. Much like sap, it is found in the stalks, branches, and veins of all Mandragora.

The taste, while not exactly pleasant, is queerly compelling. It's also accompanied by a rush that makes lacrima extraordinarily popular among Kindred, and does not require the Blush of Life to either enjoy or keep down.

Lacrima is harvested by activating the Mandragora. Unlike other retainers it takes only one hour to activate, regardless of how many dots the Mandragora has. However, the Mandragora can only be activated to harvest lacrima once per week. This requires an Intelligence + Medicine + Mandragora roll, and results in a tablespoon of lacrima for each success, up to a total value of the Mandragora's rank. (Thus a 3-dot Mandragora cannot give more than 3 tablespoons of lacrima in a single week.)

A single tablespoon is sufficient lacrima to create one glass of lachrymalis (when mixed with a cup of blood), and when given as a gift this is the standard quantity. A bottle contains enough for five glasses. The typical mix is 5:2 - 5 tablespoons of lacrima to 2 points of blood.

The supernatural properties of lacrima keep blood from going bad, allowing lachrymalis an indefinite shelf-life.

Mandragora (ghouled plants) produce lacrima or 'mandrake tears'. Lacrima is mixed with blood to create lachrymalis, or 'blood wine'.

Effects on Kindred - drunk

For every glass of Blood Wine you have within the same scene, roll a reflexive Stamina + Resolve roll, modified by how many glasses you have already had. Thus your first roll is Stamina + Resolve; your second roll is Stamina + Resolve - 1; your third roll is Stamina + Resolve - 2. The Hardy merit applies to these rolls.

A failure on this roll applies a cumulative -1 penalty to any Dexterity-, Intelligence-, and Wits-based dice pools. (Defense is also reduced accordingly). These effects fade at the rate of one die per hour.

As an approximate guideline:

Blood wine consumed, but no negatives: A warm, feel-good sensation.

-1 penalty: Tipsy.

-2 penalty: A good buzz.

-3 penalty: Drunk.

-4 penalty: Without inhibition.

-5 penalty: Belligerently intoxicated.

-6 penalty: Incapacitated drunkenness.

-7 penalty: 'Black-out' drunk.

When the penalty equals or exceeds your Stamina, you must begin rolling for addiction. This is a straight Resolve + Composure roll, rolled each time the penalty increases at a cumulative -1. If you are drinking Daeva lacrima, this roll suffers an additional -2 penalty.

Ghouls

Immediately throw up any ingested lacrima.

Humans

Humans treat lacrima as a poison with Toxicity equal to the regnant's Blood Potency plus number of tablespoons drunk, with the effects varying according to the regnant's clan:

Daeva: Gain the Wanton Condition for the remainder of the night. At sunrise the lacrima burns through the mortal's system, wracking him with pain and inflicting two points of lethal damage.

Gangrel: Take 1 point of lethal damage and receive a -2 penalty to all rolls for the next 24 hours from numbness, weakness, and general lack of mental clarity.

Mekhet: Take 1 point of lethal damage and receive a -2 penalty to all rolls for the next 24 hours from numbness, weakness, and general lack of mental clarity. In addition, suffer nightmarish hallucinations for the remainder of the night.

Nosferatu: Take 1 point of lethal damage and receive a -2 penalty to all rolls for the next 24 hours from numbness, weakness, and general lack of mental clarity. In addition, the lacrima works as a contact poison, inflicting the effects of Dread Presence on the mortal for the remainder of the night. This manifests as a stinging sensation in the flesh and auditory hallucinations of loud, high-pitched shrieks, as well as a general sense of fear and unease.

Ventrue: Take 1 point of lethal damage and receive a -2 penalty to all rolls for the next 24 hours from numbness, weakness, and general lack of mental clarity. In addition, all Resolve and Composure rolls suffer a -3 penalty for the remainder of the night.

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The following text has been taken from the Vampire the Requiem: Ghouls supplemental book. The context of the paragraphs is typically followed by all House Rules imposed for our setting which, in case of conflict, override the mechanical rules of the supplemental book.

Overview

The majority of Kindred recognize the fact that mortals and animals can be fed Vitae and turned to ghouls by the infusion of a vampire’s supernatural will. Few, however, realize that it’s also possible to force a similar alteration upon living plants.

Some who are aware of such a possibility might refer to such altered flora as a “plant ghoul,” but such a term

is a misnomer, for the properties of a Vitae-infused plant differ from those granted to actual ghouls. As such, most Kindred in the know call these creations mandrakes or mandragora, separating them appropriately from human or animal ghouls.

Creating Mandragora

Many Kindred who try to turn a plant into mandrake often face disappointment. Mandragora are rare and unusual specimens that cannot be made from most plants. The majority of flora, in fact, are simply too delicate to support the physiological and supernatural changes intrinsic to the process. As such, only the toughest plants are candidates for this bizarre enhancement. Qualifying plants are ones that are capable of surviving varying qualities of soil, temperature and pollution. Some trees are particularly robust, as are many of the plants known as “invasive” or “alien,” meaning plants that grow unfettered and are notoriously difficult to destroy. A vampire who believes that he has a plant that meets the qualifications for the process is in for further effort that might be beyond his patience or abilities. Generally, the process requires at least three

months. Once per month, the vampire must feed his own Vitae to the plant, typically by saturating the

ground around it with Vitae. How much Vitae he feeds to the plant depends upon the size of it. A small tangle

of English ivy requires significantly less than, say, a black locust tree. At this point, the plant is not yet a

mandrake, though it takes the Vitae in through its root system. During these three months, the plant

continues to have small amounts of the mystical Vitae broken down within it, and it doesn’t need any of

the other life-sustaining elements (water, sun, nutrients from the soil) to survive.

Vitae isn’t the only requirement, however. This process doesn’t give the flora any kind of intelligence or

awareness, but it does grant it a kind of singular instinct unseen in other plants, even in carnivorous plants. Part of this is due to the Blood, yes, but another part comes from the vampire’s own will. In this process, the Kindred actually infuses the vegetation with part of his own hunger and instinct, which awakens the plant to similar hungers. Unfortunately, not all mandragora “take” after the three months have passed, and no one is precisely certain why. Some plants are assumed to be inherently weak; others figure that it’s the vampire himself who was too weak to foster such an aberrance of nature. Failed mandragora die quickly, usually over a period of a few hours. Green turns to brown, and healthy leaves and vines shrivel as if blasted by heat. The soil takes on a rotten smell like that of a bloated corpse.

Sustaining Mandragora

Plants that survive to become mandrakes require vampiric Vitae to survive. Nothing else is required to keep the plant in its strange state between life and death. The plant doesn’t need sunlight, it requires no water or fertilizers. It gains its entire sustenance from the Blood. How much it requires is dependent upon the size of the plant. Small plants might require as little as a single Vitae per month, whereas larger plants (trees, for instance) might need as many as three. Without this sanguine sustenance, a plant withers and dies after a full month has passed without Vitae. It doesn’t revert to being a living plant, it simply perishes over the course of several hours. One dominant exception separates mandragora further from animal or mortal ghouls, however. From time to time, the mandrake can survive on non-Kindred blood. Every other month, a vampire can feed the mandrake an equivalent amount of blood from human or animal sources instead of from her own body, thus saving herself from diminishing her own Vitae. Mandragora do not need the blood poured upon the

ground, as they do when they are becoming ghouls. The nature of the physiological changes allows a mandrake to consume blood through the plant’s stomata, hungry pores that open on leaves, thorns and flowers. These pores can consume blood poured over the mandrake, though old-fashioned Kindred can still feed their creations by soaking the surrounding soil in Vitae, as the root system still functions as a sustenance delivery system.

Physical Properties

The first thing a vampire might notice about a mandrake is that it moves. Such movement is slight, nothing so drastic as flailing branches or thrashing roots. Leaves tremble, boughs sway slightly, vines seem to creep and slither. The second thing is that the plant’s appearance changes. A quick glance might not reveal these changes, but any prolonged examination makes such physical alterations obvious. Healthy green turns to a sickly olive-drab, while any robust brown turns dark and almost dirty in appearance. And yet, this appearance of sickness is belied by an unnatural aura about the plant. Those looking upon the plant cannot help but note that it shouldn’t be alive, and yet, it’s quite apparent that it is alive and thriving. (Moreover, this aura of preternatural life swells and glows all the more after the plant has been fed blood.) A mandrake takes on other odd characteristics, as well. It no longer grows, but its leaves, branches and vines seem to tangle inward upon one another. They no longer search out light or water, but instead snake together in a confusing snarl. That is, until some source of blood (human, animal or vampire) comes near. Should blood be nearby (whether contained in flesh or spilled out), the plant moves, slowly and slightly, to seek out the Vitae. Vines meander blindly toward the source, while leaves point toward the blood like organic dowsing rods.

Mandragora are incapable of actually attacking living creatures, simply due to their slow movement. Only a fool wouldn’t attempt to outdistance a pair of vines seeking the warm pulse on his neck. As such, it’s rare that a mandrake is capable of feeding itself. It’s not impossible, however. While a plant couldn’t consciously conceive of such a tactic, it’s possible that in searching out blood, vines or branches somehow trip or disable a human or animal, which might be enough to allow a whipping limb or curled thorn to sneak a taste. Alternately, some insects or animals might try to make a home out of a mandrake, perhaps by making a nest in its boughs or laying eggs upon the leaves. Such creatures might fall prey to the hungry plant. Of course, actually getting blood requires something sharp enough to cut flesh, which is why many vampires prefer mandragora with thorns or sharp branches. Another substantial change in the vegetation is its inability to reproduce. Becoming mandragora destroys any chance the plant has of creating other plants. Most mandragora stop seeding and fruiting altogether. Those that continue produce hard, worthless seeds alongside bitter, shriveled fruit. The final, though perhaps most important, physical change to take place is what happens inside the plant - the creation of lacrima.

Lacrima

Lacrima (also referred to as “mandrake tears”) is a thick sap found in the stalks, branches and veins of

all mandragora. This rust-colored fluid runs thick, less like fresh blood and more like older, congealing Vitae.  It even smells like thickening blood, exuding an acrid odor of decay. Curiously, lacrima is similar enough to Vitae to allow some vampires (those of less potent blood) to gain nourishment from it. Unfortunately, such nourishment is negligible, providing only a fraction of the sustenance that even an animal’s blood could provide. Lacrima might run thick and taste strong, but its potency is too delicate to be used for feeding. This sanguine sap, however, offers other benefits and properties that some Kindred find intriguing. For one, the taste, while not exactly pleasant, is queerly compelling. So compelling, in fact, that some vampires become addicted to the taste, and to what they claim is a “rush” that accompanies it. The memorable flavor of lacrima alongside the potent sensation gained from drinking it has caused some vampires to attempt to manufacture and sell of bottles of this strange herbal claret. Such bottles rarely contain 100% lacrima, for few plants are able to produce high volumes of the fluid. Most bottles contain no more than one-third of the stuff, with the rest being some notable draught of blood (e.g., the blood of a wealthy man, the blood of a nun, the blood of a child). Vintners of such “wine” rarely sell such a product for money. Money, after all, comes easily. Such bottles are usually traded for items and secrets of significant value. Even higher prices can be inveigled from those rare few addicts who swoon at the thought of another taste.

Blood Wine

The purveyor of Lacrima can mix each vial with .60 liters of alcohol to make their Blood Wine.  Lacrima that has been properly mixed with a solvent (at a rate of one vial to .75 liters) is considered to be Blood Wine. Blood Wine is not only exceptionally smooth, mimicking the aspects of the liquor that it is mixed with, the Lacrima within it also trigger Blood Addiction. Blood Wine itself is addictive, but there is no connection with the addictive properties of Lacrima Blood Wine and Blood Bonds. A Blood Wine addict is NOT in thrall to the purveyor of the Mandragora plant, but simply addicted to the alcohol itself.

Blood Wine follows Blood Addiction rules from Vampire: the Requiem, with the following changes.

After a Kindred's very first "initial" drink, under their own free will; the next time said Kindred is "offered" the ability to drink Lacrima again, a Willpower, Difficulty 6 roll will be necessary.

One success is needed on this Willpower roll to refrain from partaking in the drink. Willpower may not be spent on this roll.

Each subsequent "ingestion" (ingestion occurring on different nights of play) of Lacrima will decrease this Willpower roll by -1, until nothing more than a chance roll is left. At this point a Kindred will be considered totally addicted to Lacrima.

Addiction to Lacrima can be shrugged, at any stage, but the cost and requirements of doing so are great. An extended Willpower, Difficulty 7 roll with a target of 25 successes will allow a Kindred to receive +1 back to their Willpower roll to resist partaking in the drink. Each roll will require the use of 1 Downtime Action. Subsequent extended rolls will be necessary to restore a significantly addicted person.

Once a character has successfully shrugged their Addiction and returned their roll to a Willpower + 1 roll, they will assume the mechanics of a character that has never "initially" drank Lacrima, and may freely resist drinking it until they've done it under their own free will.

Each individual .75 liter bottle of Blood Wine contains enough liquid for 8 separate glasses. While additional glasses consumed in the same night have no effect toward Blood Wine Addiction, they do progressively impair the Kindred consuming them.

One glass = a feel good warming sensation

Two glasses = a feeling of "tipsy", inflicts a -1 penalty to any physical rolls

Three glasses = a good "buzz", inflicts a -1 penalty to all rolls

Four glasses = drunk, inflicts -2 penalty to any physical rolls, -1 penalty to all others

Five glasses = without inhibition, inflicts -2 penalty to all rolls

Six glasses = belligerently intoxicated, inflicts -3 penalty to all rolls

Seven glasses = incapacitated drunkenness, inflicts -4 penalty to all rolls

Eight glasses = fatally "black-out" drunk. You will be called into #Twilight_Gamehelp for appropriate rolls

As an aside to the above "drunkenness" chart, Blood Wine is the only liquid, aside from Blood, that a Kindred may consume without the need to expunge said liquid.

Lacrima that is ingested without being properly diluted inflicts Lethal Damage on Kindred.

Lacrima inflicts Aggravated Damage on Ghouls and Humans.

[Vampire: The Requiem 2e] Cymothoa Sanguinaria

Cymothoa Sanguinaria

"The Greatest Enemy Lies within the Self"

This shit is body horror.

Truth

Of all the horrors and monsters, beasts of nightmare,

bloody-lipped demons, and creeping specters haunting

this dark world, sometimes the dumb engines of evolution

grind out creatures to rival the worst of the secret occult

horrors. C. Sanguinaria is just such a creature.

Parasites. Let us consider parasites.

Some recent studies suggest that in complex ecosystems,

the total biomass of parasites exceeds that of predators.

The parasitoid wasp Glyptapanteles lays its eggs upon

hapless caterpillars, and when they hatch, the larvae burrow

in and eat. When they’re ready to pupate into adult

wasps, they hijack the behavior of the caterpillar, and it

climbs up a shaft of grass to allow the larvae to wriggle

from within its flesh and attach themselves to the grass,

forming chrysalis. But Glyptapanteles is not finished with

its poor host, no indeed, for a few of the larvae remain

within, burrowing about in its nervous system and secreting

chemicals. The cored-out caterpillar remains living,

after a fashion, and serves to guard the metamorphosing

wasps, thrashing about madly at any insect hazarding too

close to the creatures feeding upon it. The wasps emerge,

and the caterpillar dies.

This power of parasites to hijack host behavior isn’t

limited to caterpillars. The protozoa Toxoplasma gondii is

commonly found in the feces of the housecat, and benignly

infects upwards of one third of the human population of

the planet. With a healthy immune system arrayed against

it, it is quiescent, but with the body’s defenses compromised

by immune deficiency disease, it can ravage nerves

and brain. In Rattus rattus and his rodent cousins, the

Toxoplasma organism alters behavior, giving the creatures

an affection for the smell of domestic cats and cat urine.

Infected mice trend to cat-infested areas, increasing the

chances that they’ll end up as meals, and permitting the

newly introduced organism to reproduce with the cat’s

native population.

And might the protozoa have a similar effect upon humans?

Well, it could explain why we’d open our homes

to furniture-destroying aloof little sociopaths.

And then there’s Cymothoa Exigua, a tiny monster popular

on the Internet. Exigua enters the gills of the spotted

rose snapper fish and attaches itself to the base of the fish’s

tongue, absorbing blood and nutrients until the tongue

withers away. C. Exigua grafts itself to the tongue stump,

and functionally replaces it. This relationship is almost a

symbiosis, except the fish only just breaks even, and he’s

got a segmented isopod instead of a tongue.

And Cymothoa Sanguinaria is so much worse than all

of these.

Parasites get inside us, use us to propagate, hijack our

reproductive energies to fuel their own life cycles, and

perhaps even control our minds. They remind us that

fundamentally, we’re flesh, and all the airy realms of spirit

matter not at all when the body anchoring it to Earth

is eaten away from within, and the core of thought and

identity corrupted by the mindless invader.

Pray to God to save your soul, because your body and

mind belong to Cymothoa Sanguinaria.

C. Sanguinaria is superficially similar to its cousin species C.

Exigua, but much, much rarer. Conditions allowing C. Sanguinaria

to prosper are uncommon. Although exceptionally rare, it

has a lifecycle dependent upon natural hot springs, and evidence

suggests Sanguinaria or a nearly identical species has propagated

in Iceland, Japan and the American West, in regions of natural

geothermal heating. Humans parasitized by Sanguinaria have

been fairly rare, though several historical outbreaks in Japanese

onsen are suspected, and the Japanese snow monkey (Macaca

Fuscata) may play a more regular host to the organism.

The course of infection is similar in humans and other

large mammals, though the behavioral changes imposed

upon human hosts are more complex than those seen in

wolves, bears, moose and deer.

C. Sanguinaria larvae enter a host through the nasal

cavity or mouth. A common vector for infection is mammals

bending to drink from warm springs which remain

unfrozen during winter. Among humans, recreational

bathing provides the most common opportunity for the

tiny larvae to invade the sinuses.

The parasite secretes a complex stew of antiseptic and anesthetic

chemicals during the first days of stage 1. Its creeping

progress into the host’s throat goes unnoticed. While the host

sleeps, it creeps into the mouth. It begins to hollow out a pocket

in the soft tissues under the tongue, and latches onto the host

and begins consuming blood. When so attached, C. Sanguinaria

secretes a cocktail of chemicals that alter brain chemistry in

subtle ways, creating a sense of mild euphoria and elevated

mood, with manic episodes. This serves to distract the host until

the larva has burrowed into a sub-lingual pocket, and begun

metamorphosis into an adult C. Sanguinaria specimen.

When the parasite matures, it fully grafts to the host’s body,

and extends its tail through a channel under the tongue into

the host’s upper esophagus in preparation for the egg laying

coming at the end of stage-1 infection. The subject’s olfactory

centers are suborned to serve C. Sanguinaria as well, and others

infected with a parasite begin to smell extremely attractive.

In the wild, infected animals will approach one another even

if normal predator-prey relationships would forbid this, and

engage in close grooming activity, culminating in the hosts

lying so their hermaphroditic parasites can emerge partially

from the mouth, and fertilize each other.

Among human hosts, this fertilization more frequently

results in spontaneous and (to the hosts) inexplicable

sexual arousal and relations. During a kiss,

the parasites copulate.

Once fertilized, C. Sanguinaria influences host behavior

to make it extremely territorial, so the scent of other

infected hosts becomes repellent, and induces anxiety

and aggression. The parasite deposits its eggs encased in

a thick layer of mucous into the host’s esophagus, and

they migrate downward and attached variously to the

stomach and intestinal lining where they slowly mature

and hatch larvae that themselves parasitize the host for

nutrients. The parasites then drive the host to find a

secure (and exclusive) brooding area to eventually deposit

the larval parasites.

The host passes through increasingly common periods

of fugue—a loss of conscious volition during which complex

actions and interactions can take place of which the

host will have no memory when returning to sentience.

The host will also be driven to seek out sexual partners

in order to feed C. Sanguinaria the blood meals its eggs

require to mature, and its larvae to grow. This vampiric

exsanguination explains the parasite’s name (“blooddrinker”).

The host might bleed as few as one or as many

as a dozen victims, depending upon the parasite’s rate

of maturation.

By the end of stage 2 (see below), most hosts enter

a permanent fugue state, becoming in effect cognitive

zombies. A host’s brain still operates at a degree

of sophistication (though, mostly to enact behaviors

beneficial to the parasite), but the parasite has wholly

suppressed the host’s consciousness. Horrific as this

is, the telepathic observation by a group of vampires

of a stage-3 host revealed that his conscious mind remained

alive and aware, forced to watch and endure

the actions of his body without any ability to control

or override them.

Patterns of brain damage caused by the parasite’s

chemical excretions suggest certain brain regions cut

off, physically, from others: the mind of the victim,

walled off in an oubliette of neurons, and shown

atrocities without even the power to close the eyes, or

flinch away.

As stage 3 progresses to its inevitable and grotesque

conclusion, the host becomes more and more feral,

and aggressively territorial, meeting perceived threats

with violence.

The blood meals have done their work, and when

the larval parasites have reached a stage of maturity

permitting them to survive as free swimmers in the

brooding pool, they release chemicals that cause in the

host severe abdominal cramping and contractions of

the intestinal muscles not unlike mammalian labor. The

creature compels the host to immerse himself in the

prepared brooding pool, and then experiences a violent

distention of intestinal tissues. Larvae burst out into

the pool (taking with them large portions of the host’s

decaying intestinal tract). The host, emptied, experiences

a surge of energy (caused by still more chemical

secretions of its primary parasite), and returns to his

territorial protection of the brooding area, allowing the

larvae to grow and establish themselves in the pool. If

suitable hosts (large mammals) venture into the host’s

territory now, rather than attack with violence, the

host will sometimes incapacitate them and place them

by the brooding pool, providing the larvae with ready

access to a new host.

Without the ability to absorb nutrients, the late stage-3

host is doomed to die in a short time, taking with it the

parasite that was the engineer of this doom.

But Darwin smiles upon the beast. Its evolutionary

duty is discharged with success, and the selfish genes

that drive all life are propagated further—dumb replication

underpinning the sublime birth of a child as much

as the piratical organism that might one day steal that

child’s blood, will and humanity. In the end, the lesson

we learn from parasites is that we’re all flesh, we eat, and

we are eaten.

Everything else is just meat, singing to itself in

the dark.

Stories

Body horror, flesh terror—stories featuring C. Sanguinaria

revolve around revulsion. The body in rebellion,

the flesh invaded. They also hedge into stories

about the terror of the familiar becoming alien—when

a friend or lover begins to act oddly in small ways,

then big ways, and finally horrific ways. Themes of

consciousness and free will are also relevant—stripped

of conscious direction, the body of a stage-2 host can

convincingly appear human sometimes, even to loved

ones, all while the cutoff sentience of the victim’s

brain uselessly screams. What’s consciousness even

for if the flesh can get along quite well without it? C.

Sanguinaria isn’t even evil—it’s as morally neutral as

a thunderstorm or a mountain lion eating an incautious

jogger. Even when you realize what it is and rise

with anger and hate, and you smash it, burn it with

fire, poison its brooding pools, execute its hosts…

so what? What’s your anger worth? Even in death,

Cymothoa Sanguinaria doesn’t hate you back. It just

doesn’t care about you.

Trapped in my head

It’s the kind of thing that isn’t really suited for

long-term play, but some players might—for want of

a better word—enjoy the horror of playing C. Sanguinaria’s

victim.

The character dies at the end, of course. Maybe you’d

play it as a one-shot. Maybe it’s a way to end the story

of a long-running and beloved character. (It’s a horror

game! Who says the protagonists of such stories get

happy endings?)

For a short term, descend into the essence of personal

horror. Play through the course of a host’s infection

with the parasite, her fall into fugue states and missing

time, and then the evidence of cannibalism, madness.

Finally, locked into a prison of flesh, a witness trapped

in her own skull, forced to watch the death and the

spawning, to feel the bursting surge of the parasite

larvae emerging, and the pain of it and yet… wholly

unable to act, even to will an eye to twitch or a finger

to move. This is going to be intense. All the horror of

being a vampire without any of the dark romance or

cool powers to take the sting out of it, plus a horrible

death a certainty from the start, with redemption at

best an existential thing.

Sartre said, “Freedom is what you do with what’s been done

to you.”

How do you get right with this kind of horror?

In the context of a storytelling game, you have the

advantage of not being bound by linear time—mixing

the horrific present with the comparatively idyllic past

gives you dramatic contrast, and allows you and your

storyteller to frame issues your character is trying to

work through, and then reach an internal and personal

redemption even as the parasite completely takes

over the flesh. In a strange way, complete surrender

to the parasite is freedom. The mind, so completely

divorced from the concerns of the body, is free to

consider things from a unique perspective. If you’re

zen about the whole thing, it’s almost nice until you

have to watch the parasite eviscerate a pair of earnest

Mormons who were unfortunate enough to knock

on your door.

And what of the other characters? Do they have to put

down their friend? Or have they been infected, too?

This is a delicate sort of game, and not one every

troupe will want to play. Talk it through with the

rest of the troupe, be clear about the boundaries

you’ll set in the course of the game, and, if everyone’s

willing and ready, scare the daylights out of

each other.

Plague watch

An outbreak of C. Sanguinaria provides fodder for

red herrings complicating larger plots—exsanguinated

corpses being such a classic clue—or for mysteries in

themselves. Tracking an outbreak can be handled

like a medical investigation (perhaps even casting the

mortal protagonists as a CDC field team, or a group

of vampire hunters trying to get there before the CDC

team), or one by concerned citizens of the darkness,

fearful one of their own might have slipped the leash

and gone feral.

For instance: a friend of the characters’ starts acting

strangely. Ideally, use an established storyteller character

for this hook, because this will have the greatest impact.

She picked up a parasite while vacationing somewhere

with hot springs, and between air travel and whatever

other bad habits she has, it’s developing slowly. She feels

as if she’s cold all the time, and runs the heat too high.

She has brief moments when she seems to tune out, but

doesn’t lose track of conversations. A little like absence

seizures. Eventually, the characters witness their friend

engaging in some uncharacteristic flirting and hookups,

though she’ll be vague on the outcome. When they finally

catch their friend in the act—ideally in the brooding area

she’s prepared—the horror hits. If they try to cover for their

murdering friend, they may be looking at Humanity or

Morality rolls. If they execute her, they’re definitely going

to. This story could play out parallel to other action in

your chronicle, and can serve as an introduction to a larger

story arc involving the parasite, or as a small standalone

story or brief diversion.

The evidence collected by the Kindred playing at nighttime

naturalism suggests another story, and another

form of terror. Seeking insight into this elusive species,

or dispatched by a patron and thus seeking, the characters

follow the signs, and finally confront the reality of a

thing previously known only in theory—and the terror of

actualization, when theory is swept aside and replaced by

truth, lands a hammer blow.

For instance: A Kindred naturalist acquires the services

of the characters via influence or obligation—the

proverbial offer you can’t refuse. She dispatches them

to an old medical resort and spa, closed since the mid

1980’s. The building was built in the 1950s on the

site of a wildly evangelical Pentecostal revival from the

nineteenth century where preachers preached and sold

the “healing waters” to the curious and converted. The

spa’s steady decline saw it used as a bathhouse catering

to the swinger community in the 1970s before the

vogue passed, and efforts to market the place as a family

health spa failed to revive it. The decaying tiled interior

combines the worst creepy elements of an abandoned

hospital with a drained swimming pool. The waters

still flow, though, and the place’s caretakers guard

it with unusual fervor. Stranger, a small tent city has

grown up around the spa, and someone is preaching

here again, though this time the sacraments of bread

and wine are truly becoming flesh and blood. The

cult has accepted parasitism by C. Sanguinaria as some

form of mystical transcendence, and in addition to

the dangers posed by large numbers of stage-1 and -2

hosts, the cult leaders may possess more esoteric abilities.

They don’t simply want to protect the parasite;

they want to propagate it.

Or what if a ghoul gets the parasite. Or a host gets

made a ghoul. No ghoul should have been able to

throw a Gangrel riding his beast quite so hard through

a plate glass window and that far into the street. No

ghoul should have been able to outrun the Daeva, or

ignore her emotional hammer blows. No ghoul should

have seen the Nosferatu standing there and shot him

in the legs like that. If the characters get lucky and take

one down, they’ll find the fat parasite having wholly

replaced the ghoul’s tongue, waving eyelessly to bite

their unwary hands if they stray too close. If they have

no experience of C. Sanguinaria, this whole thing might

seem to be a supernatural parasite or something, but

information available through contacts or obscure

knowledge reveals something possibly worse—one of

their own has found a way to transform parasite and

host into a ghoul, stopping the parasite’s reproductive

cycle (and killing its larvae), and placing them both

into thrall. The ghoul has all the “advantages” of a

stage-3 host, plus those of an ordinary ghoul. The

ghoul is intelligent and interactive, but the conscious

mind is absent, showing nearly no aura activity, and

no mind or emotions to influence or Dominate. Nor

are its perceptions clouded by Obfuscate. Finding a

horrorshow where someone is breeding parasites and

providing select clients with access to these creatures

as thralls will mean dealing with some of the nastiest

areas of a city’s political landscape—nobody wants to

be associated with this, but everyone who knows wants

one of his own.

Regardless of the approach, Cymothoa Sanguinaria is

a thing of flesh and fleshy realities. In its own way, it’s

beautiful, but in a more specifically human way, it’s utterly

revolting.

Within the bounds of good taste and the tone of

your chronicle, and most importantly, what’s acceptable

in your group, it’s a great way to really push the

body horror.

If you’ve got a troupe where such can happen, get

one of the characters into a passionate clinch with

a C. Sanguinaria host, and let her feel the probing

leech-mouthed parasite exploring her mouth. Moments

like this demand rolls (Resolve + Composure

or Stamina + Composure) to resist violent physical or

mental reactions—emphasize the flesh acting on its

own, flinching back from the invasion. In a sense, this

revulsion and reflexive reaction confirm the themes

the parasite embodies. Characters subject to Frenzy

may also need to resist their own inner monsters rising

up to bear them away in fear, or to lash out in

terrified anger.

You’re looking for cringe here—the ape pulls his lips

back from his teeth, and leans away from the source of

his disgust. It’s an expression that clenches muscles used

to suppress the gag reflex.

The butcher’s smile is not a sign he’s jolly, but that he’s

trying not to vomit on the meat.

Unlike fear, which is difficult to genuinely inspire

in players, a certain measure of disgust is easier to

invoke with a few well chosen details—the emergence

of the parasite from under a lover’s tongue, the

ragged and rotting prolapsed intestines, the way the

distended skin of a late stage-2 host’s abdomen pulses

and bulges, a gross parody of the human mother

swollen and gravid, the unborn child’s foot or hand

pressing outward. The host gets thinner and thinner,

and it gets easier and easier to see the larvae move

in his guts.

This shit is gross. Use it.

Cymothoa Sanguinaria

Description: The parasite itself is a segmented crustacean

(an isopod if you want to be pedantic) resembling

a flesh-colored king prawn or jumbo shrimp. Fully

grown, it’s the size of a large sausage, but by this stage

it cannot survive outside its host. The larvae are small,

pale and soft-bodied, hardening only in their adult

stage. They can easily slip inside the nose and into the

sinuses, feeling like a splash of warm water more than

a parasite looking for a host. Eventually, the parasite

devours the tongue of a host, and grafts in its place.

It licks constantly around the host’s desiccated lips,

tasting the air.

The host’s description varies by stage of infection:

• Stage 1 – No obvious outward signs of the parasite,

though a careful oral examination will reveal the

parasite in its flesh pocket under the tongue. The

parasite secretes psychoactive chemicals, which begin

to alter the host’s behavior in subtle ways. It compels

the host to seek warmer conditions—ideally, warm

and wet. In the wild, an animal would seek out hot

springs, but humans often create their own hot wet

areas. As Stage 1 progresses, hosts experience an

increase in confidence and aggression, a week to a

month of vigorous energy and increased strength,

and sexual prowess. They’ll find themselves overcoming

lifelong fears and hang-ups like they just don’t

matter anymore, and acting uncharacteristically

brazen in social situations.

• Stage 2 – As the parasite grows, the brain damage and

neurological changes in the host become more exaggerated,

and the behavioral shifts emerging in stage 1

become extreme. The aggression increases from the

social to the physical plane, and the host begins to

stake out a brooding area, as well as sniffing around

for a mate for his parasite. If sexual reproduction isn’t

possible for the parasite, it can reproduce asexually, but

there’s a behavioral bias for seeking other hosts with

which to exchange DNA. Once fertilized, the egg laying

begins, and with the implantation of the eggs into the

host’s intestinal lining, the behavioral changes become

even more dramatic.

The host begins to experience dissociation episodes

during which he feels as if his body acts on its own

while he watches helplessly. Most hosts rationalize

this when they return to control, and the paranoia induced

by the parasite’s secretions makes seeking help

a terrifying prospect—it feels as if when others know

about the odd episodes, they’ll lock the host away and

kill him. The host also begins to seek victims—donors

to bleed for the maturing eggs.

They employ social tactics at first, but as the eggs mature

and hatch, they usually transition to stalking and

kidnapping. The strength and vigor of stage 1 rise to the

superhuman, and the body feels no pain. The parasite is

as thick as a finger, and twice as long—it can gouge and

stab a victim quite badly, easily severing major arteries (a

tactic it uses when bleeding a victim). By the end of stage

2, the host has transitioned from conscious with brief

periods of fugue state, to almost completely dissociated

with only increasingly brief moments of sentience.

• Stage 3 – The transition into stage 3 is violent and

bloody. The brooding process ravages the host internally,

but somehow the host survives, hollowed out

in body and mind. The brain damage is so severe that

the conscious mind never returns to control, and the

host’s behavior disintegrates into a territorial defense

of the larvae. Stage-3 hosts feel no pain, and can

exert themselves to physical destruction. They can’t

live more than a couple of weeks, but many destroy

themselves before then. For all intents and purposes,

they’re the living dead.

Background: The Cymothoa Sanguinaria parasite is, despite

its horrific lifecycle, completely mundane, a creature

evolved to fill a niche. Or so one hopes—if God created

C. Sanguinaria perfect and complete in its present form,

God really hates us.

Those infected with a C. Sanguinaria can come from

any walk of life, any background—most become hosts

by dumb luck alone, a dip in the wrong spring at the

wrong time of year, or drinking from a tainted water

source, as might happen in a developing world slum

with frightening regularity. A few might even be victims

of stage-3 hosts who abduct them and force them to

accept a larva.

Storytelling Hints: Stage-1 hosts would seem perfectly

ordinary to those who have never met them, but to

friends and family they’ll seem more confident and aggressive,

quicker witted and oddly more charming. The

honeymoon period doesn’t last long. When Stage 2 is

reached, even strangers begin to get a strange vibe from

hosts—the intensity and confidence begin to merge on

the manic and intimidating.

Lean too close to the players when portraying a stage-2

host, speak a little too loudly, take offense easily. Occasionally

seem to blank out for a moment, and then return

to the conversation as if unaware of the interruption.

Stage-3 hosts are non-vocal, so convey their predatory

territorial drives with body language. Lean in, glower,

show your teeth.

Attributes: The host’s attribute scores are modified as

follows. Each stage is cumulative with previous stages.

Stage 1 – +1 Wits, +1 Resolve, +1 Strength, +1 Stamina,

+1 Presence, +1 Composure

Stage 2 – +1 Wits, +1 Strength, +1 Stamina, +1 Presence,

–2 Composure

Stage 3 – –2 Intelligence, +1 Strength, +1 Stamina, –3

Presence, –1 Composure

Morality: Morality begins at its normal level for a given

subject. Each time the host loses Morality due to her actions

or the parasite’s goading, she experiences a period

in a fugue state as her consciousness slips beneath the

surface, and her body runs on parasite-hacked autopilot.

These periods last longer and longer as Morality declines,

until finally becoming permanent.

Virtue

Stage 1 – Becomes Hope

Stage 2 – Becomes Faith

Stage 3 – Becomes Fortitude

Vice

Stage 1 – Becomes Lust

Stage 2 – Becomes Gluttony

Stage 3 – Becomes Wrath

Initiative (additional to changes from altered Traits)

Stage 1 – +2

Stage 2 – –2

Stage 3 – –1

Speed (additional to changes from altered Traits)

Stage 1 – +1

Stage 2 – +1

Stage 3 – +1

Dread Powers

• Stage-2 parasites can strike for +1 Lethal damage,

while stage-3 parasites can inflict +2 Lethal

damage after successfully grappling an opponent

(not unlike a vampire’s bite). A victim caught unaware

(such as during a kiss) may be attacked with

the benefit of the 8-Again rule, and the damage

increases to +3.

• At stage 1, the host experiences a broad sense

of wellbeing and expanded awareness. Without

knowing how, a host can sense other hosts, and

some supernatural creatures, vampires, emit a confusing

scent, and the parasite sometimes mistake

them for C. Sanguinaria hosts, leading to comedy

and horror in equal measure.

• By stage 2 this has become a +1 bonus to all

Wits-based perception dice pools.

• During periods of fugue, while the host’s conscious

mind is absent, the host is immune to the

effects of mind and emotion controlling powers,

and can see through most illusions, including

Obfuscate up to the third level, without needing

to make any rolls.

• Stage-2 and stage-3 hosts suffer no Wound

Penalties at all.

Infected Custodian: Gary Georges

Quotes: Oh God, oh Jesus, not again, not again!

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu…

Background: Gary Georges rode the rails of

mediocrity right out of high school and into a

job cleaning up after hours in the same school

from which he failed to graduate. Gary is one of

the gray ranks, the unseen faceless non-people

who make civilized life possible for everyone else.

He’d have kept on chugging away until one day

losing his job when the school system instituted

random drug screening, and his regular indulgence in

Humboldt County’s finest agricultural exports. Alas,

this wholly mundane misfortune was not to be.

While attempting some ill-advised bonding with

his estranged father via the manly outdoors pleasure

of camping, Gary happened upon a buck deer in the

final throes of stage-3 Cymothoa Sanguinaria infection

while looking for a place to take a semi-private piss.

The buck charged him, goring him badly with its

antlers, and spattering him with the stinking discharge

emerging from its anus, alive and wriggling

with C. Sanguinaria larvae.

If only Gary had elected to take the P.P.O. rather than

the H.M.O. health plan. His treatment at the emergency

room completely failed to notice the parasite working its

way into his sinuses, and then it was a week before he

could see his GP. At that point, he decided he felt too

damned good to see the doctor.

Gary rode the first stage of infection hard. He quit

smoking up, and started hitting the bars. He was amazed

as his brazen courage in approaching women, and how

often being direct worked. He told an edited version of

the buck deer story, ending with him wrestling the beast

to the ground until a veterinarian could be found to help

it, and completely failing to mention the giant deuce he’d

dropped in his trousers during the attack.

Back at work, he even found himself flirting with teachers

he’d long lusted after, and some of the more mature

students. Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen

to me until…

It was all his fantasies of courage and sex and respect

made manifest, and it continued right up until he had

his tongue in the assistant librarian’s mouth as they tore

at each other in the janitor’s closet, and a shock of pain

cut through his jaw and throat. Mrs. Salia made a coughing

gurgle, and then his mouth was full of coppery hot

blood, and something was wriggling out from under his tongue.

Welcome to stage 2.

He cleaned up somehow, and got the body down into

the basement where he sealed it in a drum of US Government

H2O from the school’s elderly fallout shelter.

He continued his sexual conquests, but they become

increasingly predatory and intense, his interest in his

conquests less and less about sexual gratification, and

more about control and domination. And he claimed

the boiler room as his own domain. Somehow, it just

felt right—the hot darkness. He began fiddling with the

school’s boiler, eventually figuring out how to lower the

temperature of the hot water—the hot water pumped to

the school’s bathrooms and its showers—from scalding

to merely hot.

Description: Gary Georges is a washed out thirtysomething,

going pudgy and running on automatic

pilot most of the time. Pale from working nights, dark

hair, light eyes. His face forgotten the moment it’s

out of sight. The sort of person about whom people

say, “He was so quiet, you know?” when the cops find

the bodies. As the parasite works its magic, his back

straightens, his eyes focus, and he develops this aura

of slightly dangerous intensity. As it progresses further,

this intensity gets scary, and he becomes more and

more impulsive.

Storytelling Hints: Gary is clinging hard to his delusion

that everything is all right, even as he has more

blackouts, and finds himself splattered with the blood

of more victims. When his brazen charm fails, he falls

back on his old pathetic persona, begging for help or

forgiveness. He doesn’t know it, but he’s preparing

the boiler room at the high school to be a brooding

chamber. He’s going to birth his larvae into the cooleddown

boiler, and the tiny baby parasites are going to

be piped all over the school, to splash onto the faces

of showering cheerleaders, and into the football team’s

post-game whirlpool.

Mental Attributes: Intelligence 1, Wits 5, Resolve 3

Physical Attributes: Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3

Social Attributes: Presence 4, Manipulation 3,

Composure 1

Mental Skills: Craft 3 (DIY), Medicine 1

Physical Skills: Brawl +3 (Grappling), Drive 2, Firearms 2,

Stealth 2, Weaponry 2

Social Skills: Intimidate 2, Persuasion 3, Socialize 2

Merits: Contacts 2 (Pot Dealers), Iron Stomach 2, Unseen

Sense (Ghosts)

Health: 8

Willpower: 4

Morality: 5

Virtue: Faith. An irrational optimism has taken root in

Gary, a belief that somehow, despite all evidence to the

contrary, it’ll all be OK in the end. It’s not the parasite—

it’s pure human self-delusion.

Vice: Gluttony. Now this, on the other hand, is

the parasite working on his neurochemistry. Gary’s

whole internal reward system is completely screwed

up. He’s always been a nervous eater. Now, he’s a

nervous gorger.

Speed: 12

Defense: 3

Initiative: 4

Notes: Gary has all the advantages of a stage-2 host.

[Vampire: The Requiem] Boons & Prestations Strategy Guide

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

Boon & Prestation Strategy Guide

This guide is an expansion of the System of Boons and Prestations among the undead. Basic definitions and principles from that document have been expanded here (not replaced), including a more thorough set of examples of what services in different areas are most appropriately equated to which Denominations of boon or prestation (see Denomination in the Protocols). The content of this document is not a collection of rules; rather it is about guidelines and methodologies characters might use when dealing with Boons and Prestations. At the end of the day, vampires get away with what they can.

In the table above, the “Task” column lists several common prestation categories, and some appropriate requests within each category, depending on the Denomination of the transaction. These examples are not set in stone, as boons and prestations are ultimately a negotiated currency, nor are they an exhaustive list. Nearly any action may be used for boons and prestations.

The table here is intended to provide a clear set of examples to calibrate values in the “economy” of boons and prestations.

Pedigree:
One of the unique elements of the this system of boons and prestations is that each boon has a “Pedigree” based on the power and status of the Debtor. Like shares of stock in different companies, the value of these Pedigrees can vary and change as the Debtor’s standing rises and falls. Thus while a particular boon may never be renegotiated into a different Denomination or transferred to a different Debtor, due to Pedigree, the real value of that boon can change over time. A Trivial Boon owed by a Neonate Debtor has a different value than one of an Elder Prince Debtor. A Trivial Boon provided to a Neonate Debtor who then ages into an Elder (while still owing the debt of prestation) has gained in value. although it is still a Trivial Boon in terms of its Denomination.

Pedigree also changes in regard to court offices which affect the Status of the officer. A boon granted to a back-seat political climber who later becomes his clan’s Whip, then Primogen, and then finally Prince, is an investment well made. Conversely, a prestation owed by a Prince who soon loses her throne rapidly diminishes in value. Pedigree is also important when exchanging prestation with another kindred. A Major Boon from a positionless influential Elder whose patrons are four lords is not worth the same amount as one from an Elder Prince of a small city who has a patron who is his Primogen despite their positions and standing. A single Major boon from the Elder Prince may only be worth a Minor boon or two from the positionless Elder depending on whom you are trading with and the circumstances of such.

Kindred Strategies for the System of Boons and Prestations:
Kindred have developed numerous strategies around the system of prestation over the centuries. Below are just a handful of example strategies. Players may choose to adopt a strategy, mix and match or create their own.

Medium of Exchange & Deferred Payment:
The most common strategy is simply to treat boons and prestations as a transactional affair, granting them when performing a service or deed for another and offering prestation when they themselves are in need.

Life Insurance:
Because a Debtor’s prestations transfer to the individual who killed him or her (outside of a legal Bloodhunt, as per the Protocols) some young Kindred take on prestations from very powerful or dangerous Kindred Grantors.

For example: A Neonate in Macon is afraid that a coterie led by an Ancilla may try to kill him. He seeks out the Elder Prince of Atlanta and asks for a boon of protection. As compensation for such a valuable service when he is in such intense immediate need, he agrees to a prestation of a higher Denomination than might normally be prudent (such as a Major Prestation). The Neonate then returns to Macon and advertises the fact that he owes a Major Prestation to the Elder Prince of Atlanta by registering it with the local Harpy. Now the coterie must consider the risk of killing him, which would end them up owing the Prestation to the Elder Prince themselves. Of course, the downside of this strategy is that the Neonate is now beholden to the Elder Prince, so it can be a double-edged sword.

Investment:
A common strategy for Elders is to identify promising Neonates or Ancillae climbers and seek to offer their services in some way so as to be able to become the Grantor of a boon. Because the value of a debt of prestation, regardless of Denomination, increases or decreases according to one’s Status, a patient Kindred can gain a large portfolio of prestations owed to him and then watch them grow in value over time. It is not unheard of that crafty Elders will put into play a scenario that compels a target to need their services. The Common Law of Prior Consent simply requires that the Debtor willingly agree and not be compelled to accept the boon. It doesn’t prevent the Grantor from working behind the scenes to put the potential Debtor into a position where he will need a boon. A reverse investment is undertaken by crafty Kindred looking to climb the social hierarchy of the Danse Macabre.


They’ll seek out an Elder who is looking to make an investment in a younger Kindred, and once the
boon is granted, it’s in the Elder’s best interest to see the outstanding prestation grow in value. This may result in an Elder, intentionally or not, favoring the indebted Kindred and smoothing the path to acquire positions such as Primogen, Whip, Harpy, etc.

Collecting:
Just as a numismatist collects and studies currency without necessarily seeing the coins as an investment, so too do many Kindred collect prestations. With characteristics somewhere between a wine connoisseur and a biographer, Prestation Collectors are most interested in the Pedigree and history of a prestation debt. Collections are as varied as the interests of the Kindred who collect them. Some collectors just like to collect “Sets”: Major Prestations owed. Some Collectors are interested in a “Clan Set”, where they are simultaneously Grantors for Major Boons to a Neonate, an Ancilla and an Elder of the same Clan. A “Grand Set” is when one has acquired a “Clan Slam” for all the  Clans, and a “Royal Set” is a Major Prestation or larger from each of the seven Clanheads. Archivist collectors might be interested in very old prestations that have a rich and
colorful history and have been passed down through exchanges across many hands.

Exchange:
Not all Grantors are in a position to make the best use of a Debtor’s prestation. They may not live in the same domain as the Debtor, or they might have claim on a prestation of very large Denomination to a powerful Kindred from whom they are afraid to call prestation due. But the prestation itself has a value based on the Denomination and Pedigree. Boon Exchangers act as the middle-men connecting Kindred, Grantors who wish to exchange outstanding prestations among one another. They may be direct trades one for one, or a single large Denomination prestation with a strong Pedigree for many smaller prestations. Given their position of influence and knowledge of boons and prestations, Harpies are often the most likely to be Exchangers, though sometimes independents act as “honest” brokers.


For example: Ted is a young Neonate of Clan Ventrue. In 1982, he answered the call of the aging Ancilla Daeva Prince Jefferson for a martial force to hunt Belial's Brood out of Schenectady, New York. In that engagement, before they entered a burning building, Prince Jefferson offered Ted a Blood Boon for staying by his side no matter what happened, long enough for the Prince to get out if things went badly. Ted got burned a bit, but he managed to hold off fire and foes long enough for the Prince to make good his escape. Then in the 1990s, Prince Jefferson received patronage from three different Elders for his stand against the New York vampires, and in 2008, he was acknowledged as an Elder in his own right. Unfortunately, the newly Elder Prince had fallen far to his Beast over time, and Ted is not interested in dealing directly with him, though he has the right by the prestation he is owed. He solves this problem by trading the High Pedigree Life Boon from Jefferson away to the Daeva Neonate Harpy Bradford of Boston in exchange for four Blood Boons from a coterie of fresh young no-name Gangrel Neonates who roam New England - prestations which Bradford got by saving the coterie’s impolitic asses with his silver tongue when they managed to piss off the Nosferatu Prince and the Sheriff last year. Later, when the Nosferatu Prince is angry at the Harpy, the Harpy can either offer his Prince the prestation from the Elder Prince of Schenectady as recompense for his offense, or he can call on the Elder Prince’s services himself. Meanwhile, Ted can take those four Gangrel out to Erie, Pennsylvania, where he has them help him oust a local coterie of Unaligned so he can claim his own praxis there and make a name for himself.

Boon Policy:
This strategy is usually held in the provenance of a Harpy, Prince, Elder or other influential Kindred. Just as monetary policy by a national central bank can be loose (releasing large amounts of currency to reduce the value of it) or tight (removing currency from the system to increase value), so too can an individual Kindred’s interpretation of boons and prestations create a tight or loose boon policy in their domains. Traditionalist Elders, especially those most likely to hold many prestations in reserve such as a Prince, are most likely to encourage a “tight” boon policy amongst Harpies. This is done by encouraging others (and practicing through example) to require larger Denominations for the same services or goods that might normally require the Debtor to take on a prestation of a smaller Denomination. On the flip side, they can support settlements of less-than-normal prestation for a specific Denomination. Younger Kindred, or those with Unaligned sympathies, often seek to loosen boon policy by encouraging smaller Denominations for services and goods and thus smaller claims of prestation in their domains.

For example: In the Domain of Detroit, the Elder Primogen Alexi of Clan Ventrue wants to make sure every prestation he is owed by members of the court is worth as much effort and resources as he can make it worth. The Denominations cannot be changed but he can try to skew the meaning of the Denominations in practice in the city. In order to push this tight policy, when the Neonate Primogen Thomas Mills asks him to vote a certain way on an issue in the upcoming Primogen Council meeting (normally a Minor Boon), Alexi hems and haws about it, implies that there are numerous complicating factors that make that rather problematic, and finally negotiates the service to a Major Boon. It might be that Thomas knows he’s being taken, but he really needs that vote. In order to counter Alexi’s manipulation of the city’s boon policy, in his own dealings he downplays the importance or effort he and others are actually putting out, claiming that many difficult tasks are actually “a piece of cake”. Later that night, as part of his own loosening efforts, Thomas agrees to teach intermediate Celerity to a local Nosferatu, but only negotiates it as a Trivial Boon, saying, “For you, it’s barely any trouble at all.”

Accumulator:
Some Kindred just want to have “more” than other Kindred. The Denomination and Pedigree matter less to an accumulator than the sheer quantity of Debtors they can acquire. They may not have a plan to use them, at least not yet.

Clemency:
A favored tactic of those with the power to dispense punishments, such as Elders and Princes, is to offer clemency in the form of a boon. This serves two purposes in the Danse Macabre. As opposed to Final Death, the threat of which may box a Kindred into a corner of desperation that may end up risking the Masquerade, a Blood or Life Boon instead allows them an “out” while still maintaining the severity of the punishment. Lesser punishments for more minor offenses – the removal of eyes for gazing upon an Elder, the removal of limbs, staking for decades – can all be mitigated with the transaction of a boon and the promise of prestation. Common custom in this regard is for the punishing authority to offer a choice: “You will surrender your left hand for a period of not less
than a year, or owe me Major Prestation.” Note that this strategy presents one common exception to the Prior Consent element of the Common Law of Boons and Prestations. A lawful authority exerting a punishment within their power to levy – upon a charge that the Kindred is accused of – is not considered a compulsion. However, the Kindred must still willingly consent to accept the boon in exchange for clemency.

Plea Bargain:
Reading the above, a player may come to the conclusion that a boon can be used easily to create an “arms-length” transaction of conspiracy, one that might very well normally get him killed, but it’s the Debtor who has to undertake the act – like setting up a Praxis seizure or death of another Kindred. Fair warning is provided, however – once the act demanded under prestation is committed, the former Debtor is under no obligation whatsoever to the Grantor (unless some other form of pressure exists as well). This means that a confession like “the boon made me do it” is a valid defense in some domains for egregious acts that might otherwise carry a severe punishment. An authority may consider the Debtor not to be in willful control of his own actions if he is repaying a prestation to a Grantor – much like a sire is held accountable for the actions of his progeny, not the progeny himself. This nuance of the system of prestation serves as a check against most cases of boons being used to extract heinous crimes. Then again, a Prince may decide to equally punish both the Debtor AND the
Grantor, or even simply punish the Debtor worse for being incompetent enough to put themselves into such a debt in the first place. Such is the capricious and arbitrary nature of Princely justice.