Feeding

There are two points at which a Vampire will look to feed. One is in-session, from any herd they have brought with them for that purpose, and this does not generally require a check. It will be handled offscreen. The other point is during downtime, to represent in general how well your character has fed over the period of time, and to set their hunger level for the coming session. 

For downtime feeding, we need to know how your character intends to obtain blood. There are a  variety of methods and tactics, and below we have broken down the common approaches. If you are using a method which is not listed, please describe it as part of your character submission. Once chosen, this method of feeding is permanent unless you change it with a downtime action, in order to force your beast to change its preferred method of hunting and develop the new habits. 

In addition, we will ask you to specify the following regarding how your character is feeding:

  • Is your character feeding on humans or animals?

  • Do they seek victims who consent to being bitten and drunk from?

  • Is your character using violence?

  • Does your character intend to kill their victims?

Depending on how else the character is spending their downtime, certain methods of feeding will be easier or harder, or incur more or less severe consequences if something goes wrong. For example, a character who is used to feeding in populated settlements will face a more difficult check if they spend their downtime in a cave in the mountains than if they spend it in a major city. There will also be other factors which will affect their feeding, like the general state of the Domain, or benefits and consequences from downtime actions.

Common Feeding Methods

  • Your character prays on the weakest of the herd, picking them off either for the ease of doing so or for some twisted view of strengthening the herd.

    Either way, their approach is to stalk and consume their prey with little care for their later health.

    Default Pool: Physical + Stealth

  • Feeding on Animals is a choice some Vampires make, a choice that some even rely on if often only at the beginning of their time as Kindred.

    This method works better for Neonates and those of Higher Generation, but even they find it less effective than feeding on mortals - half as much blood is gained, and killing an animal does not count as killing for the purposes of filling that last bit of hunger.

    Age and more potent Vitae make this an unsuitable feeding method for more powerful Kindred, as they gain even less benefit, draining an entire Stag for little more than a single point of Vitae.

    Default Pool: Social + Animal Ken

  • Your character often feeds from those they have fought, honourably or dishonourably. They will challenge anyone to a duel of strength, with the victor taking a prize.

    They rarely tell the victims that they beat into unconsciousness what that prize is, but they rarely recall afterwards.

    Default Pool: Physical + Combat Skill

  • Your character feeds only off the drunk or the drug addled, enjoying the high and the benefits of the drug already in their victim’s system.

    Default Pool: Social + Streetwise, Persuasion or Performance

  • Physicians, sawbones, medics or healers, whatever you call those who practice the art of medicine for the insalubrious in these times.

    Many offer a bleeding, or tincture that will rob the victim of their mind for a while, a way of claiming a payment in blood for their services.

    Default Pool: Social + Medicine

  • Your character feeds only from a very well cultivated herd of willing attendants or ghouls. Why they do this varies from Cainite to Cainite, be it a worry of impure blood or rarefied taste, many Cainites have their reasons.

    Default Pool: Social + Leadership

  • This is the preferred method of feeding by many skilled in the Disciplines of Dominate or Presence, where a look and a command can make feeding easy.

    Whatever mask your character wears or story they weave in the victim’s mind rarely reveals what truly happened.

    Default Pool: Mental + Subterfuge

  • Some prefer sneaking around and drinking only from those who have retired to the land of dreams. Certainly a sleeping victim poses no resistance and rarely remembers the experience as anything other than a lurid nightmare, easily dispersed by the morn’s light.

    Default Pool: Physical + Stealth

  • Some lure their prey in with promises of specialised knowledge, blessings or salvation. Opening the doors of the mystic, holy or unholy domains they lurk in.

    Default Pool: Social + Academics, Occult or Lore

  • The Kiss is pleasurable, and when used as part of the experience of Seduction and carnal delight it becomes a very simple and delightful way to gather sustenance.

    Default Pool: Social + Persuasion or Subterfuge

  • Luring the unwary into their domain, your character can follow and detain those who enter it uninvited. Your character seeks to trap them just as the game hunter traps their prey.

    Default Pool: Mental + Survival