[Temple]

I'm toying with the idea of a chronicle exploring the conquest of North America.

My question here is:

Were there any vampires in america before the europeans came? I know that this is ultimately up to me, and I do like the idea of vampires as something totally alien to the native americans and the resident supernaturals. But what is to be gained, in terms of theme and mood, from having vampires already present?

[Peter K.]

Possible spoilers.

























In the WoD anthology Strange City there's a story called The Voice of the Hummingbird. If I remember right it's basically the tale of a meso-American priest of some indiginous god. The priest also happens to be a vampire (actually a religious calling in this case) who gets betrayed by his protoge during the European conquests in that area.

IIRC he wakes up after a torpor of hundreds of years to find his god no longer speaks to him and that (again IIRC) most of the vampires around are at least as powerful as he is. This and the general differences in the world cause him great disillusionment and dispondancy. Eventually the local prince stops by to honor his age and wisdom.

I know I'm probably not making this sound interesting but I read it 5 years ago and at the time it struck me as one of the most memorable stories in the book.

Edit: Crap! I just realized this thread is in V:tR, not V:tM. I have no idea about ancient American vampires in 2.0.

This post has been edited by Peter K.: 01 June 2006 - 01:02 PM

[Eryx_UK]

I think Peter K's story there gives you what you need.

You have your indigenous vampires who claim the America's as theirs, and then come these Old Worlder Vampires who seem to think this new land is theirs. A conflict unseen by the mortal masses for homeland beset by invaders.

[serial_experiments]

Edit:  Crap!  I just realized this thread is in V:tR, not V:tM.  I have no idea about ancient American vampires in 2.0.

LOL. Still, it makes a good reference material for a possible Mesoamerican Vampire Chronicle.

I guess it depends on what you want it to be like, Temple. If there were vampires in America before its "discovery", chances are they are integrated within their society and way of life. Some mesoamerican cultures (Aztecs and Mayas in particular) considered death to be a big thing, something important, particularly when blood (And lots of it!) was spilled.

So far, there's no definite answer about Kindred presence in American before the arrival of the Spanish. The lack of it gives the migrating kindred a chance to cement a domain of their own, while rooting out the strange happenings in this mysterious land (Feel free to consult books about Mythological monsters and stat them out... Maybe there weren't vampires, but there sure as hell were other nasty things lurking about). If you opt to include indigenous vampires in the chronicle, the mood is completely different, becoming a power struggle for dominance against the potentially larger, pre-existing power structure.

[WWWill]

Were there any vampires in america before the europeans came?

Oh, my, yes.

Consider this a bit of a spoiler for Shadows of Mexico, which is in layout now:

At one time, all five clans were present in Mexico. With the progressive passing of the various incarnations of the world (and damage done to the five directions of the world -- North, South, East, West and Center), two of the five core clans became extinct in the Americas (or at least in Mesoamerica). By the time of the Conquest and Cortes, those two clans were little more than echoing legends among Aztec and Mayan vampires.

When the Conquistadors came to the New World, however, the once-vanished clans returned to Mexico in their wake. Though some say that indigenous members of at least one of the "extinct clans" lay sleeping in the ground, even still, waiting to be awakened in a bath of sacrificial blood at one of the great, lost Mayan holy sites, like Chichen Itza.

The clans are somewhat different among the indigenous peoples of Mexico, both in their inherent characteristics and in their roles in the land. Since the reintroduction of the "extinct clans" in modern nights (meaning, uh, the last 400 years or so), however, modern, urban Mexico has come to resemble the default mode of Kindred society a great deal.

I feel like saying more but I don't want to give too much of the book away. I wish Shadows of Mexico could've been twice the size that it is.

Cheers,
Will

[Annael]

What I like about ideas like this is that they're so wide-open. Personally, I'd enjoy playing with scenarios like the one Peter described (great call there, Peter, VtR or not).

What is to be gained is a rethinking of the entire vampiric existence, depending on how you work the vampiric incumbents. If the vampires of the Americas live more or less among humans, if they're able to co-exist and even be respected or revered by their mortal communities...what will the European vampires think? In the 1600s and 1700s, the religious paradigm was *powerful* in Europe. Most vampires, save a few such as Acolytes, would be entrenched in the idea of being cursed by God, damned creatures. Perhaps the myth of Caine was strong at the time (ironically, I think it works in this scenario better than it ever did in VtM).

So when they come to the Americas, and find vampires not only already existing, but having never heard of Caine, or Jesus, or Longinus--and even weirder, existing happily and possibly even *at peace*--what would they think?

This sort of thing would also have an effect on mages, werewolves, and humans. They would know what vampires are, but they would be hard-pressed to understand what's wrong with these new ones. Imagine a scenario where a werewolf pack comes out of the woods to talk to a vampiric priest: "We've run into some of your kind east of here, but they're insane. Were they cast out? Did they betray the spirits somehow, or are they diseased?"

Or, conversely, a native vampire might greet a pack of newcomer werewolves with reverence. "Hail, spirit-kin! I welcome you with the traditional gifts of raw meat and sanctuary." Imagine how that'd throw them off.

I think this would accomplish the feel of setting foot in a new world better than leaving vampires to be a new phenomenon.

[Eryx_UK]

Wasn't sure before, but definately chalk up a copy of Shadows over Mexico for me now.

[serial_experiments]

I feel like saying more but I don't want to give too much of the book away. I wish Shadows of Mexico could've been twice the size that it is.

Cheers,
Will

Don't we all*?

*And by all I mean me.

[zooroos]

*And by all I mean me.

And ME!

[Peter K.]

Imagine a scenario where a werewolf pack comes out of the woods to talk to a vampiric priest:  "We've run into some of your kind east of here, but they're insane.  Were they cast out?  Did they betray the spirits somehow, or are they diseased?"

Or, conversely, a native vampire might greet a pack of newcomer werewolves with reverence.  "Hail, spirit-kin!  I welcome you with the traditional gifts of raw meat and sanctuary."  Imagine how that'd throw them off.

I' m generally not a big fan of vampire games but this sounds pretty interesting actually.


Although you could also draw more sinister (or at least more violent) inspiration from recent cinema:

Ravenous - Not exactly vampirism per se, but seems to imply a cult or culture based on canibalistism as a source of power in pre-european North America.

Dusk Till Dawn - Bordello full of vampires situated atop an ancient Aztec pyramid. How can you go wrong with that?


Taking the Aztec vampires idea on a less pulpy level though this plot idea comes to mind:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Aztec city states participated against each other in "Flower Wars", ritual battles allowing each to capture the slaves necessary for sacrifice.

Of course vampires might really be behinds this, producing an organized and socially acceptable system for harvesting human blood. Now they might actually be doing this as real and functional emmisaries for the sacrafice hungry gods, or they might be faking the priesthood to justify their consumption to the people. But maybe after the conquests a group of vampire priests from several city states enter torpor (or is there an equivelant state of similar name in the new game?) waiting for the appropriate era to arrive.

Then, closer to the present, modern vampires in the region start noticing strange patterns of ritual killing and blood letting. An odd sub-culture of pre-colombian paganism appears to be taking hold in the area. Closer investigation reveals that the flower wars have started up again signaling that the priests of the various city states have awakened and are in the process of re-establishing the old order and possibly also preparing for some apocalypse their gods have ordained.

[Insect King]

Despite Will's admission of the canon version, I pretty much assumed that there would be vampires wherever humans existed.

Since the Arctic Europeans wandered into North and South America during the Ice Age (over the ice-covered Bering Sea), vampires followed skulking behind killing stragglers and lone travellers.

Also I believe vampires have a superevolution quality which would have allowed Bloodlines to usurp Clans if they adapted to their new environment more efficiently that the Clans did.

All the Clan vampires develop their own versions of the Bloodline, their differences vanishing with each incarnation, and soon the Bloodlines become the Clans and spawn their own Bloodlines.

Bloodsucker Philosophy through Richard Dawkins.

C.

[UnAdept]

As an aside to this really excellent discussion, for awhile now I've been working on a Meso-American bloodline that I can't quite work out the Discipline for. Here's their main information:

The Tukawiru have wandered throughout the Mexican and American South-West for as long as anyone can remember; poor, mysterious and habitually criminal, it’s easy to dismiss the Buzzards as having no agenda or significance in modern nights, a forgettable lineage long past it’s prime. It’s entirely possible that such is the case, but though the bloodline as a whole has lost its sense of purpose, individual members are finding new meaning and friends in low places.

Descended from the people of the Yaqui river in the Meso-American sub-continent, the Tukawiru are sometimes known to locals as the Vulture People, and serve the same ecological niche as those birds. The Buzzards derive their power from the bodies of the dead, from finished things; this is not a form of necromancy, as practiced by the Burakumin or the Osites, but rather a communion with the discarded shell of a man or animal. They scour animal and human remains from where ever they may find them, using these gruesome tokens to power their own medicine.

Many Buzzards seem drawn to a Requiem of criminality, often coming from very poor mortal stock, selected from among the struggling and dispossessed. As a general rule, the Tukawiru’s services are for sale, and in exchange for a particularly fine truck, a large roll of cash or legitimately acknowledged future favor they’re more then willing to handle all manner of dirty work. A Tukawiru’s place is that of a Hound or a Sheriff, but never anything more.

Any precise record of the Tukawiru founder has been long lost to both mortal and vampire alike, but some trace may remain within the storytelling practices of the Yaqui; the myth of the Man Who Became a Buzzard is said to be a corrupted retelling of the Tukawiru’s origin, and in truth the man never returned to vulture’s feathers.

[Annael]

First, regarding the Aztec thing, that's very cool. Heck, the way those guys seemed to work, they might well have believed the vampires to be sacred beings or messengers from their own gods!

I have an image of an ancient Kindred having visited them for a time long ago. Hmmm...wonder where that legend about Quetzalcoatl came from...

Regarding the Bloodline discipline, the first thing I thought of was the story about using a dead man's eyes to see the last thing they saw. That wouldn't make a bad low-level power, do you think? And perhaps as the Discipline goes up, they can use body parts for different things: eating the heart of a strong man or animal to gain temporary dots in a Physical attribute. Drinking the clotted blood of a "witch"* or cat or something to...um, have a vision of some faraway place or something. Oh, oh! And you know that old saw about ground-up mummies being a sovereign cure? Yeah, they could use corpse powder to heal ailments. Er, not sure what kind of ailment a vampire would need cured, though.

Anyway, you get the general idea, I think.



*That's got the quotation marks because I'm thinking probably not a real witch, but anyone who locals liked to tell stories about, or even just an old crone who *looks* like a witch.

[Insect King]

You can do a nice zombie-esque vampire for these guys - perhaps they are able to subsist on the flesh of dead mortals. Feasting on a corpse supplies vitae equal to the corpse's Size + Zombie's Corpophagy Discipline - successes equal vampire sustenance. It takes about one half-hour of chomping to eat enough rancid meat
to get that vitae.

The Corpophagy Discipline it can be put dot-for-dot on Health Levels exemplifying the resistance zombies have for death.

Their appearance wanes becoming more and more rotten the less vitae they possess.

Braiiiiiins, motherfucker, I want braiiiiiiiins!

C.

[Peter K.]

You can do a nice zombie-esque vampire for these guys - perhaps they are able to subsist on the flesh of dead mortals. Feasting on a corpse supplies vitae equal to the corpse's Size + Zombie's Corpophagy Discipline - successes equal vampire sustenance. It takes about one half-hour of chomping to eat enough rancid meat
to get that vitae.

The Corpophagy Discipline it can be put dot-for-dot on Health Levels exemplifying the resistance zombies have for death.

Getting off topic but: Something like this might work well to produce Lovecraftian style ghouls.

This post has been edited by Peter K.: 02 June 2006 - 08:16 PM

[pascale]

Mexico is such a rich setting for vampire games, what with the bloody history, the conquest, the revolutions, the celebrations of the dead etc...

The main focus for a mythological past of vampires in Meso-America would have to somehow include Teotihuacan. Nobody knows who built this city, but it is one of the biggest in MesoAmerica, and has signs of all major cultural groups that we know of from that time, suggesting it was either a cosmopolitan city, or a ruling city state above all other cultures with slaves from each region, or something equally epic and big.

The name Teotihuacan comes from the Aztecs, who discovered it abandonned, and were so impressed, they thought it was Tula, the city of their origins with gos etc. Teotihuacan means "the place where men became gods"...

[serial_experiments]

"the place where men became gods"...

I burst bubbles!
Teotihuacan's connection to vampire is feeble.
Tecnochtitlan and the Aztec and Mayan religions are much closer (In the sense that they considered blood to be the essence of life, and frequently held bloody rituals in the name of the gods)


But Teotihuacan? That's a huge plot location... For Mage.

[pascale]

The connection is not so feeble.

Human sacrifice WAS NOT invented by the Aztecs or even the Maya. In fact, it believed to have been practiced even by the "Olmecs", those peeps we know so little about we call them by the name of the ball used in the Mesoamerican ball game, and who were making balls out of human heads thousands of years before the Aztecs.
The Aztecs did a lot of it, yes, but they only reigned for about 200 years as an empire/civilization before the Spaniards came. As such, Tenochitlan would be a very young and therefore innappropriate setting for the heart-land of vampirism in MesoAmerica... Same goes with the Incas. Famous but very short lived empires...

Now, many of the talks on this thread had the vampires either as priests or full-blown gods. So the connection is still very fitting when you consider vampirism to be akin to godhood. Considering the bloodthiristy nature of these religions, this makes more sense to me than mages dabbling in human sacrifice.
Teotihuacan did have human sacrifices, is much older than other centers in MesoAmerica, and seems to have been a central cultural influence on the others (possibly spreading the idea of Human Sacrifice).

Vampires are historical creatures, as much as Requiem has tried to cut that out with the use of Fog of Eternity. Old places of worship and abandonned cities don't categorically fall into the domain of Mage...

[Blank Frank]

[shameless plug]

Sacrificial Sorcery

Setting

Covenant for setting

Ball Game

[/shameless plug]

It's still on the shelf, as I've got some other theater project going, but I might finish breathing unlife into it some time soon hopefully.

P.S.
Thank you Will!! <3

[UnAdept]

Well, since people seem a little interested, let me share what I have so far for a Discipline; I'll add commentary as I go along. Of course, I have to change the name now, since the Carthians have a Husk Devotion. Buzzard is the Tukawiru nickname.

Husk

The Discipline of Husk is not a form of necromancy, it’s not concerned with the function of death or the fading memories of ghosts. Rather, Husk is occult power over the empty shells of once-living things; mastery of the transitional state between living, organic matter and base, inanimate soil. The Tukawiru typically find themselves surrounded by the trappings of death, for they derive their power from tokens of the dead, items of bone, flesh or organ.

I picture the Tukawiru as basically back-woods conjure men and witches - their power is unwholesome, dangerous and expensive, but when you need something done right, you go to them.

Corpse-Fly (Level-One)

The maggot is the constant companion of death in the wild – each corpse is the birthing ground for generations of crawling, writhing and flying creatures that dance in the light of the moon. The Buzzard is kin to such creatures, and knows secret words and songs that can birth, from rotting meat, a special servant – a large, evil insect with malign powers.
Cost: -
Dice Pool: Presence + Occult + Husk
Action: Extended; 1 roll per 10 minutes, at 10 successes the Corpse Fly is created.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The corpse is destroyed, rendering it useless for any further use of Husk.
Failure: This insect colony cannot produce a corpse-fly, but may be used for other Husk practices.
Success: A corpse-fly is created, and loyally serves its master.
Exceptional Success: The fly is larger then normal, and possesses a Toxicity 5 sting.

The corpse-fly is not a fly in the traditional sense, resembling one in only the most general of terms – more poetic and learned Tukawiru sometimes call these creatures “Beelzebubs”, after the demonic Lord of Flies. They are slightly larger typical black flies with a white marking on their thorax, similar in shape to a skull, and a long stinger like a wasp. These creatures are quite intelligent, with an excellent memory and the ability to understand all human tongues, communicating with their masters (and, in theory, others) by crawling into an ear and whispering in their tiny voices. Corpse-flies have a dangerous sting that has Toxicity 3 (see pg. 180 of the Core Book), and only live for a single night, dying with the morning sun.

I like the image of the corpse-fly crawling into the vampire's ear to whisper secrets.

Carrion Eater ( Level-Two)

In the lonely desert, sometimes a good meal is difficult to find; desperation has, on occasion, driven man and Kindred alike to acts both degrading and necessary for survival. Most vampires require fresh blood taken from its vessel, or at least properly stored, to sustain them, but the Buzzards have learned sustain themselves on old, dead blood.
Cost: None
Dice Pool: No roll is required; the character drains the remaining fluids from the corpse as he would a living vessel, leaving the corpse a dry, withered mummy with unrecognizable features and brittle skin and musculature that can be easily burnt off. The amount of usable blood in a body is equal to the amount that the vessel died with; a violent death can cause a corpse to bleed out much of its vital essence, leaving 3 or 4 point, at the Storyteller’s preference. A body remains suitable for feeding for 15 or so days, depending on climate; after that time, the bloated form bursts and the sick juices seep into the ground. A body prepared for burial doesn’t have any blood within it, having had its veins filled with some chemical cocktail to preserve its features after death. Elder Tukawiru who can no longer feed off humans may still consume the blood of the dead, though they only receive 1 Vitae for every 2 blood points consumed; animal corpses lose their ability to sustain the Requiem at BP 3.

The Buzzard is also highly sensitive to the smell of decaying flesh, receiving + 2 to all appropriate Wits + Composure rolls, and are immune to contracting diseases from the bodies he feeds off of, living or dead. (Though not from the Morbus signature Discipline of Cachexy)
Action: Instant

Feeding off the dead is a great power, definately thematic for these guys; I thought about having them eat the corpse en mass, but this way we can add in the "dryness of the desert" theme. I'll likely removed that blurb about Elder Tukawiru feeding off the dead - it enhances the power of the level too much, I just don't want this power becoming obsolete at later Blood Potency levels.


Horrible Swarm (Level-3)

All mortal beings are ultimately destined to be food for flies, beetles and worms; rotting flesh has been the birth-place of countless ghastly insects, and the Tukawiru have learned to call up unnatural cousins to nature’s most numerous children from a spoiled carcase with a single drop of Vitae.
Cost: 1 Vitae
Dice Pool: Stamina + Occult + Husk
Action: Instant
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The swarm is birthed from the rotting meat, but turns against the character in some fashion, as determined by the Storyteller.
Failure: Horrible Swarm fails to function, and the piece of meat becomes sterile and unable to produce a swarm at any future time.
Success: A swarm of unnatural insects is birthed from the rotting meat; depending on the specific swarm summoned, successes may translate into different things, but generally denotes size.
Exceptional Success: Same as Success, but with greater size.
The Tukawiru have learned to call several species of ghoulish insects from decaying meat; the creatures are birthed over a number of turns equal to the swarm’s size. The swarm has a radius as shown on the Area-Effects table on pg. 264 of the V:tR corebook, with a maximum number of successes equal to the twice Size of the flesh from which the creatures are born. All Buzzards initially learn to summon a distracting swarm of flies, called Black Smoke Flies, that impose a -3 penalty on all perception, concentration and ranged attack rolls of anyone caught within the swarm, excepting the character, and -2 to all perception and ranged attack rolls targeting something within the swarm from without. Horrible Swarm doesn’t allow the Buzzard to control his creations, but when using the Animalism power Obedience on the swarm the character doesn’t suffer the - 3 modifier for commanding insects.

The Tukawiru have spent countless centuries since before the coming of the Europeans performing primitive experiments with this power, and many elders have learned to birth strange and terrible creatures from rotting flesh; younger Buzzards are hungry for this knowledge, and may learn to summon other swarms by spending 3 experience points and consulting with a learned teacher. A few examples include

Not a fan of this level at all - I include it for the sake of completeness, I expect to delete it from the final version. What I want instead is some kind of power that uses the bones of animals and humans to cast something like magic spells; not on the level of Cruac, of course, but I like the image of a witch casting spells with bones... maybe something social; Gangrel are sadly social-light.

Walking Bones (Level-Five)

The walking dead are not a totally unfamiliar sight to one who has spent any time in the darkness of the world; whether morbid servants, lobotomized beasts or vengeful spirits clothed in flesh, many supernatural entities find use for, or reason to consort with, the husks of the dead. The Tukawiru see the utility in a dead body as well, but rather then creating yet another ambulatory corpse, they have taught their minds to crawl inside the limp form and wear it like a suit. The Buzzard may caper and dance in his decomposing shell, secure in the knowledge that his true form remains safe and secure within his haven.
Cost: 3 Vitae
Dice Pool: Presence + Occult + Husk
Action: Extended; 1 roll per 10 minutes, must get successes equal to the corpse’s Stamina when alive.

Similar, but simpler, then the Dominate power Possession, the Tukawiru feeds some Vitae to a suitable human or animal corpse, of at least Size 2, and immediately falls into Torpor, awakening within the disgusting cadaver. The corpse may move about under the Buzzard’s control as it did in life, and all of its senses function normally, though it maintains the appearance it had in death. The dead husk is unaffected by the sun (other then the fact that it can be easily recognized as a decaying body in the light), but the animating vampire must still struggle to remain awake in the day. As with Possession, the vampire may cancel this power at any time, returning to its immortal shell. Disciplines and Devotions effect may be used through the animated corpse normally, drawing power from the Buzzard’s inactive body, but the natural powers of Vitae, such as gaining + 2 to physical attributes for a turn or healing damage, cannot.

The animated body possesses the physical attributes it did in life, with + 1 to Strength, - 2 to Dexterity (to a minimum of 1) and + 3 to Stamina; all mental and social attributes, as well as skills, are those of the possessing vampire, but all social rolls suffer a – 1 to 3, depending on the degree of decomposition the body is in. The corpse-body and the vampire-mind are effected normally by the Disciplines of others.

This is almost certainly my favorite power so far - the vampire shifts his mind into a corpse and takes it for a ride. He can run the body into the ground, doing all kind of dangerous stuff, and walk away happy as a clam. It doesn't have the potential for social mania that Possession has, but it's a pretty useful none the less.

The reason I don't want to do the "see the last thing he saw" thing is because the Burakumin already do that as the second level of their Getsumei Discipline; I want to avoid treading on the feet of the other necromanically-oriented bloodlines, and not have any reoccuring powers. Taking power from the organs of the dead is an interesting idea; I'll give it some thought.

I'm also lacking a Weakness for these guys; I don't want to do a decaying thing, just because V:tR seems to be poh-pohing that kind of Weakness, as evidenced by their new Nosferatu Weakness. Maybe some kind of Social Merit related restriction, or similar.

This post has been edited by UnAdept: 03 June 2006 - 06:38 AM