Editor's Column and the Art of Diablerie

To begin, you must understand the difference between an IC Gen drop, and on OOC Gen drop. The IC gen drop is easily defined as being done through 'diablerie', which is the act of one vampire taking another vampires, blood, soul, and being. An OOC gen drop, is the award that's given to you by the Admin Staff for service, length of time in the game, ect, as a player. Right now, we have a generation system that allows a player to drop to the next lowest gen based off OOC involvement in the game. But what happens if that same player's character commits 'diablerie' and drops to a lower Gen because of it? This is where it gets tricky, and why these rules are being printed.

Committing Diablerie-

In order for a vamp to diablerize another vamp, the target must first be 'incapacitated' via the use of combat or Disciplines. The target must then be drained of all blood, at the rate of 1 blood/action. Once blood has been drained, a lone vampire must drain the target of Health Levels to the point of Torpor. Each Health level requires a separate Physical Challenge (target may only use Stamina-related traits). If the target wins, the diablerist isn't harmed, merely delayed another round. When the target is finally drained of all Health levels, both the diablerist and the target may not make any Social or Mental traits outside of the diablerie. The final part of diablerie, is a Physical challenge, as the diablerist attempt to take the "essence or soul" of the target vamp. The target will get 3 bonus Physical traits (to insure there is always a test) to bid with. The 'test' is not over until either a) the diablerist wins, or b) the diablerist runs out of traits to bid with. If the diablerist runs out of traits before completing the act of diablerie, he/she will take 1 Health level of damage (due to exhaustion) and drop away from the target. After that, the "essence" of the target 'goes away', and the body dies, denying anyone else from attempting to completely diablerizing the target.

What happens if you, the diablerist, wins??

First, your character will drop to the next lowest Gen (on the following evening), if the target was at least 1 Gen lower than yourself. If not, you do not gain the benefits of the IC gen drop, but may be able to pick up a new ability or discipline from the target vampire. If you are able to drop a gen, your character sheet will reflect your "earned OOC gen" in parenthesis, next to the gen your character has. The "earned OOC Gen" will remain there until you have achieved the gen you gained from diablerie. If your character dies before achieving the "earned OOC gen", then your next character will revert back to your previous "earned gen".

So WHY would someone want to commit Diablerie?

There's alot of "bennies" that go along with diablerie. Not only do you get the lower Gen (if applicable), which means more blood, and sometimes for Mx. traits or WillPower, you may also be ale to get a new discipline or ability from the vamp you diablerize. You also will receive 2xp, if you manage to survive the evening. The ST will call for a Simple Test, when the diablerist succeeds. If the player loses, nothing is gained from the diablerie other than the lower Gen (if applicable). If the player ties, the ST will choose an ability off the extinguished vamps sheet, and add it to your character. If the player wins- the ST will choose 2 abilities, as well as 1 "basic" discipline that the diablerist doesn't already possess. This discipline is treated as both In-Clan and Out-of-Clan, meaning that the diablerist will be able to expand on it without help, but will still need to pay Out-of-Clan costs for expansion. The only exception to this rule, is Thaumaturgy. Thaum can be learned without help, up to the highest level the diablerized vamp possessed, but after that, additional levels must be taught (good luck!). In addition, paths are not included with Thaum, only the beginning Path of Blood.

Ok, SO WHAT'S THE CATCH?!?

Well, diablerie is looked down upon by most other vampires (excluding the Sabbat). If your character gets caught having done this without permission, it usually means death. Also, there are some bad things that your character may get and will get for committing diablerie. First, your character will make a Beast Trait test with an ST, immediately after completing the diablerie (minor or major Beast Trait depending on test). Also, any negative traits, or derangements the character had, will automatically become yours as well. You not only get all that, but to make matters worse, your character will pick up some nifty 'black veins' in their Aura, which anyone with Aura Perception, will be able to see if they look specifically for it. (see pg. 77, Lo/tN)

Black Veins?!? What the Hell are those?!?

Every character has an Aura. A character that has committed diablerie will have 'black veins' running through their aura, for a certain amount of time. In the table-top game, it's relatively easy to look for this, but in the LARP, the person with Aura Perception, has to ask alot of questions, and make alot of tests, if they want to get the whole-amount of info they could get with Aura Perception. To balance this out, we've created a chart based off the difference in Gens, which will also give the diablerist a number of negative traits which are used only when other people use Aura Perception on the diablerist.

Diff in Gen # of Neg Traits Time (the black veins are in the Aura)* 1 -1 6months or until Gen is earned (whichever greater) 2 -2 1year " " 3 -3 2years " " 4 -4 3years " " ect.. ect..

* In the case of a lower Gen vamp diablerizing a higher Gen vamp, divide the amount of time in 1/2 and only give the Elder vampire 1 negative trait (it's easier for them to suppress the 'veins').

Summary-

If you're gonna commit diablerie, you need to know what you're getting into. Sure, there's alot of cool stuff you can get from it, but just as equally, some bad things.

I would like to wish John Brownlee a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY, and wish I could've attended his party that he held the same night as the 17th small-game. I would hope that the rest of you do the same, when you see him at the game on Oct. 24th.

If you haven't been out to Old Tucson for Nightfall, you still have some time. Remember, Nightfall only runs Wed-Sun, and I would personally suggest that you try and go Weds or Thurs, since those nights are slower than the rest. The admission price is 10.95 and starts at 6pm (first show is actually 5:45pm on Fridays and Saturdays).

Also, if you are thinking about going to TusCon, please be sure to RSVP for the last test-run of the new Deadlands LARP, which we will be doing instead of Vampire this year. That, I believe will be on Nov. 1st. Email or call Joe Palmer for more details.

I will more than likely be not attending the game on Oct 24th, due to Nightfall, but look forward to seeing you all at TusCon, and possibly the November Vamp game, if there is one.

Remember that newsletter submission need to be either emailed to me or given to one of the ST's by the night of the WLA. Most of the time that the newsletter gets out late, is because I'm waiting for more articles because otherwise the newsletter would be sparse. If you're thinking about submitting an article, remember that it can be IC or OOC. If you have something you want to announce, or let other players know about, feel free to send me something. I'm always on the lookout for more IC articles. My email address is spyder@chronic.lpl.arizona.edu. I will probably see several of you (I hope) at the Deadlands LARP-run on 11/1/98.

Until then,

- JC -

Take me back to the newsletter page

Take me back to the Old Pueblo By Night Page.