Adrestoi
May my belly be full, that my will be strong.
Where is a man's ambition? In his heart? What if his heart be still? In his blood? What if that blood is clotted and stolen? The Children of Midas are dead men who suck ambition from the blood and marrow of the living. Like the gods of the Aztecs, they can turn blood to gold and gold to blood.
The Adrestoi are creatures of the city, but more than that, creatures of its elite. They become one with its monoliths, command kine and beast alike. In death, they retain the vigor of life, but their will to power is dependent on the power of their blood. Fed well, an Adrestos is an irresistible force of command and conquest. Should he fail at the hunt, though, he becomes weak and easily swayed.
The Adrestoi are creatures of the city, but more than that, creatures of its elite. They become one with its monoliths, command kine and beast alike. In death, they retain the vigor of life, but their will to power is dependent on the power of their blood. Fed well, an Adrestos is an irresistible force of command and conquest. Should he fail at the hunt, though, he becomes weak and easily swayed.
Culture
Culture and cultural heritage
The Adrestoi are a young bloodline, the product of their progenitor’s fierce will and the mutations that ancestor wrought in his own Blood. He spawned his brood and line young, and they have evolved together. In the Detroit of the 1980s, Paul Gordon was a man with a mission. Amid the decay of the great automotive firms and the fires that swept regularly through the neighborhoods where he grew up, Paul learned to impose will over fear. He traded his father’s blue collar for white, and he went off to law school. When he returned, a lawyer with a Georgetown degree, he started to make friends. The kind of friends who appreciated a white collar speckled with a little blood. The vampire wasn’t far behind. He was looking for a servant, a cover, but Paul wore the monster down, manipulated and fought against him until the vampire Embraced him less by choice than force.
Paul’s sire was young to begin with, an Ancilla too used to having mortal crutches. Once the attorney became the vampire, he made short and bloody work of his sire. Their merged blood changed fast, and altered in Paul’s image. Invigorated, alive with cannibalized and mutated Vitae, he experienced an urge unusual among young Damned. He wanted to share. So he changed his name to Adrestos, the son of the legendary King Midas, and he Embraced the first of his line, the Adrestoi.
The most important ritual of the Adrestoi is the Hunt. All Kindred must hunt to survive, but the children of Midas find that their very character weakens when runs dry the Vitae. They become slothful and slow. Yet, that strength of character is required to pursue the hunt... one failure, one moment of sentimentality, one missed opportunity could doom the Adrestoi to a long mental rot. The Children of Midas celebrate the Hunt once per week, on the night before The Lancea Sanctum’s Sabbath.
Paul Adrestos keeps a granite Tomb on his estate, filled with his failures, fledglings whose minds collapsed early under his harsh tutelage. Each childe he takes is thrust into that Tomb, to fend off and feed upon the horrors until he has mastered his blood sufficiently to escape. The battle typically takes multiple nights, usually culminating in the nascent vampire acquiring sufficient mastery of Protean to escape or diablerizing enough of his Kindred to force the doors through sheer will. Sometimes, it is not the new childe, but one of the formerly mindless who claws his way free. Adrestos welcomes him by the name of the vampire he destroyed, and celebrates him as a prodigal returned.
Paul’s sire was young to begin with, an Ancilla too used to having mortal crutches. Once the attorney became the vampire, he made short and bloody work of his sire. Their merged blood changed fast, and altered in Paul’s image. Invigorated, alive with cannibalized and mutated Vitae, he experienced an urge unusual among young Damned. He wanted to share. So he changed his name to Adrestos, the son of the legendary King Midas, and he Embraced the first of his line, the Adrestoi.
The most important ritual of the Adrestoi is the Hunt. All Kindred must hunt to survive, but the children of Midas find that their very character weakens when runs dry the Vitae. They become slothful and slow. Yet, that strength of character is required to pursue the hunt... one failure, one moment of sentimentality, one missed opportunity could doom the Adrestoi to a long mental rot. The Children of Midas celebrate the Hunt once per week, on the night before The Lancea Sanctum’s Sabbath.
Paul Adrestos keeps a granite Tomb on his estate, filled with his failures, fledglings whose minds collapsed early under his harsh tutelage. Each childe he takes is thrust into that Tomb, to fend off and feed upon the horrors until he has mastered his blood sufficiently to escape. The battle typically takes multiple nights, usually culminating in the nascent vampire acquiring sufficient mastery of Protean to escape or diablerizing enough of his Kindred to force the doors through sheer will. Sometimes, it is not the new childe, but one of the formerly mindless who claws his way free. Adrestos welcomes him by the name of the vampire he destroyed, and celebrates him as a prodigal returned.
Major organizations
Reputation: The children of Midas are known for results, but also for obsession. Many Ventrue look at the hunt as a disgraceful necessity, something untidy and to be kept private. The Adrestoi hunt in packs, instead, and those who have joined The Lancea Sanctum are often perceived as zealots as a consequence. Those with no such allegiance are often suspected of affliction with Malkavia or simply to have become too monstrous too fast. Where they are recognized as a bloodline, they are sometimes pitied. When encountered alone, they are often feared.
Pitied or feared, Adrestoi are also well-liked. After all, they have a lot to offer. If they hunt frequently and almost openly... well, that habit is no less distasteful than the predilections of some of the other lines. Their tenacity, seemingly wired in the blood, makes them effective Allies even when very young; for just as their weakness drains Vitae, it conserves their inner strength. They can turn anything to gold, given their fill of blood...
Pitied or feared, Adrestoi are also well-liked. After all, they have a lot to offer. If they hunt frequently and almost openly... well, that habit is no less distasteful than the predilections of some of the other lines. Their tenacity, seemingly wired in the blood, makes them effective Allies even when very young; for just as their weakness drains Vitae, it conserves their inner strength. They can turn anything to gold, given their fill of blood...
Nickname: Stalwarts, sometimes Children of Midas
Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Dominate, Protean, Resilience
Weakness: The children of Midas wax and wane according to their feeding. They push their minds and flesh too hard, try to accomplish too much, and so they drain away the Blood. Any Discipline which requires Willpower instead requires the same amount of Vitae. Adrestoi may spend Willpower normally to affect rolls.
Parent ethnicities
Weakness: The children of Midas wax and wane according to their feeding. They push their minds and flesh too hard, try to accomplish too much, and so they drain away the Blood. Any Discipline which requires Willpower instead requires the same amount of Vitae. Adrestoi may spend Willpower normally to affect rolls.