Deucalion
“It’s OK. You can’t help what you are.”
The Deucalion bloodline simmers with rage. Interacting with other Kindred, necessary for night-tonight existence and especially important among The Carthian Movement, frustrates and infuriates them. They are stone while all others are clay. They might not all be perfect, but they are unflawed, as least as far as Kindred go. While all other clans and bloodlines carry some sort of weakness, some imperfection that makes them ugly, stupid or weak, the Deucaliones have only themselves and not their Blood to blame when they fail.
Of course, they usually have to keep these attitudes to themselves. It might be true that the horrific Nosferatu acting as Prince of a domain is worthless, because she cannot even hunt without revealing herself to any mortal who might be watching, but if her Embrace antedates that of the Deucalion’s by a halfcentury then insults are unwise. The Deucalion bloodline isn’t good at being patient, but it must be. So the Deucaliones save their vitriol for the targets they can afford to attack — younger Kindred, Ghouls and mortal pawns. Just as Americans once felt that one black relative was enough to consider a person “black,” the Deucaliones feel that the touch of tainted blood is enough to pass on the weakness.
Victor’s sire was a member of The Invictus who wanted the fiery young man’s connections to various businesses in the city. After the Embrace, though, Victor threw himself headlong into the Requiem. He severed ties with the mortals who knew him (killing them, in some cases), liquidated his accounts, arranged circumstances so that he was declared dead and began learning all he could about the clans and the covenants. His sire, disgusted, declared Victor’s Embrace a mistake that he would correct, but Victor had already made arrangements. Just under a year after his Embrace, he was on a train heading west.
At the same time, he was trying to find his feet among the Kindred. He had no real interest in Joining the Invictus, and the two religious covenants conflicted with his secular view of the world. The Ordo Dracul seemed like a natural fit, and when he arrived in his new home he immediately petitioned to join these scholars. He never gained much Status, however, because, whereas most Dragons were interested in studying the occult to further their own understanding of the Coils of the Dragon, Victor was interested in knowledge for his own sake and had no particular desire to “transcend” anything. What’s more, as he researched mythology and observed the Kindred around him, he came to a very familiar (for him) conclusion: certain types of vampires were weaker by nature, whereas he and vampires like him were without this inherent weakness.
The Ventrue, he decided, were without intrinsic Flaws. The Nosferatu were obvious monsters — fine if one wished to terrorize fairy-tale children, but not conducive to a modern Requiem. The Gangrel could not think rationally, at least not predictably, and this kind of chaotic thought process made them dangerous to rely upon. The Daeva were slaves to their base impulses, and Victor saw that this led to the Daeva either degenerating into madness or becoming mentally exhausted in short order. The Mekhet, of course, had even less tolerance for light than most Kindred. (Victor considered the Mekhet the least of the Kindred, but his disdain was tempered with fear and jealousy over their ability to read minds.)
Above all the clans, though, stood the Ventrue. Victor perceived talk of the Lords being predisposed toward madness as motivated by jealousy and speculation — any vampire might go mad with the weight of years and sin, after all. In his mythological studies, Victor came across the story of Deucalion, the descendant of Prometheus who was one of the last survivors after Zeus flooded the world. Deucalion consulted the Oracle of Themis for advice on how to repopulate the Earth, and was told to throw stones over his shoulder. A race of people sprang up behind him, made from stone (rather than the original inhabitants of the world, who had been made from clay and were thus not strong enough to withstand the sins released from Pandora’s box).
This fable sparked something in Victor. He believed that he had found a representation of the Ventrue in the myth. The other clans were made from clay, but his clan was of stone, strong enough to resist sunlight, fire and sin and rise above all other Kindred. Other vampires were impure, by no one’s fault but the blood they bore. Victor wrote up a long, accusatory treatise “proving” that the Ventrue should hold power in every city, though other, “impure” clans would be allowed to hold offices at the Ventrue’s sufferance. He presented this treatise to his superiors in the Order, sure that it would finally be his ticket out of the lower ranks. He wasn’t entirely prepared for the result.
Victor read the comments to his treatise and came to the conclusion that he had been wrong to show it to them. Not because he was mistaken, of course, but simply because he couldn’t expect them to accept it. Would old and powerful Kindred acknowledge the truths that he had realized? Of course not, for Victor was not far from his Embrace. He was fighting a battle that would not only prove unpopular with four-fifths of the Kindred in existence, but that also required elders to take the word of a neonate. He therefore decided that his former superior’s suggestion of seeking a covenant better suited to his temperament was a good idea, but he needed a covenant that would listen to the words of a young vampire. In The Carthian Movement, he found a home.
Victor’s position, simply put, was that clan Ventrue was inherently unflawed, but that individual members of the clan still made mistakes and possessed character and moral failings. (Victor himself magnanimously admitted to being somewhat conceited, in perhaps the greatest understatement the city’s Kindred had ever heard.) Other clans were inherently flawed, but could aspire to great accomplishments and virtue. They merely had more to overcome.
Most of the city’s Kindred recognized this position as the condescending pap that it was, but enough of the Carthians in the area responded favorably the Victor was able to build up a small power base. He made it his mission to help the Ventrue remain pure and make the most of their special Status, and to help the members of the other clans rise above the impurities of their blood. Over time, strangely enough, he started to do just that. He developed strategies for Gangrel to cope with the lack of cognitive faculty that their particular weakness brought. He helped the Succubi find ways to avoid being put in positions where they had to either abstain or indulge, and he encouraged the Nosferatu to hone their abilities in stealth rather than in engendering fear. (“It’s a useful trick,” he’d say, “but it’s a holdover from centuries past. You want to scare someone nowadays, pull a gun.”) He had nothing to offer the Mekhet, however, claiming that they were a “mud clan” among the Kindred that had somehow managed to survive despite their obvious inferiority. Again, though, he didn’t blame individual Mekhet for being Mekhet, since no Kindred chooses her clan. He simply stated that he couldn’t help them, and advised them to move as far north as possible where the nights lasted longer. When he found that Mekhet in the city had Embraced, however, he became incensed and railed at them whenever he saw them. Being Cursed was something no vampire could help. Passing on that Curse was unforgivable.
This state of affairs continued for several decades, and Victor gained a kind of cult of personality in his city and those nearby. Many Kindred hated him, but those who had actually met him found him agreeable, if a little patronizing. A number of vampires admitted that he had some good ideas for avoiding the bloodborne curses, though they chortled that he had also come across the best way to cope with his own: deny it.
Then, one winter night, a visitor arrived in the city who would send the Deucalion mission in a new direction, and ultimately lead to its Status as a bloodline.
But one night in February, Victor was taking a meeting with a particularly volatile Gangrel, trying to teach her to keep her mind uncluttered even in the face of myriad distractions. He was making progress, he thought, when he heard a knock at the door. When he answered it, standing there was a truly patheticlooking vampire. She was so thin that her ribs were plainly visible under her shirt. Her hair had fallen out in patches, and although she had not masked her Beast, the Predator’s Taint barely flickered in Victor’s soul. His own Beast saw her as a worm, a parasite not worth the trouble of killing. Victor at first thought she was a Nosferatu, and invited her in, but after some discussion she claimed to be a member of a minor line consisting only of herself and her sire. Intrigued, Victor listened as she spoke at length of changing her blood, watching in horror as her body changed, losing her facility for strengthening her flesh but gaining the power to flawlessly track other Kindred, even if she knew only a name.
Eventually, Victor asked her what clan she had been Embraced into, assuming it to be Gangrel. He was not prepared for her answer: “Ventrue.” Victor flew into frenzy and attacked her, draining her dry and consuming her soul.
Horrified at what he had done (in part because he was afraid he had absorbed her weakness), he contacted every Kindred who would speak to him and asked about these strange “sub-clans.” Few knew anything, but a small number confirmed what the unfortunate waif had told him: it was possible for bloodlines to form from the clans.
Victor was sickened at this news. He had held up the Ventrue as the pinnacle of vampiric achievement for so long, but now it was clear that their position wasn’t by any means secure. He entered Torpor for over a year, and emerged with a renewed determination and a slightly altered mission. It was possible, he conceded, for Ventrue to lose their purity, but he was convinced that a vampire could not alter his blood by accident. Therefore, the choice to join a bloodline was still a choice, and any fallibility among the Lords came from a particular vampire’s foibles, not from the Blood. His mission, then, was to determine whether it was possible for other clans to become pure, losing their weaknesses and joining the Ventrue as unflawed Kindred. To that end, he informed his few fellow Deucaliones to begin Research, interviews and legwork to find and catalog as many deviations from the five clans as they could.
What Victor wasn’t telling his followers, of course, was that he had plans beyond simple categorization. He wanted to begin his own bloodline. He just needed to know how to do it.
He once again entered Torpor, with the intention of emerging with new strength and purity. This time, he remained in slumber much longer — a side effect of his murderous habits over the preceding years. He emerged from his state nearly a decade later, claiming to have seen how to alter his blood in the fevered dreams of the torpid state. “Like clay,” he whispered, trembling. “My blood was clay, and when I touched it, it became stone. I am Deucalion, and any who choose to follow me are my children.”
Victor immediately set to work on honing his skills, and discovered, to his delight, that he had been given dominion over all Kindred weakness. With a glance or a gentle touch, he could inflict the weaknesses of the lesser clans upon other Kindred. And, he noted with some satisfaction, only the weaknesses of the four flawed clans were within his power. This proved (to him) what he had believed all along — the Ventrue were without blemish.
He invited any Ventrue who had followed him to join his bloodline, and soon thereafter opened that invitation to any Lord who wished to “wash away the stains of the world, and face the Requiem with the fortitude of stone.” He received few takers, but those who did join him agreed with his assessment: by becoming Deucaliones, they absolved themselves of whatever foolishness they had committed before that point.
Victor, however, had made enemies, and they did not wish to see him or his bloodline come to power. Within a year of rising from Torpor and declaring the Deucaliones a bloodline as well as an ideological faction, Victor Spanos found that someone had put a price on his head. In order to minimize the risk to his bloodline’s members, he disappeared, staying in contact only by letters and online transmissions.
Deucaliones normally have one of three main positions, all inherited from their founder. The first is superiority: the Deucalion works toward the acknowledged superiority of clan Ventrue and the Deucalion philosophy.
The second position is knowledge: the Deucalion searches for knowledge of bloodlines. Interviews with bloodline members are especially prized, as are confirmed reports of strange Disciplines and weaknesses. Some Deucaliones hope to find Kindred who have transcended their parent clan’s weakness; other Deucaliones desperately hope that no such bloodline exists, because it would challenge the notion of Ventrue superiority.
The third position is instruction: the Deucalion endeavors to help non–Ventrue Kindred cope with their inborn failings. If potential students can learn to Ignore the blinding condescension inherent in this attitude, they can actually learn some useful tricks from the Deucaliones. As mentioned, many Kindred find it ironic that the Deucaliones are so expert in helping other clans manage their problems while never even acknowledging their own.
As his bloodline expands, Victor waits. Rumor has it he somehow changed his face and took the position of Hound or Sheriff in a nearby domain, lurking until he can find out who put the price on his unlife and slay him. Other rumors state that he has already died, and that all of the letters and communications from his bloodline don’t go to him but to another interested party, probably the same one who called in the hit. The Ordo Dracul is the most commonly named conspirator, but Victor’s sire is another contender.
Of course, they usually have to keep these attitudes to themselves. It might be true that the horrific Nosferatu acting as Prince of a domain is worthless, because she cannot even hunt without revealing herself to any mortal who might be watching, but if her Embrace antedates that of the Deucalion’s by a halfcentury then insults are unwise. The Deucalion bloodline isn’t good at being patient, but it must be. So the Deucaliones save their vitriol for the targets they can afford to attack — younger Kindred, Ghouls and mortal pawns. Just as Americans once felt that one black relative was enough to consider a person “black,” the Deucaliones feel that the touch of tainted blood is enough to pass on the weakness.
History of the Deucaliones
The Deucaliones are a young bloodline, formed sometime within the last 50 years. The founder, a Ventrue named Victor Spanos, was Embraced during a period of high immigration in New York. Greek by ancestry but American by birth, he watched as Italians, Irish, Greeks and others tried to mix into the “melting pot” of the city. He decided, though, that the “melting pot” was more a bowl of marbles than anything else. The people didn’t melt, didn’t change and didn’t allow themselves to be changed. They clung to their ways, their foibles and their weaknesses. Victor decided that America, despite her Flaws, was superior because she had left behind the weaknesses of the Old Country. Victor, in the years leading up to his Embrace, was a constant force against immigrants’ rights unless they learned American English (without accent), could work in America and didn’t ask for silly things like Catholic or Greek Orthodox holidays. “They have freedom of religion,” he said, “but I shouldn’t lose money because of it.”Victor’s sire was a member of The Invictus who wanted the fiery young man’s connections to various businesses in the city. After the Embrace, though, Victor threw himself headlong into the Requiem. He severed ties with the mortals who knew him (killing them, in some cases), liquidated his accounts, arranged circumstances so that he was declared dead and began learning all he could about the clans and the covenants. His sire, disgusted, declared Victor’s Embrace a mistake that he would correct, but Victor had already made arrangements. Just under a year after his Embrace, he was on a train heading west.
Impurity
Victor had been an avid student of vampirism since the first night of his Embrace. Although not particularly interested in mythology or esoteric lore in life, the notion that vampires had hunted Humanity for centuries intrigued him, and he dug into the history of his former people with Vigor, trying to find the “cracks” in the Masquerade. History, he found, wasn’t a good source, because so much of it had been sanitized and rewritten to match Expectations, one of which was that vampires didn’t exist. Victor turned instead to mythology, focusing on the rich lore of ancient Greece.At the same time, he was trying to find his feet among the Kindred. He had no real interest in Joining the Invictus, and the two religious covenants conflicted with his secular view of the world. The Ordo Dracul seemed like a natural fit, and when he arrived in his new home he immediately petitioned to join these scholars. He never gained much Status, however, because, whereas most Dragons were interested in studying the occult to further their own understanding of the Coils of the Dragon, Victor was interested in knowledge for his own sake and had no particular desire to “transcend” anything. What’s more, as he researched mythology and observed the Kindred around him, he came to a very familiar (for him) conclusion: certain types of vampires were weaker by nature, whereas he and vampires like him were without this inherent weakness.
The Ventrue, he decided, were without intrinsic Flaws. The Nosferatu were obvious monsters — fine if one wished to terrorize fairy-tale children, but not conducive to a modern Requiem. The Gangrel could not think rationally, at least not predictably, and this kind of chaotic thought process made them dangerous to rely upon. The Daeva were slaves to their base impulses, and Victor saw that this led to the Daeva either degenerating into madness or becoming mentally exhausted in short order. The Mekhet, of course, had even less tolerance for light than most Kindred. (Victor considered the Mekhet the least of the Kindred, but his disdain was tempered with fear and jealousy over their ability to read minds.)
Above all the clans, though, stood the Ventrue. Victor perceived talk of the Lords being predisposed toward madness as motivated by jealousy and speculation — any vampire might go mad with the weight of years and sin, after all. In his mythological studies, Victor came across the story of Deucalion, the descendant of Prometheus who was one of the last survivors after Zeus flooded the world. Deucalion consulted the Oracle of Themis for advice on how to repopulate the Earth, and was told to throw stones over his shoulder. A race of people sprang up behind him, made from stone (rather than the original inhabitants of the world, who had been made from clay and were thus not strong enough to withstand the sins released from Pandora’s box).
This fable sparked something in Victor. He believed that he had found a representation of the Ventrue in the myth. The other clans were made from clay, but his clan was of stone, strong enough to resist sunlight, fire and sin and rise above all other Kindred. Other vampires were impure, by no one’s fault but the blood they bore. Victor wrote up a long, accusatory treatise “proving” that the Ventrue should hold power in every city, though other, “impure” clans would be allowed to hold offices at the Ventrue’s sufferance. He presented this treatise to his superiors in the Order, sure that it would finally be his ticket out of the lower ranks. He wasn’t entirely prepared for the result.
The Carthian Movement
The Dragons in Victor’s new city read his proposal and immediately expelled him. “What you should, but probably won’t, understand, Slave Victor,” one of them wrote to him, “is that we are not expelling you from the Order because you are wrong, though you most assuredly are. We are expelling you because you are a failure as a scientist, because you see only what confirms what you have always believed. There are other covenants for Kindred like you, Kindred who refuse to let the world change them.”Victor read the comments to his treatise and came to the conclusion that he had been wrong to show it to them. Not because he was mistaken, of course, but simply because he couldn’t expect them to accept it. Would old and powerful Kindred acknowledge the truths that he had realized? Of course not, for Victor was not far from his Embrace. He was fighting a battle that would not only prove unpopular with four-fifths of the Kindred in existence, but that also required elders to take the word of a neonate. He therefore decided that his former superior’s suggestion of seeking a covenant better suited to his temperament was a good idea, but he needed a covenant that would listen to the words of a young vampire. In The Carthian Movement, he found a home.
Mission and Position: Deucaliones
Victor evangelized his “Deucalion” mission immediately upon joining The Carthian Movement. Of course, most of the Carthians in the city promptly refused to speak to him again. Some, though (mostly, though not entirely, Ventrue), found his notions intriguing.Victor’s position, simply put, was that clan Ventrue was inherently unflawed, but that individual members of the clan still made mistakes and possessed character and moral failings. (Victor himself magnanimously admitted to being somewhat conceited, in perhaps the greatest understatement the city’s Kindred had ever heard.) Other clans were inherently flawed, but could aspire to great accomplishments and virtue. They merely had more to overcome.
Most of the city’s Kindred recognized this position as the condescending pap that it was, but enough of the Carthians in the area responded favorably the Victor was able to build up a small power base. He made it his mission to help the Ventrue remain pure and make the most of their special Status, and to help the members of the other clans rise above the impurities of their blood. Over time, strangely enough, he started to do just that. He developed strategies for Gangrel to cope with the lack of cognitive faculty that their particular weakness brought. He helped the Succubi find ways to avoid being put in positions where they had to either abstain or indulge, and he encouraged the Nosferatu to hone their abilities in stealth rather than in engendering fear. (“It’s a useful trick,” he’d say, “but it’s a holdover from centuries past. You want to scare someone nowadays, pull a gun.”) He had nothing to offer the Mekhet, however, claiming that they were a “mud clan” among the Kindred that had somehow managed to survive despite their obvious inferiority. Again, though, he didn’t blame individual Mekhet for being Mekhet, since no Kindred chooses her clan. He simply stated that he couldn’t help them, and advised them to move as far north as possible where the nights lasted longer. When he found that Mekhet in the city had Embraced, however, he became incensed and railed at them whenever he saw them. Being Cursed was something no vampire could help. Passing on that Curse was unforgivable.
This state of affairs continued for several decades, and Victor gained a kind of cult of personality in his city and those nearby. Many Kindred hated him, but those who had actually met him found him agreeable, if a little patronizing. A number of vampires admitted that he had some good ideas for avoiding the bloodborne curses, though they chortled that he had also come across the best way to cope with his own: deny it.
Then, one winter night, a visitor arrived in the city who would send the Deucalion mission in a new direction, and ultimately lead to its Status as a bloodline.
A New Wrinkle
Like many vampires, Victor had operated under the assumption that only five clans existed. He had heard rumors that “other clans” existed in other countries, but he didn’t spare them much of a thought.But one night in February, Victor was taking a meeting with a particularly volatile Gangrel, trying to teach her to keep her mind uncluttered even in the face of myriad distractions. He was making progress, he thought, when he heard a knock at the door. When he answered it, standing there was a truly patheticlooking vampire. She was so thin that her ribs were plainly visible under her shirt. Her hair had fallen out in patches, and although she had not masked her Beast, the Predator’s Taint barely flickered in Victor’s soul. His own Beast saw her as a worm, a parasite not worth the trouble of killing. Victor at first thought she was a Nosferatu, and invited her in, but after some discussion she claimed to be a member of a minor line consisting only of herself and her sire. Intrigued, Victor listened as she spoke at length of changing her blood, watching in horror as her body changed, losing her facility for strengthening her flesh but gaining the power to flawlessly track other Kindred, even if she knew only a name.
Eventually, Victor asked her what clan she had been Embraced into, assuming it to be Gangrel. He was not prepared for her answer: “Ventrue.” Victor flew into frenzy and attacked her, draining her dry and consuming her soul.
Horrified at what he had done (in part because he was afraid he had absorbed her weakness), he contacted every Kindred who would speak to him and asked about these strange “sub-clans.” Few knew anything, but a small number confirmed what the unfortunate waif had told him: it was possible for bloodlines to form from the clans.
Victor was sickened at this news. He had held up the Ventrue as the pinnacle of vampiric achievement for so long, but now it was clear that their position wasn’t by any means secure. He entered Torpor for over a year, and emerged with a renewed determination and a slightly altered mission. It was possible, he conceded, for Ventrue to lose their purity, but he was convinced that a vampire could not alter his blood by accident. Therefore, the choice to join a bloodline was still a choice, and any fallibility among the Lords came from a particular vampire’s foibles, not from the Blood. His mission, then, was to determine whether it was possible for other clans to become pure, losing their weaknesses and joining the Ventrue as unflawed Kindred. To that end, he informed his few fellow Deucaliones to begin Research, interviews and legwork to find and catalog as many deviations from the five clans as they could.
What Victor wasn’t telling his followers, of course, was that he had plans beyond simple categorization. He wanted to begin his own bloodline. He just needed to know how to do it.
The Bloodline of the Unflawed
Over the course of next few decades, Victor established a network of information about the various bloodlines. He managed to find members of several who were willing to aid him in his Research, and he discovered the arcane process of altering his blood. Reportedly, he even entertained offers from more than one would-be Avus, but he declined these in favor of refining his blood to the point that he could begin his own line. How he managed such potent blood in a short span of time, he has never said, but he undoubtedly committed Diablerie more than once during his studies. As the 20th century drew to a close, Victor decided he was ready.He once again entered Torpor, with the intention of emerging with new strength and purity. This time, he remained in slumber much longer — a side effect of his murderous habits over the preceding years. He emerged from his state nearly a decade later, claiming to have seen how to alter his blood in the fevered dreams of the torpid state. “Like clay,” he whispered, trembling. “My blood was clay, and when I touched it, it became stone. I am Deucalion, and any who choose to follow me are my children.”
Victor immediately set to work on honing his skills, and discovered, to his delight, that he had been given dominion over all Kindred weakness. With a glance or a gentle touch, he could inflict the weaknesses of the lesser clans upon other Kindred. And, he noted with some satisfaction, only the weaknesses of the four flawed clans were within his power. This proved (to him) what he had believed all along — the Ventrue were without blemish.
He invited any Ventrue who had followed him to join his bloodline, and soon thereafter opened that invitation to any Lord who wished to “wash away the stains of the world, and face the Requiem with the fortitude of stone.” He received few takers, but those who did join him agreed with his assessment: by becoming Deucaliones, they absolved themselves of whatever foolishness they had committed before that point.
Victor, however, had made enemies, and they did not wish to see him or his bloodline come to power. Within a year of rising from Torpor and declaring the Deucaliones a bloodline as well as an ideological faction, Victor Spanos found that someone had put a price on his head. In order to minimize the risk to his bloodline’s members, he disappeared, staying in contact only by letters and online transmissions.
Deucaliones Tonight
The Deucalion bloodline thrives only in a few proximate cities, and its members know and aid each other (the bloodline numbers only a score or so). Despite their exclusionary propaganda, they actively court new members, and are rumored to provide interested Ventrue with the means to quickly strengthen their blood to the point that they can join the bloodline (that is, diablerie). Deucaliones hold positions of moderate power in several cities, but rarely gain enough support to take a title such as Prince or Prefect.Deucaliones normally have one of three main positions, all inherited from their founder. The first is superiority: the Deucalion works toward the acknowledged superiority of clan Ventrue and the Deucalion philosophy.
The second position is knowledge: the Deucalion searches for knowledge of bloodlines. Interviews with bloodline members are especially prized, as are confirmed reports of strange Disciplines and weaknesses. Some Deucaliones hope to find Kindred who have transcended their parent clan’s weakness; other Deucaliones desperately hope that no such bloodline exists, because it would challenge the notion of Ventrue superiority.
The third position is instruction: the Deucalion endeavors to help non–Ventrue Kindred cope with their inborn failings. If potential students can learn to Ignore the blinding condescension inherent in this attitude, they can actually learn some useful tricks from the Deucaliones. As mentioned, many Kindred find it ironic that the Deucaliones are so expert in helping other clans manage their problems while never even acknowledging their own.
As his bloodline expands, Victor waits. Rumor has it he somehow changed his face and took the position of Hound or Sheriff in a nearby domain, lurking until he can find out who put the price on his unlife and slay him. Other rumors state that he has already died, and that all of the letters and communications from his bloodline don’t go to him but to another interested party, probably the same one who called in the hit. The Ordo Dracul is the most commonly named conspirator, but Victor’s sire is another contender.
Culture
Culture and cultural heritage
Background: Not all Deucaliones are recruited from supremacist groups, but most have some sort of exclusionary background in life. Fundamentalist churches, old boy’s clubs, neighborhood associations and, of course, racist groups all provide the right kind of mindset, namely, “We are the strong, others are weak by nature.” The trick, of course, is making a neonate understand that because a person is black does not make him weak (for instance), because among Kindred, clan is the sole trait that matters. This deprogramming is one reason that young Skinheads remain close to their sires for a time after the Embrace. Letting a neonate Deucalion who was, for instance, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood until his Embrace run wild in Kindred society is a good way to lose a perfectly good childe, if he goes mouthing off to the wrong vampires.
Common Dress code
Appearance: Despite the nickname, not all Deucaliones were Skinheads or even racial supremacists in life. Many were normal members of whatever society they descended from, and retain that normalcy as vampires. Most Deucaliones look healthy and fit, but in terms of clothing run the gamut from the height of fashion to last decade’s work clothes.
Art & Architecture
Haven: Deucaliones stick close to their sires or Avuses initially. After Deucaliones are “turned loose,” they often try to build up a small, tight-knit group of like-minded Kindred, and often establish a communal Haven. Failing that, they usually choose one Haven and fortify it beyond all reason. Many Deucalion havens have a “kill switch” that sets the place ablaze or blows it up should escape ever prove impossible.
Major organizations
Covenant: The Deucaliones are largely a Carthian bloodline, but are sometimes accepted by other covenants, normally The Invictus or The Ordo Dracul. Some Deucaliones act as spies or double agents for The Carthian Movement, but such Deucaliones don’t tend to remain secret for very long, as their natural temperament betrays them. Deucaliones who don’t belong to any of these covenants tend to be unaligned or founders of their own proto-covenants that they feel sure will one night overthrow the existing Kindred power structure. The Lancea Sanctum and The Circle of the Crone don’t appeal to the Skinheads as a rule; those convenants’ dogma repels the Deucaliones.
Organization: Deucaliones like to keep to their own, especially since they are taught from their Embraces that the only Kindred to be trusted are Ventrue and other Deucaliones. After having been released from their sires’ care for a while, though, Deucaliones function much as other Kindred, but Deucaliones always give the Lords the benefit of the doubt. Deucaliones are expected to check in with their sires or (more often) Avuses once a month or so (phone or email is acceptable if they dwell in different cities) and keep them abreast of the news of the area and any discoveries they have made. The sires, in turn, pass this information along to their sires, and so on. In theory, Victor Spanos, wherever he is, receives information from every Deucalion in the world each month.
Organization: Deucaliones like to keep to their own, especially since they are taught from their Embraces that the only Kindred to be trusted are Ventrue and other Deucaliones. After having been released from their sires’ care for a while, though, Deucaliones function much as other Kindred, but Deucaliones always give the Lords the benefit of the doubt. Deucaliones are expected to check in with their sires or (more often) Avuses once a month or so (phone or email is acceptable if they dwell in different cities) and keep them abreast of the news of the area and any discoveries they have made. The sires, in turn, pass this information along to their sires, and so on. In theory, Victor Spanos, wherever he is, receives information from every Deucalion in the world each month.
Nickname: Skinheads, though they call themselves the “Unflawed”
Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Dominate, Impurity, Resilience
Weakness: Deucaliones suffer the Ventrue clan weakness, not that they’d admit it (–2 penalty to Humanity rolls to avoid acquiring Derangements after failing a degeneration roll). In addition, Skinheads are arrogant in the extreme. To their mind, they don’t make mistakes, but are simply subject to occasional runs of bad luck or conspiracy; they can do no wrong. In game terms, while they can still gain Willpower for accomplishing their goals, they lose Willpower for failing. The Storyteller needs to adjudicate what constitutes failure. An Intelligence + Occult roll to know an obscure fact that doesn’t produce any successes might not be a failure to the Deucalion — he simply doesn’t know, and that’s no fault of his. Attempting to jump between two buildings and failing, though, should certainly cost a Willpower point (in addition, probably, to some Health points).
Concepts: Biased peacekeeper, Kindred genealogist, occult archivist, Ordo Dracul reject, psychologist, rabble-rouser, racist slime, radical leader, rich patron, vampire assassin, vampire-behaviorist
Victor began his unlife in New York and from there headed west — and that’s about as specific as it’s going to get. The Deucalion bloodline is prevalent in several American cities, but it’s not really necessary to nail down which ones here. (In your chronicle, of course, one of those cities can be the one your coterie resides in and the surrounding ones, if you wish to incorporate the bloodline.)
Nothing says that Victor necessarily needed to start in New York, of course. London has its own issues with immigration, and Victor could easily have fled to mainland Europe. Use whatever locales work for your chronicle, and tweak the bloodline’s particulars as necessary.
What did the Deucaliones find? How many bloodlines have they unearthed? That’s really a matter for the Storyteller and the players to decide. If you want to keep the number of bloodlines low, maybe the Deucaliones have only discovered one or two (and maybe they’re just a faction of Kindred rather than a bloodline themselves). If you like the notion of Kindred blood being mutable, then the Deucaliones might have discovered any or all of the bloodlines mentioned in Vampire: The Requiem and any of the other books that include new lineages (including Bloodlines: The Hidden and Bloodlines: The Legendary).
No, there are no game systems specifically geared toward dodging the clan weaknesses of the Gangrel, Nosferatu, Mekhet and Daeva. The coping mechanisms that the Deucaliones teach are entirely story-based, and any game effects that they have are up to the Storyteller. Here are some examples, though of the sorts of things that the Skinheads might recommend.
Parent ethnicities
Weakness: Deucaliones suffer the Ventrue clan weakness, not that they’d admit it (–2 penalty to Humanity rolls to avoid acquiring Derangements after failing a degeneration roll). In addition, Skinheads are arrogant in the extreme. To their mind, they don’t make mistakes, but are simply subject to occasional runs of bad luck or conspiracy; they can do no wrong. In game terms, while they can still gain Willpower for accomplishing their goals, they lose Willpower for failing. The Storyteller needs to adjudicate what constitutes failure. An Intelligence + Occult roll to know an obscure fact that doesn’t produce any successes might not be a failure to the Deucalion — he simply doesn’t know, and that’s no fault of his. Attempting to jump between two buildings and failing, though, should certainly cost a Willpower point (in addition, probably, to some Health points).
Concepts: Biased peacekeeper, Kindred genealogist, occult archivist, Ordo Dracul reject, psychologist, rabble-rouser, racist slime, radical leader, rich patron, vampire assassin, vampire-behaviorist
Where?
Victor began his unlife in New York and from there headed west — and that’s about as specific as it’s going to get. The Deucalion bloodline is prevalent in several American cities, but it’s not really necessary to nail down which ones here. (In your chronicle, of course, one of those cities can be the one your coterie resides in and the surrounding ones, if you wish to incorporate the bloodline.)Nothing says that Victor necessarily needed to start in New York, of course. London has its own issues with immigration, and Victor could easily have fled to mainland Europe. Use whatever locales work for your chronicle, and tweak the bloodline’s particulars as necessary.
So How MAny Are There?
What did the Deucaliones find? How many bloodlines have they unearthed? That’s really a matter for the Storyteller and the players to decide. If you want to keep the number of bloodlines low, maybe the Deucaliones have only discovered one or two (and maybe they’re just a faction of Kindred rather than a bloodline themselves). If you like the notion of Kindred blood being mutable, then the Deucaliones might have discovered any or all of the bloodlines mentioned in Vampire: The Requiem and any of the other books that include new lineages (including Bloodlines: The Hidden and Bloodlines: The Legendary).
Coping with Weaknesses
No, there are no game systems specifically geared toward dodging the clan weaknesses of the Gangrel, Nosferatu, Mekhet and Daeva. The coping mechanisms that the Deucaliones teach are entirely story-based, and any game effects that they have are up to the Storyteller. Here are some examples, though of the sorts of things that the Skinheads might recommend.
- Daeva: The Deucaliones teach the Succubi Avoidance. Since indulging in Vice is dangerous on a spiritual level and ignoring Vice is dangerous on a psychological level, the lesson is to avoid being in a position in which indulging is too morally shaky. Deucaliones teach Succubi to enjoy their lascivious (or gluttonous or slothful) habits outside of unlifeor-death situations, and to feed slowly so that accidentally killing a vessel isn’t as easy.
- Gangrel: The Gangrel suffer from something resembling senile dementia. Since this problem seems inborn and insurmountable, Deucaliones teach the Gangrel how to cope. Note-taking, patience, anger-avoidance techniques and mnemonics are all possibilities.
- Nosferatu: What advice a Deucalion can give a Haunt depends greatly on that Haunt’s particular problem. Some Nosferatu are simply hideous, and for that there is no immediate solution; all the Deucalion can do is advise honing one’s skills at remaining hidden and hope for the best. If the Nosferatu has a more subtle manifestation of her curse, the Deucalion often teaches the same techniques taught to method actors — inventing a persona that can cope with other people and adopting that persona’s mindset.[\li]
- Mekhet: Many Deucaliones are contemptuous of the Mekhet, and the Deucaliones’ advice often ends at “stay out of the sun.” Some Skinheads attempt to teach the Shadows methods of telling time without clocks (lengths of shadows, position of the moon and so on), but, for the most part, Victor’s biases creep through.