Kallisti

“Don’t feel guilty for wanting it. Urges don’t lie. Do what you want.”

Vampire the Requiem - Covenant - The Invictus

The Kallisti are an old, scattered bloodline. Though their exact origin has long been lost to time and Torpor, those Kindred who specialize in such things have assembled documents kept by elders that suggest that these Kindred split from the main clan well over a thousand years ago somewhere along the northernmost edge of Europe or Eastern Europe — Scandinavia, Finland or perhaps northern Russia. They’re still strongest in the north of Europe, but a number of Ravagers have also made it to the New World, where Québec appears to be the center of their population.
Icy manipulators of Kindred and kine alike, the so-called Ravagers are destroyers of the social fabric — cultivating isolation, mistrust and Paranoia among those who have seen them in action. They take great delight in watching others slowly form bonds of trust and interdependence — and then cutting those bonds and watching the ensuing drama unfold. It is, to the Kallisti, the most fascinating game around, and they are uniquely adept at it.
Cold elegance and frigid beauty all but radiate from these striking Kindred. Others fall all over themselves to serve them, to appease them, to nourish them. The Kallisti may create small cults of personality around themselves. They may direct a business venture of some sort (if such a thing satisfies their narcissistic impulses). They may surround themselves with servants, groupies, worshippers and slaves, but Ravagers pass their Requiems without true intimacy or Allies, and they would never dream of compromising themselves by trusting anyone else. They know all too well the consequences of that kind of folly, because they are well versed in pitting ally against ally — though mostly as a strategy against boredom.

Culture

Culture and cultural heritage

Background: Kallisti Embrace cold, beautiful people who are socially adept but emotionally distant — only mortals at the peak of physical beauty, and only those with a manipulative bent. When Ravagers get it in their heads to Embrace, they actively look for the most heartless bitches (or bastards) they can find and then gift them with immortality. Some Ravagers cull primarily from the aristocracy (where there is one) or from the wealthiest and most isolated classes where there is no aristocracy per se. Ice queens, workaholics, con artists, heartless aristocrats, sociopaths and others who tend to go through life without establishing close bonds with others are among the favored stock from which Ravagers Embrace. Likewise, actors, models, personal trainers, dancers and other physically perfect specimens are common choices for new Kallisti. They are suave and elegant, cool and slick, and they have no feeling for others whatsoever. In the eyes of the Kallisti, the Requiem is a game — a dance that can be won — and little else. A few have even proved blasé about their own Final Deaths, laughing even as they were destroyed, as though they felt they’d already beaten life by preserving their beauty for so long.

Common Dress code

Appearance: Most Ravagers are strikingly beautiful. Many dress in such a way as to flawlessly emphasize that beauty. They are, to a one, narcissists, intent on being the most beautiful, most desired and best dressed in any room they’re in, and, on those rare occasions when they Embrace mortals, it’s because they’ve found ones sufficiently beautiful to carry on the bloodline.

Art & Architecture

Haven: The Kallisti have stunningly tasteful and wellappointed havens. Ravagers are generally fans of beautiful, elegant and minimalist decors. Their havens are typically architecturally impressive and clean to the point of sterility, which is just one more factor that enforces their isolation (they would never bring mortals here to feed lest their food sully their chillingly tidy spaces). On those exceedingly rare occasions when the Kallisti do allow other Kindred into their havens, it’s almost always Daeva or an offshoot of that clan, as Kallisti tend to think of every other clan as unwashed rabble. Only Daeva (and their offshoots) have sufficiently cultivated taste to appreciate the subtle aesthetic nuances of a Kallisti Haven.
Kallisti are more likely to emphasize security than convenience in their havens. They’re fully aware of their own reputation, and they don’t care to have those they’ve socially damaged show up unexpectedly.
Where a Ravager of important sleeps and where she holds court are two entirely different spaces. These Kindred are likely to hold court in private clubs or in the back rooms of certain exclusive nightclubs where kine discretely compete to be the evening’s meal. Some Ravagers keep multiple havens for peace of mind and practicality. If a Kallisti shows off her Haven, even to her coterie- mates, it probably isn’t the one where she really sleeps.

Major organizations

Covenant: Invictus
Organization: Next to none. Kallisti may watch one another from the shadows, but they rarely form connections or alliances outside of personal compacts. The Kallisti don’t trust one another, and they aren’t fond of each other’s company. It’s not that they hate one another, and they’re certainly not going to attack one another on sight (unless extraordinary circumstances warrant it), but Ravagers simply don’t trust one another enough to have a default organization or familial society to fall back on. Moreover, the power of Blood Ties makes Perfidy, the bloodline’s proprietary Discipline, more powerful when used against Kindred who are “related” to one another and, having seen its effects on others, they don’t care to submit themselves to that possibility.
Additionally, they are keenly aware of how destructive they can be to the social fabric of a place, and they feel that it’s better for their numbers to be as spread out as possible. That said, these Kindred do have a sense of themselves as part of a bloodline —a rare and beautiful bloodline at that — and even though they may not like each other, they generally dislike other Kindred more. As far as Ravagers are concerned, every one of their number is a precious work of art, and any vampire who develops a reputation for preying on Kallisti will likely find himself marked for vicious reprisals as only these coldest of Kindred can carry them out.
Within larger Kindred society, the Kallisti are happy to pass as Daeva or Toreador, fulfilling the same roles as those Kindred would — at least until they get bored — at which time, they would likely start entertaining themselves with increasingly more elaborate uses of Perfidy, until such time as they get themselves banished or blood-hunted.

Nickname: Ravagers

Parent ethnicities

• Daeva

Character Creation: Social Attributes (and Skills) are always Primary, with Presence being foremost among these. Most Kallisti are gorgeous, but even those who aren’t physically perfect are mesmerizing and possess pronounced animal magnetism. Mental Attributes may get emphasized over time as Ravagers come to understand the need to be mentally sharp if they’re going to have any chance of surviving in the wake of the kind of the social mayhem they tend to cause. For all the threat they pose socially, the Kallisti are rarely very physically robust. Physical Attributes are almost always Tertiary.
The most common Merit among Ravagers, by far, is Striking Looks (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 117). Kallisti rarely give the Embrace to those who do not have this Merit. Ravagers rarely trust others enough to have the Allies or Mentor Merits, although Retainer is common enough. Meanwhile, Herd is a common Merit for the terribly beautiful Kindred of this bloodline. Likewise, many Kallisti are modestly rich at the moment of their Embrace — or become so in short order, once they learn to use their Disciplines and their looks to the greatest effect.
Bloodline Disciplines: Celerity, Dominate, Majesty, Perfidy
Weakness: In addition to the weakness of the Daeva, their parent clan, Kallisti have the additional burden of not being able to form The Vinculum in others. Another vampire may taste the blood of one of these Kindred 20 times, and it won’t result in so much as a kind thought. It’s an appropriate curse for this bloodline, but the ramifications of their curse go far beyond the inability to secure loyalty from other Kindred. It also means that they absolutely must not allow themselves to be identified as Kallisti, because there are many hungry elders out there who would love nothing more than to ram a tap into one of these Kindred and feed at will without emotional repercussions. This is one of the reasons, incidentally, that Kallisti are allowed in Invictus domains (despite being antithetical to the social order that the First Estate so aggressively enforces): they represent a safe source of Vitae for elders.
In addition, all Kallisti suffer from the Narcissism derangement automatically and permanently. When a Kallisti’s Humanity drops below 5, she automatically develops the Megalomania derangement in its place. Should her Humanity rise to 5 or higher, however, this derangement settles down to Narcissism again. These derangements are in addition to any gained through the normal consequences for Humanity loss.
Concepts: Agent provocateur, spy, malicious courtier, home wrecker, domain wrecker, subversive Harpy, cold gray eminence, Sheriff ’s Interrogator, elder’s pet