Kindred Vodoun
The Haitian revolution was a turning point in Kindred history. As the fires of rebellion burned, Kindred fled from St. Domingue and scattered throughout the world, taking the religion of Vodoun with them.
Any vampire can practice Vodoun. The religion is inclusive and not limited to any specific clan. While certain covenants (the Lancea Sanctum in particular) may find its practice disdainful or even threatening, the religion is still open to all — despite efforts by more traditional Kindred to contain its spread. Granted, there is a much larger concentration of devotees in New Orleans, the Caribbean and eastern coastal cities of the United States, but vampires find reasons to move to new cities, so isolated individual practitioners and small coteries of devotees can crop up nearly anywhere.
Vodoun, as a religion, puts a great deal of emphasis on dealing with spirits called loa. The loa are spirits of divine origin who serve as intermediaries between Bondye, the Creator (who is both distant from and disinterested in the lowly affairs of creatures that crawl upon the earth), and practitioners of Vodoun.
In Kindred Vodoun rituals, the ritualist summons loa to receive offerings and grant requests. Each loa demands a different type of offering or gift from the ritualist. If the loa finds the vampire’s offering sufficient, it possesses her body and grants her unique abilities in the process.
A devotee progresses in Vodoun by developing personal relationships and rapport with the loa. As such, a character’s rating in Rapport determines which rituals he may learn. For example, a character with two dots of Rapport can know an unlimited number of level one and level two rituals (provided the experience points are paid to learn each), but he may not study any level-three Vodoun rituals until his Rapport level is increased to 3. Each time a character acquires a dot of Rapport (including at character creation), he gains a ritual of that level at no additional cost. New rituals can be bought at the cost of two experience points multiplied by the level of the ritual. Kindred with a Rapport level of •• or lower are called vodouisants, and are able to call upon any loa.
While any vampire can practice Vodoun, and may call upon any number of loa, the end goal of most practitioners is to gain the patronage of a specific loa. Developing a personal relationship with a loa takes a great deal of time and energy, but once a loa offers its patronage, the houngan has access to much more specialized and formidable powers than those available to vodouisants. When a player buys a third dot of Rapport, his character has become skilled enough to attract the attention of a specific loa, and must perform the ceremony of bat guerre (the battle for the spirits). Through physical exertion and mental concentration, against the hypnotic backbeat of drums, chanting and the clashing of ceremonial machetes, the initiate is possessed by a particular loa who offers its patronage. A character cannot ascend to a Rapport level of ••• without going through bat guerre.
If the vodouisant accepts the loa’s offer during the ceremony, he or she becomes a houngan (priest) or mambo (priestess) devoted to that specific loa, and may proceed to learn the higher level rituals (levels ••• and above) associated with that loa. Once a houngan completes bat guerre and gains the patronage of a loa, he can still call upon any of the other loa for lower level rituals (levels •• and below), but he can only perform higher level rituals (levels ••• and above) associated with his patron loa. A houngan may only accept the patronage of one loa, so he must consider his path carefully.
Any vampire can practice Vodoun. The religion is inclusive and not limited to any specific clan. While certain covenants (the Lancea Sanctum in particular) may find its practice disdainful or even threatening, the religion is still open to all — despite efforts by more traditional Kindred to contain its spread. Granted, there is a much larger concentration of devotees in New Orleans, the Caribbean and eastern coastal cities of the United States, but vampires find reasons to move to new cities, so isolated individual practitioners and small coteries of devotees can crop up nearly anywhere.
Vodoun, as a religion, puts a great deal of emphasis on dealing with spirits called loa. The loa are spirits of divine origin who serve as intermediaries between Bondye, the Creator (who is both distant from and disinterested in the lowly affairs of creatures that crawl upon the earth), and practitioners of Vodoun.
In Kindred Vodoun rituals, the ritualist summons loa to receive offerings and grant requests. Each loa demands a different type of offering or gift from the ritualist. If the loa finds the vampire’s offering sufficient, it possesses her body and grants her unique abilities in the process.
A devotee progresses in Vodoun by developing personal relationships and rapport with the loa. As such, a character’s rating in Rapport determines which rituals he may learn. For example, a character with two dots of Rapport can know an unlimited number of level one and level two rituals (provided the experience points are paid to learn each), but he may not study any level-three Vodoun rituals until his Rapport level is increased to 3. Each time a character acquires a dot of Rapport (including at character creation), he gains a ritual of that level at no additional cost. New rituals can be bought at the cost of two experience points multiplied by the level of the ritual. Kindred with a Rapport level of •• or lower are called vodouisants, and are able to call upon any loa.
While any vampire can practice Vodoun, and may call upon any number of loa, the end goal of most practitioners is to gain the patronage of a specific loa. Developing a personal relationship with a loa takes a great deal of time and energy, but once a loa offers its patronage, the houngan has access to much more specialized and formidable powers than those available to vodouisants. When a player buys a third dot of Rapport, his character has become skilled enough to attract the attention of a specific loa, and must perform the ceremony of bat guerre (the battle for the spirits). Through physical exertion and mental concentration, against the hypnotic backbeat of drums, chanting and the clashing of ceremonial machetes, the initiate is possessed by a particular loa who offers its patronage. A character cannot ascend to a Rapport level of ••• without going through bat guerre.
If the vodouisant accepts the loa’s offer during the ceremony, he or she becomes a houngan (priest) or mambo (priestess) devoted to that specific loa, and may proceed to learn the higher level rituals (levels ••• and above) associated with that loa. Once a houngan completes bat guerre and gains the patronage of a loa, he can still call upon any of the other loa for lower level rituals (levels •• and below), but he can only perform higher level rituals (levels ••• and above) associated with his patron loa. A houngan may only accept the patronage of one loa, so he must consider his path carefully.
Execution
The Ritual
In Kindred Vodoun rituals, a devotee invites a loa into his body. Each loa demands a different offering or gift from the ritualist. If the loa finds the vampire’s offering sufficient, it will enter his body and grant him unique abilities. The devotee retains control of his own body and senses while the loa rides his body and may choose to end the possession at any time, except in the case of dramatic failure (see below). How the possession affects the ritualist varies from loa to loa. Kindred may take on physical or personality traits associated with the loa: an unusually haughty attitude, a slight limp, or grotesque, festering sores. The characteristics of the loa affect the vampire for a number of hours equal to the level of the ritual.Cost: The use of Vodoun always costs the character one point of Vitae. Additionally, each loa requires an offering. Upon invocation of the ritual, the loa consumes what has been offered, leaving behind nothing — regardless of whether or not the ritual results in a successful possession.
Dice Pool: Presence + Persuasion + Rapport
Action: Extended. The number of successes required to activate a ritual is equal to the level of the ritual (so a level-three ritual requires three successes to enact). Each roll represents one turn of ritual casting. Note also that each point of damage incurred in a turn is a penalty to the next casting roll made for the character, in addition to any wound penalties suffered.
If a character fails to complete the ritual in time (such as by being sent into Torpor before accumulating enough successes) or decides to cancel the ritual before garnering enough successes to activate it, the effect simply fails. Any Vitae expenditures made are not recovered, and the offering is consumed.
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: The devotee relinquishes control of her body, becoming entirely possessed by the loa for the remainder of the scene (which may or may not be detrimental to the vampire depending on the loa, and the vampire’s relationship with it). The loa’s consciousness takes the place of the ritualist’s, and the loa controls all actions made by the vampire during that time. When the vampire regains control of her body, she recalls nothing of what happened during the possession and is temporarily disoriented, taking a -3 penalty to any action performed in the subsequent round.
Failure: No successes are added to the total. If the character is forced to stop before the ritual is complete, the ritual fails. Vitae and offerings are consumed as normal, but possession does not occur.
Success: Successes are added to the total. If the character reaches the target number of successes, the ritual takes place as described, and the possession is successful.
Exceptional Success: The ritual takes place as described. In many cases, extra successes are their own reward, causing additional damage or conferring extra duration or capacity.
Modifier | Situation
+2 | The ritual is performed in a place sympathetic to the nature of the loa.
+1 | The loa is the patron of the Kindred performing the ritual.
-2 | The ritual is performed with inappropriate offerings.
-2 | The ritualist demands cooperation rather than asking for it or treats the loa with disdain or arrogance.
-3 | The ritual is performed lacking any offering.
Participants
The Loa
Each loa is a distinct being with its own drastically varying personal likes and dislikes, sacred rhythms, songs, dances, vévés (ritual symbols) and related rituals. Loa expect to be served and respected, and any arrogance or disrespect will not be tolerated.Devotees who serve the loa loyally are granted potent abilities. It should be noted, however, that Kindred are inhuman monsters, forever at war with the Beast within. Of the thousands of loa that exist, only those with a certain affinity for darkness will suffer to ride a vampire.
What are the Loa?
In the context of the World of Darkness, what are the beings that empower Kindred Vodoun? One might as well ask what empowers Crúac or Theban Sorcery. Something obviously makes it work, and the adherents to the faiths that practice these sorceries claim that because the magic works, this proves the supremacy — and existence — of the deities they worship.Except, of course, that the fact that Theban Sorcery gets results doesn’t stop Crúac or Kindred Vodoun from working as well. So the question remains: What are the loa? They might be spirits (see the Introduction), and the vampires who practice this blood magic are playing into bans set in place hundreds of years ago (perhaps in Haiti before the Revolution, perhaps in Africa before the slavers came). Kindred Vodoun might be a set of powers inherent to the Kindred, just like Disciplines or the ability to augment Physical Attributes with Vitae, and the ritual that vampires attach to it is artificial.
And, of course, there’s always the possibility that the loa do exist just as described, and that they are keeping an eye on the world for Bondye. That begs the question of what He’ll think of His custodians mucking about with vampires….