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thesixthplaneteer · 2 months

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Here is my entry for the Masquerade Breach zine!! I have been hitting that word limit like a brick wall for the past month, and I am too excited to keep it to myself! My piece is titled Hell-O-Ween! A Masquerade Breach Story because we like cheesy horror in this house. Thank you for reading!

It’s the late 1980s in Las Vegas, Nythanel, and Noa are attending a Halloween party being put on by Don Jacob Rothstein. Held in a mansion in the desert far away from the city, so the more illicit activities don't fall under unwanted scrutiny, and only those in the know are supposed to be there. One person slipped past security, an ancient enemy of the Giovanni whose true motives are unknown, but their eyes are set on Noa tonight. What can a neonate necromancer and waterblooded sorcerer do when things really start to go bump in the night?

The green makeup of his Audrey Two costume hid the redness but Nythanel still felt the warmth of embarrassment and anger on his face. Fighting back tears he side stepped between costumed guests, tray toting servers, and did his best to fight the urge to bull them over as he went back to the ballroom. Don Jacob Rothstein's Halloween party was in full swing. The dance floor was lively, the bar was packed, and the live band seemed like they could go all night long.

He wanted to make his problem everyone else’s problem but held onto his senses, making a scene at the head of Clan Giovanni’s party wouldn’t make his night better. Noa’s bright red hooded dress and silver devil mask were easy to spot, but seeing her didn’t bring the ease to his mind he wanted. A tall figure in an elaborate red Venetian masquerade costume with a matching laughing mask loomed over her, holding her wrist.

The party-goers near them shuffled away and gawked. No doubt they thought some crass couple brought their backroom fun to the front. A wall of bodies formed to watch, but over their shoulders Nyth could see another masked person grab Noa from behind. Nythanel shoved over a woman in a peacock dress and jammed his elbows into the sides of two clowns to get through.

Noa struggled to get out of their grasp, but Red Mask jerked her arm the other direction. The snap was audible over the music, a pained scream erupted from Noa, a jagged peak shot up from under the sleeve of her dress. The crowd around them gasped, some retched, some clapped for what they thought was some Halloween entertainment, some quickly fled, others watched on unsure what to make of the display.

Nythanel burst free of the crowd and charged them, seeing that the second assailant's costume was also Venetian - though far less elaborate and the color beige. Red Mask noticed his approach and abandoned Noa with a leap backward as Nythanel slammed into the tussle, bringing them all down to the floor hard. Noa’s silver mask clattered to the ground while Beige’s mask was knocked askew but stayed on their face. The thin fabric of their costume tore as Nythanel gathered a fistful of it and pulled, the other fist delivering a hard blow to the back of their head, forcing them to surrender Noa in order to defend themselves.

The surrounding crowd was now comprised mostly of individuals thinking this was simply a show for the party. Some clapped, some cheered for who they picked as their favorite, while a few pulled their partners away.

Moving with trained agility, Nythanel threw his leg over Beige, pushing them onto their back, gaining control of the situation. Flesh exposed itself, the torn collar of the costume revealing their throat. Nythanel gazed at the sight for a moment. He had no Beast. There was no voice demanding he feed, no inner monster begging to kill. This desire was all his. He opened wide and lurched forward, his fangs breaking skin. Any scream to come was cut short by the crushing of their windpipe beneath teeth. Fresh warm blood cascaded into his mouth. Mortal, musky, the sting of alcohol, and a wine-like sweet finish. Sanguine he thought to himself as it empowered his own weak vitae.

Nythanel didn’t see where the sawed-off shotgun came from, nor notice how Beige was able to pull the concealed weapon, he only heard the deafening bang that brought him back to reality. A shower of blood and bone poured from a bystander’s face. Screams of terror erupted from the crowd, they slammed into each other in their mad scramble, going toward the back of the manor to get away from the no longer entertaining brawl. The band abruptly stopped, the gunshot ending the revelry. Not wanting to risk Noa or himself being the target of the next round he twisted and wrenched, flesh and inner tissue tore until he ripped free the section of throat seized by his vicious teeth.

More yells of fearful confusion came from the guests, the handful of them brave or drunk enough to think they could stop a gunman turned and ran as Nythanel spit the chunk of meat onto the floor. Suddenly, he felt pressure build in his ear drums, his heart became heavy with dread despite the flood of passion from the blood. He'd felt this before, when Noa had shown off her necromantic powers in their rare moments of being able to be alone together since arriving in Las Vegas. Nythanel had thought he’d become accustomed to it, or at least shouldn’t be caught off guard by it. Still it numbed the hot anger and hatred he felt. A curtain of wispy, incorporeal figures began to fall from the ceiling. They manifested into the material world like shadows cast into the air itself as they drank in the light, only allowing a dim glow to illuminate the room. Recognizably human, yet completely otherworldly. One such shadow fell over the victim of the beige thug’s gunshot. The body began to twitch and jerk, a sickening gurgle came out of its throat as the air pushed out of its lungs. Nythanel reeled back from the corpse shambling back to its feet, and turned to see Red Mask holding a black stone.

Noa moved to stand, and for a moment she was awestruck at the blatant display of Oblivion's power. Her already dark eyes turned black like a starless night. She wiped her palm across Nythanel’s chin, wetting her hand with the blood of his victim. Willing forth her vitae through the protruding wound in her arm, she let it drip down and mix with the cooling blood before taking hold of the locket around her neck. The air around her became humid and cold. A shiver went through Nythanel as he felt an icy touch trace his spine. The rose on his lapel wilted, and the few mortals that tried running past them collapsed, their eyes went dull, skin turned pale. Sapped of life. She waved her hand out in front of her and took measured steps forward, like a priest performing a sanctifying prayer, and the wispy shadows began to retreat.

The sound of wet choking reminded Nyth of the reanimated corpse, and as his head turned back, he saw it rush past him. His body at first couldn't move as a deep and primal terror seized him. It was walking death, but not his kind of death. True death, the kind even the undead feared. He didn't want to go near that thing, but as it closed the distance between itself and Noa, he knew he had to act or he would lose her. Grabbing hold of his dying lapel rose, he squeezed hard along its thorny stem to draw blood, calling upon the sanguine power within him. He mumbled the incantation and the rose revived in his hand, more vibrant than ever.

Nythanel willed the rejuvenated plant to grow, attempting to whip it towards the corpse to stop it in its tracks. With perhaps more luck than skill, the branch wrapped around the creature's throat, barbs digging into dead flesh. Nyth pulled hard, managing to stop it mere inches from Noa, yet the body remained upright as it struggled to fulfill its goal of reaching her.

Noa didn’t waver at all, either completely confident Nythanel would help her, or far too focused on taking control of the descending wraiths.The room was a thunderous cacophony of horrified cries and screams of dismay, the shattering of glass on the ground, the panicked stampeding of a mob with no direction to go in. Those who had witnessed Nythanel's attack and the arisen corpse tried to run away, but those who hadn't seen pushed back to try and reach the front exit. Spirits accosted various bystanders, forcing themselves into unwilling bodies to inflict more fear onto those surrounding them. Poltergeists scattered plates and knocked over chairs, some managing to even drop a large chandelier on top of the crowd. In the confusion, they didn't care who was trampled. The guests desperately lashed out at anything impeding their own escapes. Jewelry, costume accessories, blood, and bodies all dropped to the floor and were stomped on without a second thought. The wraiths were erratic, but Noa fought, countering the incantations of Red Mask as the shadows ebbed and flowed around them like a turbulent ocean. To an unknowing observer, the two appeared to be simply standing in place and muttering strangely, but Nythanel knew they both were manipulating the thin fabric separating the land of death from the land of the living.

The rose Nythanel turned into a weapon was also being sapped of its life and desperately it drank from him to stay alive. He shifted his weight and pulled as hard as he could to try and bring the corpse to the ground. There was little hope in killing something that was already dead. He forced his will onto the rose once more, allowing it to drink even more of his vitae. It expanded rapidly in response, sprouting more branches that ensnared the body and sawed into its skin with mutated spikes. Despite it being controlled by a spirit, it was still limited to the strength of the muscles it still possessed, or so Noa had previously explained. The writhing and wriggling vines continued to tear, severing the veins and nerves and rendering the wretched thing immobile for good.

His vision started to blur, his head swimming as his vitae was near exhausted. The rose had taken root in his arm and now it threatened to drink him dry. With nearly all he had left, he willed the passing of seasons on the flower, advancing its life cycle to the point it began to wither and decay until it too became immobile and dead.

The two necromancers were still locked in their strange duel, fighting for control of the spirit current that flooded the manor. Nythanel knew he had to help Noa, something better than running headfirst into a death dealer but his options were limited. His eyes went to the floor for answers, and sure enough there was: shotgun. Hurriedly he picked it up and aimed, hoping it had the promised second shot, though the room spun in his hungry near-delirium. With a squeeze of the trigger the weapon thundered, sending its payload into the shoulder of the Red Mask. Crimson exploded from their wound as they stumbled back, their concentration breaking enough for Noa to gain the upper hand. Her good arm raised higher, and the undulating ceiling seemed to calm as the wraiths obeyed her. The shadow over the ballroom lifted slowly as she brought them to heel.

The Red Mask despite all of the trouble and their fresh injury seemed to have accepted their defeat. With only a glance to Noa and a dramatic throw of their cape, a cold silence surrounded them as they simply walked away. Despite the chaos of the still frightened crowd, they were swallowed within the mob as if they had not even been there. Nythanel at first made a move to follow, but stopped himself as Noa began to buckle. Good riddance, he thought sheepishly as he turned to her, relieved the death dealer decided to just leave. She was more important to him, anyway.

As the full brightness of the lights returned and the pressure lifted from his ears, the distinct sound of Italian leather stomped across the floor towards them from behind. A ham-handed man took hold of his collar and jerked him into the air, the shotgun crashing loudly onto the marble.

"You're gonna wish you were fuckin' dead when I'm through with you, Warlock." Growled Adolfo Puttanesca, right hand of the Don.

#vtm #vampire the maquerade #my writing #world of darkness #nyth #nythanel #noa #noa hidalgo #thinblood #clan giovanni #clan hecata #masquerade breach #vtm oc #harbinger of skulls #wilted roses

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gorbalsvampire · 5 months

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What are your top 3 favorite clans? Either to make a character for or to use as a Storyteller? :3

Oooooooh, thanks for asking! I'll do these in reverse order, build up to the best.

Number three: Malkavian

My original faves, and a clan about whom I have some sTRoNg oPiNIoNs. See, the thing with Malkavians is that for years and years and years it felt like nobody thought for two minutes about how the rules for Derangements work. Too many Malks were played as hapless victims of their insanity, driven to ooky-kooky comic relief bullshit behaviour or dark tormented scary deep mental anguish all the time - and that's not how it works. The Malkavian Derangement was incurable, as in it would never be removed - it was not insurmountable!

Derangements could be overcome through the expenditure of Willpower, scene by scene. Willpower could be recycled through a careful choice of Nature and Demeanour to indulge. Malkavians were about powering through, being a dangerous and cogent master of the mind whammy, surfing your own mind's wild tides with gritted teeth and every now and then, when it didn't matter so much, when you had the luxury of rest, unclenching your jaw and letting the madness take you.

Therese Voerman is my poster girl for what a Malkavian should be: she's competent, ruthless, and clearly has problems that she's keeping under control through sheer cognitive heft/letting Jeanette out to play when it's all too much.

Anyway. Malks. Love the Disciplines, love the Network, love the visions, love the savagery of a well done, targeted prank. V5 moving them away from "a specific instance of mental illness with oversimplified game rules" and toward "chronic mental overstimulation which manifests as a consistent game rules penalty" is a subtle change but a good one. None of my games feel complete without at least one Malkavian.

Number two: Lasombra

Elegant, classical, lordly, and aggressive. None of the subtlety and resilience of their Ventrue arch rivals: the Lasombra will break you in body (Potence) mind (Dominate), or both (Oblivion), and if you're mortal and you impress them, they will make you rise again.

I love the existential, spatial, cosmic horror of Obtenebration; I love their connection with the ocean and their warring against themselves over and over (and yet with an oversight body that transcends the lines of conflict); I love the hubris that swears they destroyed their Antediluvian and how that's come back to haunt them in V5.

They make great antagonists - I've always felt that in OG Masquerade especially, the Sabbat pillar clans' Disciplines were designed to enable cool boss fights, and being thrown around by a shadow monster or enveloped and consumed by a roiling tide of darkness... mmmm... sorry, I was supposed to be talking about tactical challenge, but then I got to thinking about how sexy Lasombra are and... look, check my intro post, Ib from LABN nailed the archetype and frankly she could nail me too.

Number one: Hecata

Always and forever. The OGs. Every incarnation of them has delighted me. Necromancy and vampirism walk hand in hand for me (I was a Warhammer Undead guy before I was a Vampire: the Masquerade enby). The Cappadocians are patient, thoughtful, genteel court wizards who get done dirty (by their mediocre "here to go!" Clanbook as well as by the Giovanni) and come back SCARY/become something new in hiding. The Giovanni are delightfully loathsome literary-Gothic villains - seriously, they're rich decadent incestuous black-magic loving Italians? did Anne Radcliffe write for V:tM? - AND sassy East Coast gangsters with a sorcerous twist.

They aren't perfect - the Family Reunion creaks with artifice, the Nagaraja shouldn't exist be there, there is no WAY a skyscraper in the middle of Venice is acceptable world building, the Nayson San An are one of those early WW concepts that's always going to be stained by racism, and what's been done to Necromancy over the years, from a rules bloat/design standpoint, is a bloody shambles.

I think a lot of what I love about them comes from me rather than from the developers. I've put a nonzero amount of thought into who ended up where vis. Reunion, Chamber, Council, into the history of Venice and its involvement with the Fourth Crusade and the collapse of Constantinople's Dream, into reinvigorating the gangster stereotype and into the history of Scottish banking and slave trading... but! but! no other clan has ever inspired me to do so many deep dives, to commit to such bits as "how do you make a Giovanni who can just hang out with any old coterie and you'd barely even know he was a Giovanni?"

The bottom line is that I like concepts with flaws, because flaws inspire creative fanwork. I yearn to work a problem, and the Hecata are raddled with problems. Marbled with them, like a tasty steak - they just need proper preparation to be served.

#vtm #hecata #clan hecata #lasombra #clan lasombra #malkavian #clan malkavian #vampire the masquerade #von answers #meta #sTRoNg oPiNIoNs #therese voerman #labn #vamily #ib

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6riffith · 2 months

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My friends and I have created an unholy VTM and Cyberpunk crossover chronicle, and this is my character for it.

His name is Cell and he's a Harbinger of Ashur, Obsidian mask. A wraith in an android body. A real ghost in the machine.

#my art #vtm #vtm oc #vtm art #vampire the masquerade #hecata #clan hecata

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oof-ow-my-bone · 9 months

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rahhhh

my hecata/giovanni girly Vilena <3

trying to experiment with my artstyle and rendering and brushes and stuff...

#vtm #ocs #vilena giovanni #clan hecata #vampire the masquerade #digital art #yes she has ourple eyes yes she's not like other girls #(her family has tzimisce friends)

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nw-of-dark · 10 months

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Vampire Clan: Hecata

The Clan of Death, Necromancers, Graverobbers, The Family, Stiffs, Corpses, Devil-Kindred, Lazarenes

They do not constitute a completely organic clan stemming from a singular Antediluvian and an unbroken lineage. Instead, they consist of the Giovanni, the remaining members of the ancient Clan Cappadocian and their associated bloodlines, and even the Nagaraja, despite lacking a direct tie to an Antediluvian. Together, they form a novel and (largely) cohesive Clan of Death, encompassing various Kindred bloodlines that specialize in necromancy through the use of Oblivion. Similar to the Giovanni, whom they predominantly absorb, they function as a family, albeit an extensively extended one.

Disciplines: Auspex, Fortitude, Oblivion

Bane - Painful Kiss: Steeped in death, the fangs of the Hecata bring not bliss, but agony.

Bloodlines

The Hecata are composed of ten main bloodlines:

La Famiglia Giovanni, or Clan Giovanni as it has been known until recent nights, still largely occupying the overall leadership role in the Hecata, even without Augustus Giovanni as an anchoring influence. They do not normally identify themselves to clan outsiders as Hecata. La Famiglia also includes other satellite families, such as the Della Passaglias and Ghibertis, who have not earned their own individual bloodline status to date.

The Harbingers of Ashur, the aggregate remnants of Clan Cappadocian, of both the mainline clan and the Harbingers of Skulls.

Nasyon san An (Nation of Blood), the new face of the Samedi bloodline.

The Gorgons, the surviving remnants of the Lamia, the Cappadocian bloodline of devout Bahari faith from whom the curse of the painful Kiss originates.

The Flesh-Eaters, a group of Nagaraja; a bizarre bloodline of flesh-eating vampires, feared by all Kindred.

The Bankers of Dunsirn, the cannibalistic banking family from Scotland, once a branch of Clan Giovanni, and now considered a bloodline in their own right.

The Children of Tenochtitlan, the Giovanni allies Pisanob (now without the leadership of Pochtli), once driven to the brink of extinction by the Harbingers of Skulls.

The Criminal Puttanesca, a Sicilian crime family formerly attached to the Giovanni.

The Little Siblings, are the Rossellini, once a rival necromantic family (now attached) to the Giovanni, they are known for their cruel treatment and exploitation of wraiths.

The Grudge Masters, are the Milliners, a minor Giovanni family with many connections in organized crime.

#clan hecata #hecata #vtm #vtm hecata #vampire: the masquerade #vampire #clans

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