Vampire: the Masquerade Revised - Table of Contents email at [email protected] Next Contents Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts Introduction Chapter One: A World of Darkness Chapter Two: Clans and Sects Chapter Three: Character and Traits Chapter Four: Disciplines Chapter Five: Rules Chapter Six: Systems and Drama Chapter Seven: A History of the Kindred Chapter Eight: Storytelling Chapter Nine: Antagonists Appendix Epilogue: Under the Horns of Blood Next Up file:///D|/White%20Wolf/Vampire%20The%20Masquerad...0Masquerade%203rd%20Edition%20(html)/Vtm03_01.htm [18.11.2001 02:27:18] Vampire: the Masquerade Revised - Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts Previous Next Contents Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts Bela Lugosi's dead, and so am I. But what's left of Bela is rotting in a pine coffin somewhere, while I have the opportunity to sit here on the balcony, enjoy my drink and look at you. Correct me if I'm being presumptuous, but I suspect that I have the better end of the deal. I can tell by looking at you that you're not comprehending. Of course you're not these are cynical, rational times, and you're not going to believe that I'm a dead man just because I say so. A century ago it would have been different well, it was quite different the last time I had this little talk with someone but this is the age of facts. And the facts are that corpses don't move, don't walk, don't talk. I'm terribly sorry, my dear, but I have a surprise for you: This corpse does. So sit down. Please, I insist that you make yourself comfortable. Pour yourself something to drink, preferably from the bottle on the left the stuff on the right is an acquired taste. It's going to be a long evening, and you're going to need a stiff drink or two, I suspect. After all, in the next few hours I'm going to explain to you in excruciating detail why everything you think you know about life and death is wrong. In other words, you don't know a blessed thing about the way the world really works, and I'm going to open your eyes. But I'm afraid, my dear, that you're not going to like what you see. What I Am Before we go any further, allow me to tell you that you're getting an unprecedented opportunity here. My kind doesn't talk about itself to your kind - not now, and for the most part, not ever. We've spent five centuries wearing a stage curtain that we call the Masquerade to hide the real show for you, but the end it comes down to one simple fact: We vampires don't want you mortals knowing we're out there. It's for the same reason the wolf doesn't want the sheep knowing he's around. It makes our work so much easier. And so, for example, though we go indeed posses the sharpened with which dime novels and the cinema have branded us, you mortals will not see them unless we choose to reveal them. Like so. You're looking pale, my dear. That will never do if we're going to be seen late - allow me to take care of looking pale for both of us. Still, I must admit I'm disappointed that you seem so disturbed by the notion of my being a vampire. Take a moment and compose yourself, if you can. Truth be told, I'm afraid that's the least of the shocks waiting for you tonight. Please, don't waste time trying to come up with a rational, scientific explanation, because there isn't one. It's just what I am. What many, many of us are - to many, by some accounts. Damnation, are you truly that much of a fool? Sit back down. I said sit. Now watch. Hush, stop screaming. No one will come to rescue you, and no one will call the police - not in this building. Discreet neighbors are a blessing to one in my condition. It's positively. Victorian the way they ignore anything not directly in front of them. So, at last you have your proof. Now do you believe me? Yes, it is blood in the other decanter; served cold like that, of course, the stuff loses much of its taste. You can try it if you like, but I don't recommend it, no. You're not set up to enjoy such things, at least not as presently configured. Don't get ahead of yourself guessing my intention, my dear. If I were going to act according to your beloved cliches, your file:///D|/White%20Wolf/Vampire%20The%20Masque...squerade%203rd%20Edition%20(html)/vtm03_02.htm (1 of 8) [18.11.2001 02:27:26] Vampire: the Masquerade Revised - Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts would be dead right now. I am a predator, after all, and you and your entire species are my prey. Beginnings I suppose we should begin with the basic of the whole thing. I am in fact a vampire, brought into this state of existence in the Year of Our Lord 1796 by woman who was introduced to me as a quote unquote "lady of evening". The gentleman who introduced us - one of her servant, I later discovered - had an add sense of humor. But I digress. Yes. I do drink human blood. Without the nourishment it provides, I will wither away; with it, I will live forever. Yes, forever. Unless destroyed - and destroying one of the Damned is no mean feat, I can assure you - we vampires are every bit as immortal as the legends say. Only the sun, and the emotions it engenders, remain forever foreign to us: we Kindred can drink in the night of countless ages, can remain unchanging while all that we crumbles to dust around us and replaced by another stage-set that in turn crumbles to dust, and so on... Ah, once again, I lose the way. Blood, yes blood. I can get by on the blood of animals - most of us can, except the true elders of our kind - but such a diet is unpleasant. Unpalatable. No, we all want to feed on the best vintages, otherwise one goes around all the time with a dull ache in one's gut that just never goes away. It gets worse the hungrier one gets, I might add; a vampire who goes too ling without feeding is liable to demonstrate a regrettable lack of self-control. There are other tell-tale physiological sings of my condition. My heart does not beat; the strength of my will alone suffices to force blood through my body. My internal organs, by all accounts, have long since atrophied into vestigial husk, but that won't matter to a coroner, as once I am truly killed I will rapidly decompose into dust. In the meantime, however, I'm not troubled by such trifles as breathing, extremes of temperature and the like. My skin is cold, unless I take effort to warm it. Doing so takes effort, though, and the expenditure of precious blood. Regular food is an abomination unto me, and it doesn't sit for more that a few second in that remain of my stomach. Even with eternity stretching before me, my dear, I have better things to do with my time than to crouch over toilets, heaving ashes and gobbets into the bowl. In layman's terms, then, I am no longer human. For all intents and purposes, I am simply a blood-drinking, ambulatory cadaver, indistinguishable from any body in a morgue unless I am moving about. I save the niceties like warming my flesh and remembering to blink for company, such as yourself. So thank you, dear. Keeping myself fresh and rosy-looking for you is costing me more than you know. Ah, we return to the drinking of blood, the defining act, as it were, of my state. Yes, am afraid it is necessity, though one can leave one's prey alive. All that requires is a little self-control and a touch of effort to close the wound - and no, we don't all drink from neck. You can cross another cliche off your list. The problem with leaving one's prey alive, however, is that unless one has certain... protection, she remembers. Such breaches of the Masquerade are not looked on kindly by the vampiric powers that be. Oftentimes, it makes more sense simply to kill. My Drinking Problem The crux of the matter, really, is that drinking blood not only allows me to perpetuate my existence, but also provides a sensation unlike anything else this world has to offer. What is it like? My dear, words cannot describe it. Imagine drinking the finest champagne and the sensation of the most sensual lovemaking you've ever experienced. Overlay that that with the rush the opium fiend feels as he takes that first breath on the pipe, and you begin to have some sense, some tiny, infinitesimal sense of what it feels like to drink the blood of a kine - excuse me, a living human being. Your modern-day addict will lie, steal, cheat and kill for their little tickets to Heaven. Mine is better, and it makes me immortal besides. Can you imagine the deeds I might commit to feed that hunger? Don't bother speaking possibilities; the truth than you can file:///D|/White%20Wolf/Vampire%20The%20Masque...squerade%203rd%20Edition%20(html)/vtm03_02.htm (2 of 8) [18.11.2001 02:27:26] Vampire: the Masquerade Revised - Prologue: A Gathering of Beasts imagine.