Playing a Ghoul
Contents
Playing a Ghoul
A ghoul is a mortal who has fed upon vampire blood, altering her body and giving her newfound power. This power comes at a cost of a certain amount of freedom. First, a ghoul is emotionally compromised, bound in a forced love to her vampiric master (known as her domitor) by the supernatural qualities of the blood she ingested. Secondly, a ghoul must continue feeding on vampire blood, consuming a small amount every month. If she does not drink from a vampire within that time period, her body slowly loses all supernatural qualities, and she is no longer a ghoul.
The following qualities are attributes of a ghoul:
• A ghoul does not age nor suffer from natural illness or disease. If the ghoul does not drink from a vampire within a month, the effects of her natural age begin to catch up to her, at the rate of 10 years per day she goes without drinking blood. If she reaches the relative age of 100, the ghoul dies. This process is excruciatingly painful for the ghoul.
• A ghoul can never have more than 5 dots in disciplines. A ghoul cannot teach disciplines to others. Ghouls cannot learn elder powers or techniques.
• A ghoul has 10 points of Blood. Five points of this pool may be vampiric vitae. All remaining points of Blood in her system are human (non-supernatural).
• A ghoul can spend the vampiric Blood in her system at a rate of 1 point per turn. This vampiric Blood can be spent to heal, boost attributes, or fuel disciplines as per normal. A ghoul cannot spend the human blood in her pool in this manner. The vampiric vitae in a ghoul’s Blood pool cannot be used for any other purpose.
• To refill the vampiric Blood in her pool, a ghoul must drink vampiric vitae. Otherwise, spent points of vampiric Blood regenerate as human Blood at the rate of 1 per day.
• A ghoul may drink up to 5 points of vampiric vitae, and thus convert a maximum of 5 traits in her Blood pool to vampiric Blood. She may do this whether or not her pool is currently full, so long as she never contains more than 5 points of vampiric vitae.
• Unlike vampires, ghouls are not undead. Ghouls are partially supernatural creatures, but still considered mortal, and therefore subject to powers that have additional effects on mortal targets.
• Ghouls suffer from a weakened, roleplay-only version of their domitor’s clan weakness. Nosferatu ghouls are particularly ugly for a human, Toreador ghouls are easily distracted by works of art, and so forth.
• Ghouls do not gain Beast traits and cannot lose Humanity. They cannot be on a Path of Enlightenment, nor take any steps toward Golconda.
• In order to switch domitors, the ghoul must wait for the blood bond from her previous domitor to fade. This does not prevent the ghoul from drinking the blood of other vampires, but those vampires are not considered her domitor. When a ghoul transitions from one domitor to another, achieving a full blood bond to the new vampire, the ghoul’s player may choose whether to maintain her current 5 dots of disciplines, or to remove those dots and reallocate them to her new domitor’s in-clan disciplines. If she chooses to reallocate, all dots must be removed and reallocated; none can remain in disciplines that are not intrinsic to the new domitor’s clan.
To create a player-character ghoul, follow the steps from the vampire creation guide, altering that method of creation in a few intrinsic areas. See the following guide for detailed instructions.
A Ghoul’s Embrace
If a ghoul player-character is Embraced during play, the player must choose either to have the character die during the attempted Embrace or to convert from a ghoul to a vampire. If the ghoul’s player chooses to allow her character to be successfully Embraced, convert the character in the following manner:
Step One: Clan and Rarity
If the new vampire’s sire is a member of an uncommon or rare clan, or a member of a bloodline, you must immediately purchase the merits associated with your clan and/or bloodline.
If the sire was the ghoul’s domitor, the newly embraced character already possesses the appropriate clan and rarity merits. If the sire was not the ghoul’s domitor, any clan and rarity merits possessed by the ghoul (reflecting her domitor’s blood) are stripped, and the XP spent on those merits is refunded. This is an exception to the rule that such merits cannot be lost in play. In this case, the newly Embraced vampire must immediately purchase any merits required to conform to her sire’s clan and rarity in the setting. If the purchase of these new merits places the character above the merit limit of 7 points, the player must strip merits from the character’s sheet until it again possesses 7 or fewer merit points. If the character cannot conform to the merit limit, then the character must be retired, and it is destroyed during the Embrace.
If you don’t have enough XP to purchase the merits required by the sire’s clan and rarity, the amount you cannot pay adds to the character’s XP debt. If the character received XP from this step, retain that number until the end of the creation process. (See Step Six, below).
Step Two: Generation
The newly Embraced vampire must be one generation less powerful than her sire. If the sire is of the 9th generation, the newly Embraced character must be of the 10th generation, and so on.
The new vampire must purchase points in the Generation background until she is one numeric generation removed from the sire. This may require purchasing the same number of dots in Generation as the sire character, such as in the example of a 9th generation sire, where both sire and childe are Ancilla Generation. If this occurs, the newly Embraced vampire gains the appropriate Lesser Generation flaw (see page 263) to denote that the new vampire is of weaker vitae.
Alternately, the character’s new generation may require purchasing one fewer dot in the Generation background than the sire possesses (such as in the case of a 7th generation Master Elder sire and an 8th generation Pretender Elder Embrace). Dots of Generation purchased in this way are an exception to the rule that Generation cannot be purchased after a character enters play. Dots of the Generation background purchased during ghoul conversion are priced as per any other background; one times the purchased level if your character is Embraced as a Neonate, and two times the purchased level for each dot if your character is Embraced at any other Generation.
If you don’t have enough XP to purchase your new Generation, the amount you cannot pay adds to the character’s XP debt. (See Step Six, below.)
Step Three: Starting Disciplines
The discipline dots that the character assigned as a ghoul are lost in the Embrace. As a newly Embraced vampire, the player assigns 2 dots in one in-clan discipline of her choice, and 1 dot in each of her remaining two in-clan disciplines. Later in this process, you may choose to purchase some or all of the character’s lost “ghoul” discipline dots. (See Step Six, below.)
Step Four: Skills and Backgrounds
The various Generation backgrounds require different XP costs to purchase skills and backgrounds. The ghoul’s initial character sheet received the same number of free dots in these areas as a vampire, so the player only needs to tally the XP spent on skills and backgrounds in play. Determine the difference between this total and the cost required to purchase those skills and backgrounds at the character’s new Generation.
If you don’t have enough XP to purchase the skills and backgrounds you had as a ghoul, the amount you cannot pay adds to the character’s XP debt (see Step Six, below).
Step Five: Revise Finishing Touches
Note the number of dots gained by the attribute bonus from your new Generation. You do not have to assign these dots now, but you should be aware that you have received this benefit of the Embrace. Also, write down your vampire’s total Blood pool, Blood expenditure per turn, and clan weakness, along with any other changes incurred through this process.
Step Six: Figuring XP Debt
The ghoul character has now completed the conversion process, and she is a vampire. At this point, the XP debt incurred by this process (if any) must be resolved. Total any XP debt owed by the character and also any XP refund. Also, note any unspent XP that the character retains from in-game play.
First, the character must expend her refunded or saved XP to pay off any debt she has incurred. If the character cannot do so, all XP earned from this point forward must go towards paying this debt. Only after the entire conversion debt is repaid can the character spend XP towards new items.
If you have unspent XP from any source at the end of this process, you can spend it to purchase up to 2 dots of disciplines lost due to the Embrace, at out-of-clan costs (if they are no longer in-clan). You do not need a teacher to purchase these dots. The Storyteller may allow you to incur further XP debt for this purpose, at her discretion.
The character is now a vampire of the clan (and, potentially bloodline) into which she was Embraced. All rules, XP costs, and other items for this character are those of a standard vampire. Note that enduring the rigors of the Embrace is excellent justification for significant physical and spiritual changes, and the player may feel it is appropriate at this time to alter her character’s merits and flaws. The Storyteller is the final arbiter of which merits or flaws may be altered due to the Embrace.
Example:
Vivian, an Assamite Vizier’s ghoul in the Camarilla setting, is Embraced by a Malkavian sire. Vivian’s player thinks it will be fun to continue the character’s story as a Malkavian, and she decides that her ghoul survives the Embrace. She is going to convert the character into a vampire.
Vivian had purchased the Uncommon Clan rarity merit when she created her character as an Assamite Vizier’s ghoul. Because this is the Camarilla setting, Assamite Viziers are the default, and she did not have to purchase the bloodline merit for that caste of Assamites. She removes the Uncommon Clan merit and is refunded 2 points of XP.
Next, she checks her sire’s generation. The Malkavian was 10th generation, and thus, Vivian will be an 11th generation Neonate. She must purchase a single dot of the Generation background, which (as a Neonate) will cost her 1 point of XP.
Vivian’s player had assigned 3 dots in Auspex and 2 in Quietus when she created Vivian as a ghoul. She now removes all 5 dots. As a newly Embraced Malkavian, Vivian assigns 2 dots into Auspex, 1 into Dementation, and 1 into Obfuscate.
As Vivian was Embraced as a Neonate, her costs for skills and backgrounds have not changed. The player skips step four of the conversion process and moves on. Vivian’s player writes on her sheet the fact that, as a Neonate vampire, she has a Blood pool of 10, a Blood expenditure per turn of 1, and a single attribute bonus (which she can assign later). She makes a note of the Malkavian clan flaw and chooses her character’s primary Derangement in accordance with that flaw.
Now that Vivian is a vampire, her player believes that some of her merits are no longer appropriate. She speaks with her Storyteller and decides that the Code of Honor merit no longer suits her character, as Vivian is no longer trying to live within the ethics of Alamut. She removes the Code of Honor merit and gains 2 more refunded points of XP.
The conversion process has left Vivian with 3 points of refunded XP. She must spend 1 to purchase the Generation background as per step two.
Vivian’s player wants to keep 2 dots of Quietus, to reflect the time that the character spent as an Assamite ghoul. Two dots of an out-of-clan discipline will cost her 12 XP. She speaks with her Storyteller and gains approval to go into XP debt. She spends her last 2 points of refunded XP reducing her debt from 12 to 10, and then denotes on her character sheet that she has a debt of 10 XP. For the next few games, all of the XP Vivian earns will go toward paying this debt, until she has paid off all 10 XP. After paying off her debt, Vivian’s player can purchase new merits, so long as she does not go above the 7-point merit cap. These may be general or Malkavian clan merits.
Quick-Start Character Creation Guide
Creating a Ghoul Player-Character
The following information replaces the equivalent steps in the Vampire Quick Start creation guide.
Step Three: Choose a Clan
• As a ghoul, you do not technically have a clan. Instead, you are a part of your vampire domitor’s clan and bloodline. Ghouls must pay all costs of their domitor’s affiliation within the setting, including the purchase of rarity and bloodline merits.
Step Six: Assign Initial Backgrounds
• A ghoul character cannot assign dots to the Generation background.
Step Seven: Assign Initial Disciplines
• Assign 5 dots of disciplines. All of your selections must be in-clan disciplines for your domitor, and your domitor must possess those specific powers. If you cannot spend these dots at creation, you may save them and assign them in this manner at a later date.
Step Eight: Choose Merits and Flaws
• A ghoul cannot purchase any clan-specific merits, save those necessary to play her domitor’s clan and bloodline. A ghoul cannot purchase Morality merits, nor purchase merits or flaws that specifically pertain to the vampiric condition. Your Storyteller is the final arbiter of which merits and flaws are or are not appropriate for a ghoul.
Step Nine: Spending Initial XP
• As in step six, ghoul characters cannot purchase dots of the Generation background. Further, they cannot purchase any disciplines with XP.
• A player of a ghoul character may purchase items for her sheet with earned XP. The costs for items purchased in play are:
ITEM COST
Attribute 3 XP each
Merit XP equal to merit rating
Background or Skill New level x1
