~ Dampyr in the World of Darkness ~

The half-damned aren’t what you think. The Dampyr is a curse upon the cursed, and a proof that even the damned can still transgress. The vampires who haunted the Balkan region during the preindustrial age must have been a lusty and perverse lot, for it’s from this region that the predominant legends (and indeed, the name) of the Dampyr arose. The spelling and pronunciation varies regionally from the Serbian vampirović to the Bulgarian dzhadadzhiya (or the less exotic sounding glog).

The offspring of unholy unions between vampires and mortals were typically said to possess some of all of their vampire parent’s power and vitality, without the usual assortment of conventional and unusual weaknesses, and further were driven to hunt and slay the undead. The power of the Dampyr to pierce the veils of vampire glamour or defy their influence made them especially effective hunters, and some legends have them able to share this ability through several bits of folk mummery and charms — looking down the sleeves of a Dampyr’s doffed shirt, being one of them.

Dampyr would rove the countryside, seeking out vampires to slay for proper remuneration from appreciative locals — taking their payment in silver, livestock, food, or clothing. Many seemed to diversify into general traveling exorcists who would arrive to (miraculously!) find vampires in the local graveyard, or other unquiet dead which needed putting to sleep. After an impressive show of seeking them out and putting an end to them, the Dampyr would move on. Regional folk-history records several instances of opportunists making use of the Dampyr legends perpetuate cons on credulous locals. The range of physical features identifying a Dampyr was so flexible as to encompass any trickster willing to put on a good show.

Legends say the half-damned man is filthy or smells of the grave. Others describe a noseless face, no bones, enormous dark eyes, prominent teeth, a sickly pallor or a glow of good health, skeletal thinness or a soft plump physique, slouched, straight, ugly, handsome, stinking of rot, or smelling of flowers. Where the legends lack consistency in attributes, they are remarkably consistent in profession — Dampyrs are vampire hunters, and they do it for pay.

Among some of the Kindred, legends of these odd half breeds exist. Many consider it the stuff of legend and pop media. Most reliable reports of mortal and semi-mortal beings with distinctively vampiric powers almost inevitably turn out to be of an unfamiliar or particularly accomplished ghoul, a member of one of the ghoul families, or even another vampire adopting the blush of life. It’s all clouds, swamp gas, and weather balloons. Most of the time.

What is a certainty is the explicit forbiddance in pursuing natural born offspring found in the older canonical writing of the Lancea Sanctum, the mysteries of the Ordo Dracul, and the lore of the Circle of the Crone. One can also find prohibitions against it in the volumes of edicts and laws in long-established princedoms (notably in the older Eastern European cities) indicating at some point in the long history of Kindred society, a ruler felt the need to explicitly rule against vampires laying with mortals in the biblical sense. But vampires can’t procreate. What do you suppose rattled them so much?

~ Even the Damned can Blaspheme ~

The Dampyr exist. Dampyr are not conceived by accident. To nurture and feed a living child requires some kind of dramatic and deliberate effort. But even when the passion and Willpower needed to force this is lacking, there are occult methods to foster the sin.

All the practical efforts of occult copulation aside, what we’re really talking about is the decision to damn an innocent, to take a human in their most unspoiled state and spoil him, dirty him, and half-damn him to a life of nearly inevitable horror. You’ve got to want to mar that innocence for its own sake, or want a child sprung from your own flesh bad enough not to care.

Even with all the warnings, the pronouncements, the writs promising a true and torturous death for any vampire brazen enough to dare this sin, vampires still conceive the halfdamned. Try as they might to abandon human frailty and weakness, the Kindred succumb again and again to that old snake offering hope.

~ Occult Fecundity ~

Breeding a Dampyr should be a vanishingly small statistical impossibility. That’s true if one ignores the amazing human capacity to perversity and meddling, a capacity refined in the vampire rather than lost. If a thing can be done, then someone will do it, and figure out how to do it better and more efficiently. No surprise then that the three Covenants which most strongly forbid vampires breeding with mortals safeguard secrets and rituals enabling it, granting vampires fertility exceeding even the human capacity.

 ~ Blood Will Out ~

A Dampyr can live a long time, and never even know she’s something other than an ordinary unhappy human being. She thinks the horrors visited upon her again and again are a result of circumstance rather than a function of who she is. And what she is, is payback. She’s walking revenge for the act that gave her life.

A Dampyr isn’t cursed, but rather a vessel for a curse — the vehicle for a mindless cosmic revenge. She doesn’t destroy vampires by hunting them down with axe and stake and sword and fire, but by walking down the street, having a night out with friends, and striking up a conversation with the nice (if a little pale) guy who offers to buy the next drink.

Her blood makes her a vessel to deliver retribution upon a transgressing vampire, and upon that vampire’s whole line. The clan of her vampire parent always influences the course of the child’s life in dramatic ways, shaping her destiny, and pushing her into proximity with vampires of the same clan. The child inherits some traits and behaviors broadly similar to the clan of the vampire parent, but also possesses a quality which fascinates and attracts members of that clan, ultimately luring them into a particularly apropos doom.

No sense a vampire can bring to bear on a Dampyr shows the undead anything weird about her. She looks like a perfectly ordinary mortal, flawed and afflicted by all the ordinary foibles, and some oddly fascinating particular ones. Obsessing over mortals is nothing so unusual in Kindred experience, and certainly nothing to be laid at the feet of the mortal herself.

But all it takes is one taste of the Dampyr’s blood to unleash hell upon the vampire who dares pluck the fruit. In the end, the blood contains the essence of its own destruction, and the bemused half-damned bastard is left reeling, another relationship disintegrating into madness and chaos around him.

So, is it a foregone conclusion for the half-damned, that they lead inexorably tragic and traumatic lives? Is the Dampyr slave to his bloodborn tendencies and compulsions, or can he change? The Afflictions outlined for each bloodline below work on the carrot and the stick principle, making the character stronger when he acts in certain ways, making him weaker when they act in others. And yet, it’s always possible to hoe a different row than the furrow plowed out at conception. It’s not easy, but then is anything that is worth it ever easy?

~ Dampyr Characteristics ~

The blood of the damned marks the child with a touch of sympathetic damnation, imprinting in him like wet clay the negative image of the vampire’s own nature. The child is born complicit in the murder of his own parent (or at least, his parent’s blood kin). The child carries a tiny measure of his parent’s power, and the means to unmake the unnatural undead thing which forced them into existence.

All Dampyr share these characteristics:

* The Penetrating Eye: Dampyr can sense, and with an effort of will negate the effects of Obfuscate, Dominate, Majesty, Nightmare and other psychological disciplines. If the discipline is being used by a member of the clan from which the Dampyr is descended, this only costs a single point of Willpower, and the immunity persists for the entire scene. If the discipline is used by a member of another clan of vampire, then it requires the expenditure of a point of Willpower per use of the power. The Dampyr character doesn’t even have to know this is happening — it’s a reflex action of sorts. The player — who should know that something is going on — can choose whether or not to spend the Willpower point. Dampyr don’t recognize vampires on sight alone. Even the sense of being subject to strange mental fiddling can seem normal enough that some Dampyr remain ignorant of their true nature for years, sometimes even after meeting vampires themselves.

 * Aura of the Ordinary: To any vampire perception, mundane or magical, a Dampyr appears completely mortal. There are hints this might not be entirely true, but nothing obvious. Were vampires easily able to identify the half-damned, they’d make it a point to avoid them, and a curse upon the cursed won’t be so easily fooled. Other supernatural creatures who can see auras can notice something in the Dampyr’s aura, flashes and veins of paleness. Vampires simply can’t see this.

* Poisoned Veins: To vampires of their clan, Dampyr blood brings a doom — a curse which robs a vampire of some essential part of his nature without which he’ll find survival plenty difficult. To vampires of other clans, the blood of the Dampyr is oddly unsatisfying. It occupies space, but when it’s tapped for use it provides no power. The blood has to be expelled from the system before it can be replaced with fresh healthy blood. The vampire knows that the Dampyr Vitae is useless as soon as he drinks it. In system terms the vampire must spend the Vitae, at the usual rate allowed by his Blood Potency, without any positive effect. In story terms, the vampire has to make himself vomit the blood up.

~ Dampyr Merits ~

All of these Merits are limited to Dampyr characters.

* Reel it In (•) Effect: Unlike most Dampyr, you can temporarily suppress the effects of your Lure, preventing it from attracting unwanted vampire admirers. Spend 1 Willpower to suppress the Lure for 1 scene. Drawback: While the lure is suppressed, you can’t use your advantages.

* Boneless (••) Effect: You are like the Balkan Dampyr who’s exploits fed much of the old mythology, and possess flexible bones. Though you appear normal, you’re able to bend and contort your body in grotesque ways,easily allowing you to fit through gaps as small as a human fist, though doing so requires several minutes (tighter squeezes taking longer to negotiate). You are also extremely resilient to bashing damage, and have 2 points of durability against such attacks. Drawback: Your flexible bones don’t protect your organs as well as normal human bones, and lethal attacks against you benefit from the 9 Again rule.

* Unmask (••••) Effect: You may share your ability to pierce vampiric veils and undo vampiric influence by touching a target, and spending a point of Willpower. The recipient benefits from the same perception and protection as you enjoy for the remainder of the scene.

* Scourge (•••••) Effect: Your half-damned nature is flexible and potent, affecting any vampire who encounters you as if your Lure and Doom were perfectly attuned to her blood. None of your other traits or advantages change, and this power is almost more of a curse — your life will be a unstoppable pageant of tragedy and revenge, but for all vampires you are a whirlwind of endings, leading your obsessive admirers into conflict with one another.

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