Vampires
NPC · Mage
Mages tend to be horrified when they realize that blood-drinking, undead things inhabit almost every human city. These creatures are powerful and secretive, and few mages
know much about them beyond the obvious legends and a few facts mixed in with folklore. A Mage character needs at least one dot in Lore (Vampires) before he can know more than the usual misinformation regarding the Kindred and their kind.
Blood-Bound Ghoul
Able to walk in daylight and pass for human even under magickal scrutiny, ghouls can venture where their undead masters cannot. In most senses of the word, these servitors are still mundane humans… most senses, but not all of them. Each ghoul has been blood-bound — that is, captivated by the potent magic of vampire blood. To secure that blood, these addicted creatures will do almost anything, and the deeper that fatal addiction, the more degraded a ghoul can be. True enough, vitae provides uncanny strength, speed, endurance, and longevity — but at an often-terrible price.
On top of that addiction, your typical ghoul has also been conditioned by the mental powers and fearsome se ductions of vampire-kind. Bound through chemistry, magic, and passion, a ghoul becomes a dedicated servant — or, more accurately, a slave — to the creature that created it. The combination inspires a savage ecstasy whenever the ghoul feeds upon vampire blood: an ecstasy that leads a handful of ghouls to hunt and kill vampires in order to take that blood. And certain mages, being rather fond of ecstatic experiences, wind up becoming slaves to that thirst, either blood-bound to a vampire or else turning vampire-hunter in order to satisfy their craving for more.
Vampire blood keeps a ghoul from aging, so long as he’s got a bit of vitae in his system. Ghouls don’t suffer from the traditional weaknesses of vampires, but they can only replenish their blood pool by imbibing a vampire’s blood… and drinking the same vampire’s blood three times automatically makes the ghoul into that vampire’s thrall. As noted above, vampires refer to this foul connection as the blood bond: an emotional and metaphysical obsession similar to love but far more intense than any mortal passion. Certain powerful vampires have blood-bound mages by their sides… and those vampires are among the most dangerous of their kind.
• Increase one Physical Attribute by one dot.
• Heal one health level.