I watched The Lost Boys again over the weekend, one of the first movies that firmly established the pop culture iconography of vampires. I'm highlighting three pop culture variations on the vampire legend, one from each decade. I've found most of the time its easy to change the setting without a real change to the system of the game. Consider for instance a game of Hunter the
Vigil played in the setting of Supernatural. Does the setting differ?
Certainly. Is there any need to change the material? Absolutely not, often times its enough to carry over the ideas or themes of a work into your game.
Lost Boys, for those of you unfamiliar with this 1980s classic, involves a family who moves to the coastal city of Santa Clara
only to find the city infested with vampires, you'll find spoilers aplenty.
Disease in the Blood
Vampires in the Lost Boys are usually young and organized
along the lines of a family. A brood is traditionally created from the passing
of the curse by the head vampire to his or her ‘children’. Here vampires
conduct themselves with all the skill and delicacy of an eternal group of
teens.
Systems:
Clan
Do not have a Clan
Blood Potency
They have a maximum Blood Potency of 3. A head vampire has a
Blood Potency of 3.They are barred from creating ghouls and forming Blood
Bonds.
The Embrace
Vampires do not create Sire/Childer in the same fashion the
embrace can occur anytime a mortal takes a drink of Vitae (indirectly or
otherwise). This costs the head vampire a temporary point of willpower.
Half-vampires
A half-vampire can remain so indefinitely they mechanically
resemble ghouls the difference being that they get a single point of Blood
Potency and suffer a -1 penalty on all actions while exposed to sunlight. This
penalty manifests as generalized exhaustion and discomfort during daylight
hours as though from drug use or sickness. They gain 3 dots in disciplines
between Potency, Resilience, or Vigor. Upon killing for the first time through feeding they
become full vampires, this causes an automatic loss of Humanity and increases
their Blood Potency to 2. This can be
reversed by killing the head vampire.
Disciplines
Can utilize Celerity, Vigor, Resilience, Majesty, and Nightmare.
Flight
These vampires can defy gravity moving as quickly as they
can run through flight, it costs a single point of vitae to fly for a scene.
Banes
These can be found in The Danse Macabre and are identical save where changes have been listed below.
Hatred of Beasts pg.193
Repulsion pg. 194, Specifically by religious symbols. The difficulty is equal to 5-Blood Potency, furthermore if physically touched by the object the character takes 1 point of lethal per turn.
Uninvited pg.195 A character cannot enter into a home unless invited.
Vulnerability, severe pg. 194, Holy Water inflicts aggravated damage on the undead in a fashion similar to fire, with damage increasing for the amount and delivery method.
Monstrous Visage
These can be found in The Danse Macabre and are identical save where changes have been listed below.
Hatred of Beasts pg.193
Repulsion pg. 194, Specifically by religious symbols. The difficulty is equal to 5-Blood Potency, furthermore if physically touched by the object the character takes 1 point of lethal per turn.
Uninvited pg.195 A character cannot enter into a home unless invited.
Vulnerability, severe pg. 194, Holy Water inflicts aggravated damage on the undead in a fashion similar to fire, with damage increasing for the amount and delivery method.
Monstrous Visage
A vampire’s features shifts whenever she makes use of her
fangs, her eyes become yellow and predatory, and her face becomes twisted and
bestial, it costs a single willpower to affect this change and the
transformation is instantaneous
Sunlight
Sunlight causes one of the lost to literally catch fire and
must be put out with a reflexive Dexterity + Composure roll or it continues to
burn causing 1 additional point of aggravated damage each turn. A lost boy has
the option of sleeping the day away like a bat, simply by anchoring themselves
upside down in the dark.
Staking
A vampire staked by wood immediately meets final death.
Final Death
No two vampires die the same; consult this chart when
dealing with a vampire’s Final Death. If this gets dull just roll a die for
each catagorie.
Roll
|
Death
|
Corpse?
|
System
|
1
|
Flail and spasm at the perceived source of the attack in a blind rage
before giving up the ghost.
|
A sorrowful human.
|
An Additional All Out attack following the attacker’s initiative. All
penalties apply normally.
|
2
|
Howls an inhuman scream and clawing at its wounds before collapsing
like a puppet with its strings cut.
|
A savage faced vampire body.
|
Anyone standing within shouting distance suffers a -2 penalty to
their next action from the partial deafening.
|
3
|
Skin and muscle dissolve away in a nauseating display into mucus like
pink sludge.
|
Only a skeleton with a fanged skull.
|
Whoever witnesses this disturbing display immediately loses a willpower
point from the sheer horror of it.
|
4
|
Spontaneously smoking and catching ablaze the vampire begins running
in a random direction before crumbling away.
|
A pile of stinking smoking ashes.
|
Vampire moves at twice his speed in a random direction anyo ne he
crosses must make a reflexive Dex +Athletics or take 3 dice of damage from
fire.
|
5
|
Gouts of blood shoot out of every wound and orifice showering
everything in 3 yards in a tidal wave of blood.
|
A dry desiccated one as brittle as old paper.
|
Anyone covered in such a fashion faces a -2 to Speed and a -1 to
athletic rolls for the remainder of combat.
|
6
|
Joints begin to crack, spark, and smoke sending digits, limbs, and
head flying in every direction.
|
A vivisected electrified mess.
|
Anyone who dealt the final blow is electrified by the victory
regaining a willpower point.
|
7
|
The Vampire turns inside out expelling its organs and internal mass
from wounds and orifices.
|
A truly grisly display connected to a bag of skin and bones.
|
Anyone witnessing this horror first hand has to make a Resolve +
Composure roll or flee immediately out of eyesight.
|
8
|
A gout of flame spontaneously immolates the vampire in a rush of
blinding heat.
|
A blackened smoldering corpse.
|
Treat as though a Bonfire with an intensity of a Chemical fire had
just begun where the character stood. It reduces intensity by 1 each turn.
|
9
|
The Vampire’s head explodes sending blood, brains, and skull in every
direction.
|
A headless one oozing blood from its neck stump.
|
Anyone within 3 yards takes 3 dice of bashing damage from the bits of
skull.
|
10
|
Skin begins to shift and bubble, glowing with a palpable and obvious
heat, before exploding like a bomb.
|
Bits and pieces, likely scattered in every direction.
|
On the next turn the vampire explodes with a blast area of 10 yards
inflicting 5 dice of lethal damage with knockdown.
|
You have no power…
A vampire invited into the home of a mortal may ignore any
ill effects of holy water, offensive to animals, or any other advantage which
might directly harm or reveal them for what they are while within the home.
In case it needs to be said the Lost Boys is
a film that embraces the ridiculous aspects of vampires in pop culture, merging the horror with a liberal amount of humor. At the same time it is the vampires
themselves which act as a metaphor for the culture of the day making them an excellent addition to a New Wave Requiem game. The head vampire Max is a vain early adapter of technology (check out the VHS man) without remorse
for his actions, David on the other hand is an androgynous rebel without a
cause who spreads his diseased
condition, something which ultimately
gets him killed I might add.
As a group they have no respect for the Traditions and certainly would flaunt any sort of authority that attempted to oppose their will on them. On the other hand they could serve to demonstrate the impermanence of even Kindred, by setting them in the modern day, there are certainly not as many small to medium sized towns living in isolation and none are willing to tolerate murder without the intervention of law enforcement.
As a group they have no respect for the Traditions and certainly would flaunt any sort of authority that attempted to oppose their will on them. On the other hand they could serve to demonstrate the impermanence of even Kindred, by setting them in the modern day, there are certainly not as many small to medium sized towns living in isolation and none are willing to tolerate murder without the intervention of law enforcement.
If they're a bloodline then Daeva or Nosferatu are the best choices for a parent clan. Nosferatu would emphasis the monstrous countenance of vampires. In this case they could appear appear perfectly normal although still exuding a papal aura of menace, until they choose to feed. As Daeva this bloodline might have inexplicably sprung up in the 1980s as vampires came into contact with HIV for the first time. In this case their embrace might be explicitly sexual in nature.
A family of these vampires would make an excellent source of antagonism in any chronicle on the road. They could serve to provide a foil to a group of vampires divested of their sires. Demonstrating an alternative to the incestuous web of politics and blood that make up a vampire's unlife. In a vampire the masquerade game a prominent Camarilla officer might come to the character's eliciting them to destroy a masquerade violating family of Sabbat. For a one shot the character's could be all half-vampires attempting to cling to their humanity in the face of the overwhelming urge to kill.
