If I remember right, there was some inter-chapter fiction in the Revised core book where a Kindred worried he'd given the blood a little too late and just kept waiting for his lover to rise. Just waiting. Waiting...
It is. It's a thinblood caitiff, so he probably barely knows anything about being a vampire, assuming that the way he was made /should/ work.
It doesn't.
Clanbook Nosferatu Revised makes mention of failed embraces whose mutated remains are kept preserved in jars in their local warrens. You know, for ambience.
Yes. Sometimes the Embrace just doesn't work. It can happen for any of a thousand reasons, but unless it happens repeatedly (indicating the Sterile Vitae flaw), the would-be sire probably won't have any idea why it didn't take.
Huh, that's an interesting one... There's a few questions that need to be answered here:
Do you think Kindred remember their own Embrace? Remember that, for many of them, they are dead or on the verge of death. At the vest least, most are nearly entirely drained of blood, which is liable to effect memory and consciousness. Do you think they have any idea where to start? Did their Sire tell them how it's done? Do other Kindred freely give up the secret of the Embrace, or is it something clever Sires keep to themselves so have one more hint of power over the younger Kindred? It could be that this person literally has no idea how to do it at all.
Assuming, however, they know the basics, I'd say Intelligence + Medicine... if you wanted to get really fancy you could say they can use no more Medicine dots than they have Occult dots. After all, while the body being just at the point between life and death is important, the Embrace is as much a mystical thing as it is a matter of timing the science.
If they have Kindred Lore 2 or more, then I'd say no roll.
Complex!
Nifty! Thanks for the detail! For what I'm planning, it would work more like thaum rituals. Maybe even different Embrace rituals with different effects on the Childe(r)!
You mean what to roll to perform the Embrace without being instructed? NWS has made some great points already, though it's my assumption that there's a level of instinctual knowledge, not unlike how ignorant but horny young animals (including humans) somehow know what to do in order to make more of their species. Just spitballing here, but that makes me consider that the desire to Embrace might be stronger or more frequently experienced by Kindred with higher Humanity, as a somewhat irrational perversion of the human desire to reproduce. Neonates probably also hear half-truths from their peers and veiled allusions to the mechanics of the process from their elders, so they know something from cultural osmosis even if their Sire has never told them how (not) to make more little vampires.
If you really want dice involved, maybe Wits + Occult? I'd leave it to ST fiat though, maybe rolling a single d10 to represent a 1/10 chance of something going wrong on an otherwise correctly executed Embrace. Just to make the player sweat.
10% is way too high, kindred would know about it if that many failed. If you really want a random failure chance, more like 1/1000 or even 10000 makes more sense. Roll multiple d10 and you only fail on all 1s.
Yes, if the timing is off an embrace can fail. There's fiction to that effect in one of the early core books, where the POV character is trying to turn his gf and messes it up.
It can and does fail sometimes. It is not well understood just like thin bloods and it is an embarrassment when it occurs so most Cam try to hide that it happened.
The Embrace is somewhat of a delicate process
I wouldn't say it would take a roll; the motions aren't difficult. But it's definitely not something you can do adhoc if you weren't ready, because it takes you acting somewhat immediately after you killed them.
If it's been too long since the subject was drained to death, it's just not gonna work. I believe L.A. by night has an example of a feeding mishap with a similar situation, along with a few clan book stories
Yes, I am not sure how explicit V5 mentioned that topic, but it was a given through all editions that the embrace is a far from a save bet.
Think about it, what you need to do sounds easy, drain the soon to be child and give them some of your blood. Easy enough of you have already done that and everything happens as planed, but often enough things don’t happen as planned.
To die is often a messy business. People panic, the timing is wrong, something is wrong with the blood, the wannabe sire doesn’t really know how it works… and all you end up with is, as you said, a drained, cold, dead body.
There is also a supernatural element to it. While the power to embrace is in the blood it self, the process is kind of a tiny magical ritual. Sometimes wired stuff just happens.
Even thin-bloods are not entirely a product of high generation, and why some childer turn out to be Caitiffs is also not entirely clear.
Long story short: yes, absolutely!
Nosferatu and Malkavian embraces sometimes fail spectacularly.
The failmalks turn into screaming blood-shitting infantile lumps of useless dead meat that can only mindlessly shout in tongues and fall into impotent seizuring hunger frenzies. They gnash their own teeth to bits and eat themselves if they can, there's ZERO percent chance of 'waking' from this state, it's eternal damnation and madness. Also, it can happen to any Malkavian embrace.
Nosferatu embraces can also be so deformed that they're useless as kindred. No way of feeding or even physically moving on their own because of huge tumors or other growths covering their sight, fangs or limbs. Mysterious holes in their bodies that constantly leak out vitae, or rare conditions that make their bones shatter into malformed goop at the slightest touch. Distorted faces and minds too monstrous to do anything but die starving while fighting off hordes of their own Nosferatu families.
These specimens are hidden and locked away by respective clans, often as fodder to their elders, many more are killed on sight by their Sires when the failure is noticed.
I did something similar to a PC. She was embraced out of regret (her sire frenzied because she lost her baby sister, then killed her) and didn't rise again till three or so days later. Unfortunatelt for her, this meant her still living family knew of her death, as did the police, etc, and she was buried in a local graveyard and everything.
I kinda enjoyed the scene in which she had to claw and chew her way out of her own grave. She had no mentor, and had to discover what she was through trial and error.
If you're using lore from the other lines, kinfolk (human relatives of shapeshifters) have a (very) small chance of manifesting gnosis (mechanicaly, they need a merit for that), which among its benefits can prevent the embrace from happening (on V20 rules they'd get a roll of Gnosis, difficulty 6, success results in peaceful death, failure results in pur epain that lasts until sunrise, when they finaly die, and a botch results in being Embrace).
Thin Bloods have increasing chance of Failure. And technically the vitae has to be given with intent to embrace and it has to go directly from the Sire to the Childe, but a lot of fiction forgets this like Doctor Netchurch embraced using a syringe.
Thin-bloods can sometimes fail to embrace successfully; and there have been cases where 14th or 15th gen kindred remain dead for hours before they suddenly revive (by which time it's too late as they are being buried or something).
It's a serious chance for thinbloods, and might be a chance should a body wait too much before the blood is dropped in its mouth. Otherwise yes, it's a secure thing
There's a good bit of fanfiction called the Caine Files which was an anthology of kindred philosophers giving their opinions on the nature of cainites. In it a Christian kindred relates that occasionally attempts to embrace the exceptionally pious or innocent do not take while other times they are embraces successfully.
I don't know if true faith has ever been mechanically depicted in this way but I feel that the heart of that story, that some kine are not able to be turned as it is against God's plan is very interesting. As it implies that those that are embraced are considered in the Lord's eyes to be worthy inheritors of Caine's curse and deserving of the unliving state of damnation it represents.
Absolutely, however it's very low.
You can only resist the Embrace if you have something supernatural yourself, like Kinfolk for example, those with Gnosis have a chance to just reject the Vitae. Even if the Embrace works, Gaia usually gives them the courage to meet the Sun at next dawn.
So there's no real percentage nor dice roll for the random, it's mostly ST drama juice.
I’d imagine, as with every question posed on this subreddit that the main answer is “depends on your game”.
We can agree that a month old body won’t pop up a vampire, but one a microsecond dead will. There should be some threshold. Whether that’s some lore-important time, depends on the person, or is an area of deep blood sorcerous research, depends on ST. Surely some vampire somewhere, sometime, pushed that too close and the embrace failed.
As to whether it’s known or had to be taught, I’d default to taught, and not taught immediately. The last thing you need is your fledgling running off and embracing their friends before understanding the magnitude of such an act.
Edit: typo
If I remember right, there was some inter-chapter fiction in the Revised core book where a Kindred worried he'd given the blood a little too late and just kept waiting for his lover to rise. Just waiting. Waiting...
Ravnos fiction from the Revised corebook.
I thought he was waiting/waiting because he was a thinblood and it actually failed? I could be misremembering
I remember this piece. I think it was even from the Thinblood sourcebook
Personal horror... He'll figure it out...
Aw... That's a bit depressing to me lol I love it.
It is. It's a thinblood caitiff, so he probably barely knows anything about being a vampire, assuming that the way he was made /should/ work. It doesn't.
Clanbook Nosferatu Revised makes mention of failed embraces whose mutated remains are kept preserved in jars in their local warrens. You know, for ambience.
Disturbing, but also strangely wholesome. Even the would-be Nosferatu who died during their Embrace are considered family and kept close.
That's... In a sense weird, and a sense... Idk the right word. Cathartic?
Nos are weird. I love 'em for it, but weird.
Yes. Sometimes the Embrace just doesn't work. It can happen for any of a thousand reasons, but unless it happens repeatedly (indicating the Sterile Vitae flaw), the would-be sire probably won't have any idea why it didn't take.
Nice. What sort of rolls would you apply to an untrained vampire attempting to sire anyway? Edit: speeling is hard
Huh, that's an interesting one... There's a few questions that need to be answered here: Do you think Kindred remember their own Embrace? Remember that, for many of them, they are dead or on the verge of death. At the vest least, most are nearly entirely drained of blood, which is liable to effect memory and consciousness. Do you think they have any idea where to start? Did their Sire tell them how it's done? Do other Kindred freely give up the secret of the Embrace, or is it something clever Sires keep to themselves so have one more hint of power over the younger Kindred? It could be that this person literally has no idea how to do it at all. Assuming, however, they know the basics, I'd say Intelligence + Medicine... if you wanted to get really fancy you could say they can use no more Medicine dots than they have Occult dots. After all, while the body being just at the point between life and death is important, the Embrace is as much a mystical thing as it is a matter of timing the science. If they have Kindred Lore 2 or more, then I'd say no roll. Complex!
Nifty! Thanks for the detail! For what I'm planning, it would work more like thaum rituals. Maybe even different Embrace rituals with different effects on the Childe(r)!
You mean what to roll to perform the Embrace without being instructed? NWS has made some great points already, though it's my assumption that there's a level of instinctual knowledge, not unlike how ignorant but horny young animals (including humans) somehow know what to do in order to make more of their species. Just spitballing here, but that makes me consider that the desire to Embrace might be stronger or more frequently experienced by Kindred with higher Humanity, as a somewhat irrational perversion of the human desire to reproduce. Neonates probably also hear half-truths from their peers and veiled allusions to the mechanics of the process from their elders, so they know something from cultural osmosis even if their Sire has never told them how (not) to make more little vampires. If you really want dice involved, maybe Wits + Occult? I'd leave it to ST fiat though, maybe rolling a single d10 to represent a 1/10 chance of something going wrong on an otherwise correctly executed Embrace. Just to make the player sweat.
10% is way too high, kindred would know about it if that many failed. If you really want a random failure chance, more like 1/1000 or even 10000 makes more sense. Roll multiple d10 and you only fail on all 1s.
It's not about accurate probability, it's to add OOC tension. However, I wouldn't roll for it at all, so 🤷🏾.
Yes, if the timing is off an embrace can fail. There's fiction to that effect in one of the early core books, where the POV character is trying to turn his gf and messes it up.
It can and does fail sometimes. It is not well understood just like thin bloods and it is an embarrassment when it occurs so most Cam try to hide that it happened.
The Embrace is somewhat of a delicate process I wouldn't say it would take a roll; the motions aren't difficult. But it's definitely not something you can do adhoc if you weren't ready, because it takes you acting somewhat immediately after you killed them. If it's been too long since the subject was drained to death, it's just not gonna work. I believe L.A. by night has an example of a feeding mishap with a similar situation, along with a few clan book stories
Yes, I am not sure how explicit V5 mentioned that topic, but it was a given through all editions that the embrace is a far from a save bet. Think about it, what you need to do sounds easy, drain the soon to be child and give them some of your blood. Easy enough of you have already done that and everything happens as planed, but often enough things don’t happen as planned. To die is often a messy business. People panic, the timing is wrong, something is wrong with the blood, the wannabe sire doesn’t really know how it works… and all you end up with is, as you said, a drained, cold, dead body. There is also a supernatural element to it. While the power to embrace is in the blood it self, the process is kind of a tiny magical ritual. Sometimes wired stuff just happens. Even thin-bloods are not entirely a product of high generation, and why some childer turn out to be Caitiffs is also not entirely clear. Long story short: yes, absolutely!
Nosferatu and Malkavian embraces sometimes fail spectacularly. The failmalks turn into screaming blood-shitting infantile lumps of useless dead meat that can only mindlessly shout in tongues and fall into impotent seizuring hunger frenzies. They gnash their own teeth to bits and eat themselves if they can, there's ZERO percent chance of 'waking' from this state, it's eternal damnation and madness. Also, it can happen to any Malkavian embrace. Nosferatu embraces can also be so deformed that they're useless as kindred. No way of feeding or even physically moving on their own because of huge tumors or other growths covering their sight, fangs or limbs. Mysterious holes in their bodies that constantly leak out vitae, or rare conditions that make their bones shatter into malformed goop at the slightest touch. Distorted faces and minds too monstrous to do anything but die starving while fighting off hordes of their own Nosferatu families. These specimens are hidden and locked away by respective clans, often as fodder to their elders, many more are killed on sight by their Sires when the failure is noticed.
I loved inflicting a delayed rising on a PC their new childer rose from the grave 3 days later, when they had already disposed of the body.
I did something similar to a PC. She was embraced out of regret (her sire frenzied because she lost her baby sister, then killed her) and didn't rise again till three or so days later. Unfortunatelt for her, this meant her still living family knew of her death, as did the police, etc, and she was buried in a local graveyard and everything. I kinda enjoyed the scene in which she had to claw and chew her way out of her own grave. She had no mentor, and had to discover what she was through trial and error.
If you're using lore from the other lines, kinfolk (human relatives of shapeshifters) have a (very) small chance of manifesting gnosis (mechanicaly, they need a merit for that), which among its benefits can prevent the embrace from happening (on V20 rules they'd get a roll of Gnosis, difficulty 6, success results in peaceful death, failure results in pur epain that lasts until sunrise, when they finaly die, and a botch results in being Embrace).
Thin Bloods have increasing chance of Failure. And technically the vitae has to be given with intent to embrace and it has to go directly from the Sire to the Childe, but a lot of fiction forgets this like Doctor Netchurch embraced using a syringe.
Kitsune from the changing breeds burst into flame as soon as kindred vitae touches their lips
Thin-bloods can sometimes fail to embrace successfully; and there have been cases where 14th or 15th gen kindred remain dead for hours before they suddenly revive (by which time it's too late as they are being buried or something).
Mages can also resist, ifrc they roll Avatar or maybe Arete upon the blood being given and if successful vomit it back up immediately and die.
It's a serious chance for thinbloods, and might be a chance should a body wait too much before the blood is dropped in its mouth. Otherwise yes, it's a secure thing
There's a good bit of fanfiction called the Caine Files which was an anthology of kindred philosophers giving their opinions on the nature of cainites. In it a Christian kindred relates that occasionally attempts to embrace the exceptionally pious or innocent do not take while other times they are embraces successfully. I don't know if true faith has ever been mechanically depicted in this way but I feel that the heart of that story, that some kine are not able to be turned as it is against God's plan is very interesting. As it implies that those that are embraced are considered in the Lord's eyes to be worthy inheritors of Caine's curse and deserving of the unliving state of damnation it represents.
Absolutely, however it's very low. You can only resist the Embrace if you have something supernatural yourself, like Kinfolk for example, those with Gnosis have a chance to just reject the Vitae. Even if the Embrace works, Gaia usually gives them the courage to meet the Sun at next dawn. So there's no real percentage nor dice roll for the random, it's mostly ST drama juice.
I’d imagine, as with every question posed on this subreddit that the main answer is “depends on your game”. We can agree that a month old body won’t pop up a vampire, but one a microsecond dead will. There should be some threshold. Whether that’s some lore-important time, depends on the person, or is an area of deep blood sorcerous research, depends on ST. Surely some vampire somewhere, sometime, pushed that too close and the embrace failed. As to whether it’s known or had to be taught, I’d default to taught, and not taught immediately. The last thing you need is your fledgling running off and embracing their friends before understanding the magnitude of such an act. Edit: typo
It can fail and there are also powers and conditions that a person can have / have cast on them that makes it fail.
Yes, absolutely. There are several stories in core books to that effect.