Vampire: The Requiem

Similar to the previous game, Kindred are brought into one of five clans as part of their metamorphosis into vampires. Each clan covers a broad range of vampiric archetypes:

• The Daeva evoke the image of vampires as seductive, decadent, sexually transgressive predators who blur lust and hunger together, equating the act of feeding with sensual pleasure, like Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's Carmilla.
• The Gangrel embody the idea of vampires as predatory feral demons. An upper level in the feeding chain with little or no interest in humans as anything other than food, they represent vampirism as crude predation and evoke ideas of basic instinct, untamed ferocity and freedom that are commonly associated with predators.
• The Mekhet are mysterious conspiratorial occultists, obsessed with knowledge and information, who hide in the shadows and manipulate others from afar.
• Nosferatu vampires are the repulsive, yet fascinating, alien and hideous monsters of legend (such as Count Orlok of their movie namesake).
• Ventrue are regal vampires who value power and dominion to the point of obsession, self-styled "lords of the night" they represent vampirism as a metaphor for maddening power, like Bram Stoker's Dracula.

Within these clans are many sub-clans, known as bloodlines.

There are also many political or religious factions, known as Covenants. These include:

• The Carthian Movement works towards finding the best form of government for the Kindred, basing its experiments on mortal systems like Democracy, Fascism and the like. It is the only Covenant that elects leaders, and is the newest major Covenant.[5][6]
• The Circle of the Crone is a collection of pagan and Neopagan cults and religions within the vampiric culture.
• The Invictus (also known as the "First Estate") is an order of vampires that represents the old order of things and act as old nobility, they are also concerned with material gain and power and therefore are heavily involved in city politics and business.[7]
• The Lancea et Sanctum claims the Roman Centurion Longinus as their founder and they believe Kindred (the word vampires use for themselves) have a role in the Divine Providence: that of the ultimate predators, unleashing God's Wrath upon the unworthy and testing the pious.[8][9]
• The Ordo Dracul is focused on understanding the vampiric condition, improving upon it and ultimately transcending its limitations.
• The Unaligned is simply a catch-all term for any vampires that do not belong to a covenant.[10][11]

A vampire's Blood Potency increases steadily with age, but can also be boosted by spending experience points or consuming the soul of another vampire (diablerie). A more potent vampire can store more blood points and access greater supernatural powers. However, his feeding needs become more stringent as well: the weakest vampires can live on animal blood, but the most powerful vampires can only live on the blood of other vampires. Powerful vampires who cannot meet this need usually go into a prolonged slumber either by choice or from hunger; either way, the centuries weaken their blood until they can feed on humans again.

Kindred can use a variety of supernatural powers called Disciplines, reflecting such traits as inhuman speed, strength, or charisma, as well as other vampiric attributes such as control over vermin and predators. These are special abilities associated with their curse which, like their undead bodies, are "fed" in a way by the living blood they take from mortals.

Unlike many fictional portrayals, vampires in Requiem are not universally repelled by crucifixes, garlic or holy water, and they can enter any private domain without invitation. A stake through the heart merely paralyses them. Fire, sunlight and the claws and fangs of supernatural creatures inflict terrible injuries that take significant time and blood to heal. During the daytime most vampires slumber; while their bodies will not begin to degrade (unless exposed to the sun or other means of harm) they cannot otherwise be distinguished from corpses.

Vampires all have an aspect of their personality they refer to as "The Beast," which exists only to feed when hungry and kill when upset. When a vampire is sufficiently distraught, either through threat, injury, hunger, or humiliation, they enter a berserk rage called Frenzy during which the Beast takes hold.

Vampires keep the Beast in check with the memories and behaviors of mortal life, collectively referred to as a vampire's Humanity. Without actively working to maintain it, a vampire's humanity will degrade: the need to feed upon humans can drive a vampire to become inured to the cruelty they inflict, and a centuries-long life can leave them jaded to the human experience. In addition to the ever-present threat of losing oneself to the Beast, the Kindred have other motivations to maintain their humanity: vampires with lower humanity are also more grievously harmed by exposure to sunlight, spend longer in the extended slumber called torpor, and their alien perspective makes it more difficult for them to relate to humans.

Vampires have many enemies, most from within their own clans and covenants. There are some that stand out as being opposed to vampire society as a whole, and some of the most prominent enemies vampires face are vampires themselves. There are only two "enemy only" covenants in the core rulebook:

Belial's Brood

A loose confederation of Satanists, demon-worshippers and overt miscreants. The Covenant claims that the Damned originate from Hell itself, and exalt in the spread of misery and pain. They are intended to be more straightforward enemies, as their goals (spreading wanton misery and violence, heedless of whether they expose the existence of vampires) are antithetical to nearly any character.

VII

A mysterious organization, VII is a faction of vampires dedicated to the destruction of their own species. There is no concrete information given regarding its greater structure, nor any reason given for VII's agenda; the Storyteller is encouraged to create their own.

The second edition also focuses on a different race with vampiric traits that have often clashed with the Kindred:

Strix

Vampires that were never human, the Strix (also known as Owls or Nemeses) are monsters inspired by Roman spirits of the same name, as well as classical, more ghoulish myths of vampires. Strix are living shadows who seek to take over physical bodies so they may experience physical sensation. They are completely amoral beings who despise the very concept of humanity, to the point where even draugr, insane vampires who have lost their Humanity completely, are usually too much like the living for their liking.