CHILDREN OF LILITH (version one)

By Doug Yeet (74243.2611@compuserve.com) (3 April 1996)

History

In the World of Darkness, there exists a bloodline of vampires so rarefied, so secretive, that even some of its own members are unaware of their heritage. They are The Children of Lilith. Long ago, after she was left alone in the darkness of Nod by Caine, Lilith gave birth to her own bloodline, with a power so unique and so powerful that Caine declared them Autarkis, outcast. For millennia, the Children of Lilith have walked the deepest shadows. A few Methuselahs who know of the Children disregard them, thinking them uncaring observers of the Jyhad. Others fear that the Children of Lilith are powerful players in the eternal struggle. No one is certain.

The true Children of Lilith are powerful beyond imagining. There are fewer than 50 of them in the entire world. They do, however, sire many Caitiff. These clanless sometimes eventually are rejoined with their parent clan; often they are not.

The Children of Lilith wander the earth, pursuing their own aims. Many of the Children seem to have an insatiable hunger for knowledge and learning. They often teach their childer the old truth: knowledge is power.

The Gifts of Lilith

The Children of Lilith are extraordinary in many ways. For the Children, it is child's play to learn new disciplines. They learn established, common disciplines as if they were learning how to play a simple game. Even rarer disciplines like Nihilistics, Temporis and Obeah are easy to master. In game terms, all disciplines cost Current Level x3 to learn.

Even more extraordinary is the Children's power to learn any sort of non-discipline powers. Garou Gifts, Wraith Arcanos, Mummy Magic, Changeling Arts and Realms, reality-warping True Magick and even the powers of spirits are open for Children of Lilith to learn, though it is somewhat difficult to do in certain cases. The experience and freebie costs of these powers is twice the normal costs for members of that group. i.e., Learning a new Sphere of Magick would cost 20 experience and cost current rating x 15 to raise. And learning some things is just impossible; theoretically, a Child of Lilith could learn the Nexus Crawler's Warp Reality Charm, but first she would have to get the Nexus Crawler to pay attention long enough and not kill her.

Children of Lilith are considered to have no tribe, breed or auspice for learning Garou Gifts. Rage and Gnosis are replaced by Blood. They have no kith for learning Changeling Realms, they cannot gain Banality, and their Blood is used as Glamour.

They are considered Orphans when learning True Magick, and their Arete starts at one. Children of Lilith do not take Paradox in the normal way. Instead, they take aggravated wounds when they would gain Paradox. Blood is also used as Quintessence. For Wraith Arcanos, Blood replaces the use of Pathos or Corpus. The usefulness of some Gifts, Arcanos and other powers are questionable, such as the Embody Arcanos or the gift Razor Claws.

Lilith's Curse

Despite their power, the Children of Lilith are cursed, even more than the Children of Caine. The Children of Lilith are considered vampires in every respect, with the normal vampiric weaknesses. However, because of their ability to gain any power, they tend to take on the weakness of those whom they learn their powers from. For instance, if a Child of Lilith, Dorian, were to learn Dementation from a Malkavian, he would gain a permanent derangement, just as the Malkavians have. Being taught Obtenebration by a Lasombra would make Dorian lose his reflection. These weaknesses are permanent. Thus, Children of Lilith who have been around for a long time are generally very odd creatures with strange quirks about them.

If a Child learns powers from creatures that are not vampires, even stranger effects may occur, at the Storyteller's discretion. Learning changeling Arts, for instance, will mean the Child of Lilith begins to take on certain aspects of changelings, such as a vulnerability to iron and kith frailties. Being taught Magickal Spheres instills a portion of that mage's paradigm into the Kindred, as well as now being subject to Paradox. A Child of Lilith will never take on the beneficial traits of a being by learning disciplines or other powers from it -- it's called a curse for a reason.

Important Note

The Children of Lilith are not really intended for use by players. They were created to be used as plot devices and NPCs. It is simultaneously an enlightening and frightening experience for your players to realize what that Ventrue elder really was after five or six stories of fighting off his machinations. The Children of Lilith are simply far too powerful, complex and rare for any player to be one without seriously disrupting game balance. It is feasible to play a Child of Lilith Caitiff, which would mean the character is unaware of their powers or true nature.