By Keith Kaczmarek (pheonix@cats.ucsc.edu)
Ideas for this character type have come from several sources. One source was a film whose name escapes me now, but featured a dead vampire who still haunted the living much like a ghost and who eventually regained life as a vampire. Another source was the character Lilith from Marvel Comic's. She was a living vampire who was created by Gypsy sorcery to battle her father Dracula. She was killed and came back from the dead in the body of a another women. The last source was a film called The Girl With the Hungry Eyes, which featured the ghost of a women reborn as a vampire.
Also, all of these idea's come from WoD books and concepts. If anyone really wants to know all the metaphysics behind a particular ability or aspect of the Forsaken's existence, just email me.
Forsaken resemble Vampires in most ways. The transition into one of the Forsaken merely adds new facets to the Forsaken's existence. They feed on the living, either through their Dark Passions or by draining their Vitae. They are deathless, much like the Mummies, and yet they have a singular existence. They exist within the Shadowlands and occasionally break the Shroud to Feed or perform other tasks. They are beings of spirit and flesh, much like the Garou, although they are of the Dark Umbra. They are cursed with immortality and an endless battle with the Beast, as their death-spawned powers erodes their Humanity. They are neither fully Vampire or Wraith, and so must continually hide themselves from both groups. A few have found a way to masquerade among the living full time, but they pay a terrible price, as their powerful Passions isolate them from Humanity and they have an aura of death that both fascinates and frightens the living.
The only real way to permanently harm or kill a Forsaken is to either specifically create a spell to unravel the existence of a Forsaken or to destroy its soul. It is not possible to drain the Vitae from the Forsaken or commit Diablerie upon a Forsaken. They are driven by Dark Passions they cannot contain and cursed with immortality, so that even death is not an escape. Even Transcendence or Redemption is not a release for them.
The Consort will also gain the Forsaken's Physical Attributes. This can be harmful, because a Consort's body may suffer heart failure when pushed by a greater Stamina or be crushed under the weight that the Forsaken's Strength can lift. Dexterity can be used without overstress. Any expenditure of Strength or Stamina greater than the Consort's own will require a damage roll of as many levels of damage equal to the difference in the two Attributes. On the plus side, it will only require five Blood Points and one day of rest per point of Attribute difference to permanently condition the Consort's body to match the Forsaken's Attributes. Fangs may be formed for the Consort for the cost of five Blood points and one day of rest.
If the Forsaken destroys the original spirit of the Consort or places itself within a soulless body, it may keep the body alive in perfect health at the cost of one point of Vitae per day. The body will remain alive, and immune to normal vampiric banes, essentially becoming a living vampire. The Forsaken will be able to use the body to Feed or perform other normal vampiric activities. If all the Health levels of the this brand of Consort are depleted due to aggravated damage or the heart or brain is completely destroyed, the body will decompose into ash. The spirit will be booted into the Shadowlands. Reformation will be in the Tempest as if after a successful Harrowing.
History #1: The Obertus Ghoul Family has continued on a generations long quest to achieve a state of existence beyond human, ghoul or vampire. Lucius Marcus, a Tremere antitribu Ghoul, has been trafficking with demons in an attempt to achieve this goal. His studies into the nature of demons revealed several key facts about the nature of the human and undead soul, which he then incorporated into a ritual to create Forsaken. He created one test subject, used the ritual on himself, and then vanished from public view. He has shared none of his researches with his family. He is Forsaken.
History #2: Kemintiri, Setite Elder and Number One on the Camarilla's Red List made, what she believed, was the last breakthrough in her quest to turn a vampire into a Mummy. By entering the Underworld, drinking the Concoction of Life, and then using her modified version of the Spell of Life, she transcended the spiritual limits and became something more than vampire or mummy. She is Forsaken.
With the Spell of Life she is now the patron Queen of a new race of Mummies. Even now Gehenna draws near as the Antediluvians ready their pawns to do battle with her Undying Army.
History #3: Tomas DeVey was a gifted sorcerer and born medium with the power to see and communicate with the lands of the Dead. Living with the sights and sounds of the Restless Dead had made him obsessed with staying alive. A lifelong search devotion to alchemy eventually produced a potion of immortality. He found himself immortal, but still an old man, and his wounds still healed at a human rate. His travels and discussions with the Restless who haunted vampires had taught him that drinking vampire blood would grant him youthful vigor and health wounds at an amazing rate. He began hunting vampire for their blood and soon was addicted.
An encounter with Assamite antitribu accidentally brought a vial of Heartsblood into his possession. He drank this and was immediately consumed with pain and pleasure in maddening proportions. It was as if he had been Embraced and committed Diablerie in the same act, and yet the pain continued. For hours he writhed as the soul of the vampire began to devour Tomas's living soul and battle with his immortal nature for mystical dominance of his flesh. While maddened with pain, Tomas's magic coiled and struck within his breast as his powers were warped by his surrogate Embrace. As a born medium, he had always seen the Shadowlands coexisting with the he Skinlands, and in this pain-evoked insanity, his desire to end his pain shaped his remaining powers for an instant and forced his body into the lands of the Dead.
The trauma of conversion to the Lands of the Dead stopped his heart, causing his life-force to wax and wane. A Nihil opened up and pulled his mortal body and soul into the Labyrinth. A dark cocoon was exuded from the walls and covered him in its embrace. Plasm sank into his flesh and soul, binding them together in ways unimagined. Had he been a wraith, he would have become a Spectre. As a being undying but undead, living but dying, he became something more than all combined. In the cold darkness of the cocoon he healed and transformed and emerged screaming not a cry of pain but of triumph. As the first of a new species, he looked on the world with strange new eyes. He knew himself to be Forsaken.