By Allen Ruch, for the Wissengeist bloodline.
Menschlichkeit is more akin to Celerity, Fortitude and Potence than the other, more supernatural disciplines. When a level of the discipline is achieved, it is available to the vampire at all times and may be automatically maintained -- it is now a part of his nature. The more points a Wissengeist has in Menschlichkeit, the more human he seems.
A Wissengeist can never have more points in Menschlichkeit than she has in Humanity. If a vampire's Humanity score drops below her rating in Menschlichkeit, the discipline must be reduced accordingly and the excess points are lost.
The cost of this power is staggering. It is tremendously taxing on the vampire's system, and as a result, once this discipline is acquired, the vampire begins to slowly die the True Death. The vampire will begin to permanently lose Blood Pool capacity, falling from the normal ten down to one and finally die the True Death upon reaching zero Blood Pool capacity.
The way this operates is insidious. It takes a full 100 years for the vampire to lose her first point of Blood Pool capacity, but then the time it takes to lose the next keeps decreasing by half. So in 50 years she is down to a Blood Pool of eight, at 25 years her Blood Pool contracts to seven, in 12 years 6 months it is only six. . . . and so on until zero. With this decreasing Blood Pool comes many disadvantages. There is obviously less blood to heal injuries and increase attributes. The vampire will need to feed more often, but cannot drink as much Vitae. Siring another vampire is even more dangerous than usual; there is only a 5% chance/Blood Pool capacity point remaining of begetting a sane vampire as a progeny, otherwise they remain mortal and become afflicted by the Wahnsinnflucht. Most vampires choose not to sire any mortals once they attain this level of discipline.
When the Wissengeist reaches zero, he dies as a mortal corpse. To put this discipline in the proper light, it must be remembered that it is only chosen by Wissengeist who are weary of their lonely crusade. Often they choose it after completing a major life-project and passing the mantle to another -- in other words, successfully Embracing a progeny. They often then spend the better part of the next century instructing their new progeny in survival, vampiric lore, and the way of Wissengeist existence.
As their Blood pool Capacity decreases below five, most Wissengeist can feel the Blutflucht coming on -- the Blood Curse, very similar to the Wahnsinnflucht. Although it largely depends on the nature of the individual vampire, most fall prey to the madness during their last few months of existence, and many ask to be put out of their misery.
It is always said that a Wissengeist wears a smile upon his Final Death...