Golden Rule Options

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The changes that you will inevitably thrust upon Vampire the Masquerade and the other games by White Wolf are the shaping of the rules that forge the very tapestry of reality of the universe of your settings. You should not be afraid to ignore anything that you do not like and to create answers to any of the questions that boggle or frustrate you. No one outside of the tight knit circle of friends, with whom you gather each evening to plunge into communal stories of epic proportion or tragic detail, is likely to agree with you. But this is your game, your chance to rule the world and bend reality. Golden Rule Options will be a column open to suggestions and discussions of just the sort of quick-fix fabrications and monkeywrench rules warping you probably do every week. Perhaps you will find something you like, perhaps you will be inspired to send your idea. 

It is known that mystical blood can have strange effects upon the kindred who drinks of them.  We have been supplied with suggestions for the frenzy that werewolf blood instills and the madness that changeling blood brings, but many awakened beings have been unmentioned. What of mages, and what of wraiths? The wise kindred learns what might happen. 

It is widely believed by those kindred who even know that there are such things as ghosts that their ectoplasmic vitae is unobtainable and therefore must be useless. There are ways for wraiths and vampires to interact, however, and it must not be assumed that there will be no effect from this interplay. The most common ways for a kindred and a wraith to actually meet on the same turf in such a way that blood might be an issue are the Psychic Projection power of the vampiric Auspex Discipline and the Embody Arcanos of wraiths. 

Two individuals using Psychic Projection cannot harm each other beyond severing their opponent's silver cord, but it is noted that wraiths and lupines inhabiting the astral realm may harm them. In any case where the two can interact, an astral kindred may drink wraith blood and use it exactly as though it were the equivalent amount of human blood. The power of the discipline allows his soul to interact as a spiritual version of his physical form. 

A kindred drinking the blood of a wraith using Statue or Life-in-Death tastes cold, bitter plasma, and can only gain about one blood point per five Corpus levels consumed. A kindred drinking from a wraith utilizing Materialize gains one blood point per Corpus level, as the Embody Arcanos is remarkably real at that point. In all cases, however, any blood that has not been spent returns to the Shadowlands when the Embody Arcanos has ended and the wraith departs the physical world. This is perhaps why most kindred do not find this sort of feeding worth the trouble or even consider it helpful. 

It is similarly difficult for a vampire to use her blood to form the bond with wraiths. Wraiths given material form by the Statue or Life-in-Death Embody Arcanos do not have a strong enough connection with reality to suffer the bond as normal. Those who act as Statues cannot partake of the blood at all unless somehow it is forced into their stiff bodies, and Life-in-Death is so unrealistic that only perhaps by giving a wraith large quantities of blood (five or more points at a time) could a vampire hope to have any effect. A wraith using Materialize is affected by the bond as normal and it lasts even after they retire to the Shadowlands. Few kindred are likely to get the chance to feed the elusive and ephemeral higher Proctors more than once, though, due to their suspicious nature and the brief time they are able to spend in true human shape. Any wraith who is affected by three feedings on blood  but who is not using the power Materialize at the time receives the benefit of a new Passion instead of being directly bound as normal. Rate the level of the new Passion (usually Love for the kindred in question) by the strength of the blood and the frequency. Wraiths using Materialize are Blood Bound and receive the Passion, too. Often, they will be drawn to the physical realm more and more often in a desperate attempt to gain vitae. Such unfortunates usually are discovered by the Hierarchy as they sometimes grow lax and sloppy in their neediness for the blood.