Ghouls

A Ghoul is a living human who drinks vampire blood — vitae — and survives it. The blood keeps them young, heals their wounds at twice the mortal rate, and gives them a sliver of the vampire's supernatural gift. The same blood also binds them, drink by drink, to the vampire who feeds them.

A ghoul is not a vampire. No appetite for blood, no aversion to daylight, no Frenzy table, no Clan, no Bane. A ghoul is a mortal with one borrowed gift and one very heavy leash — and, often, decades more on the clock than anyone knows.

The Mortal Characters chapter covers the full creation sequence this chapter builds on; read it before you spend a single dot.

The vitae in the blood

While a ghoul is being kept — Vitae Status: Sustained — the blood gives them three things:

• Time. The aging process halts for as long as you are fed. A ghoul fed monthly for twenty years looks the same on the last night as the first.
• Recovery. Wounds close at twice the mortal rate. Fire still burns you like anyone else — the blood forgives cuts and breaks, not the pyre.
• The power. Exactly one Discipline power, described below.

When the feeding stops (Vitae Status: Unsustained), the gifts fade over days to weeks, and aging resumes. A single new drink brings the whole package back — once a ghoul is made, the body never fully forgets the vitae.

Creating a ghoul

Build the character as a human first, then add the gift.

1. Concept. Same as a Mortal: name, concept, ambition, desire, age, occupation. Ghouls are not failed vampires; they are people with jobs, families, grudges, and mortgages. The domitor is part of the concept, but the person comes first.

2. Attributes. Assign the nine Attributes on a 4 / 3·3·3 / 2·2·2·2 / 1 spread: one Attribute at 4, three at 3, four at 2, and one at 1, in whatever categories suit the concept.

3. Skills. Use the standard Skill methods exactly as a Mortal does — Balanced (three at 3, five at 2, seven at 1), Specialist, or Jack of All Trades. Zero dots in a Skill is always allowed.

4. Specialties. Two things happen here that do not happen for other mortals:

• You receive four free Specialties, one in each of Academics, Craft, Performance, and Science where you hold at least one dot.
• Plus one additional free Specialty in any Skill you possess.

A Specialty grants no extra dots; it modifies tests per the normal Specialty rules.

5. Advantages and Flaws. Spend 7 dots of Advantages and take 2 dots of Flaws, as for any character. Backgrounds like Contacts, Resources, Allies, Haven, and Status are common. Vampire-only Backgrounds — Generation, Herd, blood-bound Retainers, and the like — do not apply; you are not a vampire.

6. Derived traits.

Trait	Formula
Health	Stamina + 3
Willpower	Composure + Resolve
Humanity	7 (starting)

7. Blood Bond. Record the bond's depth. Every separate drink of vitae deepens it:

Bond state	Meaning
Unbonded	Never fed, or the bond has not begun
One Drink	The bond has begun; the pull is a leaning, not a command
Two Drinks	The bond has substance; the domitor's wishes are hard to refuse
Fully Bound (Blood Bound)	Three drinks; you care for the domitor as for no one else, and the Storyteller can call on the bond to shape your choices

The one power

This is the heart of being a ghoul. A ghoul manifests a single Level 1 Discipline power — and that power must come from a Discipline the domitor possesses.

• If your domitor has Auspex and Presence, your first power is a Level 1 power from one of those two — never from a Discipline they do not know.
• If no domitor is established yet, the power is unassigned: it stays blank and unresolved until the blood's source is known. See The unassigned state below.
• For using your power, count yourself as having 1 dot in that Discipline. You never record Discipline dots — you do not advance, and you cannot buy a Level 2 power.

Two further facts:

• Your power set can grow only by buying another Level 1 power from within the domitor's Disciplines — each costs 10 XP.
• A vampiric Draught can temporarily raise your effective rating, but the effect is brief, and your permanent rating remains 1.

The unassigned state

A ghoul may genuinely not know who feeds them. That absence is an intentional, valid game state — not an error, and not an invitation to fill the blank.

1. No established Domitor. A ghoul may exist without a Domitor. If the source data establishes none, the Domitor field is left empty. Never invent, infer, or select a Domitor — not from clan, bloodline, the ghoul's narrative, or anything else. The character remains valid.

2. No assigned Discipline. A ghoul may exist without an assigned Discipline power. If the source explicitly leaves the Discipline unassigned, keep it unassigned. Never infer a Discipline from clan, background, abilities, name, or story context, and never invent one simply because the Ghoul rules include a Discipline mechanic. The character remains valid with no power currently assigned.

3. The empty state is real. An unassigned Discipline is represented as an intentional empty value — not as an error, a missing required field, or an implicit Discipline selection. ghoulPowers stays empty when no power has been assigned. No placeholder powers are created to satisfy the sheet.

4. Later assignment. An unassigned Discipline may be populated later when a valid source, a player choice, a Storyteller decision, or other authorized character-creation input establishes it. Until then, the character keeps the unassigned state.

5. Validation. A ghoul with no established Domitor and/or no assigned Discipline passes validation, provided every other required field and rule is valid. Validation must distinguish between not assigned by source or rules — a valid empty state — and invalid value — an error. Never resolve an intentional absence of information by inventing data.

What a ghoul never gets

Never a:	Because:
Clan, Clan Bane, or Compulsion	you are not Kindred, and never will be
Hunger or Rouse Checks	you eat real food, sleep, and bleed when you should
Generation or Blood Potency	your blood is not itself vitae
Predator Type	your feeding is the domitor's schedule, not a hunt
Sunlight damage, staking, Final Death	daylight is exhausting, and a stake is only a stake

Playing the leash

The domitor holds the end of your century. Miss the monthly feedings long enough and you slowly age again, your gift falters, and the youth you were loaned becomes a memory. Keep feeding and you stay young, healed, and on call. The bond is a real force, not a roleplaying preference: after three drinks you want what the domitor wants.

That is what makes a ghoul a character rather than a retainer: you can walk into the daylight, visit your family, stand in a room full of humans and not flinch. The Kindred call you mortal; they never mean it kindly.

Creation checklist

• Character is a living human, type Ghoul — not undead, not a vampire.
• Attributes are 4 / 3·3·3 / 2·2·2·2 / 1.
• Skills use a standard method: Balanced, Specialist, or Jack of All Trades.
• Free Specialties: the four of Academics, Craft, Performance, and Science (with at least one dot each) plus one extra.
• 7 dots Advantages, 2 dots Flaws.
• Health = Stamina + 3; Willpower = Composure + Resolve.
• Humanity starts at 7.
• Exactly one Level 1 Discipline power from the domitor's pool, counted as 1 dot — nothing else.
• Vitae Status and Bond state filled in; nothing invented where domitor details are unknown.
• Domitor left empty when unestablished; ghoulPowers left empty when unassigned — both are intentional, valid states that pass validation.