Kindred (Vampire)

The thumping of your heart is like a tune I can never stop dancing to. I will forever turn in this dance of the night. Always hungry. Never tired.

Kindred Origins

Kindred are descendants of the first murderer Caine. Being that they tend to have long memories and are immortal they do not confuse their history.

Caine was cursed by god after he killed his brother. He would always seek out blood and roam forever. His curse would become the curse of those stupid enough to cross paths with him and join him on his endless roam. Caine has turned only a select few through his time which turned more in mass creating clans.

What is a kindred?

Kindred are the living dead. Cursed to crave and consume blood. They are one of the strongest supernatural creatures, next to Lilin, though their blood has diluted over time making them not nearly as strong but still a force to be reckoned with.

A kindreds strength is denoted by age and how many generations away from Caine they are. A generation is defined by who your sire is. You are a first generation vampire if you were turned by Caine himself. Second generation if you were turned by a first generation.. and so forth.

Currently all kindred that are still alive are 3rd-15th generation kindred. Only seventh-fifteenth generation kindred are playable. 5th through 7th generation kindred are available through the gem shop.

How to become kindred

Kindred are turned in two steps. The Embrace and the Exchange.

The Embrace is when a kindred drains a human (this includes mages and hunters) of their blood and gives them some of their own just as they die. The next evening the person will awaken with a ravenous thirst for blood.

The Exchange happens once the newly made kindred wakes up. The new kindred will be starving and must consume the blood of a person and kill them before the night is over. If they do not consume and kill their first victim the newly created kindred will go to sleep and die permanently.

11th through 14th generation kindred struggle to do the embrace and often fail. 15th generation kindred cannot do the embrace at all, they just kill the person.

Powers

Kindred have a varying range of abilities depending on generation and age, they can have more or less. There are a few abilities that all kindred have which will be indicated below.

Kindred health is based on the sort of blood that they drink. Vegan Kindred are more malnourished and not as powerful as fully fed kindred.

5-6th generation kindred have about 3-4 abilities. 7-8th Generation have 2-3 abilities. 9-11th generation kindred have 1 ability. 11th-15th often have only the standard kindred abilities and nothing extra. Generations 10 and below are considered "thin blooded" and often looked down upon by "thicker blooded" (read 7th or above generation) kindred.**

10th-15th generation kindred tend to be more human, have less need for blood and can stand sunlight for short, 20 minute bursts of time, before burning. These vampires are all less than 50 years old and so its unknown if they are actually immortal like thicker blooded kindred. It is speculated that these kindred may not be immortal, but have just a slower aging rate.

All Kindred

• Immortality - As long as they are not killed, kindred can live forever.
• The Embrace - Kindred have the ability to sire or create vampires. Fifteenth generation kindred are unable to do the embrace.
• Rapid Rejuvenation - Healthy and well fed kindred heal at a quick rate. Healing is extremely taxing on a kindred and makes them hungry quickly. Their healing can go so far as regrowing an entire limb. Twelfth generation and lower have a hard time with this and it takes a significant amount of time.
• Blood healing - A kindred blood applied to a minor cut, scrape or otherwise small open wound will heal it immediately.
• Heightened senses - Seventh generation kindred are able to smell as good as a wolf were-creature and have keen vision. This depreciates each generation beyond seventh generation to fourteenth generation which has the same smell and vision as a human.
• Speed - Healthy kindred are fast. They move with speed unlike a human. Current generations are fast enough to startle someone but it doesn't cause any blur. Older generation kindred can move more quickly.
• Superior Strength - This depends on the generation. Seventh generation kindred have a strength that can be on par with a were-creature. However Tenth and below are not quite as strong. A twelfth or lower generation kindred would be just barely stronger than a human of their same size or weight.
• Bonding - Kindred can feed their blood to humans or other kindred and create a bond between them. Sharing the blood with another kindred is a sort of marriage ritual. Sharing it with a human makes the human more willing to do the kindred's bidding and the kindred will have an easier time manipulating the person. Kindred often bond to have a reliable and trustworthy human to assist them in things they cannot do themselves.
  
  The more blood the human drinks the stronger the bond with the kindred. To create the bond the blood must come direct from the source (meaning the human must drink it straight from the kindred). Kindred blood that is used in potions, or otherwise pulled from the kindred and doled out does not have this effect.

Possible Powers

• Thick skin - Wounds are harder to strike on a kindred with this ability. Their skin is more durable and harder to penetrate. The drawback to this is silver weapons will work as normal.
• Memory Lapse - The ability to make a person forget a chunk of time. 30-60 minutes is a simple task to make someone forget though the longer the time that you make them forget, the harder it is and more likely for them to remember. Another drawback to this is that a traumatic experience is harder to make them forget. So sexual assault, a violent attack to consume blood, witnessing a crime may not be forgotten or could be easily remembered later.
• Sun resistance - Ability to spend limited amounts of time in the sun and twilight hours or rainy days are perfectly acceptable for them to walk into.
• Shapeshifting - Ability to shift into the form of an animal. With this ability the kindred will have the ability to shift in to no more than 1-2 types of creatures. This ability does not make the kindred stronger or have any more heightened senses. They often use this ability to slink off.
• Call Horde - Ability to call a horde of creatures to the kindred to distract or attack. The kindred can only call one type of creature, rats, bats, birds, etc.
• Become Horde - Ability to shapeshift into a horde of creatures. The kindred can only become one type of creature, rats, bats, birds, etc.

Weaknesses

• Sun - Kindred are unable to walk in the sun. Sun exposure will cause them to burn. Skin burned by the sun takes an more than 4 times as long to heal and has the potential to permanently scar the kindred.
• Garlic - This is an extremely potent aphrodisiac. This will not cause the kindred any harm but they will hallucinate and could potentially kill themselves while in this state.
• Silver - While it doesn't do anything directly, if injured with a silver weapon it will take a long time for the kindred to heal. It is something that makes it heal more like a regular human wound. If a kindred needs to feign being alive or human, they will often injure themselves with something silver to prove this point.
• Dead man's blood - Blood cultivated from a dead man is poisonous to a kindred, while it won't kill them necessarily it will make them violently sick if ingested. It can also knock them out if injected into them.
• Intoxication - If they drink the blood of an intoxicated human the kindred will feel the effects of that person's intoxication. So if the person is drunk and the kindred feeds on them, the kindred will become drunk.
• Degeneration - Drinking the blood of lower generation kindred in which the kindred kills the other kindred. This will lower the generation of the kindred to that of the kindred blood they are drinking. This act basically replaces their blood with that of the lower generations blood and causing it to be permanent. It can work in the reverse however this act is considered sacrilegious and will get a vampire marked for death.

Kindred Clans

Kindred clans are like-minded individuals that adhere to the same sort of lifestyle as others within the clan. Being in a kindred clan has its perks, and can get you into exclusive clan related places. Kindred do not have to be a part of a clan, however once a part of a clan changing clans is seen as low class and can get you banned from all clans, save for one, or killed.

• Cainanites - These vampires are rare as the world progresses forward. These vampires tend to be 5th generation and above only and believe in preserving the race and its purity. They tend to only feed on fresh blood and believe in killing each victim.
• Dracul - This vampire clan is what most consider to be the classic vampires that embody the seductive, mysterious nature that is so beloved in literature. These vampires are often good looking, charismatic and bloodthirsty.
  • Bathory Extremists - Their is a fringe group within the Dracul clan that are obsessed with Dracula's niece Bathory Erezebet (Elizabeth Bathory). Most of these extremists believe she is the true Dracula and lust to bring her to power to enslave humankind. They have been in search for Elizabeth for over a century after she disappeared during a great battle between her and a team of hunters. They believe they may have found her and seek to bring her to her glory. (Please watch story announcements for more details).
• Lily - These vampires believe in a sort of balance between races. They work closely with the Lilin to keep the peace and prefer not to kill their prey. Most modern vampires are Lily's by happenstance.
• Blud - These vampires are blood extremists. They have specific blood tastes and love to have blood tasting parties where they bring their favorite freshly prepared bottle. These vampires tend to have blood farms of people in basements that they sustain just to keep a good supply of their favorites vintage.
• Next Gen - These vampires are a part of the newer generation that believe that there are better ways to consume blood whether that is consuming only from consenting people, blood banks, feeding off of animals. These vampires tend to be malnourished and called "Vegan Vampires" by others of their race. They are looked down upon for their weak ideology.

Vampire Hierarchy

Vampires have a few hierarchies, each clan has a subset hierarchy but they all adhere to the overall one that rules the lands.

Each land has a Prince (this is both male and female). The prince rules over a large area. In the United States a prince will rule over an entire state, in other countries they will rule over certain regions etc. Princes are 4-7th generation and have been ruling for centuries. Princes are not normally replaced unless they step down.

Prince's appoint regional leaders known as Dukes to rule over smaller areas. These Dukes take care of local matters and report to the prince. Prince's have been known to replace Dukes that are not loyal to them.

Dukes have the ability to appoint sheriffs to assist in keeping the local order.

It is required that when you enter an area ruled by a Prince that you make yourself known to a local Duke and the Prince will choose if they want to meet you. Not making yourself known to a Duke can get you penalized by the Duke or Prince.

** 5th-7th generation kindred are only acquired through gem purchases.