Blood and Hunger
As a gentle warning from the ST Team, managing blood and hunger will be very important for characters who intend to appear competent and controlled in session, and who would like to make use of the power in their vitae for multiple goals.
Vampires feed on the mystical energy of blood, not the questionable nutrient value of blood itself. Drawing on this energy to heal, power Disciplines, boost their physical prowess or adopt the warmth and rosy skin of faux-life and such can vary in efficiency, in ways the individual vampire cannot always predict.
Each vampire has a Hunger track abstracting their efforts to stave off the Beast’s craving to feed until bloated. To reflect the potency of their form, Kindred with lower generation have longer Hunger tracks. Hunger runs from Full, representing the Beast being fully sated for now, to Starving, representing the character having a single tatter of volition remaining.
| Generation | Length of Hunger Track |
|---|---|
| 4th | 15 |
| 5th | 12 |
| 6th | 10 |
| 7th | 8 |
| 8th | 7 |
| 9th-10th | 6 |
| 11th-12th | 5 |
| Revenant | 5 |
| Ghoul | 3 |
Each time the vampire attempts to perform an action that requires blood in session, they must test against Resolve, which is adjusted based on the below table. Failure indicates Hunger increases by one. The hungrier a vampire is, the harder it is to resist the Beast’s cravings, and a vampire who is Starving is on the edge of a hunger Frenzy.
| Current Hunger | Modifier to Hunger Tests | Modifier to Frenzy Tests |
|---|---|---|
| Full | +1 | +1 |
| Half Or Above | 0 | 0 |
| Below Half | 0 | -1 |
| One Above Starving | 0 | -2 |
| Starving | 0 | -4 |
Blood Effectiveness
Older vampires are able to distil greater mystical force from blood. Blood effectiveness allows a vampire to make more efficient use of their blood, such as healing multiple wounds in combat.
| Age | Blood Effectiveness |
|---|---|
| Neonate / Ghoul | 1 |
| Ancilla / Pretender Elder | 2 |
| Master Elder / Luminary Elder | 3 |
| Methuselah / Ancient | 4 |
Blood Effectiveness also determines how far your character can fill their hunger track without killing their victims during feeding. The maximum hunger level your character can get to without killing is their Max Hunger Track minus their blood effectiveness, minimum 1.
So a Master Elder of 8th Generation would be unable to increase their hunger rating above 4 without killing. This means that older kindred with weaker blood (higher generation) will find themselves more dependent on killing their prey in order to be effective when they need it most. An 11th Gen Methuselah who does not kill would be on the verge of frenzy all the time.