Noticias

What is a Bloodline? A bloodline is a small “family” of Vampires, usually an off-shot of one of the main 13 Clans, with some common characteristics, history and/or outlook. Sometimes it is more complicated than that!

AHRIMANE

The Ahrimane Bloodline is usually considered an off-shot of the Gangrel antitribu. It is, and it isn’t… not exactly.

Over kindred history there have been two branches of this bloodline. The original Ahrimanes were born (and, apparently, were extinct) during the Dark Ages, in Scandinavia. However, the branch related to VTES is the more modern branch, born again through Muricia, who apparently was a descendant of the original Ahrimanes. She was a Gangrel antitribu that became an Ahrimane through a magical rite in the New World.

What makes this Bloodline special? First, you don’t become an Ahrimane by being Embraced by an Ahrimane. Ahrimane are sterile and can’t Embrace progeny themselves. Instead, new Ahrimane are Vampires that must undergo the same magical rite as Muricia did. Second, Muricia only “recruits” female Gangrel (antitribu or not)

In game terms, all Ahrimane characters (currently 15) have the Sterile trait, which bars them from employing the existing cards that allow them to create new vampires. Also, all printed cards depict female characters, except for one, a Dovey Ebfwe. I’m sure there must be an interesting history about this, but I haven’t been able to find it!

All 15 Ahrimane characters are aligned to the Sabbat sect. From the clan history this would seem a little off, given that part of Muricia history was distancing from the Sabbat, and also recruiting Gangrel women across all sects. Strictly, they should fit better as Independent, but I figure this was more of a game-balance issue.

There is one single Advanced character in those 15: it is Maria Stone. Her base version was a Gangrel antitribu.

Ahrimanes have their own signature Discipline: Spiritus, related to summoning animal spirits and channeling their powers. All 15 characters have this discipline either as inferior (8) or superior (7). Other common Disciplines are Animalism (6+6), which makes sense from their Gangrel origins, and Presence (7+6).

Ahrimanes don’t have any political power, which makes sense for a bloodline that doesn’t want anything to do with any sect. Maybe it would have made some sense (from a story point of view) to have at least Muricia have 1 vote, as de facto leader from the bloodline.

On their Library card side Ahrimane have several Spiritus related cards, and a couple of Changing Breeds allies, which fits both their Gangrel-inherited animalistic tendencies, as well as their own signature Spiritus discipline.

FINAL NIGHTS/V5

All known Ahrimanes disappeared misteeriously and are presumed destroyed at some point at the end of the 90’s. Are they gone for good? Who knows, this is the WoD and nothing remains dead forever. Currently there are no V5-Legal Ahrimane. If at some point one survivor (maybe a new character, or an Advanced version of an existing one) shows her head it is unlikely she has Spiritus, which would probably be substituted by some mix of Animalism and/or Thaumaturgy instead.

Look for all available Ahrimane related cards right now at the VTES Store!