Vitae Infusions
Introduction
Previous versions had all sorts of ways to screw around with Vitae to make it usable in different ways. Things like Caliph, a drug which would be like weed, but cultivated through Vitae to make it useable for vampires (and very destructive for kine). This seems thematically cool and could make for great projects: things to create as a kindred or to keep busy with to do something interesting for their unlives.
Projects are important. In our daily lives, we humans also have more than just work and sleep., we have interests, things we watch, read or learn. As an example, playing the game is a project for us IRL: we spend time to create a story in which we can, through characters, explore certain aspects of humanity, learning about ourselves and others in the process. How we choose to spend our time says a lot about ourselves, more than just our job, where we went to school or astrological sign.
In the next sections I will set out possible rules to achieve this effect and how they should or shouldn't interact with Thinblood Alchemy and Blood Sorcery. Also I will include a section of inspiration.
Boundaries
Not everything should be doable in this way. After all, Blood Sorcery and Thinblood Alchemy are very distinct and preciously guarded disciplines and creating overlap with those is, to be honest, bad. It would cheapen the effects of those. So creating shelf stable blood or reproducing the effects of TBA is going to be bad. However, knowing Blood Sorcery or Thinblood Alchemy would certainly contribute to the practice of infusing vitae into things. As you are used to working with Vitae to achieve certain effects, so applying that skill/knowledge/experience would certainly come in handy.
Craft
having a hobby, especially when doing something creative, is often considered as something nourishing the soul and as a healthy practice. So while Survival would help you out finding the right plants, cultivation of a plant would definitely fall under the craft skill. I see the craft skill as an activity where you shape or bend materials to your will to create something new. It's a transformative process and it's a great candidate for creating Vitae Infusions.
Numbers
V5 mostly works in the framework of ATTRIBUTE+SKILL(+SPECIALTY). Sometimes certain disciplines boost those pools by a +2 or by their discipline rating.
Vice versa, V5 works in difficulties where 1 is the minimum achievement for success all the way to 5 for an extreme success. Circumstances might modify the pool (like impairment or certain compulsions), modify the margin (like the called shot penalty for a -1 success) or raise the difficulty
Dicepool
So for infusing vitae into the skillroll should be ATTRIBUTE+CRAFT. applicable specialties may add 1 die to the pool, possession of the Blood Sorcery or Thinblood Alchemy (whichever of the 3 methods are highest) disciplines may also add their rating to the pool in dice.
Difficulty
| Difficulty threshold | Successes |
|---|---|
| 1 | Routine |
| 2 | Straight forward |
| 3 | Moderate |
| 4 | Challenging |
| 5 | Hard |
| 6 | Very hard |
| 7+ | Nearly Impossible |
With this table you can, as an ST, determine how hard the task is, based on how familiar the character is with the materials in question and the circumstances. You can also succeed at a cost when you fail the roll. More on this in the section on Margin.
Margin
meeting the difficulty threshold isn't enough, sometimes players (vastly) exceed them and such things should be rewarded, especially as those kinds of rolls might be made with expenditure of certain resources. Usually crafting something and exceeding the parameters, leads to extra effects in three directions: time, quality, quantity. Not all of them will make sense for every project. For example: if you are making a statue and the player exceed the Difficulty with 4 dice it won't just mean that they will get more statues (quantity), but the statue might just finish earlier than expected (time), or will turn out better than expected (quality). Similarly, infusing your vitae into weed might not make it faster in growing (though, with vitae, who knows?), but you might end up with more buds on the plant which are potent (quantity) or the weed might be more potent to kindred (quality).
The same effect could go into the opposite direction. If the player would otherwise fail the roll, they could succeed at a cost. Maybe they make les than they promised, maybe the product is of inferior quality or maybe the player loses track of time, causing the player to have less time left for hunting or maybe almost miss Elysium where they needed to bring the product. (Hint, any of these shortcomings might incur a debt, loss of face, temporary los of status, etc.)
Inspiration
So, given these rules, how do you apply them? What could be great examples of such projects?
So a Bahari Cultivar might not just cultivate a 'Garden' in the metaphorical sense, but also cultivate an actual garden where they use their vitae to influence the plants and the fruits they bear.
A (former) chef might try to find a way to enjoy food again by infusing the ingredients with vitae to make them edible so they could once again pursue their passion of making the best food.
What about the mixologist who has a similar wish of shaking cocktails again and get drunk by themselves instead of needing to feed on alcoholics, who always seem to make him letharic and never give the subtle hints of a good whiskey or a perfect Manhattan.
But I think a lot of Ventrue would kill (literally) for the ability to once again enjoy powdering their noses as if they were still working on Wall Street (or whatever the local variant is for your game) and again feel that rush of nose candy running through their veins.
Me? I would settle for a beekeeper who wants to keep his bees and once again enjoy the fruits of his apiary without feeling it turn to ashes on his tongue.
Projects
This piece of homebrew is to give structure to some possible directions a player's project might take. I myself like rewarding player creativity and feel that inclusion of projects and hobbies bring the characters to life in a different way than the stressful nights neonates and fledgelings might experience for the most part in your games. They require little to no set-up and give a lot of depth to a character. And who knows, maybe the project in question might come up as a plot relevant aid some times in the future.
Credits
Author: Socratov
Other Credits: Path of Night Actual Play for mentioning the cultivation of Caliph through vitae, V5 corebook (p.199) for Difficulty table
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