The Blood Bond
Feared by those who have known
it, the Blood Bond creates and
enforces the most severe allegiances
within the Camarilla,
both between Kindred and
from their mortal servants. The
Anarchs generally philosophically
reject Blood Bonds between
vampires (although exceptions
must sometimes be made for the
good of the Movement) and some
radicals even refuse to Blood Bond
mortals.
Anyone who drinks the Blood
of a vampire becomes progressively
more attached to their donor until
finally, after three drinks or more,
the Bond reduces them to servile
lackeys when in the donor’s presence.
Vampires call the one Bonded
the thrall, and term the source of
the Bond the regnant. When under
a completed Blood Bond, the thrall
experiences a sense of loyalty,
sometimes even infatuation, toward
their regnant. They attempt
to please their master, becoming
wary and eventually even terrified
of angering them. Unlike many
Disciplines, nothing prevents a
vampire employing a Bond against
a vampire of lower generation or
one whose Blood is more potent.
Many Kindred do not even
acknowledge that they’ve been
Bound, believing their feelings to
be true and even noble. A mutual
Blood Bond, sometimes called a
Blood wedding, is not love – it’s
obsession and addiction. Abusive
and dysfunctional doesn’t even
begin to describe how nasty these
blood-enforced affairs tend to get
after a few centuries, and they are
frowned upon (to say the least) in
Camarilla society.
Just as in the Embrace, the
Blood consumed must be taken
directly from the vein of the donor,
as it loses its power to Bond in a
matter of seconds unless drunk.
The drinker must repeat the act on
three separate nights with no more
than a year between drinks for the
Bond to fully form. (During their
first year, a childe remains onethird
of the way Bound to their
sire, having already tasted their
Blood once.) A regnant can have as
many vampire thralls as they have
dots of Blood Potency, and a thrall
can only have one regnant, becoming
immune to other Bonding
attempts while Bound. If a regnant
Bonds another thrall above their
maximum Blood Potency limit,
their oldest Bond with a thrall
fades over the course of a week.
Blood Bond System
The Blood Bond gains a Bond
Strength equal to the number of
times the thrall has consumed the
regnant’s Blood (up to a maximum
of 6) and decreases by one for each
month during which the thrall
consumes none of the regnant’s
Blood. To attempt something
against their regnant’s wishes, the
thrall must succeed in a contest
of Resolve + Intelligence vs. Bond
Strength. If in the presence of the
regnant, such defiance requires
the test once per turn; if outside
the regnant’s perception, the thrall
need only make a defiance test
once per scene.
Breaking the Bond requires
the thrall to reduce the Bond
Strength to 0 (zero) by avoiding
their regnant for an extended time.
They must successfully make a
defiance roll once per session to do
so (or more often, if the Storyteller
judges that something has recalled
the regnant to the thrall’s mind).
Few thralls can resist this long,
especially if their regnant actively
comes looking for them.
Blodsband
page revision: 2, last edited: 24 Aug 2019 12:02