Clans & Disciplines

What a Clan Means

Every vampire in Vampire: The Masquerade belongs to a clan, and they don't choose it. Your clan is the bloodline of your sire, passed down through the Embrace like a family resemblance nobody asked for. It shapes how other Kindred see you before you open your mouth, which gifts come naturally to you, and which curse you'll carry every night of your unlife.

In 5th Edition a clan gives you four things:

• Three in-clan Disciplines. The supernatural powers your blood takes to easily. You start with dots in two of them, and they're cheaper to raise with experience than any other Discipline.
• A Bane. A permanent curse built into the clan's blood. Some are social (you can't pass as human), some are physical (sunlight hurts more), some get into your head.
• A Compulsion. A clan-flavoured urge the Beast can push on you when a Hunger die betrays you. It gives a penalty until you satisfy it or the scene ends.
• An identity. Reputation, stereotypes, old grudges, and a place (or lack of one) in the sects. Other Kindred will assume things about you from your clan alone, and they'll often be right.

Bane Severity

A Bane isn't a flat penalty. Its strength is set by Bane Severity, a number that comes from your Blood Potency. Older, thicker blood means a heavier curse: a fresh neonate's Bane is a nuisance, while an elder's can rule their nights. Where a Bane gives a dice penalty or a number of turns, Bane Severity is usually that number. Check the Blood Potency table in the corebook for the exact value at each level; for most starting characters it's low.

This is one of 5th Edition's quiet balancing tricks: the same blood that makes an elder more powerful also makes their clan weakness bite harder.

The Nine Core Choices

The 5th Edition corebook (2018) gives players seven clans plus two kinds of vampire who don't fit the clan system at all. The seven are the clans most tied up in the Camarilla and the Anarch Movement, the two big sects of the modern nights. The Disciplines and Compulsion names below are the book's; the Bane descriptions are deliberately our own summary, so check the corebook for the exact rule text.

Clans from Later Books

The classic game had thirteen clans. The 5th Edition corebook kept only the seven above and brought the rest back one book at a time, each rebuilt for the modern setting. All seven were later collected in the Players Guide, so if your Storyteller allows the full list, that's the easiest place to find them.

Disciplines: The Powers of the Blood

Disciplines are vampire powers fuelled by blood. Each Discipline is rated from 1 to 5 dots, and every dot gives you one power from that level or lower. So at Dominate 3 you know three Dominate powers: one from each of levels 1, 2 and 3, or two from lower levels if you prefer. There are no sixth-level "elder" powers in 5th Edition; growth past 5 dots happens through amalgams, rituals and Blood Potency instead.

The Core Disciplines

A few well-known examples so the names feel concrete: Dominate's first-level Compel issues a single short command; Auspex starts with Heightened Senses; Obfuscate includes Cloak of Shadows for staying unseen while still; Presence includes Awe and Daunt; Protean opens with Eyes of the Beast. The corebook lists every power with its level, dice pool, duration and cost.

Rouse Checks: The Price of Power

Most Discipline powers cost blood, and in 5th Edition that cost is a Rouse check: roll one d10. On 6 or higher nothing happens. On 1 to 5 your Hunger goes up by 1. Some powers are free, most cost one Rouse check, and a few of the strongest cost more. That's the core tension of the game in a nutshell: every time you use your gifts, you risk feeding the Beast.

• A single Rouse check raises Hunger exactly half the time (5 of the 10 faces).
• Two Rouse checks: a 1 in 4 chance of no Hunger, 1 in 2 of +1 Hunger, 1 in 4 of +2.
• At Hunger 5 you can't make Rouse checks voluntarily, so most powers are off the table until you feed.
• Higher Blood Potency lets you reroll a Rouse check for low-level powers. At Blood Potency 1 or 2 that means level 1 powers; at 3 or 4, level 2 and below; and so on.

Amalgams

Some powers belong to one Discipline but need dots in a second one too. These are amalgams. For example, Animalism's Unliving Hive also requires Obfuscate 2. Amalgams are how 5th Edition handled many of the old clan-exclusive Disciplines: rather than being separate trees, their signature tricks became powers that sit at the crossroads of two common Disciplines. The Tzimisce's infamous flesh-shaping, Vicissitude, is now a Protean amalgam power rather than a Discipline of its own.

Blood Sorcery and Rituals

Blood Sorcery has ordinary powers like any other Discipline, plus rituals: slower, ceremonial workings that take time, ingredients and preparation, and can do things a quick power can't, such as warding a place against intruders. A ritual's level can't be higher than your Blood Sorcery dots. You gain rituals as your Blood Sorcery grows and can buy more with experience (ritual level × 3 XP). Core Blood Sorcery is a single tree; the classic edition's many separate Thaumaturgy paths are gone.

Thin-Blood Alchemy

Thin-bloods can't master the usual clan Disciplines, but they can cook. Thin-Blood Alchemy lets them brew formulae from vitae and other materials. Some formulae reproduce weaker versions of true Discipline powers; others do things no proper vampire can. Brewing takes time and supplies, and formulae can be bought with experience (formula level × 3 XP). It's the thin-blood answer to being looked down on: ingenuity in place of pedigree.

Oblivion: A Later Discipline

Oblivion is not in the corebook. It arrived with the Lasombra in Chicago by Night and was expanded for the Hecata in Cults of the Blood Gods. It reaches into shadow and the realm of the dead: commanding darkness, speaking with or binding ghosts, drawing on the void. Like Blood Sorcery it has extra ceremonial workings, called ceremonies. It's widely considered dangerous to the soul as well as to everyone nearby; read its rules carefully before you take it.

Learning and Raising Disciplines

At character creation you put 2 dots in one of your clan's Disciplines and 1 dot in another (Caitiff choose any two), and your Predator type adds one more dot. After that, Disciplines cost experience:

Learning a Discipline outside your clan usually needs more than XP: the troupe will expect a story reason, often tasting the blood of a vampire who has it. Your Storyteller will tell you how that works in your chronicle.

Clan Disciplines at a Glance

All sixteen options in one table. Core-book entries come first; the later seven follow.

Notice the overlaps. Dominate turns up in six clans, Auspex and Presence in five each, and no two clans share all three Disciplines. That's why two vampires with the same power can feel completely different: a Ventrue's Dominate is a CEO's order, a Malkavian's is a whisper that reshapes how you see the world.

A Worked Example: Paying for Power

Marisol is a neonate Brujah at Blood Potency 1 and Hunger 2. In a fight her attack pool comes to 6 dice, and the Storyteller sets Difficulty 3. She's also about to fuel a Potence power that costs a Rouse check. Two of her six dice are Hunger dice.

• As is: she wins about 66.6% of the time (exactly 213/320), and risks a bestial failure about 9.1% of the time (3631/40000).
• With a Blood Surge: at Blood Potency 1 a Surge adds 2 dice, so she rolls 8 (still two Hunger dice). Her chance to win rises to about 86.0% (5503/6400) and bestial failure drops to about 4.1% (1301/32000).
• The price: the Surge costs a Rouse check, so half the time her Hunger rises to 3 after the roll, and the Potence power needs its own Rouse check too. Two checks means a 1 in 4 chance she walks away at Hunger 4.

That's the shape of almost every Discipline decision: the power is there, it works, and every use pushes you a little closer to the Beast. See Feeding & Frenzy for what happens when Hunger climbs.

Old Names, New Nights

If you've read older Vampire books, played the video games, or browse fan wikis, you'll meet names that 5th Edition has changed. Here's a translation table so nothing trips you up.