The lore of Vampire: The Masquerade.
Vampire: The Masquerade is not set in an invented world but in ours, one night lower. Vampires have always been here, they hide behind a centuries old lie called the Masquerade, and they fight over the cities of the living without anyone noticing.
Here is enough to find your bearings in that setting without reading the whole World of Darkness library: the era, the thirteen clans, the sects that share the nights, the Traditions, the threats hanging over the Damned, and above all how to use any of it at your table.
The World of Darkness, our world one night lower.
The setting is our own: the same cities, the same newspapers, the same cameras. The corruption simply runs a little deeper, the nights last a little longer, and the monsters are real. A vampire, a Cainite in the game's own words, was human until another vampire gave them the Embrace. They keep their face, their memories and their ties, and lose the sun, sleep and any chance of growing old.
The fifth edition, published in 2018, sets the story today, in an age of phones that record everything and files that forget nothing. That is where the tone comes from: the Masquerade has never been harder to hold, the elders are deserting the cities, and your characters, young vampires, inherit a territory they have no means to defend.
The clans and their inheritance.
Philosophers as much as brawlers, they lose their temper faster than the rest. A Brujah defends a cause, which makes them an ideal engine for a plot.
They have always run the Camarilla and grant nothing without a return. Their bane restricts them to one specific kind of blood.
They hold the Elysiums, the galleries and the reputations. A beautiful work can freeze them on the spot, which settles a good many scenes.
Disfigured, unseen and informed of everything said in the city. They sell secrets, which makes them a coterie's best allies.
Their bane is a permanent derangement, not an excuse to play anything you like. They see what the others refuse to look at.
Blood sorcerers, once the most rigid structure in the Camarilla. Their pyramid collapsed, leaving each Tremere alone with their power.
The sects that share the nights.
Three great forces shape the night. The Camarilla, founded in the fifteenth century to survive the Inquisition, enforces the Masquerade and hands each city to a prince surrounded by a council of primogen. The Anarch Movement refuses that hierarchy and cuts cities into baronies, on the principle that older blood grants no rights. The Sabbat owns the monster instead, but it has left North America for a war in the Middle East, which leaves it in the background in the fifth edition.
The clans do not line up neatly behind those banners. The Brujah and the Gangrel walked out of the Camarilla, the Lasombra walked in after abandoning the Sabbat, the Banu Haqim were taken in, the Ministry, the Ravnos and the Tzimisce play their own game, and the Hecata, a family of necromancers, sell their services to everyone. That leaves the Caitiff, with no clan and no kin, and the thin-bloods, so far from Caine that the sun no longer quite kills them.
The Masquerade and the Traditions.
The Masquerade is the first of the six Traditions and the only one everyone knows: never reveal your nature to a mortal. The other five organise the rest. The Domain hands a city to a prince, Progeny forbids creating a vampire without permission, Accounting makes a sire answerable for everything their childe does, Hospitality requires you to present yourself when you arrive on a territory, and Destruction reserves for the prince the right to destroy one of their own.
Those six sentences are enough to run a whole chronicle, because they create trespasses. A vampire who feeds in front of a witness, who Embraces out of love or who crosses a city without presenting themselves has not committed some abstract crime: they have handed their rivals a lever. That is where the game is played, far more than in any fight.
The threats hanging over the Damned.
State agencies cross referencing data, cameras and bank records. They have already wiped out entire Camarilla cities.
The elders leave for the east without warning, emptying their cities. It explains why a young coterie can weigh on local politics at all.
The end foretold in the Book of Nod, with the Antediluvians waking. The game keeps it as a backdrop, never as a precise countdown.
Gone on crusade far from the Camarilla cities, it has not disappeared. One returning pack is enough to tip a chronicle over.
The most intimate threat: hunger, fear and anger taking control. A frenzy costs far more than any lost brawl.
Born of generations too far removed, they endure daylight and brew alchemy. Their very existence is an omen the elders refuse to discuss.
Caine, the Antediluvians and the Jyhad.
Vampires tell their own origin in the Book of Nod, an apocryphal text nobody holds in full. In it Caine kills his brother, takes the curse and becomes the first of the Damned. He creates three vampires, who create thirteen in turn: the Antediluvians, the ancestors of the clans. Those thirteen overthrew Caine, founded a city, then watched the Deluge swallow it. The further your character stands from Caine along that chain, the weaker their blood, and that distance has a name, generation.
None of it is proven inside the game, and that is deliberate. Elders use the story to justify their power, sects use it to recruit, and the Antediluvians, if they still exist, sleep somewhere and move their descendants around like pieces. That secret war between immortals is called the Jyhad, and your characters will only ever see their small part in it: a favour asked by an elder, an order nobody bothers to explain.
Using the World of Darkness at your table.
One city, its districts, its hospitals and its clubs beat a whole continent. The players should end up knowing it better than the Storyteller.
A shared debt, a shared turf or a shared secret is enough to bind the group. Without one, each player chases their own night.
Three figures will carry ten sessions: the one who decides, the one who strikes, the one who talks. The rest gets invented in play.
A landlord, an informant and a coroner make the city playable and Humanity concrete. They are the first the coterie will lose.
Caine, the Antediluvians and Gehenna work better as rumour than as briefing. A night is played among neighbours and mortals, not among myths.
Thirty years of supplements contradict each other, and editions have changed the world. Pick what serves your chronicle and write that choice down.
Bringing the night to life online.
Vampire is played in low voices, in specific places: a rooftop, the back room of a club, a cemetery at dawn. Described once, those places are forgotten. Displayed in front of the players, they set the mood in a second.
Tomeus gathers the backdrop, the music, the sheets and the dice roller in a single window. You prepare your city photographs and your handouts ahead of time, send the link, and your players arrive in your chronicle with nothing to install.
Go further with Vampire: The Masquerade.
How to Start Playing Vampire: The Masquerade
Clans, disciplines, Hunger and Humanity: the complete guide to start playing Vampire The Masquerade, build a first character and run your first night.
The Basic Rules of Vampire: The Masquerade
The dice pool and successes, the nine attributes, criticals, Hunger dice, damage and Humanity: the basic rules of Vampire The Masquerade explained.
The Clans of Vampire: The Masquerade
The thirteen clans of Vampire The Masquerade explained: their three disciplines, their bane, their compulsion, the Caitiff and the thin-bloods, and how to pick yours.
The Sects of Vampire: The Masquerade
The Camarilla, the Anarchs and the Sabbat explained: the Traditions, the prince, the barons, the Ashirra, the Inconnu and the Second Inquisition, and how to pick your side.
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Frequently asked questions.
Do you need to know the World of Darkness to play?
No. One city is enough, and very often three places inside it. Your players take on freshly Embraced vampires: they discover the clans, the Traditions and the prince at the same time as their characters, which is exactly the right way into the setting. The Storyteller gains from knowing each player's clan and the names of three local figures.
What did the fifth edition change about the lore?
The ancient history does not move: Caine, the Antediluvians and the Traditions all stay in place. What changes is the present. The Second Inquisition hunts vampires with intelligence agency resources, the Beckoning empties the cities of their elders, the Sabbat has gone to fight in the Middle East, and young vampires find themselves on the front line. A few clans have also switched sides, starting with the Lasombra, now in the Camarilla.
Where should you start with this setting?
With a city and a coterie. The core book covers the Camarilla, the Anarchs and the clans in a few chapters, and the city books, Chicago first among them, hand you a prince, rivals and ready-made locations. A starter kit or any short scenario teaches more in one evening than a hundred pages of ancient history.