Classic VtM - Notes on the Clan Tremere Weakness

Various Drew Tucker pieces from the Revised Tremere Clanbook

This year I dipped into a trad gaming a bit and ran some Classic World of Darkness. It was an amusing change of pace from my usual fare though I may have went a little overboard on diving into the lore. One aspect I wanted to sort out a satisfactory take on was the inherent weakness of Clan Tremere.

The Revised edition weakness is as follows (p. 79):

Weakness: By clan law, all neonate Tremere must drink the blood of the clan’s seven elders when they are created. All Tremere are a least one step toward being blood bound to their elders, and therefore usually act with great clan loyalty — in order to avoid having such loyalty forced on them. What’s more, this arrangement means that Tremere are hard-pressed to resist the will of their elders; the difficulty of any Dominate attempt from a clan superior is one less.

With the added shorthand on the character sheet: "One Step Toward Clan Blood Bond".

Unlike the normal blood bond, this one exists to centralize focus and loyalty to Clan Tremere rather than to a singular figure. Any superior can exploit it, not just the seven on the council.

The V20 edition weakness is as follows:

Weaknesses: Tremere dependency on blood is even more pronounced than that of other Kindred. It takes only two draughts of another vampire’s blood for a Tremere to become blood bound instead of the normal three — the first drink counts as if the Tremere had taken two drinks. The elders of the Clan are well aware of this, and seek to impart loyalty to the Clan by forcing all neonate Warlocks to drink of the (transubstantiated) blood of the seven Tremere elders soon after their Embrace. 

Again, the idea here is that this bond's emotional focus is still the clan on the whole. 

Breaking blood bonds and clan ties is a big deal in Vampire. It drove the Anarchs to develop rituals to try and wither such bonds. It drove the Sabbat to create the Vaulderie. Both are means of getting around the agonizing (and near impossible to escape when actively enforced) grip of a full blood bond between thrall and regnant. Another extreme alternative is to let another fully bond you, trading one master for another (only a foolish neonate would think the grass is greener).

If breaking blood bonds were easy, it wouldn’t be a big deal in the setting. If the so-called weakness of the Tremere was just another blood bond that could be wiped away or weened with time, it wouldn’t be a big deal. The Vaulderie is notable because the Viniculi is creates it doesn’t fade. A one hundred year old Vinculum is still as potent as the night it arose. It is not so easily erased. In my opinion, it stands to reason that the ritual created by the elders of a global organization of blood mages that emphasizes hegemony and loyalty would ensure that their mandatory-on-pain-of-final-death ritual that bonds a neonate to the Council of Seven is similarly potent.

(There actually is an extremely potent level 7 ritual that might exist to shatter the Vinculi in the Revised edition but that is Sabbat Inquisitor or Camarilla Justicar shit. Effectively a non-factor for normal consideration.)

V20 notes that the ritual Abandon the Fetters, while effective against Blood Bonds, is not able to affect Vinculi or the Transubstantiation of the Seven ritual that binds the Tremere. In Revised, it is noted in the Flaw “Bound to the Council", however, that one could get out of this by using the Vaulderie, accepting another blood bond, or using Abandon the Fetters so there is a notable difference here. The absence of fading with time here is notable in my opinion!

To me this indicates that it is truly a potent ritual. And even if Revised doesn’t have the note that it can’t break the Transubstantiation of the Seven ritual, the requirement of procuring the blood of the Council of Seven to enable an attempt basically makes it all but impossible from the start (or at the very least quite the chronicle hook). In the meta-plot, Carna’s (implied) use of the The Book of the Grave-War to end her enslavement to the Pyramid without the Vaulderie and without trading one master for another is a notable thing that could not be replicated by going about usual methods of erasing a blood bond.

In V20, the idea is that all Tremere who partake in their initiation ritual are two steps bound. This is a nice way to subsume the Revised era bonus to Dominate from elders.

At this point, some operating notes become clear here for Revised and V20:

• The bond created by The Transubstantiation of the Seven doesn’t fade with time.
• In Revised, this is why it is assumed that all proper Tremere are one step bound to their elders.
• In V20, this means that all proper Tremere are at least two steps bound to their elders.

A fun quote from the Revised era Guide to the Camarilla to go along with this:

“[the ritual] keeps [neonates] in line thereafter for fear of having the full bond enforced, while troublemakers are that much easier to Dominate or bond fully. Woe betide a Tremere who gets himself blood bound to someone outside the clan and is discovered, for doing so they have destroyed their elder’s most effective leverage on them. If the error is uncovered, the bound Tremere can expect an unpleasant time, and the vampire they are bound to will probably be marked for death.”

So to re-calibrate my thoughts here:

• In Revised and V20, the Tremere weakness can remain as is.
• The bond created by The Transubstantiation of the Seven doesn’t fade with time.
• This blood bond (both partial and full) elicits this dedication to the elders and their chosen representatives aka your clan superiors.
• In Revised this is one step bond, while in V20 it is a two step bond.
• A full blond bond, wiping out all other bonds, can negate this ritual’s partial bond and is therefore grounds for censure by the clan.
• Abandon the Fetters is basically useless in both editions (being completely ineffective in V20 and having practically unattainable requirements to even try in Revised).
• The Vaulderie is able to negate this bond and was the primary means by which the Tremere antitribu defected. Obviously grounds for being marked for final death by the clan.