The Blood

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Generation

All vampires gain their unholy prowess from the Blood, but not all Blood is equal. The closer a vampire is to their mythic progenitor Caine, the greater the potential of their vitae. Vampires talk of generation, with Caine (and perhaps Lilith) as the mythic progenitor of the First Generation. Following a vampire’s Embrace, they rise from death one generation higher – one generation weaker – than their sire. Thus the Antediluvians, childer of childer of Caine, comprise the Third Generation, their childer becoming the Fourth Generation. A vampire’s Embrace sets their generation. Only through the forbidden act of diablerie, by consuming the Blood and very spirit of another vampire, can it be changed.

A vampire’s generation does not necessarily indicate their age. An elder might have sired a vampire of the 10th Generation when Columbus sailed; a methuselah could have begotten a vampire of the Sixth Generation last year.

Caine and the Second Generation: Myths
The first vampires remain almost entirely the province of legend and theological speculation. Perhaps most vampires who believe in this myth identify Caine with the Cain of the Bible, but anything might have happened under the cover of the first nights.

Third Generation: Antediluvians
The founders of the 13 vampire clans, the Antediluvians, somehow brought about the biblical flood – or were its target. Their bloodlines continue to shape the Kindred to this night, even as the plots they set into motion millennia ago still drive the endless Jyhad of vampire-kind. For the last thousand years, many Kindred assumed the Antediluvians were asleep; only a few believed they continued their struggle in subterfuge, conspiracy, and guile deep behind the scenes even of secret history. The Camarilla insisted the Antediluvians were long-dead, or even mythical, until the Sabbat forced their hand. The Sabbat at least seeks to end the Jyhad. The Sword of Caine declared war on the Antediluvians in the name of the frst vampire, unleashing Gehenna and slowly rousing the Third Generation from their torpid retreat in primordial labyrinths and passage-tombs. The Antediluvians now call their descendants to their defense, sounding a clamor in the Blood that younger vampires term the Beckoning.

Fourth and Fifth Generations: Methuselahs
Nearly as powerful as the Antediluvians, the methuselahs withdrew from the Jyhad in its earliest millennia – their power made them favored tools and chosen targets. Many methuselahs remain asleep beneath older human cities, tended by devoted cults or forgotten entirely. Others become Inconnu, withdrawing completely from vampire society and from the Jyhad.

Sixth through Ninth Generations: Elders
Mostly Embraced before the modern age, vampires of these generations long-held the ruling places in both the Camarilla and the Anarch Movement, continuing squabbles old when the Renaissance began. The Beckoning calls them from their towers and nests, toward the front lines of the Gehenna War. A few elders hold out or claim not to hear the call of their Blood, gripping their cities ever-tighter. Ironically, after centuries of condescension, the Ninth Generation finds itself accounted true elders: they, too, hear the Beckoning.

10th and 11th Generations: Ancillae
Typically, older ancillae eventually convince the hierarchy to include them, or they anger the hierarchy into eliminating them. Between this winnowing effect and the boom in global population, most vampires of these generations can mark less than 250 years of age. Long-excluded from elder status, thus acting as intermediaries between court and street, ancillae have nevertheless cut their teeth (so to speak) in the World of Darkness. The lowest-generation player characters in this game book come from the ranks of the ancillae.

12th and 13th Generations: Neonates
Even more than the generations just below them, the 12th and 13th Generations dwindled slowly for centuries before exploding in modern nights. Most members of these generations have relatively little experience of the curse of vampirism, but slightly more understanding of technological and social change. Stodgy Camarilla elders blame the renewed Anarch Revolt on the influx of these generation.

14th through 16th Generations: Thin-bloods
Many Kindred scholars look with fear on the flood of these generations, so far from Caine that both curse and gifts weaken into nothingness. The Book of Nod speaks of the “Time of Thin Blood” as precursor to Gehenna, the rising of the Antediluvians, and the end of vampire-kind.