50 Fun Facts About Vampire: the Masquerade

Which biblical figure did a comic book inspire the designer to make the first vampire in Vampire: The Masquerade?

Cain, spelled Caine in the game, is said to have been cursed with vampirism for murdering his brother. The designer called the idea a big turning point that made him lean into religious themes.

Which bestselling vampire novelist did the creator of Vampire: The Masquerade avoid reading until late in development?

Anne Rice probably shaped the game anyway, he admitted, through the vampire films she had influenced. He wanted to go beyond her books and build a whole secret vampire society and culture.

Which Valve shooter did a contract forbid Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines from being released ahead of?

Half-Life 2 had to come out first, so the two went on sale in the same month. The vampire game sold fewer than 80,000 copies in that first release.

Which Vampire: The Masquerade clan's members all become hideous monsters when turned and must dwell in the shadows?

Nosferatu turn their exile into a trade: the clan's stealth lets its members learn and sell the secrets that others would rather keep hidden.

Which studio, founded by developers of the original Fallout, made Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines?

Troika Games took its name from a Russian word for three of a kind. Bloodlines was its last release: unable to fund another project, the studio closed in February 2005.

Which designer created the Vampire: The Masquerade card game for Wizards of the Coast, first sold as Jyhad?

Richard Garfield made it his follow-up to Magic: The Gathering and set out to show how different a card game could be, dropping resource cards and writing rules for three or more players.

Which famous producer made Kindred: The Embraced, the short-lived Fox series based on Vampire: The Masquerade?

Aaron Spelling, the producer behind Dynasty and Beverly Hills, 90210, saw his vampire drama cancelled within weeks of its 1996 debut. The game's own creator wrote for it and was unhappy with the result.

In Vampire: The Masquerade, what does a wooden stake through the heart do to a vampire, contrary to folklore?

A stake immobilizes them only until it is pulled out. Fire, sunlight and decapitation are what bring a vampire to Final Death.

Which voice actor, known as Bender in Futurama, plays Smiling Jack in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines?

John DiMaggio's Smiling Jack was not invented for the video game: the Anarch already existed in the tabletop books, and several endings show him watching the finale from afar.

What rests on green marble on the simple cover that made the Vampire: The Masquerade rulebook visually striking?

A red rose in a plain photograph set the tone for a game that favoured plots, intrigue and character over straightforward dungeon scenarios.

Which game designer, co-creator of Ars Magica, came up with Vampire: The Masquerade on a road trip to Gen Con?

Mark Rein-Hagen thought hunting vampires would grow dull as a premise, so he let players be the vampires instead. His new company published the game the following year.

Which publisher of Vampire: The Masquerade took its name from the works of fantasy author Michael Moorcock?

White Wolf began as a magazine in Rocky Face, Georgia, in 1986. It became a game company in 1991 by merging with Lion Rampant, the small studio behind Ars Magica.

What name is given to the gloomy shared setting that Vampire: The Masquerade launched for a family of monster games?

World of Darkness grew by a game a year: werewolves in 1992, mages in 1993, wraiths in 1994 and changelings in 1995, all set in the same shadowy version of the present day.

Which dice replaced the standard cubes when Vampire: The Masquerade borrowed its dice pools from Shadowrun?

Ten-sided dice are rolled in handfuls, and players count how many meet a target number instead of adding them up. Skills are tracked as dots, usually one to five.

What title does Vampire: The Masquerade give the game leader who sets each roll's difficulty, usually at six?

Storyteller is also the name of the rules themselves, the Storyteller System, chosen because play is meant to be shared narrative and not a contest against the game leader.

What title is held by the vampire who rules a Camarilla city and enforces the Masquerade there?

A Prince may use any means to keep vampire society hidden, and the punishment for a serious breach is often Final Death at the end of a ritualized Blood Hunt.

Which sect, built around the Lasombra and Tzimisce clans, is the Camarilla's great rival in Vampire: The Masquerade?

The Sabbat take the old origin myths literally and see themselves as defenders against the ancient clan founders, while the Camarilla waves the same myths away as metaphor.

Which Vampire: The Masquerade clan is made up of lunatics whose madness grants them strange insights and oracular gifts?

Malkavian vampires are respected for those visions, and they seem to be linked by a hive-mind that the clan calls the Malkavian Madness Network.

Which aristocratic Vampire: The Masquerade clan is made up of picky eaters who can feed from only one kind of victim?

Ventrue tastes are oddly narrow: one may drink only from virgins, another only from blondes or youngest siblings. The clan traditionally plays the kings of vampire society.

Which Vampire: The Masquerade clan descends from mortal mages who stole immortality by experimenting with vampire blood?

Tremere warlocks sealed their place among the clans when their founder devoured the ancient founder of the Salubri. They are known for blood magic and, for most of the game's history, a rigid hierarchy.

What do the vampires of Vampire: The Masquerade call the feral side of their soul, driven by rage, hunger and fear?

The Beast can seize control when a vampire is provoked by anger, mortal danger or starvation, throwing them into a violent frenzy they would never otherwise choose.

Which Vampire: The Masquerade score falls when a vampire commits cruel acts, leaving a barely sentient wight at zero?

Humanity sits close to the game's central theme, and in Bloodlines a low score makes the player's dialogue more aggressive and a killing spree more likely.

In Vampire: The Masquerade, what is the vampire who turns a human called, with the newcomer known as their childe?

A sire drains the victim to the point of death and then feeds them a little vampire blood. In Camarilla cities the act is tightly controlled, and Bloodlines opens with one executed for it.

What name does Vampire: The Masquerade give a mortal servant who is addicted to and empowered by vampire blood?

A ghoul can be a useful ally: Bloodlines lets the player recruit one, Heather, as a servant who hands over gifts, money and her own blood.

What do the vampires of Vampire: The Masquerade call the humans they fear would rise up and exterminate them?

Kine is an archaic plural of cow, which says plenty about how vampires see mortals. Fear of the herd turning on them is the whole reason for the Masquerade.

What does Vampire: The Masquerade call the prophesied end of all vampires, when their progenitor returns as judge?

Gehenna was eventually played out: in 2004 the publisher closed the original game line with Time of Judgment, a set of books that ended its long-running story.

Which in-game document of dubious reliability collects the origin myths of the vampires of Vampire: The Masquerade?

The Book of Nod gives its name to Noddists, the scholars who study vampire origins. It was also sold as a real supplement, later packaged with the TV adaptation on DVD.

What name is given to the thirteen legendary vampires said to have founded the clans of Vampire: The Masquerade?

Antediluvians means those who lived before the Flood. Legend says they turned on and killed the elders who made them, and were cursed with each clan's weakness as punishment.

Which Vampire: The Masquerade trait counts the steps of descent from the first vampire and so limits power?

Generation works backwards: the lower the number, the mightier the vampire, and a newly made childe always sits one step further from the founder than its maker.

Which engine did Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines license for its facial animation, as the first outside team?

Source was unfinished when work began, so the team wrestled with unfamiliar code, and the licence barred the vampire game from being shown before the engine's own flagship shooter.

Which seaside district is the first hub of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, where the player destroys a warehouse?

Santa Monica is only the start: finishing the job there opens downtown Los Angeles, and Hollywood and Chinatown follow as hubs the player can roam freely.

Which ruler of Los Angeles has the player's maker executed at the start of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines?

Sebastian LaCroix then hires the newcomer he has just orphaned, and his hunger for an ancient relic drives the plot until it kills him in most of the endings.

What is inside the long-sought sarcophagus of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines when the city's ruler opens it?

Explosives go off as the lid opens, while Smiling Jack looks on from a distance beside the mummy that had been taken out of the coffin.

Which character looks back at the viewer on the cover art of Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines?

Jeanette Voerman is one of the game's dissociative sisters, and behind her on the cover a figure casts a shadow shaped like the ankh-like symbol of the Camarilla.

Which haunted location in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines did GameSpy name its Level of the Year?

Ocean House Hotel was praised by PC Gamer as a high point of unexpected horror, on a par with the Shalebridge Cradle level in Thief: Deadly Shadows.

In which city, hit by a historic snowstorm, does Phyre awaken in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2?

Seattle and its Christmas-time snow were kept even after the troubled project was handed to a new studio and rebuilt with a revised story.

Which studio took over Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 from Hardsuit Labs and finally released the game?

The Chinese Room, the studio that began with the cult hit Dear Esther, took the job in 2021 after years of delays and rebuilt the role-playing systems and the story.

What is Christof Romuald, hero of Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, before he is turned in medieval times?

A crusader wounded in battle, Christof falls for the nun who nurses him, and his quest to save her runs from 12th-century Prague to modern New York.

Which European capital was the rooftop battleground of the battle royale Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodhunt?

Prague hosted up to 45 vampires a match, who had to hide their nature from the city's humans while they fought. The free-to-play game closed in April 2026, four years after launch.

Which Vampire: The Masquerade discipline do the Brujah, Toreador and Banu Haqim all share as a clan gift?

Celerity grants unnatural quickness and supernatural reflexes. In the fifth edition a vampire outside those three clans must taste the blood of someone who already has it before learning it.

Which Vampire: The Masquerade discipline is the art of going unseen, even in the middle of a crowd?

Obfuscate works either by hiding the user completely or by letting them blend in, and its power Vanish can only be learned once Cloak of Shadows has been mastered.

What crime does a vampire commit in Vampire: The Masquerade by consuming the soul of a more powerful elder?

Diablerie is the one shortcut to more potent blood, which is why most vampires treat it as a crime. Two clan founders are said to have won their rank that way.

What does Vampire: The Masquerade call the Camarilla's gathering places, where weapons and vampiric powers are barred?

Elysium is overseen by an official called the Keeper, and Bloodlines enforces the rule by switching off the player's weapons and vampiric powers.

Which Italian city produced the merchant family that became Vampire: The Masquerade's necromancer clan Giovanni?

Venice's Giovanni were mortals whose patriarch seized an older, more scholarly clan, the Cappadocians. Unlike other vampires, their bite causes excruciating pain.

Which legendary first city, destroyed by the Great Flood, did the original vampire rule in Vampire: The Masquerade lore?

Enoch was a place of peace until the Flood. Afterwards its ruler vanished, and his grandchildren turned on the elders who had made them.

Which ancient city recalls the age when the Brujah of Vampire: The Masquerade were noble philosophers and warrior-poets?

Carthage is the clan's lost golden age. In the game's telling the Brujah have since declined into rebels and rogues, with a fierce passion that makes the monster within harder to resist.

What new name did the Followers of Set take in Vampire: The Masquerade's fifth edition, on allying with the Anarchs?

The Ministry stopped worshipping the Egyptian god as a literal ancestor and turned to a metaphorical Set within. The Camarilla had refused the clan admission.

Which Camarilla officials in Vampire: The Masquerade serve 13-year terms and speak as the voice of the Inner Circle?

Justicars decide matters of war and law and can commandeer any of the sect's resources or members. Each hand-picks agents called Archons to enforce the rules.

Which nickname for a faction supplement arose from the clanbooks of Vampire: The Masquerade and its sister games?

Splatbook comes from the asterisk, also known as a splat: fans typed it as a wildcard to cover the publisher's clanbooks, tribebooks and traditionbooks in one word.

Which Vampire: The Masquerade discipline allows mind control through eye contact and can alter a victim's memories?

Dominate is a clan gift for six clans in the fifth edition, the Lasombra, Salubri and Tzimisce among them, which makes it the most widely inherited power in the game.