Vampire Life Path

by Zyrryn

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Vampire
Life Paths

Disclaimer

This is me telling you that this is a fan project. I don't possess the rights to create any official material. VtM Life Paths is a fan creation made and shared for free. Under no circumstances should you be paying money for this.


World of Darkness, Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Dark Ages, Victorian Age: Vampire, Werewolf: The Apocalypse, Werewolf: The Wild West, Mage: The Ascension, Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade, Wraith: The Oblivion, Wraith: The Great War, Changeling: The Dreaming, Hunter: The Reckoning, Demon: The Fallen, Mummy: The Resurrection, Orpheus, Exalted, Chronicles of Darkness, Vampire:The Requiem, Werewolf: The Forsaken, Mage: The Awakening, Changeling: The Lost, Hunter: The Vigil, Giest: The Sin Eaters, Demon: The Descent, Mummy: The Curse, Beast: The Primordial, Promethean: The Created, White Wolf, Storyteller System™, Storytelling System™, and Storytellers Vault™ and their respective logos, icons and symbols are trademarks or registered trademarks of White Wolf Entertainment AB. All rights reserved. ©2018 White Wolf Entertainment AB, Västgötagatan 5, SE-118 27 Stockholm, Sweden.


Credits

Conversion, Writing, & Additions: Zachary Greer
People are People Font: (C) 2003 by pat-design.net & raphmode.net

Mature Content Warning

Both the World of Darkness and Chronicles of Darkness are gamelines that have dealt with dark themes and the horrors we too frequently find within our own world. Presenting such things in a game is not saying it's right, okay, or the way things should be. It is merely a presentation to be learned from and a point of fiction for developing story.
Under no circumstances should you make excuses to use such themes to make players uncomfortable. As with every tabletop role-playing game, you should hold a meeting with everyone who is playing and discuss limits and expectations. As an example, if a player is not comfortable with sexual assault as a theme being at the table at all, you DO NOT bring it up.
We play tabletop role-playing games to create characters, stories, and experiences. However, the most important caveat to all of this is that everyone has fun. There is never an excuse for ruining others fun, making it all about you, and being a terrible person. This game may be about being a monster, but that starts and stops with the game. It's not an excuse to treat people poorly.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section Page
What & Why is This 4
Mortal Life 5
Parentage 5
Orphan Life 6
Career 6
Siblings 7
Academia 8
Life Events 9
Romance 11
Embrace 12
Clans 12
Caitiff 13
Vampire Life Path 14

What is this?

First and foremost, Vampire the Masquerade is a tabletop role-playing game. If this is new information to you, perhaps you should instead begin by reading Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition. With that out of the way, there are many ways to go about creating characters and the backstories that make them who they are. This guide is meant to be an addon to use with V20 to apply depth to characters. As usual, check with your Storyteller to see what supplements, books, and homebrew rules are allowed before using any mechanically beneficial items in this supplement.
In this supplement I'll provide you the tables, charts, and rolling systems for fleshing out a backstory for your character that covers the years they've lived. Hence, this system is called Life Path (or Lifepath) generation.


Why is this?

Vampire has always struck me as a system and setting that could benefit from a lifepath system. Often times players may struggle to think up interest relationships, backgrounds, friends, family, and so on. With lifepath systems, a lot of the weight is taken off the player in this regard. Rolling can allow for quick generation, the charts and results can spark the imagination with ideas, and to whatever extent it's used this supplement will have players feeling better with a more fleshed out character.

System

This lifepath generator is designed with Vampire the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition in mind. That said, with light tweaking or ignoring of certain parts, this generator could apply to other editions such as 5th.


It is recommended that if you'll be making use of this supplement that you should go through it first before mechanically building your character as your results may determine where you'd like to place attributes, skills, or specializations. There are also tables that you could use to decide clans, disciplines, and other such things. The system will begin with your mortal life, and then will transition to the vampire specific charts when appropriate. Have a d100 ready as all the charts will make use of it. If you don't have a d100 or percentile dice, grab 2d10 and mark one as the tens place.


Take care to understand that this supplement is not meant to completely fill a backstory for you. It gives you a series of snapshots, hooks, and connections to work with. You should be piecing these things together to create a cohesive, detailed backstory.

Mortal Life

Let's start with the basics. You weren't always a vampire. You lived before your embrace. Whatever form life took, it was life. You had experiences, memories, and others around you. So let's figure out these parts of the puzzle.

Take a moment and consider at what age you were embraced and became a fiend of the night. Keep that magic number in your mind as we'll come back to it. Now, a lot about your character's parents can shape who they are, so let's start with that.


Parentage

PARENTAGE Description D100
Single Adoptive Father You have an adoptive father who's single. 1-5
Single Adoptive Mother You have an adoptive mother who's single. 6-10
Adoptive Parents You were adopted by a couple. 11-15
Single Father Your mother is out of the picture. 16-20
Single Mother Your father is out of the picture. 21-30
Both Parents You have a traditional family unit. 31-70
Divorced Parents Your parents are seperated, but both are participants in your life. 71-90
Extended Family You were raised by other family members. (See Alternate Parentage chart) 91-95
Orphan You were given up and aged out before you could be adopted. (See Orphan Life chart) 96-100

ALTERNATE PARENTAGE D100
Grandmother 1-10
Grandfather 11-15
Grandparents 16-30
Aunt 31-40
Uncle 41-50
Brother 51-75
Sister 76-100
ORPHAN LIFE Description D100
Rough Your orphange was unclean and fed you poorly leaving you sickly and unwanted. Roll again. If you get less than 51, you lose a point of Stamina. 51 or greater you gain a point of Stamina. 1-14
Unremarkable You were serially passed over by potential adopters. You reduce the XP costs of buying and raising Obfuscate by 2 points. 15-28
Troubled You were a nightmare to behold as you terrorized everyone around you. You gain a dot of Intimidation. 29-42
Revolving You were adopted and surrendered time and time again. You gain a dot of Insight. 43-56
Psychological Abandonment left its emotional trauma, or you were always like this. Pick a Derangement (pg. 290). You reduce the XP costs of buying and raising Dementation by 2 points. 57-65
Outcast You couldn't stand it inside. You regularly ran away and lived on the streets, but always got dragged back. You gain a dot of Streetwise. 66-75
Drifter You moved from orphange to orphange for one reason or another, leaving you a bit numb to new things. You gain a dot of Courage. 75-100

Parent career

Your parent's career can affect your life in a lot of ways. Let's take a look and see what your parents did. Roll on the chart below for each parent figure in your family unit. As an example, if you were raised by your Aunt and her husband, you'd role twice. Orphans do not roll on this chart. Use this chart to infer things like your character's social class growing up, potentially knowledges they may have, or their opinions/passions.

CAREER Description D100
Agriculture Anything involving plants or food. 1-7
Architecture Anything involving building, designing, or repairing buildings. 8-14
Arts A catchall for anything in any sort of entertainment. 15-21
Business For business owners, investors, retail workers, and so on. 22-28
Crime Jobless and does all kinds of illegal things to get by. 29-35
Education Teachers, professors, or school administrators. 36-42
Government Be it a position of some note or just another bureaucrat on either local, state, or national level. 43-49
Health Doctors, nurses, dentists, and other such positions. 50-56
Information Technology Programmers, repair technicians, and really anything around computers. 57-63
Law Police, security workers, private investigators, and so on. 64-70
Marketing Anyone who specializes in any kind of advertising. 71-77
Military Any branch and any position. 78-84
Organized Crime They have a "legitimate" job. Crooked cops, mob bosses, cleaners, and more. 85-91
Science Any egghead professors or those who actually call their job site a lab. 92-98
Unemployed They don't have a job, but aren't doing crime. 99-100

Siblings

Let's find out how many siblings you have, what they do, and what kind of relationship you have with them. Using the charts in the section to figure out these details.
On the gender table, if you role an Other result, you can roll again on the chart ignoring Other results two more times to determine if your sibling is MtF or FtM. Otherwise, be creative and come up with something. If for some reason you wish to avoid that topic all together, just treat the roll as a Female result.
After the Gender chart, refer back to the Career chart to determine what field each sibling is in.
Roll on the Sibling Relationship chart once per sibling.

SIBLINGS D100
0 1-25
1 26-50
2 51-70
3 71-80
4 81-90
5+ 91-100
GENDER D100
Male 1-45
Female 46-90
Other 91-100

SIBLING RELATIONSHIP Description D100
Cut Off Either by seperation through the adoption system or by a falling out, you're completely removed from this sibling's life. 1-9
Strained You struggle to get along with your sibling and have a messy history with them. They never call and barely talk to you at family parties. 10-29
Distant There isn't really any issues, but rather a sense of indifference between the two of you. You probably still care about one another, but there's no driving force to maintain a connection. 30-50
Connected You stay in touch. You don't talk all the time, but you probably chat every couple days or weeks. 51-70
Close You can just about tell anything to your sibling. They are your confidant and best friend. 71-80
Intimate You often wonder if there can be anyone in the world who could know you better. You both are always there for one another no matter what. 81-98
Incestuous Purely Optional and can be subbed for Intimate. [Why is this here? Because Giovanni. And WoD.] 99-100

Academia

Everyone has gone to school for some amount at some time. First roll on the High School table, then roll for the College table. Before you roll on the College table, choose a category from the Career table for which any benefits may apply towards.

You may roll twice for the College table, gaining the benefits of both rolls, and choosing a different Career for each. At ST discretion, Resource dots may apply a bonus on your College rolls. Not going to college can net you benefits (and drawbacks) in Life Events.


School Tables

HIGH SCHOOL Description D100
Dropped Out For one reason or another, you jumped ship, going straight into the greater world. Double the XP costs for raising Knowledge Abilities. You cannot roll on the College table. Instead, roll on the Dropout Table. 1-10
Got Your GED You struggled through school and eeked your way into a GED. The first time you roll on the College table you have a -10 modifier to your roll. 11-20
Graduated You either struggled or were average in your overall performance. 21-60
Honors Student You did well in advanced courses in school. You get a +10 modifier to your first roll on the College table. 61-90
Valedictorian You were the best in your school. You get +1 Intelligence and you half the XP costs for raising Knowledge Abilities. You also get +20 on your first College roll. 91-100

COLLEGE Description D100
Community College You gain two dots to assign to Knowledge abilities that could be relevant to your chosen Career. 1-20
Trade School You gain two dots to assign to Knowledges or Physical abilities that could be relevant to your chosen Career. 21-35
Sports Scholarship You gain six dots to assign to Physical or Social abilities that could be relevant to your chosen Career. 36-40
State College You gain four dots to assign to Knowledge abilities that could be relevant to your chosen Career. 41-80
University You gain six dots to assign to Knowledges or Social abilities that could be relevant to your chosen Career. 81-95
Ivy League School You gain eight dots to assign to Knowledges or Social abilities that could be relevant to your chosen career. 96-100
DROPOUT Description D100
Unemployed You've not been able to get work since dropping out. 1-10
Crime You've been doing petty crime to get by. You gain 1 dot of Streetwise. 11-20
Blue Collar You've found some typical manual labor type work to pay your bills. Your Stamina increases by 1. 21-90
Organized Crime You've got a "job" with a group of professionals. You gain 3 dots to spend on abilities that apply to this job. 91-100

Life Events

Shit happens. Then you die. If only they knew that was only the half of it. Congrats. You're on the other side of school. Remember that magic number I told you to hold onto? This is where it comes into play. At age 18 you've exited High School. Note: Those who rolled Dropout start at 16 instead of 18. We'll treat each roll on the College table as 4 years. So what you're going to do is for each year you've spent in college, you'll roll on the Life Event table once.

For every year spent not in college, you'll roll twice on the Life Event table. You're going to do these rolls for every year up until you reach the age that you died.
For example, Jake graduated high school at 18, went to college once, and has been playing ball up until his embrace at age 26. So Jake would roll a total of 12 times on the Life Event table. 4 times from his college years, and 8 times from the years after college until he reached 26.

Life Event Tables

LIFE EVENT Description D100
Get Lucky Something beneficial comes your way. Roll on the Got Lucky table. 1-15
Disaster Strikes Something bad happens. Roll on the Disaster table. 16-30
Make A Friend You gain a Contact. Roll on the Contact table for how you met. 31-45
Romantic Involvement You gain a lover. See the Romance section. 46-60
Nothing Happens Things progress as normal. 61-80
Brush with Darkness Roll on the Glimpses table. 81-100

GOT LUCKY Description D100
Windfall You gain 1 dot of Resources 1-5
Find Instructor You gain 1 dot in a physical ability. 6-30
Find Teacher You gain 1 dot in a mental ability. 31-55
Find Coach You gain 1 dot in a social ability. 56-80
Learn A New Language You gain 1 free Language Merit. 81-90
Community Service You gain 1 point of Conscience. 91-95
Breakthrough You gain 1 point of Self-Control. 96-100

DISASTER Description D100
Debt You lose 1 dot of Resources. This cannot reduce you below 0. 1-5
Addiction You lose 1 dot of Self-Control. This cannot reduce you below 0. 6-15
Caught Breaking the Law You lose 1 dot of Conscience. This cannot reduce you below 0. 16-40
Injury You lose 1 dot in a physical ability [Must be a skill you have dots in if any]. This cannot reduce you below 0. 41-85
Death A family member or lover dies. Choose which randomly. See the Death Chart. 86-95
Unplanned Pregnancy With a lover or otherwise, someone is knocked up. [Optional] 96-100
CONTACT Description D100
Co-Worker You met through a mutual workplace. 1-20
Childhood Friend The two of you grew up knowing one another. 21-36
Lifesaver You met through happenstance that involved one of you saving the other. 37-52
Schoolmates You met through school and have been friends since. 53-68
Did A Favor One of you did a favor for the other and you've stayed in touch. 69-84
Friend of a Friend You were introduced through a mutual contact. 85-100

DEATH Description D100
Planned Somebody wanted them dead. Of course, you don't know who, and the cops either can't or won't find anything. 1-5
Unplanned Either a crime a passion or the wrong place at the wrong time, they got killed as an innocent bystander. 6-20
Illness They were sick or got sick be it cancer, pneumonia, or whatever else and it caught up to them. 21-50
Accident In some car accident, natural disaster, or whatever else they didn't make it through. 41-80
Age Their body just couldn't keep up anymore. 81-90
Suicide They took themselves out. Or maybe it was made to look like that... 91-100

GLIMPSES Description D100
Visitation You've been visited by a ghastly spirit. Few believe you. You gain 1 dot of Awareness. 1-20
Enamored You were seduced by a vampire, but were unaware of their nature. See Romance and roll for a lover. 21-36
Animal Attack You were a survivor of a wild animal attack. You hardly remember the encounter aside from a massive beast. The fear still haunts you when you think of it. Increase the difficulty of Frenzy when near lupines by 2. You gain 1 dot of Survival. 37-52
Cult You've joined a moderately sized cult with a charsimatic personality at its lead. You gain 1 dot of Occult. 53-68
Artifact You've come to possess a strange item that seemed to do unexplained things. You gain a 1 dot Artifact. 69-84
Sorcerer You've met someone who's claimed to work mystical arts. You gain 1 dot of Occult. 85-100

Romance

It's bound to happen to everyone at some point, save for those few of course. Be sure to follow through on all these tables as needed for each separate romantic interest.

You'll start with the How'd You Meet table, then you'll roll on the How'd It Work table. Some results may require you to roll on the Tragic Affair or Love with Problems table. After that, you roll on the Mutual Feelings table.


Lover Tables

HOW'D YOU MEET D100
Co-Worker 1-8
Contact 9-16
Old Lover 17-24
Childhood Friend 25-32
Through Common Interest 33-40
Saved Their Life 41-48
Saved Your Life 49-56
Common Friend 57-64
At a Party 65-72
Blind Date 73-80
Schoolmates 81-88
In Passing 89-100
HOW'D IT WORK D100
Happy Love Affair 1-40
Tragic Love Affair (Roll on Tragic Love) 41-50
Affair with Problems (Roll on Love with Problems) 51-70
Fast Affairs and Hot Dates 71-100
MUTUAL FEELINGS D100
They Still Love You 1-10
You Still Love Them 11-20
You Still Love Each Other 21-30
You Hate Them 31-40
They Hate You 41-50
You Hate Each Other 51-60
You’re Friends 61-70
No Feelings Either Way 71-80
You Like Them, They Hate You 81-90
They Like You, You Hate Them 91-100
TRAGIC LOVE D100
It Didn't Work Out 1-16
Lover Left a Note and Left You 17-28
Lover Died (Roll on Death table) 29-40
Lover Vanished 41-52
A Personal Goal Came Between You 53-64
Lover Went Insane 65-76
Lover Left You For a Contact 77-88
Lover Was Leading You On 89-95
Lover Stole Your Money and Split (Lose 1 dot of Resources) 96-100
LOVE WITH PROBLEMS D100
Lover's Family Hates You 1-8
Lover’s Friends Hate You 9-16
Your Family Hates Your Lover 17-24
Lover Wants To See Other People 25-32
You Want To See Other People 33-40
You Are Separated 41-46
You Fight Constantly 47-52
Your Lover Is “Messing Around” 53-58
You Are “Messing Around” 59-64
One Of You Is Insanely Jealous 65-70
Lover’s Ex-Lover Wants You Dead 71-76
Lover Has A Chemical Dependency 77-82
Lover Is In A Coma 83-88
Lover Is Married 89-94
Lover Has a Kid 95-100

The Embrace

Night is now your ally. The blood is your new heroin. Of course, we should figure just what exactly happened.


EMBRACE Description D100
Left for Dead Your sire embraced you and immediately abandoned you. 1-35
Chosen Your sire wanted you specifically. Permission was granted and now they are mentoring you. 36-70
Shovelheaded You were embraced as Sabbat cannon fodder. It's a miracle you learned what you were, let alone survived. 71-80
Sired Without Consent Your sire didn't get permission and now they're dead, leaving you on your own. 81-100

Clans & Bloodlines

You should first establish what type of Chronicle your ST is wanting to run. Sabbat chronicles will have different standard clans than Camarilla chronicles. A variety of charts will be available to based on these choices. However, these charts should be ignored if you already know what clan you'd like to play. Other and Bloodline slots on tables are free spaces to let you pick whatever with ST approval. Antitribu slots represent slots for Clans that specifically align with the opposite faction. For example, a Camarilla Tzimisce would be Antitribu.


MASTER CLAN LIST D100
Assamite 1-6
Brujah 7-14
Gangrel 15-22
Giovanni 23-28
Lasombra 27-34
Malkavian 35-42
Followers of Set 43-48
Nosferatu 49-56
Ravnos 57-62
Toreador 63-70
Tremere 71-78
Tzimisce 79-84
Ventrue 85-92
Caitiff 93-98
Bloodlines 99-100
CAMARILLA CLANS D100
Ventrue 1-10
Torreador 11-20
Tremere 21-30
Nosferatu 31-40
Malkavian 41-50
Brujah 51-60
Gangrel 61-70
Caitiff 71-85
Antitribu 85-93
Other 94-100
SABBAT CLANS D100
Tzimsice 1-20
Lasombra 21-40
Caitiff 41-50
Antitribu 51-90
Other 91-100
ANARCH CLANS D100
Brujah 1-25
Gangrel 26-50
Caitiff 51-70
Other 71-100

Caitiff Disciplines

If you've rolled or chosen Caitiff as your choice of clan/bloodline, you can now either choose your disciplines, or roll for them. Check with your ST on which powers you may choose or which table you can roll on. Some STs may wish to keep it so that Caitiff cannot begin with unique disciplines while others may allow it.

FULL DISCIPLINE LIST D100
Animalism 1-4
Auspex 5-8
Bardo 9-11
Celerity 12-15
Chimerstry 16-18
Daimonion 19-21
Dementation 22-24
Dominate 25-28
Flight 29-31
Fortitude 32-35
Melpominee 36-38
Mytherceria 39-41
Obeah 42-44
Obfuscate 45-48
Obtenebration 49-51
Potence 52-55
Presence 56-59
Protean 60-70
Quietus 71-73
Serpentis 74-76
Spiritus 77-79
Temporis 80-82
Thanatosis 83-85
Valeren 86-88
Vicissitude 89-91
Visceratika 92-94
Thaumaturgy 95-97
Necromancy 98-100
COMMON DISCIPLINE LIST D100
Animalism 1-11
Auspex 12-23
Celerity 24-34
Dominate 35-45
Fortitude 46-56
Obfuscate 57-67
Potence 68-79
Presence 80-90
Protean 91-100

Vampire Life Path

Now you get to roll for events that have occured during your vampire life. Naturally, if you've not lived as a vampire for more than year, you're exempt from this part. Roll once on this chart for each full year of vampire life. These will be more vague in their benefits and darwbacks. Work with ST for appropriate applications. At this point, your sheet should be largely finished before moving on to this table.

DISASTER Description D100
Made an Ally You gain an ally of an appropriate rating. 1-10
Made an Enemy You gain an adversary of an appropriate rating. 11-20
Degeneration You slip up and degenerate. Your chosen Path rating decreases by 1. 21-30
Growing Domain You make some smart moves. Increase your Domain rating by 1. 31-40
Growing Status You maneuver expertly. Increase your Status rating by 1. 41-50
Gained a Hunter You've made a few missteps and now a Hunter is slowly but surely tracking you down. 51-60
Shrinking Domain You miscalculated a move, and so your Domain suffers. You lose 1 point of Domain. 61-70
Nothing Happens Unlife carries on as usual. 71-80
Shrinking Status You make some poor choices in court, and it costs you. You lose 1 point of Status. 81-85
Good Investments You made a few strategically sound investments that have paid off. You gain 1 point of Resources. 86-90
Torpor A grave misstep. You pissed someone off and now they've staked you. You make no further rolls on this chart and are freed of torpor shortly before the start of the chronicle. 91-92
Romantic Involvement Somehow, you've found someone to trush enough to even develop feelings for. Refer back to the Romance section and gain an ally. 93-98
Exotic Sampling You've been graced with the honor of dabbling into a unique discipline. Gain 1 dot in a clan specific discipline that is out of clan for you. 99-100
 

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