São uma versão 2.0 dos antediluvianos?
Não. Estão mais para o papel dos Nictuku em relação aos Nosferatu em Vampiro: a Máscara. São criaturas sobrenaturais incomodamente similares aos Vampiros em alguns aspectos que acabam predando ou se opondo aos mesmos. Podem ser comparadas com "Espíritos da Besta", por exemplo.
Para dar uma ideia, um trecho do Blood and Smoke sobre elas:
They’ve always been here.
Ever since humanity learned to be afraid of the dark, it has been plagued by shadow beings jealously hungering for life. The Kindred hear stories of corpses clawing their way out of graves, tearing flesh and thirsting for blood; and the younger and more foolish among them imagine that they’re stories about draugr, or revenants, or debased Kindred. The Kindred are the only true vampires. The fiends, the corpse-stealing smoke-shadows, don’t exist. Those Kindred are wrong. And if the Strix ever hear them voice such opinions, they might just make an example of them.
The Strix are counterparts, shadows, and — according to old legends from the nights of the Camarilla — relatives of the Kindred. Where vampires are people brought back from death by the power of the Embrace, hungering for blood as their connection to Humanity fades, the Strix were never human.
Shades of darkness and omens of doom, they steal life without needing the medium of blood, and force their shadowy forms into the bodies of the dead to experience the feelings of flesh.
They are the monstrous vampires of legend, the ones with no Humanity but not given over to the Beast’s insanity. The Strix are coldly, calculatingly evil. They hunger for the life they’ve never known, and hate the living for having it. They see the Kindred — like them, but masquerading as human — as perversions in need of a harsh lesson in inhumanity.
The Strix embody themselves in corpses.
The Kindred are corpses.
E:
The Strix suffer from additional banes as they age, resembling the banes suffered by calloused Kindred, and it’s the knowledge of these methods that Strix-afflicted domains try to spread.
Many young Kindred have wondered, at one time or another, why mortal legends of vampires contain so many inaccuracies and weaknesses the Kindred don’t suffer — crosses, running water, silver, certain herbs, the thresholds of homes and more. Some of these were spread by Masquerade-minded vampires as misinformation. Others are stories of calloused Kindred. Most, though, are the results of the Cacophony. These legends don’t describe Kindred — they describe the Strix; they are desperate attempts by besieged domains to warn and arm other vampires against the Nemeses.
Some Princes consult Mekhet sages, hoping to find some easier way of telling the Strix apart by scrutinizing suspected hosts with Auspex, but no such method exists — to the Mekhet Discipline, the aura of a Strix in a vampire host is exactly — disturbingly — like that of a vampire who has committed diablerie. Most Mekhet sages don’t like to think about that one too hard.
Undead Menses (••)
Effect:Throughout history, various cultures attributed mystical significance to the menstrual cycle. Many of these myths carried stigmas against menses, due to the unhealthy fears of men in power.
With this Merit, your character still produces menstrual blood. Once per night, she can produce a viscous, dark blood. If she uses this blood in casting a Crúac ritual, she benefits from the 8-again quality. If she touches it to a person before affecting them with a Discipline, they suffer her Blood Potency as a penalty to his Resistance.
Drawback: The character must identify as female. If she draws forth her Undead Menses multiple times in an evening, each beyond the first causes her a level of aggravated damage. As well, any attempts to identify her by her menstrual blood gain a +5 die bonus.
Eu sei que não foi intencional, mas "o personagem tem que se identificar como uma mulher" como uma penalidade/efeito negativo dessa vantagem é algo que pode ter algumas interpretações muito ofensivas por parte de leitores. :P
Além da sensação que alguém na Onyx Path deve ter escutado Vampiro Doidão. :P
O mais curioso é a versão original dessa vantagem, do Savage and Macabre:
The blood expelled in such a way has a few different functions: if used in the blood magic of Crùac, it grants the Savage a +1 bonus to the roll to empower the ritual. If fed to a mortal being, it acts as a mild hallucinogen (-1 to all relevant dice pools) in addition to providing the other effects intrinsic to Vitae. Finally, the blood itself acts as a potent marker for other Savages or those with Auspex. Marking an area with the blood gives off a heady aroma long after the blood dries or is washed away (for a number of weeks equal to the marking vampire’s Resolve score). If a Gangrel vampire or a vampire possessing any dots in Auspex comes across that mark during this time, the vampire’s player may roll Wits + Survival to sense the mark and its nature. Some Gangrel use their undead menses to write messages in this way (symbols or short words) to their brethren.
Sangue de menstruação vampírica alucinógeno que pode ser usado para marcar territórios. Oh My. :P
Se uma vampira maluca engravida um homem (nojento)
Não vejo isso como algo mais ou menos nojento do que uma mulher sendo engravidada para dar origem a um Dhampyr. O ritual que permite esse fenômeno, chamado de Cernunnos’s Horn é da disciplina Crúac - a disciplina que restringe o aumento de Humanidade daqueles que aprendem ela. E até onde eu sei, o alvo ritual não precisa sequer estar ciente ou desejar que esse efeito ocorra.
por onde a criança vai nascer? Ou será via cesariana, matando o "pai" no processo? (putz)
Uma resposta curta - O livro deixa isso levemente em aberto, mas é possível ocorrer "partos naturais" em homens e o pai pode sim sobreviver ao processo, se ele ele for tratado rapidamente após esse evento. A impressão que eu tenho, aliás, é que o o parto masculino é similar a uma cesariana. Satisfazendo a sua curiosidade, o trecho do livro sobre isso (Night Horrors: Wicked Dead):
Pity her poor clueless male counterpart.
Carrying pregnancy and giving birth is not something human males are biologically repared for, nor socially conditioned to deal with. The parasitic Dampyr fetus that finds its own niche in a male abdominal cavity is protected by an occult placenta and cowl of tissue, but the male body it feeds upon is unprepared to handle the hormone flux, the swelling, the discomfort. It’s a disconcerting experience, but compared to the (possibly fatal) agonies of delivery, the months of pregnancy seem like a fading nightmare. Surgery can save the father’s life, but his sanity will be another matter.
Mas relaxe, se você acha que Cernunnos's Horn é algo estranho, o Lancea et Sanctum tem um equivalente tão exótico quanto, The Fruitful Womb - que permite uma mulher ou vampira ficar grávida sem nenhum contato sexual. Ou mesmo, sem ela desejar isso - afinal, o ritual pode ser usado como uma forma de arma contra vampiros de outros clãs que não sejam afiliados a Lancea.