Episode 240: How To Roleplay The Tzimisce

[@DJchilcott]

I once played a high humanity tzimisce who would use his vissicitude to perform corrective surgery for those who needed it, but couldn't afford it.

[@regolus2394]

That was the concept of one of my players: he accepted to be groomed and eventually embraced to be able of practicing vicissitude on his daughter, who was bedridden due to a car accident he caused years before, but didn't trusted his domitor to lay a hand on the girl. It ended poorly.

[@DJchilcott]

@@regolus2394 For the domitor, right?.... you mean it went poorly for the domitor...

[@regolus2394]

@@DJchilcott The universe itself conspired against that poor doctor; literally, NOTHING went according to plan that night. Not a single reroll improved the situation. Bestial failure, later a frenzy, and not enough willpower to just get the hell away. The tzimitsce did not trust other players around that much blood, so no one was around to stop him. Ironic, but boy, I love this game.

[@RD22TT]

I tried to play a Tzimisce like a spy master, one time. Playing on the idea of a "dragon" hoarding and selling secrets. He got mauled by a werewolf, and that was the end of him. It was the first time I ever played a Tzimisce but it won't be the last.

[@DuchDude]

6:56 welp, i'm obsessed with the way he said "TRANSILVAINA" now XD

[@Noxims47314]

I find their covetousness is an interesting flaw, but seems to me like it would also make for a decent bane. desiring something like property, ornaments, or even people because they are important or dear to another such as a rival or former companion in life are all good motives or investments for a dragon. I would substitute this over forced courtesy unless the character is from a particular older era that had such decorum in the first place.

[@Crushanator1]

checking in from the dysmorphic egg Nosferatu to glorious trans Tzimitze pipeline

[@christopherclayton5500]

A religious Tzimisce that needs to sleep surrounded by the trappings of their religion (perhaps in a church), and whose war form is reminiscent of biblically accurate angels.

[@jgr7487]

5:37 There's another: Vampires are undead who couldn't care less about gender roles and other cultural concepts of the kine. Who cares if Troile was male or female? No one does. Who cares about the cultural norms at a certain point in history besides that when they undied? Maybe only the Toreador. If a trans person is wearing "feminine" clothes when they talk to a Vampire who was alive in Rome, the elder might comment in broken English "Finally, someone with good taste who hasn't adopted the barbaric trend of wearing pantaloons!"

[@mussardlucien6355]

I just roleplayed the Tzimisce as a misunderstood "artist". My best (only?) pal was actually a Toreador x)

[@blackfox2973]

I used to larp a "Catiff" who had Vissisitude. (*Coughs Sabbat agent coughs*) I would make clay sculptures of the Pokemon my character, who looks like a 10 year old kid, would make and show them off at gathering, no one ever figured out I was playing a dumb kid. I was the only pack member to survive the game, and fled to Sabbat controlled territory after my last pack mate was killed by Garou. *Sighs* good times.

[@joshuahebert7972]

Easily my favorite clan. Not a clan just defined by physical change. But also by mentality, with the road of metamorphosis.

[@WanderingRagabond]

When I introduced my enby sibling to VTM, I had a feeling what their favorite clan would be. I was not disappointed.

[@derrabbit7289]

I love the Tzimisce, because I love that idea of becoming a HR Giger monster, a Warhammer Chaos Spawn, to be the one who shaped man and beast into monsters. Humanity is a race of monsters, and I will make them ware it on the outside as well as the in! I am the horror in the dark waiting around the corner to devour you. And with some work, you will be that horror too! (Deep evil laugh)

[@shay212]

Love your videos and channel! I listened to your podcast awhile ago and am really excited to find you on KZbin! I like listening to your videos while working on terrain and battlemaps for my players.

[@zory6699]

fleshy controlling landlords with hording problems xDDDDDDDD

[@Sharkakaka]

Time to TRANSfigure some poor kindred that got stuck in a form they do not like

[@Zee-iv9oe]

anyone else hearing sisters of mercy in the background when lore says dominion

[@LoreByNightVtM]

Lucretia, my reflection 😘

[@TheChesher]

Yessss!!!! I'll give this a watch as soon as I can! Thanks for making this!

[@ironheadgaming6270]

You got the Touch You got the Power Yeah

[@diamondjack75]

Any thoughts or dare I say "love" for Old Clan Tzimisce? Not everyone of us likes or even cares about "Vicissitude". Some of "us" are perfectly content with how we were made in the first place.

[@KonRoge11]

Indeed. Though its gifts of sensation are fascinating and enthralling, the body is ultimately a shell for a vibrant, far superior ‘animus.’ I do not fault so many of our fallen kin for being stricken with Vicissitude, for it is far easier to release the instincts of the flesh than it is to tend the still waters of the soul. Yet one must always try… for water that does not flow cannot clean itself, no? A greeting to you, kinsman. We are old, but at the very least we can mark ourselves as individuals.

[@Mr.Fox1213]

Man the Tremere are my favorite clan but deep down i know they are just a glorified bloodline of the Tzimisce, which must mean Tzimisce is my favorite clan!

[@joshuahebert7972]

There is some truth to this. The Tremere are, in my opinion kinda are a caitiff/tzimisce bloodline. The majority of experiments Goratrix performed, in study of the vampire "physiology" was on Tzimisce, and maybe Gangrel and Nosferatu. Also, kinda sense to me that the early study of these clans, gave a headstart on the creation of gargoyles, which would largely explain why a whole mystic bloodline kinda sprung up overnight, vampirically speaking.

[@1005corvuscorax]

After your Brujah video where you explained the ACTUAL pronunciation of Brujah (thanks be to 1st ed.) I was wondering how you'd pronounce Tzimisce, since this clan name has *multiple* pronunciations even back in the 1st ed Player's Guide to the Sabbat. Of all the variations way back then, I always preferred ZJIM-ee-see or SHA-mee-SAY. Though, as a Storyteller, I had a lot of fun playing with the various pronunciation of that clan :) And I really like this variation- "Dzi-MEE-tsee". The variations in the ways to pronounce something this alien is perfect. Unlike the pronunciation of Brujah, which is canon back to 1992 :)

[@LoreByNightVtM]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rIqyqKieh5Wli9Usi=xQHEl1pEMdU78Qz8

[@1005corvuscorax]

@@LoreByNightVtM Thank you!

[@tweekmalkavian9244]

I am actually recently introduced my first VtM character an Old Clan Tzimisce into the revised edition I am playing in. Before I was playing a Nosferatu in said game, but am retiring him because of two reasons. One I have heard a few players say they wish to try clan Nosferatu, maybe because everyone seems to love my Nos. The second because I don't want someone first try and the clan to live the shadow of an already popular character, most of the players this is their first VtM game. That out of the way I have always been a huge fan of Koldunic Sorcery and Clan Tzimisce to some degree because of my own family history, Lithuanian. That being said my best advise for those that wish to play a Tzimisce please do it for more than just Vicissitude, because there is so much more to them then just this power. Hell the character I mentioned before is in many ways Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

[@maciejas2471]

I have a concept for a Tzymisce npc that is high ranking member of a company deeply associated with Pentex, and is a Bane that eats others brains, which grants him access to their knowledgeses and memories

[@UnseelieFaelass]

So Tzimisce really would Kain from Legacy of Kain huh? Not just because Nozgoth vampires adapt their bodies overtime, but Kain himself actually adjusts his philosophies over the games' timelines and even ascends after Defiance ends once Raziel enters the Soul Reaver. Purifying it and Kain by extension. Wonder if Golconda would ever be on his mind in the VTM universe. Either way, he and Dracula would likely have interesting conversations.

[@DewayneMcClure-bm2pj]

Hes evil but also honorable too, which is a quality people miss about Clan Tzimisce too, which fits.

[@eyeofthoth2003]

Hot take: the Tzimisce are more evil as a whole than the Tremere (I do love the Tzimisce)

[@tweekmalkavian9244]

I would disagree the Tzimisce, unlike the Tremere, never goined the German National Socialist Workers Party.

[@johnbritt7111]

I play a tzimisce who has taken the whole idea, "a new creation in Christ" to a more literal meaning. His zulu/horrid form looks very angelic, with lots of eyes (inspired by biblically accurate angles). He believes that vicissitudes is a way of achieving a closer and more ascendant form that is described in the book of Revelation, with the plan one day to "perfect all of humanity" to this more perfect form. He is bound to his biotech company (Enlighten Evolutions) which provides him with the talent and resources to conduct his research. He is pretty human and refuses to kill people, but he substitute this by using vicissitudes to morph and offer "penance" to people who attack him or he considers evil

[@KonRoge11]

I have yet to play VtM (no in-person venues in my corner of the Weather-Besieged Midwest, sadly) but I do have an idea of who I want my first character to be: Kasimir “Varritch” Wariecz, a Polish immigrant, Anarch, and Tzimisce Ancilla Embraced on the Oregon Trail. Kasimir is a strange fellow. Anyone who’s played with Ventriloquist dolls knows the elements of his type; his large eyes seem perpetually closed, he has a cartoonish, yellow-toothed triangle of a grin, he is as short and stocky as a childish bully cliche, and his face is chubby and pale save for his red-blushing cheeks. Most pass it off as a face deformed by disability combined with poor makeup skills, and his stubborn wardrobe of horizontally-striped red and yellow shirt and dark grey jeans support this theory of bizarre fashion sense. Yet one who looks long enough at his red earrings may notice that they occasionally blink. In fact, when Kasimir is in the dark, his red, beady earrings and yellowed teeth look much like the face of a mutant rat. Mr. Wariecz loves to travel. To him, it is the ultimate expression of freedom, and his devotion to the road is almost… disturbingly monastic. Fittingly, he lives in a camper bus named The Drift, an off-white beast of a vehicle plastered with neo-kitschy images of snowy mountains in true camper fashion. Aside from those nearest the driver-seat, all of the Drift’s few windows are tinted stark black, obscuring the odd scene within. The Drift drives long and often, and if it is found driving during the day a disgraced surgeon named Mikhail is inevitably driving. At night, though… at night, a strange, pale face is always at the helm, clearly seen through windows open wide to the cold night air. The Drift always accepts strange customers; folk of bestial countenance, biker wardrobe, or even ahegao sweaters (these last, of course, known to those who travel in nightly spheres as The Ministry) have all served as customers for the esoteric courier that is Varritch. Were they dogged traitors loose of lip, they would tell the tale of the Drift’s interior, and a strange tale it is. It is one of dark, grimy cabinets and trash cans glued shut to contain the soil of snow-capped ranges, soil that never ceases its chill and likely is still crusted with pale frost. It is also a tale of strange, limping creatures resultant of insects and rodents mashed together through strange fleshcrafting power. Most of all, it is a tale of one moving abode whose one inhabitant’s one rule is that all guests must avoid one room at the back: the one place where one Kasimir Wariecz sleeps. And of course, there is Varritch’s archaic disbelief in the abandonment of horses as transport. His favorite joke to tell is that his camper has ‘two horsepower,’ which people always see as some kind of sentimental metaphor… until they take a look at the bloodthirsty engine of twisted flesh and twinned equine agony.

[@Bies546]

I'm not a fan what a V5 did to tzimisce to be honest😢. I always wanted to try tzimisce scholar who is focused on sorrcerys ( all of them necromancy included). This can be a intresting idea for someone to rp. Lore would you recommend blood sigil book? I not gonna lie i lost faith in V5, but im curious as well how this book looks like and whats inside it.

[@LoreByNightVtM]

Your idea would be wasted with Blood Sigils imo

[@Bies546]

@@LoreByNightVtM would you do a review of this book? And I'm not suprised that it would be waisted. I creates this character idea with V20 in mind. Thanks for reply.

[@LoreByNightVtM]

@Bies546 I recorded my review this week, which will be dropping in about a month's time

[@hasturdrone]

tzimisce otherkin ... 😊

[@burningbronze7555]

What was clan tzimisce based on as they are rather unlike other ideas of vampires as flesh warping is not a common idea and has no clear origin

[@neuendo]

Actually, they are based on more traditional vampire tales. Mostly the way out there folktales, and the original Dracula. It goes as far as making Vlad the Impaler a Tzimisce. Bram Stoker's novel even has Dracula traveling around with soil from his homeland, thus their original clan bane.

[@burningbronze7555]

​@neuendo the flesh warping is more my point as I know of no other vampires who have such a concept

[@smuggrog9821]

The Tzimisce took a lot of inspiration from the Whampri from the Necroscope novels, pretty much all the body horror and the general alien nature of the clan comes from the Whampri. Even the whole Viscissitude being a virus thing, comes from Necroscope since the vampires in that are created when living beings are infected by parasitic leeches from another dimension. So clan Tzimisce is essentially a mix of more classic depictions of vampires with Dracula inspiration and more alien and out there depictions of vampires with the Necroscope vampires.

[@styrax7280]

I remember hearing of a slavic vampire that has no bones but I can't find its name. That could be extrapolated to viscissitude.

[@burningbronze7555]

@@smuggrog9821 strange I am reading the first one I guess it has not hit that bit yet

[@oldylad]

Can a Tzimisce… make a nosferatu look normal? Can they fleshcraft another vampires skin to match humans?

[@LoreByNightVtM]

No and yes, but that dependants on Generation