Blood.

The blood is the life.

We've all heard it, and it has a ton of meanings.

To boil it down, life is what vampires feed on. Life. The blood is just a vehicle.

The more sapient and feeling the being with the blood, the more life it carries. Why?

Because we aren't feeding on the blood. We are feeding on the life force...and indeed, the actual life, the experiences of the victim. Everything they ever did, felt, thought. All of it carried by that vital fluid. Or their breath, or whatever. Blood is just the most common.

Call me Vandal. I'm an associate of Seagull's. We're from the same orb, the same dimension, the same dark world in the infinity of infinities.

We are not the same though. He's a mage. (He prefers wizard, I'm told. Whatever.) I'm a vampire.

Some call us Kindred. I'm not really part of any of the big groups. Some call me an independent, some call me a heretic, some call me an Anarch. The power of Shadows is in my blood. That big group of reactionary fogies who claim to be the ancient Roman Camarilla classify me as a Lasombra. Sometimes. When they aren't getting confused and equating me with their snake cultists that used to call themselves the Followers of Set. See, I am a Follower of Set. The storm god, the god of darkness and chaos who guarded the Barque of the Sun. Not the weird pseudo-satanic snake guy they got from Robert E. Howard and Dungeons and Dragons. I'm not a Khaibit, either regardless of what the Ordo Dracul and the Crone and the Invictus believe. Those are more vampire factions. We have...a lot of them. A bunch of them, like the so called Camarilla and the Sabbat, are two halves of a religious sect called Cainites, who believe all vampires are descended from Cain. Yeah, the first murderer in the Christian Bible and the Jewish Torah. Like, I guess some vampires may come from that, but, all? Way to just assume one religion is right, I guess. But Follower of Set is my religion, right? Not my blood, though most of my blood have followed my religion.

Both the Cainites and the other Kindred (They have a ton of other religions and shit . . .) have classified types of Kindred into what they call clans and bloodlines. For the Cainites, every clan is straight up just a super big bloodline that can trace its lineage back to Cain. Somehow. For the others, they are just groupings of Kindred with similar blood abilities, and may have entirely different ( semi- mythical) origins. Because if anyone really does remember, they've been lying a lot, and who knows what the truth is. Anyway, it's weird, because the Cam and the Sabbat like, base their society on the 'clans' as political parties...you don't get to choose your team at all. At least the five groups that are in the Invictus camp pretend you can choose your politics. (Yeah. Fives. Like the Diamond Order Seagull mentioned. Five clans, five covenants. The Cam has, like, 13 clans? More? Less? And maybe like 2 or 3 factions of multiple clans? Super weird.)

Like I said, the Cainites call me a Lasombra. The Invictus and their lot call me a Khaibit. Sometimes. When they haven't classified me as a type of Ventrue (which is a 'clan' they both have, but disagree on its origins and its powers, which is weird. Same thing with like, Gangrel and Nosferatu). And like, I get it. There are so called 'Daeva' ( the Cam might call them Brujah or Toreador solely based on whether they are artists...a weird dividing line, when they are both sexy vampires with self control issues.) who have my shadow powers too. And Mekhet (sneaky bastards with great senses) as well. Those are the Khaibit. Cuz we were all part of the Cult of Set and all got his power in our blood, based on our mythology. Who the fuck knows. Anyway. I'm strong, fast, can hide, can get all 'look on me and despair', can wield shadows as a weapon, can see spirits all the time, I summon storms...I fuck up their classifications. Mainly cuz they are all made up. And my 'sire' (the vampire who made me a vampire) was not the most forthcoming, and when he was, the shit he said didn't match anybody else's bullshit. But yeah.

Why the fuck we're called Kindred when most of us have almost nothing in common but drinking blood and having daddy issues is beyond me. I guess its a weird way to cut down on the constant fighting. But it really, really doesn't work. Vampires are all fighting over their religions, and access to blood, and control of mortal shit, like all the time. Constantly. It's the worst combo of capitalism and feudalism you've ever seen, and humans are the serfs and the cattle at the same time. Not really different than the rest of America, I guess. And the mages, or wizards, or whatever, are too busy with their own infighting to worry about us. Supposedly they are fighting for the nature of reality, but, eh, whatev. I'll believe it when I see it

We got werewolves, too, but imma let one of them explain the specifics. Man, they are almost as fucked up as us, and a big group of them thinks we're their worst enemies...and most of us have never interacted with them at all, so that's a little weird.

I got way the fuck off track.

Blood. It all comes down to blood, or life, really. All of us made a decision, conscious or unconscious, to keep living, or at least not die, at the cost of taking life from others. Like, I get that all things kill to live . . . but we eat all your life. Your will to live. Maybe your soul if that's a thing. We are not good people, if we ever were. We can't be. And man, do we fuck things up trying. And pretending. And we fuck up even more with taking more and more, and more: life, blood, sex, drugs, money...we take everything. At our angriest we are still mainly propelled by gluttony, greed, and lust.

Like, the goth anthem was 'This Corrosion', but the true nature of Kindred is the song 'More'. If you don't get that, look up the Sisters of Mercy.

Fuck it. I'm hungry. Ill talk to you later.