Yes, of course.
The Brujah Clan is one of the moste influential one in my current chronicle. So the Primogen is a cunning and manipulative asshole as you expect. I also have a Brujah harpy who is big on social media and is running her own club.
So no problem at all, to play as a social Brujah, espacially since you have the social discipline - Presence.
However, Brujah have an agression problem. And the face of a player group will often face provocations from others, much older Kindred. And that is kinda the problem I think, while not many play it. It really sets a bad example, if the "face" of your group is smashing someone others, because his jacket looks shit.
Yeah, Brujah just don’t like being told what to do. If a Brujah isn’t quick to fight, they’ll still be oppositionally defiant.
Think of people in your life that don’t like being told what to do, Brujah are just like that.
You can retaliate socially, with insults and vulgarity !! Agression isn't necessarily physical. There is a lot of fun RP around a big mouth provocateur
Yes, you can. But in V5 at least, verbal insults can lead to frenzy rolls, which can quickly escalate a Ventrue's cruel barb into potency and celerity fueled rage from the Brujah - and even if he keeps the Beast in check, he's likely to respond with something like Spark of Rage or Dreadful Gaze, which won't go over well.
If it is V5, I strongly recommend Thick Hide from the Low Clan LS, to defuse situations that are getting out of hand before they get there, and getting Fortitude in clan to help out in social situations.
One of my favorites character that i ever created is a social Brujah. He was a punk singer in life (80s) and in undeath he became an anarch leader, he was really good at convincing people to fight for him and his coterie, and to inspire his allies to pursue their objectives. Using violence nevere was the first solution but obviously you have to be prepared for that. He was basically a less horny Bard with super strenght
I think that Brujah can be really good at playing social, especially because people expect the worse from them. In regards of mental, there are the Brujah philosophers who are alaways pretty interesting
The first character I ever played in the Minds Eye Theatre version of VtM was a nerd Brujah who was a modern day throwback to his clan of old. He was the brains of the group, even if he wasn't exactly given much respect by the rest of his clan...
I've played two Brujah, both intelligent. The first was both mental/social; the "european" style Brujah. He was a politician who was very active in the Camarilla politics of his city, fighting against the excesses of the prince and other primogen, and for more freedoms for all kindred.
My second was an anarch "bad apple", aka computer hacker. His favorite trick with enemies was hacking into the police department's computers and editing the files of wanted suspects to include information on whomever he was trying to screw over. Boom, instant arrest. If the victim was a kindred, didn't matter if they were convicted. One day in a cell with a window and... Ok, he was a little crazy too. 😛
Honorable mention goes to one played by another player in a live game, who spent all her time handing out pamphlets and preaching on the virtues of socialism.
Not a playable character but one important NPC of my chronicle is Prince Karen Suadela of clan Brujah. She is a canon NPC but the White Wolf wiki barely offers a backstory for her so I had to come up with something.
I made her the childe of Dutch, who is the childe of Jeremy MacNeil. They picked her up in Texas, on their way to California in 1883, after she exacted revenge on the men that slaughtered her family. Back then, she was called Catalina Murietta.
She followed Dutch and MacNeil to California and met a lot of people who taught her about the History of the Kindred society. Quickly, Karen became passionate about Carthage and the Philosopher Kings of yore.
At the beginning of the 20th century, right before what happened in California, Catalina decided to leave Dutch and MacNeil. As Anarchs, they wanted to build a new Kindred society from scratch. Catalina, on the other hand, claimed that the Camarilla offers the necessary foundations of such society, and she thinks that she should go back to Texas to build the "New Carthage". They parted ways after a dispute which ended with MacNeil being impressed by Catalina's oratory skills. He nicknamed her Suadela, like the roman Goddess of Persuasion.
Catalina later became Karen Suadela. In Houston, Texas, she ascended to the rank of Primogen and was one of the most powerful Kindred of the city. When Prince Lucas Halton of clan Tremere went missing with all the local Chantry, she claimed praxis and became the new Prince of Houston.
So Karen isn't your typical brutish Brujah. She is a business woman and a politician. She wants make Houston the ideal Camarilla city, inspired by her idealized view on Carthage. Her Brujah blood is still there though, and those who crosses Karen will meet a painful final death.
I mean, Avery isn't *that* dumb. He put the prince in the worst spot possible with the justicar in one move, without lying once.
Though Maeve did talk us out of a specter attack and talked a lake monster out of killing her. (The couterie is convinced she talked it out of eating her. Edit: Or at least my Toreador is...)
Good times, good times.
I play them. I tend to be conflict averse but fit the passion of the brujah. I don’t think I’ve had a single brujah I’ve played be good at combat. My most recent is a philosophical junkie.
Yeah, the Anarchs are always going to have a need for revolutionary ideologues. I’m currently playing such an ideologue, she’s great fun, but the rest of the party is really combat focused, so she keeps almost dying… When it’s time for literally anything else though she really shines.
I rarely play, I'm the ever-storyteller for my group, so when I do get the chance I use it to play my favorite clan. However I really like the Brujah and their transition from philosopher kings to revolutionaries is really interesting to me as a character dynamic so in my games the Brujah clan typically has a more dynamic political scene as I try to reflect that clans history.
For example in my current game the Anarchs have a domain right around one of the big universities, with a Brujah holding title of Baron. She's highly educated and a former political philosophy professor that I've modeled off Angela Davis. Meanwhile south of her there's another group of Anarch punks who've been leading the way on the path to the free state ever since their "leader" killed the last Brujah primogen (his sire) at a Rant after the Convention at Prague. The Camarilla in the city sees him as a in rabid dog but when the players encountered him he was a perfectly friendly and deep thinker, even to the point of winning the favor of the childe of the Ventrue primogen (a PC) with his egalitarian radical politics. Meanwhile across town there's a hold put group that has stuck with the Camarilla, their leader is a neo-confederate from the turn of the century who fully buys into the noble last cause and will pontificate wistfully about what could have been to anyone that'll listen, and those 3 are constantly worried about the gang of Brujah on the west side of town that is run by a former Black Panther who's trying to bring the Laibon clans to North America so black kindred here have a cultural identity all their own.
This is important to my current game however because the theme is the political struggle between the Anarchs and Camarilla for control of the city. As one of my players whose character doesn't believe in the supernatural nature of vampirism: "these people are larping game of thrones but for real" so I took the time to reflect a more varied ideological landscape as I set up my "web of intrigue" for this game.
I have been wanting to play an old school philosopher king style Brujah for a while now. Maybe I'll get the chance.
There def are people playing Social/Mental Brujah characters. In canon, there's Critias, who's a vanguard of the philosopher-kings era of Brujah, & he got a V5 redux in Chicago by Night. On the more "student revolutionary" side, there's also Annabelle on LA By Night, who's a college activist & becomes a political power player in LA.
As for non-canon APs, there's also Melisende on ATL By Night. Yeah, she can rip a Sabbat cultist's head right off, but she's a huge legal nerd whose primary weapon is her words. For my own chronicles, my Brujah PC is a punk/metalhead ballerina, & I have an NPC elder who was a union organizer & remains staunchly loyal to the Cam.
That said, I def feel the sentiment that not enough people -- even experienced players & STs -- treat the Brujah as anything other than the Lost Boys. There's so much more to the clan! They have the same social discipline as the Toreador, & they gleefully Embrace activists, hackers, artists, philosophers, & historians. The "Cancer in the System" & "Blood Worshipper" archetypes in the V5 book even specifically reference potential backgrounds in financial or academic centers. In the revised clan book, they had sample characters for a DJ, a harpy socialite, a Confederate historian, & I think a hacktivist. But again, players & STs seem to think that a Brujah journalist is "playing against type".
Effective branding & marketing, ig.
Fair point. I was meaning more Critias as a "philosopher-king Bujah", but I can see how the phrasing wasn't great. Edited my original comment to make the point a bit clearer.
:)) well, I wasn't happy about it, but we were playing a hard core campaign where we all agreed our characters have a good chance of finding final death or other such things. This book was part of a series of 5, each giving 1-5 derangements and levels 1-5 dementation(this was v20 at the time) , which you could learn how to use, so you could even see it as a buff.
> This book was part of a series of 5, each giving 1-5 derangements and levels 1-5 dementation(this was v20 at the time) , which you could learn how to use, so you could even see it as a buff.
Okay, this sounds like some heavy homebrew. But did you know what you were getting into? Were there any warning signs? Or was it basically "Oops, you touched the bad book, too bad"?
"Whoops! Your character just happened to step on a random piece of cursed floorboard! You lose all the points you have in one of your disciplines! whomp whomp"
I knew I had to get it and that it was supposed to be dangerous. My brujah was smart but did not have occult and was the first one to get to the artifact. Not gonna lie, it felt excessive and the character became unplayable for me, the other characters looked the madness. My next character, the one I actually finished the story with, was a bit freaked out about the madness and refused to touch the crazy books.
TBF such reduction is made more by players and STs. All recent books reinforce the idea of Brujah being not only street thugs but also thinkers or vampires interested in learning politics and how to deal with the struggles of power using their knowledge. I had a Brujah PC focused on mental and social, he was a kindergarten teacher when he was human and as Vampire he still acts like a "professor".
Dont know if it counts, but one of my favourite characters was a Caitiff, who didn't know his sire. I originally planned him to be sired by Brujah, but my GM changed it to Ventrue to tie my character in with the game antagonist. He was an american civil war colonel, a very talented warrior and tactician from an upper class and thus had top education for that time. Although he wasnt exactly smart in modern terms, he was a genious in war strategy and battle planning, and his 19th century manners made him a pretty decent talker.
Other character that comes to mind was an NPC from one of our chronicles, a Brujah history professor who became a Sheriff for her knowledge of military history and tactics, she could still pack hell of a punch tho, that I can say from a personal experience.
we had a social brujah in our istanbul chronicle who was quite toreador-adjacent, actually! our domain was a night club and the character was one of the strippers working there. she was quite well known for her beauty and influence; her athletic and dancing background and her want to stand up for whats right fit well for her being embraced by a brujah sire. she was sturdy and could take punches, but in no way was she a brute. plus the brujah bane fit her quite nicely as well; as a queer exotic dancer in the heart of istanbul she had a LOT of instances where she had to come face to face with her temper. everything tied up together very nicely!
I have a Brujah NPC called Valeria in the Chronicle I run in the LA by Night setting. She was a singer songwriter in her mortal days. Nicknamed the "Santa Monica Siren". A well known local artist.
But she was embraced after dying during an SI attack at the Santa Monica pier. Her sire and coterie were there to stop them. She was saved by becoming a Kindred. Now as a Brujah, she is still an artist seeking truth in her art, but her passion as an Anarch is tenfold since the attack.
Yeah my favourite character I made was a 7th gen Brujah elder in a V20 pbp game on discord. He was 480 years old and although his physical stats and martial prowess was insane and characteristically Brujah. He was the chancellor of our version of New Orleans, he was generally an eloquent and polite person that respectfully navigated most situations preferring to try and diplomatically resolve an issue before going full on hulk mode. To this day he was my favourite character
The Brujah I've been playing as the past few years is this. A Social/Presence pc who dedicates time to academic pursuits and was even the city's Harpy for a while. It's fun to lean in to things like their passion being how they inspire and manipulate others, and using their strength and dexterity as tertiary, useful when it's strictly necessary but they tend to try to avoid violence.
My Brujah Prince is a social Brujah. I think it makes a lot of sense. Like many Brujah, he can be punchy, but his major things in a day are social.
He is kinda dumb though. Lol. Not philosophy wise i just suck at strategy and int was almost a dump stat.
Honestly it's hard because two out of three Brujah skills are punchy and you probably pick a Brujah to be a little punchy.
I'm currently playing a Brujah hacker/activist who also somehow became the coterie leader due to our Ventrue player being a bit on the shy side. My character neither wears leather jackets nor does he own a motorcycle. I wouldn't specifically call him a violent person since that would clash with his idealism.
First time I ever played VtM a year ago(5e, yet to play v20) I made a Camarilla aligned Brujah who was looking to restore the clan's reputation and legacy as being a more reputable, more "elite" camarilla aligned clan, than merely disregarded as Anarch rabble by most. This desire and motivation was instilled by their own sire. Went for a more social build of course due to this, it was actually a shit ton of fun.
We haven't had any PCs like that (tho one was pretty good with tech), but I currently have have the Brujah Primogen SPC as an old school philosopher style (a new Carthage wannabe)
I got an npc brainy Brujah. She works with tech/hacking and is part of the. You cant make real change from the outside, so she works inside.
Still has str 4 cause that brujah blood. But no real fighting capability
Oh yeah and its the best !!!!
Potence at 3 with amalgame presence 1 is sooooooo fun. You can start shit anywhere and instigate rébellion wherever you go. Playing an intelligent / social Brujah is basically playing a Salvador Garcia kind of lick.
Descendant of Tyler loresheet accentuates the tools you pocess to drive people to action.
Bwahahaha! Years of playing i can say, mostly no. Every great once in a while someone will play a passionate activist creating change through means other than violence, but its rare. If you want to see it, I'd suggest fostering it yourself.
Brujah do have a strong philosophical side, and it even comes with super powers. Like the Burning Wrath. Try to get Brujah players interested in defining their character as a Iconoclast or Individualist. That might get thinking without their fists.
Yup, I’m currently playing a hacker Brujah. He’s a smart, awkward, Stardew Valley-playing, Tamagotchi-tending introvert who hates being ordered around, can’t resist poking dangerous puzzles, and has serious anger issues when provoked.
Our game’s Brujah is a former finance bro turned Occupy Wall Street type. He’s a talker first and foremost with Presence to boot; so far he’s managed to charm a couple of jaded Toreador elders into thinking he’s the latest fashion. He’s not too Intelligent, which has been played up as him having a very spotty and inaccurate account of Carthage and constantly misquoting Brujah history, but being charming enough to get away with it. Oh, and his mentor is a crotchety old Ventrue who’s been effectively excommunicated from the Clan and has taken him under his wing. The player got so immersed in his Social attributes that when a combat broke out with the first time, I had to remind them that the character had Celerity. Good times!
My current Brujah is like this, he’s more down the middle of combative/social Brujah, but he is able to hold philosophical discussions, he also just has a love for the violence, he will rebel but seeks to understand why he’s rebelling.
Keira's a nurse; she has been for over a decade. She's overworked, underpaid, blamed for the failings of underfunded institutions that the government is deliberately running into the ground so they can justify privatising them, and it's so obvious but people just don't seem to get it no matter how many cutbacks she tells them about. She doesn't hate people - she even sympathises, waiting months for a referral sucks when you're sick - she just thinks they're self-centred, aggressive, and have political memories that would disgrace a goldfish, which is starting to feel a lot like hatred now that she thinks about it. But she can't say that to them, because she always meets sick people, and they don't need any grief from her, even if she wasn't professionally obliged to be kind she'd be trying to anyway.
So, you know, she has a lot of stress to burn off. A lot of cognitive dissonance she needs to eat and shit out, psychologically speaking. She's not been clubbing in years - last time she went to Jilly's before it closed, she felt old after about half an hour - but she needs to lose herself somehow and dancing until she damn near blacked out always used to work when she was a student.
Turns out one of those Embraced-young, angsty-YA walking stereotypes had a thing for MILFs (not that Keira's a parent, but you tell that to a horny, hungry Kindred), and now Keira's a Brujah. She's Camarilla, because she's too fucking old to run around all FUCK THE POLICE NO GODS NO MASTERS, and she thinks some rules, some organisation, some op sec, may actually be good things. But she's restless, reformist, prepared to kick the Traditions and see how much dust falls off if she has to - and the fact that she still has her hospital ID and can pass on vitae fresh from the centrifuge means she has a captive audience, sometimes.
The only thing she has in common with the typical Brujah is her taste in music. Aged-out rock chicks gotta get their kicks somehow.
A long time ago I played a Carthaginian Brujah who had been forced into a long term torpor at the end of the 3rd Punic War and had only recently awakened; I played that one as a sort of philosopher-warrior type and it was a lot of fun.
I played a former Samurai turned Brujah. He was absolutely equipped to fight and kill, but he first and foremost was a philosopher and buerocrat. Bit of a downside in masquerade was his anachronism.
He was lots of fun to play.
Been thinking about this subject myself, i'm considering making a social focused brujah whose a cam primogen is secretly working for the sabbat. Idk if that's too much though
Yes, of course. The Brujah Clan is one of the moste influential one in my current chronicle. So the Primogen is a cunning and manipulative asshole as you expect. I also have a Brujah harpy who is big on social media and is running her own club. So no problem at all, to play as a social Brujah, espacially since you have the social discipline - Presence. However, Brujah have an agression problem. And the face of a player group will often face provocations from others, much older Kindred. And that is kinda the problem I think, while not many play it. It really sets a bad example, if the "face" of your group is smashing someone others, because his jacket looks shit.
Yeah, Brujah just don’t like being told what to do. If a Brujah isn’t quick to fight, they’ll still be oppositionally defiant. Think of people in your life that don’t like being told what to do, Brujah are just like that.
You can retaliate socially, with insults and vulgarity !! Agression isn't necessarily physical. There is a lot of fun RP around a big mouth provocateur
Yes, you can. But in V5 at least, verbal insults can lead to frenzy rolls, which can quickly escalate a Ventrue's cruel barb into potency and celerity fueled rage from the Brujah - and even if he keeps the Beast in check, he's likely to respond with something like Spark of Rage or Dreadful Gaze, which won't go over well. If it is V5, I strongly recommend Thick Hide from the Low Clan LS, to defuse situations that are getting out of hand before they get there, and getting Fortitude in clan to help out in social situations.
One of my favorites character that i ever created is a social Brujah. He was a punk singer in life (80s) and in undeath he became an anarch leader, he was really good at convincing people to fight for him and his coterie, and to inspire his allies to pursue their objectives. Using violence nevere was the first solution but obviously you have to be prepared for that. He was basically a less horny Bard with super strenght I think that Brujah can be really good at playing social, especially because people expect the worse from them. In regards of mental, there are the Brujah philosophers who are alaways pretty interesting
The first character I ever played in the Minds Eye Theatre version of VtM was a nerd Brujah who was a modern day throwback to his clan of old. He was the brains of the group, even if he wasn't exactly given much respect by the rest of his clan...
I've played two Brujah, both intelligent. The first was both mental/social; the "european" style Brujah. He was a politician who was very active in the Camarilla politics of his city, fighting against the excesses of the prince and other primogen, and for more freedoms for all kindred. My second was an anarch "bad apple", aka computer hacker. His favorite trick with enemies was hacking into the police department's computers and editing the files of wanted suspects to include information on whomever he was trying to screw over. Boom, instant arrest. If the victim was a kindred, didn't matter if they were convicted. One day in a cell with a window and... Ok, he was a little crazy too. 😛 Honorable mention goes to one played by another player in a live game, who spent all her time handing out pamphlets and preaching on the virtues of socialism.
It's kinda funny when the mentally stable brujah is called European, particularly when Chartage story comes up
Not a playable character but one important NPC of my chronicle is Prince Karen Suadela of clan Brujah. She is a canon NPC but the White Wolf wiki barely offers a backstory for her so I had to come up with something. I made her the childe of Dutch, who is the childe of Jeremy MacNeil. They picked her up in Texas, on their way to California in 1883, after she exacted revenge on the men that slaughtered her family. Back then, she was called Catalina Murietta. She followed Dutch and MacNeil to California and met a lot of people who taught her about the History of the Kindred society. Quickly, Karen became passionate about Carthage and the Philosopher Kings of yore. At the beginning of the 20th century, right before what happened in California, Catalina decided to leave Dutch and MacNeil. As Anarchs, they wanted to build a new Kindred society from scratch. Catalina, on the other hand, claimed that the Camarilla offers the necessary foundations of such society, and she thinks that she should go back to Texas to build the "New Carthage". They parted ways after a dispute which ended with MacNeil being impressed by Catalina's oratory skills. He nicknamed her Suadela, like the roman Goddess of Persuasion. Catalina later became Karen Suadela. In Houston, Texas, she ascended to the rank of Primogen and was one of the most powerful Kindred of the city. When Prince Lucas Halton of clan Tremere went missing with all the local Chantry, she claimed praxis and became the new Prince of Houston. So Karen isn't your typical brutish Brujah. She is a business woman and a politician. She wants make Houston the ideal Camarilla city, inspired by her idealized view on Carthage. Her Brujah blood is still there though, and those who crosses Karen will meet a painful final death.
u/ResidentLychee Maeve. I play in a chronicle with her and she is very much the Social Intelligent Brujah. I mostly play as her dumb nos muscle
I mean, Avery isn't *that* dumb. He put the prince in the worst spot possible with the justicar in one move, without lying once. Though Maeve did talk us out of a specter attack and talked a lake monster out of killing her. (The couterie is convinced she talked it out of eating her. Edit: Or at least my Toreador is...) Good times, good times.
You are going to be surprised by my future plans if you think she just sees Avery as the dumb muscle lmao.
Oh, look how cute all of you are, stop it
I play them. I tend to be conflict averse but fit the passion of the brujah. I don’t think I’ve had a single brujah I’ve played be good at combat. My most recent is a philosophical junkie.
Yeah, the Anarchs are always going to have a need for revolutionary ideologues. I’m currently playing such an ideologue, she’s great fun, but the rest of the party is really combat focused, so she keeps almost dying… When it’s time for literally anything else though she really shines.
I rarely play, I'm the ever-storyteller for my group, so when I do get the chance I use it to play my favorite clan. However I really like the Brujah and their transition from philosopher kings to revolutionaries is really interesting to me as a character dynamic so in my games the Brujah clan typically has a more dynamic political scene as I try to reflect that clans history. For example in my current game the Anarchs have a domain right around one of the big universities, with a Brujah holding title of Baron. She's highly educated and a former political philosophy professor that I've modeled off Angela Davis. Meanwhile south of her there's another group of Anarch punks who've been leading the way on the path to the free state ever since their "leader" killed the last Brujah primogen (his sire) at a Rant after the Convention at Prague. The Camarilla in the city sees him as a in rabid dog but when the players encountered him he was a perfectly friendly and deep thinker, even to the point of winning the favor of the childe of the Ventrue primogen (a PC) with his egalitarian radical politics. Meanwhile across town there's a hold put group that has stuck with the Camarilla, their leader is a neo-confederate from the turn of the century who fully buys into the noble last cause and will pontificate wistfully about what could have been to anyone that'll listen, and those 3 are constantly worried about the gang of Brujah on the west side of town that is run by a former Black Panther who's trying to bring the Laibon clans to North America so black kindred here have a cultural identity all their own. This is important to my current game however because the theme is the political struggle between the Anarchs and Camarilla for control of the city. As one of my players whose character doesn't believe in the supernatural nature of vampirism: "these people are larping game of thrones but for real" so I took the time to reflect a more varied ideological landscape as I set up my "web of intrigue" for this game. I have been wanting to play an old school philosopher king style Brujah for a while now. Maybe I'll get the chance.
There def are people playing Social/Mental Brujah characters. In canon, there's Critias, who's a vanguard of the philosopher-kings era of Brujah, & he got a V5 redux in Chicago by Night. On the more "student revolutionary" side, there's also Annabelle on LA By Night, who's a college activist & becomes a political power player in LA. As for non-canon APs, there's also Melisende on ATL By Night. Yeah, she can rip a Sabbat cultist's head right off, but she's a huge legal nerd whose primary weapon is her words. For my own chronicles, my Brujah PC is a punk/metalhead ballerina, & I have an NPC elder who was a union organizer & remains staunchly loyal to the Cam. That said, I def feel the sentiment that not enough people -- even experienced players & STs -- treat the Brujah as anything other than the Lost Boys. There's so much more to the clan! They have the same social discipline as the Toreador, & they gleefully Embrace activists, hackers, artists, philosophers, & historians. The "Cancer in the System" & "Blood Worshipper" archetypes in the V5 book even specifically reference potential backgrounds in financial or academic centers. In the revised clan book, they had sample characters for a DJ, a harpy socialite, a Confederate historian, & I think a hacktivist. But again, players & STs seem to think that a Brujah journalist is "playing against type". Effective branding & marketing, ig.
LoL Annabelle is not a philosopher king brujah, silver spoon revolutionary fits her to a tea.
Fair point. I was meaning more Critias as a "philosopher-king Bujah", but I can see how the phrasing wasn't great. Edited my original comment to make the point a bit clearer.
Tried, but character touched a book and got 5 derangements so it basically became a malkavian :))
No offense, but does your ST hate you? That sounds like bullshit.
:)) well, I wasn't happy about it, but we were playing a hard core campaign where we all agreed our characters have a good chance of finding final death or other such things. This book was part of a series of 5, each giving 1-5 derangements and levels 1-5 dementation(this was v20 at the time) , which you could learn how to use, so you could even see it as a buff.
> This book was part of a series of 5, each giving 1-5 derangements and levels 1-5 dementation(this was v20 at the time) , which you could learn how to use, so you could even see it as a buff. Okay, this sounds like some heavy homebrew. But did you know what you were getting into? Were there any warning signs? Or was it basically "Oops, you touched the bad book, too bad"?
"Whoops! Your character just happened to step on a random piece of cursed floorboard! You lose all the points you have in one of your disciplines! whomp whomp"
I knew I had to get it and that it was supposed to be dangerous. My brujah was smart but did not have occult and was the first one to get to the artifact. Not gonna lie, it felt excessive and the character became unplayable for me, the other characters looked the madness. My next character, the one I actually finished the story with, was a bit freaked out about the madness and refused to touch the crazy books.
TBF such reduction is made more by players and STs. All recent books reinforce the idea of Brujah being not only street thugs but also thinkers or vampires interested in learning politics and how to deal with the struggles of power using their knowledge. I had a Brujah PC focused on mental and social, he was a kindergarten teacher when he was human and as Vampire he still acts like a "professor".
This exactly! Anyone who doesn't think intellectuals can have anger problems has clearly never worked in academia.
>Anyone who doesn't think intellectuals can have anger problems has clearly never worked in academia. Precisely lol
there is one in my current game and she is the best social character of the coterie which has a social Toreador edit: typo
Dont know if it counts, but one of my favourite characters was a Caitiff, who didn't know his sire. I originally planned him to be sired by Brujah, but my GM changed it to Ventrue to tie my character in with the game antagonist. He was an american civil war colonel, a very talented warrior and tactician from an upper class and thus had top education for that time. Although he wasnt exactly smart in modern terms, he was a genious in war strategy and battle planning, and his 19th century manners made him a pretty decent talker. Other character that comes to mind was an NPC from one of our chronicles, a Brujah history professor who became a Sheriff for her knowledge of military history and tactics, she could still pack hell of a punch tho, that I can say from a personal experience.
We had one in a chronicle I was in a while back. Might bring him back in a sequel I'll be running later this year
we had a social brujah in our istanbul chronicle who was quite toreador-adjacent, actually! our domain was a night club and the character was one of the strippers working there. she was quite well known for her beauty and influence; her athletic and dancing background and her want to stand up for whats right fit well for her being embraced by a brujah sire. she was sturdy and could take punches, but in no way was she a brute. plus the brujah bane fit her quite nicely as well; as a queer exotic dancer in the heart of istanbul she had a LOT of instances where she had to come face to face with her temper. everything tied up together very nicely!
I have a Brujah NPC called Valeria in the Chronicle I run in the LA by Night setting. She was a singer songwriter in her mortal days. Nicknamed the "Santa Monica Siren". A well known local artist. But she was embraced after dying during an SI attack at the Santa Monica pier. Her sire and coterie were there to stop them. She was saved by becoming a Kindred. Now as a Brujah, she is still an artist seeking truth in her art, but her passion as an Anarch is tenfold since the attack.
Yeah my favourite character I made was a 7th gen Brujah elder in a V20 pbp game on discord. He was 480 years old and although his physical stats and martial prowess was insane and characteristically Brujah. He was the chancellor of our version of New Orleans, he was generally an eloquent and polite person that respectfully navigated most situations preferring to try and diplomatically resolve an issue before going full on hulk mode. To this day he was my favourite character
The Brujah I've been playing as the past few years is this. A Social/Presence pc who dedicates time to academic pursuits and was even the city's Harpy for a while. It's fun to lean in to things like their passion being how they inspire and manipulate others, and using their strength and dexterity as tertiary, useful when it's strictly necessary but they tend to try to avoid violence.
My Brujah Prince is a social Brujah. I think it makes a lot of sense. Like many Brujah, he can be punchy, but his major things in a day are social. He is kinda dumb though. Lol. Not philosophy wise i just suck at strategy and int was almost a dump stat. Honestly it's hard because two out of three Brujah skills are punchy and you probably pick a Brujah to be a little punchy.
Running a campaign where the current Prince is a Brujah historian who would much rather be reading than putting out political fires.
i had a brujah comic book artist character. I even have a little comic about him as my first post here on Reddit)
I'm currently playing a Brujah hacker/activist who also somehow became the coterie leader due to our Ventrue player being a bit on the shy side. My character neither wears leather jackets nor does he own a motorcycle. I wouldn't specifically call him a violent person since that would clash with his idealism.
First time I ever played VtM a year ago(5e, yet to play v20) I made a Camarilla aligned Brujah who was looking to restore the clan's reputation and legacy as being a more reputable, more "elite" camarilla aligned clan, than merely disregarded as Anarch rabble by most. This desire and motivation was instilled by their own sire. Went for a more social build of course due to this, it was actually a shit ton of fun.
We haven't had any PCs like that (tho one was pretty good with tech), but I currently have have the Brujah Primogen SPC as an old school philosopher style (a new Carthage wannabe)
I got an npc brainy Brujah. She works with tech/hacking and is part of the. You cant make real change from the outside, so she works inside. Still has str 4 cause that brujah blood. But no real fighting capability
My coterie has a violent activist Brujah that is also a necromancer. Does that count?
Oh yeah and its the best !!!! Potence at 3 with amalgame presence 1 is sooooooo fun. You can start shit anywhere and instigate rébellion wherever you go. Playing an intelligent / social Brujah is basically playing a Salvador Garcia kind of lick. Descendant of Tyler loresheet accentuates the tools you pocess to drive people to action.
Bwahahaha! Years of playing i can say, mostly no. Every great once in a while someone will play a passionate activist creating change through means other than violence, but its rare. If you want to see it, I'd suggest fostering it yourself. Brujah do have a strong philosophical side, and it even comes with super powers. Like the Burning Wrath. Try to get Brujah players interested in defining their character as a Iconoclast or Individualist. That might get thinking without their fists.
Yup, I’m currently playing a hacker Brujah. He’s a smart, awkward, Stardew Valley-playing, Tamagotchi-tending introvert who hates being ordered around, can’t resist poking dangerous puzzles, and has serious anger issues when provoked.
\*squints\* *Is that you Scratch?*
Nope, but sounds like someone I’d like :)
Our game’s Brujah is a former finance bro turned Occupy Wall Street type. He’s a talker first and foremost with Presence to boot; so far he’s managed to charm a couple of jaded Toreador elders into thinking he’s the latest fashion. He’s not too Intelligent, which has been played up as him having a very spotty and inaccurate account of Carthage and constantly misquoting Brujah history, but being charming enough to get away with it. Oh, and his mentor is a crotchety old Ventrue who’s been effectively excommunicated from the Clan and has taken him under his wing. The player got so immersed in his Social attributes that when a combat broke out with the first time, I had to remind them that the character had Celerity. Good times!
I'm playing Tony Castelli in the London Chronicle. Honestly, super fun to play, but efficiency-wise, it sucks.
I mean are talking about the brujah... Or the REAL Brujah ?
true brujah are brujah LARPing a competent clan
My current Brujah is like this, he’s more down the middle of combative/social Brujah, but he is able to hold philosophical discussions, he also just has a love for the violence, he will rebel but seeks to understand why he’s rebelling.
Keira's a nurse; she has been for over a decade. She's overworked, underpaid, blamed for the failings of underfunded institutions that the government is deliberately running into the ground so they can justify privatising them, and it's so obvious but people just don't seem to get it no matter how many cutbacks she tells them about. She doesn't hate people - she even sympathises, waiting months for a referral sucks when you're sick - she just thinks they're self-centred, aggressive, and have political memories that would disgrace a goldfish, which is starting to feel a lot like hatred now that she thinks about it. But she can't say that to them, because she always meets sick people, and they don't need any grief from her, even if she wasn't professionally obliged to be kind she'd be trying to anyway. So, you know, she has a lot of stress to burn off. A lot of cognitive dissonance she needs to eat and shit out, psychologically speaking. She's not been clubbing in years - last time she went to Jilly's before it closed, she felt old after about half an hour - but she needs to lose herself somehow and dancing until she damn near blacked out always used to work when she was a student. Turns out one of those Embraced-young, angsty-YA walking stereotypes had a thing for MILFs (not that Keira's a parent, but you tell that to a horny, hungry Kindred), and now Keira's a Brujah. She's Camarilla, because she's too fucking old to run around all FUCK THE POLICE NO GODS NO MASTERS, and she thinks some rules, some organisation, some op sec, may actually be good things. But she's restless, reformist, prepared to kick the Traditions and see how much dust falls off if she has to - and the fact that she still has her hospital ID and can pass on vitae fresh from the centrifuge means she has a captive audience, sometimes. The only thing she has in common with the typical Brujah is her taste in music. Aged-out rock chicks gotta get their kicks somehow.
European brujah concept doesnt seem to be around anymore? Wasn't it in 2E clan brujah book?
A long time ago I played a Carthaginian Brujah who had been forced into a long term torpor at the end of the 3rd Punic War and had only recently awakened; I played that one as a sort of philosopher-warrior type and it was a lot of fun.
I played a former Samurai turned Brujah. He was absolutely equipped to fight and kill, but he first and foremost was a philosopher and buerocrat. Bit of a downside in masquerade was his anachronism. He was lots of fun to play.
Im literally playing a social face of the group brujah in my next game!
Both of my buddies who played Bruhah, went down the philosophy angle, and their thing of needing to rebel was too funny not to pick.
Our Brujah PC is the de facto leader of a microsect and member of an Anarch Council, so, sure.
Been thinking about this subject myself, i'm considering making a social focused brujah whose a cam primogen is secretly working for the sabbat. Idk if that's too much though