Vampire: The Masquerade - Sins of the Sires is an interactive novel by Natalia Theodoridou. It's entirely text-based, 300,000 words, without graphics or sound effects, and fueled by the vast, unstoppable power of your imagination.
Athens, Greece: a city with an ancient past now thrust into the modern age. A city torn between the Camarilla establishment and the Anarchs, where everyone owes your boss a favor, and that makes you an untouchable vampire in this nocturnal society where you and your fellow Kindred must conceal yourselves from mortal eyes—the Masquerade of the Kindred.
Rumors spread of an ancient vampire, Aristovoros, intent on bringing about a new world for the Kindred, an end to the Masquerade. Why hide from mortals when you can reign over them as gods?
Who will you use, who will you help, and who will you prey on? Will you topple the old Prince Peisistratos? Will you betray your boss when your lost sire returns? What miseries will you inflict to fight for a fairer, more humane world?
A Choice of Games game set in the world of Vampire: The Masquerade.
Sins of the Sires contains the following tropes:
- 11th-Hour Superpower: When about to be murdered, the main character experiences a sudden surge of strength and will display a Discipline associated with their true clan: Blood Sorcery for a Banu Haqim or Tremere, Presence for a Ventrue, Dominate for a Malkavian, and the ability to daywalk for a thin-blood.
- All There in the Manual: A dig through the code reveals a lot of extra facts about the characters that never actually come up in the game, such as their heritage—for instance, Kapriel and Gor are descendants of Aila.
- But Thou Must!: Try as you might, there is no actual course of action you can take that will actually let you avoid getting involved in the struggle for Athens's throne. You can make several good stabs at running away, but more powerful characters will eventually nab you and drag you back—literally, if need be. At that point, no matter what options you pick or how good your stats are, you can't escape (ie, you can have maxed Obfuscate and stealth at 80%, but you're still getting caught if you try to sneak out of Sophia's castle with Persa.)
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: This is par for the course for the Camarilla. Kapriel sides with whoever looks like they're going to win at the time, Markos sides with whoever promises to protect him and his childer, and you can stab absolutely everybody in the back if you want to.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: If you are Tremere, you were abandoned to protect you, as all fledglings of that clan are automatically under a blood hunt due to Peisistratos's paranoia. If you are Malkavian, your sire genuinely has no memory of Embracing you, and was deliberately deceived by the only other people who knew.
- Darker and Edgier: There are more bad endings available than in previous games, and even the "good" endings can still come with some pretty horrific epilogues. Even if you do come out in one piece, there are still significant downsides, and you may end up with a Fate Worse than Death even if you do everything "right".
- Foreshadowing: If you're a Ventrue, the play Peisistratos's ghouls put on is Medea. You know, the play in which a wrathful queen, after being betrayed by one she aided at great cost to herself, slaughters her own children to get vengeance?
- Guide Dang It!: Your true Clan much later in the game is determined by the Disciplines you chose at game start. This tends to throw off VTM veterans because you start off as a Caitiff, and normally a Caitiff who is not a thin-blood (all thin-bloods are Caitiff, but not all Caitiff are thin-bloods) will always be a Caitiff, while a thin-blood can only acquire a clan via diablerie.
- Banu Haqim: Celerity, Obfuscate
- Malkavian: Auspex, Obfuscate
- Tremere: Auspex, Dominate
- Ventrue: Dominate, Fortitude
- Thin-Blood: Any other combination
- Hidden in Plain Sight: The fledgling prophesied to destroy Peisistratos has been living right under his nose as one of his most prominent courtier's childer. A double-helping if you're a Tremere, because then Markos hid his illegally embraced childe by adopting them.
- I Hate You, Vampire Dad: You have the option both to lash out at Markos, your adopted sire, and at your blood sire. Gor also hates Kapriel, as Kapriel deceived him about having shared ideals and the Embrace forced Gor to abandon his family.
- I Love You, Vampire Son: Markos may be harsh on Persa sometimes, but he genuinely cares for her. These are also his feelings toward the player character, provided the relationship doesn't turn antagonistic.
- Insistent Terminology: People constantly refer to you as Markos's childe, and you're constantly correcting them. Ironically, they can turn out to be bang on the money.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: How real are prophecies and fate? If Sophia tries the coup without you, it won't work—but depending on your choices, trying the coup with you also doesn't work, and in most cases where she doesn't have you, Kapriel has defected. So does it have real power, or is it just a symbol with immense psychological weight?
- Not Blood Siblings: The sire=parent and broodmate=sibling idea is in full force here, though no one is biologically related to each other and all only met as adults. Persa and Markos are by this logic your adopted sister and father, but also still romance options. Even if you're a Tremere, in which case you're not actually adopted. This also goes for Gor if you turn out to be a Banu Haqim; the option to explicitly accept him as your sibling has no effect on the romance. Of course, as a vampire, having weird, fucked-up relationships with your fellow vampires is kind of inherent to your condition.
- Pet the Dog: After Peisistratos's court, Kapriel will approach you and give you two pieces of advice: get out of Athens, and, if you ever see him again, run. The first is easily interpreted as self-serving (as if you're out of the city nobody gets to use you as a pawn), the second is not. (And you really, really should listen.)
- The Unreveal: If you're a thin-blood, nobody actually knows who your sire is. Every high-gen vampire in Athens went on an Embracing spree when the prophecy that a thin-blood would bring down Peisistratos leaked, hoping to make the foretold baby vampire and rake in the political power, and you're the sole surviving childe of that chaos.
- The Reveal: Your blood sire (in most cases) will be revealed during the meeting at Sophia's palace, along with the truth that you are the subject of a prophecy, and destined to destroy the Prince, if you believe in that kind of thing.
- Rewatch Bonus: Because of all the different characters who can turn out to be your sire, many conversations and interactions throughout the game take on completely new meanings depending on who you got. Sophia's refusal to look at a Ventrue fledgling becomes not arrogance but an attempt to distance herself from the childe she created to be a sacrifice, while Kapriel's warning to you becomes downright paternal.
- Rule of Drama: Markos will teach a player character who has Blood Sorcery the Ward Against Cainites once you reach Sophia's castle. Going strictly by game rules, you shouldn't actually be able to learn it yet, but character-wise, it makes the most sense for Markos to choose this one (as it provides direct protection against other vampires). Plus, the steps are cool.
- Sibling Rivalry: Persa resents that Markos pays more attention to you and seems to think you have more potential. You can resent her right back for being his true childe, or desperately crave her approval.
- Talking the Monster to Death: A Malkavian with the Ph.D student background can do this, convincing Peisistratos that he will fall Because Destiny Says So and there is no escape.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: Ghouling Isidoros is already pretty bad (as he doesn't want it and hates that he craves it), but you can put the cherry on top by forcing him to beg outright for more blood, even as he's clearly having an emotional breakdown. You can also force a troubled young vampire to murder her friend for you, threaten the children who witnessed the murder at the Lola Rossa into silence, and put down Gor for being upset that a teenager died horribly on his watch
- You Have Outlived Your Usefulness:
- A move Sophia is fond of pulling. She will feed Kapriel to a thin-blood who requests becoming a full vampire as their boon, reasoning that this character has served their purpose and is far too untrustworthy to keep around longer.
- In several endings this is also the reason you are given the mission to stop Selene from immolating herself on international news, as certain elders may become a little antsy about the exact wording of the prophecy concerning you. It's either the Prince giving you one last chance to prove you're worth keeping around, or Markos (if he's still alive) desperately wrangling you that chance.
