You can make a character who you intend on getting ghouled in the first place, or you can make a character and then later sign up for a ghouling or get ghouled. In any case, here is how embraces work.

Can You Just Be Blood Bonded Without Being A Ghoul?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Yes, but it's complicated, contextual, and an uphill battle to the point where the answer might as well be "no."

In V20, you are technically a ghoul from the very first drop of blood (see page 37 of Ghouls & Revenants). That doesn't mean you get Disciplines immediately, but you are subject to Ghoul mechanics (you cease to age as long as you retain Vitae, you are capable of Frenzy, carrying a Vitae pool, etc). Theoretically your ghoul status can wear off, leaving the blood bond behind, which is described on page 36 of Ghouls & Revenants.

However, it is incredibly unlikely that this will wear off due to the following factors:

Withdrawal: A month after your last drink of blood you experience Withdrawal. See page 43 onward of V20's G&R for details.
Your Domitor: Your Domitor is going to inevitably feed you drinks 2 and 3.
The Masquerade: Once you are exposed to the Vampiric world, there are no half-measures. One way or another, your Domitor will face pressure to give you all 3 drinks.

So while yes, it is technically possible to be blood bonded without being a ghoul, this is by first becoming a ghoul and then being deprived of blood for a month (which triggers Withdrawal). It's possible. It's not likely.

Please note that once Sorcerers and Psychics are ghouled, their powers are removed and exchanged permanently for Disciplines. If you do happen to have your ghouldom "wear off" and are playing a Sorcerer or Psychic, their original powers will not be restored.(edited)

Requirements

ICly speaking, all that is necessary, technically, is a PC willing to ghoul you. Don't forget to get dat sweet sign-off from the Court.

However, there's some heads-up ground to cover here.

Ghoulings And Consent

Ghouling a character requires OOC consent from the player portraying the ghoul-to-be. You're asking this person to make an extremely dramatic and even invasive change to their character. They deserve 100% OOC transparency.

If you're in a position where you feel like ghouling a person is a way to keep them safe, the market offers several lovely alternatives you should consider together. You can reach out to staff for more according to your IC situation. If the situation has come to this due to the prospective ghoul having drummed up a bunch of IC consequences, they may just have to lie in the bed they made for themselves, but there's always …

The Mind Wipe (Dominate, blackout drunk, etc).
The Cover-Story (Those guys are just weirdo cultists/LARPers/DND nerds).
Proselytizing Keeping Your Mouth Shut as the one and only true Lord And Savior.
And Many More!

Please note, however, that just because ghouling is consent-based, punitive blood bonding of other vampires or existing ghouls is a valid form of ICC within the Camarilla justice system (See "Draught of blood", page 388 MET). If, for whatever reason, you are facing a 'Draught Of Blood' as a legal punishment and you aren't willing to RP that, then we can and will come up with something else, but the alternative IC punishment is still going to be an actual IC punishment.

Also please note, we don't want to deal with ghouling mages. Please don't go there. It ends in sadness for everybody, do not bring sadness to everybody.

Being A Ghoul Ain't Easy

Being a ghoul is not straightforward and sometimes is not easy. You gotta be willing to play through an experience that has the potential to get complicated quickly or compromise your character's free will in some way.

This is because of several factors. For one, your character is going to essentially be hooked on kooky spooky heroin/crack since the blood is powerfully addictive. It takes a Willpower score of 5 or greater to have a chance to resist that third drink. Your free will gets a little compromised, here.

Second, you're subservient to your domitor, you're seen as property. This opens you up to your sire potentially wanting to control you in some fashion. It also opens up the possibility for other characters to boss you around.

This is not to say that just because you're embraced you're going to therefore be immediately subjugated to poor treatment IC. It does mean, however, that being treated poorly IC can very well happen due to the nature of life as a ghoul. Staff will step in on your behalf on a case by case basis if the IC events are inappropriate.

If you're not willing to sign up for that, that's totally legitimate, but that also means you shouldn't aspire to get ghouled.

Process

Someone loads you up with blood.

Drink One

You get a Vitae pool, which you can spend to heal damage, from day 1.
You acquire a 1-step Blood Bond and are considered a ghoul in the most technical sense.
If you have psychic powers or hedge magic, all of your Numina rolls are at +1 difficulty so long as you carry that Vitae

Drink Two

Your Blood Bond increases to a 2-step bond.
If you have psychic powers or hedge magic, your powers become even more difficult to use (+2 difficulty to rolls) so long as you carry the 2-step bond, Vitae or no Vitae.

Drink Three

Your template gets switched to "<Domitor's Clan> Vassal."
You acquire 1 dot of Potence and 1 dot in any other discipline from your domitor.
You acquire a Domitor rating determined by your sire's Generation.
Your Blood Bond is now a 3-step bond.
You lose your psychic powers or numina permanently. You will be compensated (see 'Power Loss And Compensation' below).
At the time of the third drink, we take you OOC. If a +job regarding your Ghouling doesn't already exist at this time (it very well should), then a +job will be made. On that +job, you'll be able to designate whatever XP spends that you want to spend with your currently saved up XP (plus compensation XP, below). This saved up XP can be spent on specific Backgrounds, Merits, and Flaws (below).

Once you have designated your purchases, you can go back IC. We want you to stay OOC until the purchases are set in order to make sure that there are no continuity errors ICly.

The cost of buying a Background is 3 x current rating, per level.

The cost of a Merit is 3 x Rating, flat-rate. This means that a 3 point Merit would cost 9 XP. A 5 point merit would cost 15 XP.

Flaws can also be acquired to give you XP. This XP can be kept outright, or used to offset the costs of Merits. You can only purchase up to 7 total points of flaws, including the flaws you brought in with you. For example, if you took 3 points of flaws originally during character generation, then you can acquire 4 more points of flaws upon embrace. If you already took 7 points of flaws, you cannot acquire more flaws.

Please note that the merits and flaws available for immediate purchase are specifically those which were not available to you during character generation due to applying as a plane-Jane human. Merits and Flaws that were available to you during character generation (like "Impatient" or "Enemy") are not available. A detailed selection of what is available to you is found below.

Backgrounds Available For Immediate Purchase

When Becoming something supernatural, a player may buy dots of certain Backgrounds immediately, to represent the circumstances of the Ghouling. At this time, there are no Backgrounds that are relevant. Domitor exists, but you will be given the Domitor background for free, as determined by your Regnant's Generation score.

Merits And Flaws Available For Immediate Purchase

Mental Merits And Flaws

Light Sensitive (-2, -4 or -6 Pt. Flaw) Your ghoul has discovered, much to her chagrin, that she is growing more sensitive to bright light thanks to the transformative powers of the vampiric blood she ingests. During daylight hours, she might require strong, prescription sunglasses, and bright flashes such as a camera flash or lightning may require a Frenzy check. Among ghouls of certain Clans and bloodlines, like the Followers of Set, this Flaw can worsen over long periods of time at the Storytellers discretion. The point value for the Light Sensitive Flaw reflects an increasing sensitivity to artificial and natural light. A 2-point Flaw means your ghoul retreats from harsh, bright sunlight harsh and will react more quickly than most mortals. At 4 points, your ghoul is incapable of functioning normally in bright sunlight, and may develop painful skin rashes and/or sunburn after exposure. At 6 points, the ghoul finds any bright light nearly paralyzing, and will go to whatever lengths required to avoid such bright conditions. Bad sunburn will result from only a minute or two in full sunlight, and will become bashing damage at a rate of one point of damage per fifteen minutes worth of exposure. A ghoul with this level of the Flaw will therefore receive four points of bashing damage per hour of contact with full sunlight or its equivalent. Such damage may be healed normally, as per V20 on pp. 282-286.

Supernatural Merits And Flaws

Merits

Blood Flaw Immunity (5 Pt Supernatural Merit)

You have discovered that you are resistant to the Clan or bloodline flaws present in the blood you drink. Your domitor might be a lower Generation Nosferatu, who lives in the sewers because her appearance is so hideous, and yet your appearance will not change. Should members of the Tremere or Tzimisce Clans learn of your Blood Flaw Immunity, you may be sought after for further study. After all, if a ghouls biology is such that you do not suffer as much as your domitor, surely theres a "cure" for the flaws present in every Clans or bloodlines blood. This Merit no longer applies if your ghoul is Embraced.

Clear-Sighted (4 Pt Supernatural Merit)

Your ghoul is not easily fooled by illusions and tricks of the light. Whether you were born lucky, have supernatural assistance, or proper training to brush aside such influences, your character has a knack for overcoming the phantasms, shadows, and mirages others create through the use of thaumaturgical rituals and Disciplines. This Merit is only applicable for visible tricks of deceit caused by the use of Disciplines. When faced with a supernatural illusion caused by the use of Disciplines such as Obfuscate and Chimestry, your ghoul may make a Perception + Alertness roll (difficulty equal to your opponents powers level +3). If successful, your character sees right through the effect. If you fail, you might suspect the illusion is a trick, but you cannot prove your suspicious are correct.

Pale Aura (2 Pt Supernatural Merit)

Due to some quirk of fate or your reaction to the Blood, your aura is naturally pale. Any color your characters aura takes has a pale cast to it, as if you were a vampire and not a ghoul. Vampires reading your aura with the use of the Auspex Discipline may assume you are a vampire unless they gain five or more successes on an Aura Perception roll, or have strong reason to suspect otherwise. This Merit can be of great use if you wish to impersonate a vampire for a time, but can also cause a dangerous misunderstanding or lead to your capture for further scrutiny.

Flaws

Light Sensitive (-2, -4 or -6 Pt Supernatural Flaw)

Your ghoul has discovered, much to her chagrin, that she is growing more sensitive to bright light thanks to the transformative powers of the vampiric blood she ingests. During daylight hours, she might require strong, prescription sunglasses, and bright flashes such as a camera flash or lightning may require a Frenzy check.

A 2-point Flaw means your ghoul retreats from harsh, bright sunlight harsh and will react more quickly than most mortals. At 4 points, your ghoul is incapable of functioning normally in bright sunlight, and may develop painful skin rashes and/or sunburn after exposure. At 6 points, the ghoul finds any bright light nearly paralyzing, and will go to whatever lengths required to avoid such bright conditions. Bad sunburn will result from only a minute or two in full sunlight, and will become bashing damage at a rate of one point of damage per fifteen minutes worth of exposure. A ghoul with this level of the Flaw will therefore receive four points of bashing damage per hour of contact with full sunlight or its equivalent. Such damage may be healed normally, as per V20 on pp. 282-286.

Social Merits And Flaws

Groomed for Embrace (5 Pt Social Merit)

Your character has been deemed worthy of the Embrace, and is being prepared for the eventuality through careful, directed training by your future sire. While this Merit does not guarantee when you will be Embraced, your character is aware that you will become a vampire, and you know the identity of your future sire. The benefits of being Groomed for Embrace are related to your current role as a ghoul, and your future position as a vampire within a specific Clan or bloodline.

Aftermath

Once your Ghouling +job has been processed (your Clan vassalage, two Discipline dots, Vitae pool, Domitor rating, and your XP spends get set), you can return to normal IC play. You may buy Disciplines like any other ghoul.

Power Loss And Compensation

Psychics and Sorcerers permanently lose their Numina on the 3rd drink (which is also when they get their Disicplines). On Modern Nights, if you're gonna play something, you're gonna play purely that thing. Not a Sorcerer-Psychic, not a Sorcerer-Ghoul, et cetera.

While some Numina do make some thematic sense to keep (e.g. some psychic Numina would compliment Auspex very well), we do not have any intention of making exceptions because this complicates the process and can make people feel left out or singled out. Mortal+ characters lose their Numina across the board. Damnation is cruel.

We play out the power loss to the 3rd drink to give the Mortal+ at least some kind of opportunity to discover that their powers are being destroyed as an OOC courtesy.

An ex-Sorcerer or ex-Psychic retains their knowledge of how things are done (they could, for instance, theoretically act as a mentor to someone developing their Paths) but they can't use their powers anymore.

What You Get Compensated For

Original 5 dots of Numina: These are replaced with 1 Potence + 1 other Clan Discipline (the ghoul chargen package).
Mortal+ Only Background Dots:
- Mana: Refunded at 3 XP per Chargen/Freebie dot spent.
- Guide: Staff decision pending. Possible outcomes include either that ghouls may keep Guide, trade it out for Spirit Mentor, or get refunded. All characters will be subject to the same decision, it just has not been made yet.
- Cholé: Staff decision pending. Possible outcomes include either that ghouls may keep Cholé, trade it out for Medium, or get refunded. All characters will be subject to the same decision, it just has not been made yet.
Freebie Points Spent On Numina: These will be refunded with 10 XP per dot of Numina acquired through Freebies.
XP Spent On Numina: XP you specifically spent on Numina gets refunded. This is strictly and only Numina.

The Compensation Process

You will be given XP determined by what incompatible stats you are losing and how you got them.

The XP that you get as part of the transformation (from now-invalid spends) can be used on the Ghouling job, but only for merits that specifically were not available to you during character generation. You cannot buy more dots of Disciplines with this compensation XP at the time of ghouling. You can save it up for later, but you cannot immediately spend it on Disciplines.

IC Ghoulings

Contents