Ventrue: Power and Stability

The aristocracy of the night, Lords of the Ivory Tower, looking down upon the cities they rule from their boardroom balconies, the Ventrue hold it as their duty to lead. A Ventrue uses all power available to them to ensure that they retain such lofty positions, and woe be to those that draw their ire.

The Ventrue are stoic and resourceful, able to withstand the assault of time, weathering the tides that would destroy lesser Kindred. Their minions are legion, and many are unaware of how their strings are being pulled by unseen masters.

Costuming

Dress for success. A nice suit is always a must, although if you don't have one, or cannot afford one, drop by your local thrift store. If that isn't a possibility, a nice pair of dark pants or slacks and a dress shirt are passable.

Colors should be used sparingly. The majority of your costume should be monochromatic, with a single splash of color. Shirts should be dark primary colors if not black or white, a strong blue or crimson preferred. If you choose to wear a tie, use it as your color statement, although stark white is also a bold statement.

Jewelry and accoutrements should be tasteful. Leave the giant medallions and occult symbols to the Tremere. A simple pin on your lapel speaks volumes more than a half dozen gold chains.

You want to look like someone that deserves respect, you don't want to look like a gamer scrub that is dismissed out of turn.

Role Playing

Speak clearly, loud and directly. Make strong, affirmative statements, and don't speak just for the sake of filling the silence. Look people directly in the eyes (it also helps you Dominate them).

Always offer a firm handshake, with your palm facing downward, as it is a sign of dominance. Clasp their hand with your other hand, as a sign of trust. Such simple gestures automatically put people in a position to follow you.

If you act like you know what you're doing, people will follow you. If someone brings up the potential for failure, dismiss it, but take it into private consideration and plan for it.

Never allow a slight to linger, as you allow people to believe that the Ventrue will tolerate such. Make sure that insults meet with immediate retribution. If someone stands in your way, destroy them.

City Positions

There should always be a Ventrue in charge, and if not, a stable Ventrue Seneschal that effectively holds the Prince's leash is just as effective. If you should end up in a city where the Ventrue are not in charge, it is your duty to rectify the situation.

Ventrue also make very good Keepers of Elysium. Their sense of decorum and tradition allows them to correctly organize entertainment for the evening. Even better, their powers of Dominate and Presence often allows them to stop a fight before it really begins.

Disciplines

Dominate

The ability to force your will upon others is the pinnacle power of the Ventrue, and being able to back it up with a Discipline only makes it more potent. Setting up programmed instructions with Mesmerism makes others putty in your hands. Completely rewriting events with Forgetful Mind allows you to get away with heinous machinations (especially if you hide a Mesmerism in there). Lastly, Possession is paramount in being able to ignore assassination attempts, or personally getting your hands dirty without leaving a trace of your involvement.

Fortitude

Owing to the reputation that makes Ventrue seem like unassailable fortresses unto themselves, the entire Discipline allows you to withstand damage that would leave lesser vampires running or reduced to ashes. Endurance allows you to ignore wound penalties (which is something you need to bring up during a fight to ensure that your opponents are making sure they can still function despite wound penalties). Further powers of the discipline strips away the damage from incoming sources, until Aegis largely puts you beyond harm from most mundane sources and those assailants that don't have Potence.

Presence

When simple reasoning and Dominate doesn't seem to be working, sometimes you need to resort to Presence.

Awe grants you the ability to draw attention during a fight, and allows you to soak up damage that would otherwise have been directed at your minions.

Dread Gaze immediately removes one aggressor in a fight. If you only have a single attacker, you can end a fight with a single Social Challenge.

Entrancement gains you a loyal follower for a scene (or hour), which can also immediately grant you an ally in a fight (so long as they don't start taking too much damage).

All Ventrue with the power should use Summon often, to bring others to you, asserting your dominance over lesser Clans. This also cuts down on the perception that the power is only used for ambushes, so that when you finally need to use it for that purpose, it isn't as obvious.

Majesty immediately revokes an ambush, or can quell a rowdy crowd of Kindred. 

Influence Focus

Ventrue are masters of the Downtime game, and if you ignore such, you're missing out on much of the power that the Ventrue are capable of wielding. Destroy rivals, and have lesser individuals offer prestation for you to cease.

Combined with your Resources Background, focusing on financial influences is a method to guarantee your capabilities, as money always equals power. A wise Ventrue has considerable stock in this Influence, and uses it to set up a number of shell corporations to move wealth around and get a foothold in other Influences.

Influence in legal fields are also a good choice for Ventrue, as it gives them considerable power to support their other Influences, for instance it can be used to keep legal matters involving their shell corporations tied up long enough for the corporations to dissolve and resources allocated elsewhere, or effectively the negate a rival's ability to use influence among the police force.

Manipulation of politics is almost second nature to most Ventrue, use it to modify city projects and put pressure on other institutions. For example, if someone uses influence in the police force to begin an investigation into your holdings, political pressure from the City Government can easily disrupt the process, or string it out indefinitely as the Police Chief reassigns department resources.

Limitations

You have none, act like it. The scepter of command is your to wield.

Promotion

Of course, if you haven't read through our Clanbooks, you're operating at a disadvantage.

Pick up the 1st Edition Ventrue Clanbook:
http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/93/Clanbook-Ventrue--1st-Edition-WW2058&affiliate_id=35945

Or pick up the Revised Edition here:

http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/94/Clanbook-Ventrue--Revised-Edition&affiliate_id=35945