Return to Clan Hub | Clan Merits and Bloodlines | Toreador Wiki

Toreador are artists, writers, and creators: artisans enjoying an immortal life of pageantry and sensuality. Unlike other clans, Toreador plunge themselves into the mortal world. Often, they will pretend to be mortal, living as glitterati and giving patronage to influential mortal artists. From city to city, passion to passion, the Toreador flit about, inspiring the finest art and leaving a trail of broken hearts. With such refined tastes, it is easy for a member of the Toreador clan to become jaded and bitter, filled with ennui. Surrounded by excess, they quickly lose interest, seizing prize after prize — the sweetest of which are those stolen from another. The oldest Toreador often become depraved, sinking into debauchery simply so they can feel anything at all.

Clan Weakness
Toreador are often entranced by beauty and art. When you encounter a piece of art, a performance, or something beautiful that you are particularly interested in or that you have never seen before, you must give it your undivided attention for a scene. Toreador can resist this urge by expending a point of Willpower. Although distractions like loud voices or a nearby scuffle can divert your attentions, Toreador dislike being interrupted while experiencing art and beauty, and will respond with anger — even violence or frenzy.

Nickname: Degenerates
Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Presence

The Clan of the Rose has long associated itself with wealth, comfort and the outward trappings of affluence. Few find it surprising, then, that the Toreador thrive during the nights of the Victorian era. Whether attending an aristocratic soiree or scheming against their fellow Kindred, the Degenerates likely enjoyed the greatest comfort of any clan during the period. As shepherds of mortals - in their minds at least - the grandeur of the era comes largely thanks to them.

In truth, the Toreador have made their way much as they always have. While the term "shepherd" may have some ring of truth to it, the Toreador are simply the most adept at following mortal trends, though they rarely found them.

While Toreador patronage may certainly lend credence to a fashion or cultural movement, particularly in the case of extremely influential Degenerates, these trends originate with the mortals themselves.

As parasites, the Kindred merely follow what they see, and the Toreador are most capable at this. While others among the undead watch the shifting tides of the mortal world, whether they admit it or not, the Degenerates usually have the most input as to which mortal patterns the Kindred will follow.

In most cases, the Toreador draw attention to this fact only when necessary - as veterans of the Jyhad, subtlety works in their favour - and though they may preen and posture, this comes largely as a desire to have others see them as ineffectual.

Those looking past the façade of Kindred affairs understand the true power the Toreador wield. The Degenerates can make or break a vampire's social fate by casting her behaviour in an unfavourable light or by shifting the Kindred's acceptance of trends she follows; in a society as tied to the approval of others as that of the Victorian era, those who can manipulate popular opinion possess far more influence than the unwise suspect.

Overview

As liaisons between the world of the living and the world of the undead, the Toreador truck with individual mortals in greater frequency than any other clan. While other Kindred may associate with the kine here and there, traffic with mortals is the Toreador's stock in trade. They associate themselves with groups and individuals; they watch the course of mortal opinion and tie themselves to it in order that they may have "the will of the world in our favour," according to one esteemed member of the clan.

The Toreador's close connections to the mortal world lead many Kindred to dismiss them as dilettantes and sybarites, though this is true only regard to the most effete Kindred of the clan. Indeed, the Toreador may be the most adept of Kindred at passing for mortal, so closely do they keep the whims of the living to their undead hearts, and when one wants to be taken for something other than a monster, passing for mortal is a capital way to do it. Though hiding one's true nature may prove distasteful to some Kindred, particularly among haughty undead and fervent Sabbat, the Toreador have become masters of enacting their wills through influence and gesture rather than blood and fire.

Other vampires tend to form narrow stereotypes with regard to the Toreador - they ignore them as dandy fops, navel-gazing fools or debased bourgeoisie. For their part, the Toreador simply nod and smile, knowing that an underestimated foe is a Kindred with the upper hand. Let Kindred vanity lead these other vampires astray - a look at the history of the Damned brings the truth to light and shows the strength of the Toreador both individually and as a clan. The Camarilla itself arose largely as a result of Toreador influence; the prince of one of the most important cities in the world, Paris, belongs to Clan Toreador. While the Ventrue may lead, their duties would become tremendously more difficult without the support of the Degenerates: Power belongs to those who can sway public opinion enough to support their own desires.

The Toreador practice of the Embrace varies between a weakness and a strength. Many of the Degenerates choose childer foolishly, Embracing mortals to whom they find themselves passionately attracted. These dalliances rarely result in Kindred who make much of themselves; passion is fleeting, and the turgid romances so endemic to the Victorian era have given rise to many, many poorly Embraced Toreador. One the other hand, Toreador passion also populates their ranks with a diversity not often seen among other clans.

A Toreador may fall (briefly) in love with someone he might not consider for Embrace and then bring that individual into the world of Kindred in spite of himself. Thus, what might seem to be a passionate mistake instead broadens the horizons of both that kindred and the Toreador as a whole. Certainly, the Toreador constitute one of the most cosmopolitan clans, once the savvy observer learns to see past the carefully cultivated stereotype of art patrons and anachronistic aristocrats.

This is not to say that every Toreador childe comes about as a result of ill-considered infautation, but merely that it occurs enough to raise the eyebrows of certain observant Kindred. Some relationships between childer and sires flourish for decades or even centuries; these are the stuff of Toreador legend and Gothic veneration.

Domain

As one of the most powerful and prominent clans, the Toreador have little shame in claiming the most prestigious domains of a city for their own. They vie with one another and the Ventrue (and the scattered handful of other kindred capable of "keeping up with" them) for prime territories; one can determine a Toreador's esteem by considering the size and importance of her domain. For example, a quiet elder with numerous estates both inside and outside a city as well as rights to a prince's favoured hunting grounds likely wields more influence than a boisterous primogen whose own domain consists of little more than the neighbourhood in which he keeps his primary haven. A word from the primogen carries only the weight others afford it, while the more prominent (if subtler) elder speaks with the obvious benefit of successful experience.

Taken at more than face value, this concept betrays how closely status ties to the concept of domain for the Toreador. This often proves frustrating to neonates and challenged ancillae, whose elders have already snatched up what seems to be all of the key domains for themselves. At this point, however, the noteworthy Toreador aptitude for monitoring the mortal world comes into play - an elder may have lobbied for her private museum to be declared Elysium (and quite a coup that was, to be fair!), but the neonate is more likely to hear the "world on the street" about a new theatre to which mortal patrons have been flocking in droves. If that neonate can petition the prince to acknowledge him as having domain there, the concomitant status it enjoys among the mortals of the city translates nicely into the accolades of the Damned, and that neonate is well on his way toward establishing himself.

Rare are the Toreador who share domains, especially along the lines of the Embrace. In the opinions of most sires, once a childe has learned the ways of the Damned, she is better off on her own - lingering in the sire's domain only makes her a burden (and, ostensibly, competition for already limited resources), while striking out on her own and making a name for herself reflects positively on the esteem of the sire. Although only the bitterest or most callous sire casts childer out without allowing them to cotton to the customs of the Kindred, the Degenerates typically favour encouraging their childer to "fly on their own."

Toreador strength lies scattered across the Empire, with several bastions of power eclipsing other cities near them in greatness. Paris, for example - to whom else could it belong other than the Toreador? Many other parts of France also count among the domains of the Toreador, though none outshine Paris itself. In Spain, where the influence of the vicious Lasombra wanes, the Toreador wax. Italy, too, hosts several strong Toreador territories, which themselves stand against the depredations of the Sabbat. Edinburgh plays a Toreador counterpoint to Ventrue, London, and though England has historically surpassed Scotland's importance in the global theatre, few would argue the strength of importance of the Toreador fief.

“Le spine della rosa sono nacoste dal fiore: the thorns of the rose are hidden by the bloom.” — Lynda La Plante, Bella Mafia

Interests

Those outside of the clan would call them selfish, greedy or even avaricious, but the Toreador observe interests not unlike those of the Empire itself - betterment of their own positions is merely one of the perks of bringing culture and civilisation to the rest of the world and the Kindred in it.

The Toreador play at politics virtually without peer among any Kindred other than the Ventrue. Many princes hail from this clan, as do the vast majority of harpies and other offices of predominantly social importance. The Degenerates are among the most numerous advocates of Elysium and often push the expansion of sites protected by that distinction. Only the smallest city (or perhaps a city without a significant Toreador population) claims no Toreador primogen, and some cities host more than one.

Outside of politics, society remains the life's blood of Clan Toreador, and the Degenerates can be found at the apex of every strata of society. From the nobles, ambassadors, aristocrats and advisers at the top of society's heap to the influential clergy, leaders of the burgeoning middle class and respected specialists of the centre to the crime bosses, con men and rabble-rousers of society's dregs, the Toreador move with ample grace to the forefront of their classes. In this, they play a dangerous game, for they must cultivate enough influence to compete against their fellows in matters of clan status and Kindred-wide Jyhad while simultaneously keeping their vampiric natures hidden from those whose company they keep.

Although by no means a defining characteristic of the clan, many Toreador - even a majority, perhaps - have some influence in the arts. In most cases, this influence comes as a result of the Degenerates' dabbling in social trends, but in many cases, the individual Toreador practices some art of his own. More so than in any era past (as so many Toreador prior to the Victorian era were more artisans than artists), with the possible exception of the Renaissance, the Gothic period allows the lingering sparks of creativity to flicker in Toreador hearts. It is no coincidence that such Toreador partition in the first-hand creation of art (in whatever form, poetry, literature, graphic art or what have you) rises during the period that encourages it.

In no small part, Toreador interest mimics the social trends of mortals at any given time. Many among the Degenerates find fascination in the new directions of medicine and psychology, and more thana few occult charlatans have been debunked or propped up by Toreador with something to gain from their fall or success. Although many of the Degenerates find mortal politics to be either boring or distracting (as who has time for mortal politics when the Damned play at them so much more adeptly), few would argue that the politicians themselves wield significant influence and that bringing that influence to bear for one's own purposes has its value. Along the same lines, some Toreador work with social movements and institutions, such as the Fabians (and their Sabbat counterpart among the Toreador antitribu), the Church, Marxist cells forming in Germany and the supporters of evolutionary theory, rather than individuals key to those movements. Instead of bringing one of the movement's leaders under their sway, these Toreador become respected figures in those organisations (though rarely leaders themselves, as they have a propensity for becoming Kindred very visible to the wrong types of attention) ad pull their strings, at least on local levels. Again, as the Toreador are perhaps of all Kindred the best at following mortal trends, so, too, do they recognise the importance of remaining out of the sight of the wrong people.

Toreador Clan Merits

Return to Clan Hub

Back to Top