If you’ve read our writeup on Humanity and Paths of Enlightenment, you probably have some idea of our attitude toward Diablerie. When walking the tightrope between human and monster is a large part of what Vampire as a game is all about, what can be said about an act that throws over the former entirely in favor of the latter by consuming another’s very soul — either for power, which is bad enough, or for the simple pleasure of doing it, which is far worse? It’s not necessarily a complete abandonment of the attempt to remain human — there are sometimes circumstances that make it possible to atone for such a deed, even if it’s highly unlikely — but it’s pretty darned close.

Making the matter even more fraught is that, from an in-character perspective, the Camarilla strictly forbids the practice except in the case of a sire and their childe — and even then only if the latter is the subject of a blood hunt. There are very, very few exceptions to this rule — it is indicative of their attitude that someone who destroys an Anathema might be allowed to break it. Anyone who shows up in Camarilla territory with black veins in their aura is very likely to have a blood hunt called on them unless they have an extremely compelling explanation, and one that’s backed up by testimony from someone the Prince and the Primogen have reason to trust.

The Anarchs don’t particularly care for the practice either. Considering their relatively low status and power, they’d make very tempting targets for any elder who is no longer able to subsist on human blood. For that reason among others, they’re very likely to look the other way if the Camarilla acts to eliminate a diablerist — even if doing so involves intruding on Anarch territory.

All that said … it does happen, despite all the sentiment against it. And under the right circumstances it’s possible to get away with it — but doing so should be a major inflection point in a character’s story, and have lasting consequences for them and everyone who knows about their crime. Committing diablerie just as a way to raise one’s Generation misses the point of what makes the practice so horrifying and so off-limits to the Kindred, and that’s not something we want to encourage or support.

The following guidelines apply to diablerie on TowersMUX:

• A character who has committed diablerie can be removed from play by other PCs without the normal penalty that would attach to such an act (see PvP), as long as they are aware that they’re dealing with a diablerist. They are not required to have ironclad proof, although they need something more than just suspicion. In effect, diablerie automatically counts as doing something so heinous that your sphere’s IC leadership will hang you out to dry for it, as outlined in the linked page. This applies whether the victim was a PC or an NPC.
• Characters who commit diablerie with the explicit prior permission of the NPC Camarilla leadership are exempt from the above penalty. Such permission is vanishingly unlikely to be given except in the event of a full-scale Sabbat attack that the Camarilla does not believe they’ll be able to repel.
• Characters from the Independent Clans are not exempt from this penalty. The NPC Clan leaders value the ability to have a presence in London far more than they value any individual vampire’s existence, and they will voluntarily throw diablerists from their clan under the bus to keep that ability.
• Diablerie on NPC vampires can only be committed in stories run by staff or Sanctioned Storytellers. In the latter case, explicit prior approval from staff is required.
• Characters who adhere to Humanity or any Path of Enlightenment that forbids diablerie automatically lose one dot of same upon committing diablerie, with no roll permitted. They must then subtract the level in the Hierarchy of Sins under which diablerie is forbidden (for Humanity, this is 1) from their current rating, and make that many Conscience rolls (difficulty 8). The character loses an additional dot of Humanity (or etc.) for each failure, and loses a dot plus a dot of Conscience for each botch. This is a change from the book rules on Humanity loss for diablerie. If the character loses enough dots that their Humanity or Path rating drops below 1, they succumb to Wassail and become an NPC under staff control.
• Diablerie cannot lower your Generation past 8th. If you manage to contrive a situation in which your character would become 7th Generation (or lower), the character will instead be taken over by the soul of their victim and become an NPC under staff control.

In the event that your character is able to successfully commit diablerie and remain playable under the above rules, expect a long conversation with staff about your plans for the character and how you intend to address the effects of such a horrible act in your roleplay.