Vampire: The Masquerade is fundamentally a game about the struggle between the need to do what you must in order to continue existing, and the need to avoid degenerating to the point where continued existence is meaningless. Vampires have to drink blood and occasionally kill. Do it too much, though, and eventually life means nothing to you, and only feeding, sleeping, and surviving matter. Humanity is the mechanic that the game uses to represent this struggle. When it’s high, you blend in well with humans because you’re almost human yourself, but the things you have to do to survive put you in constant danger of losing that almost-humanity. When it’s low, it’s very easy to do whatever you have to to survive, but your lack of empathy puts you in constant danger of becoming a mindless beast. This is the fundamental tension of Vampire as a game.

Paths of Enlightenment are alternative ways of avoiding the dangers of mindlessness by elevating a principle other than Humanity to become the purpose of existence. In effect, the vampire has already become a beast — something entirely alien that is not human and does not aspire to be. And, as long as they remain a beast in that specific and particular way, they’re safe from degenerating further into mindlessness. Precisely for this reason, we are, as staff, a little skeptical of them — a Path that’s carefully selected to match up well with the character can allow one to sidestep arguably the single most important part of the game. That isn’t the only possibility — exploring a completely inhuman mindset and the logical consequences of that mindset can make for great roleplaying — but it’s one we want to guard against.

Guidelines for Path Followers

• Even among the Sabbat and the independent clans, followers of Paths of Enlightenment are in the minority. You don’t have to be on a Path to be, and attempt to follow the dictates of, for example, the Followers of Set. Yes, it’s hard, but switching from Humanity to a Path in the first place is also hard, and many vampires who try it don’t succeed.
• London is a city dominated by the Camarilla, meaning Path followers are even rarer here, and viewed with suspicion if they’re known to be such.
• A vampire with a Path of Enlightenment is not human, and is not pretending to be so. They don’t go down to nightclubs to hang out with kine, and if they tried, they would be immediately recognized as something that doesn’t belong. Their particular Path is the thing that gives their life meaning, and they are expected to spend the majority of their time pursuing its dictates.
• Remember that Paths of Enlightenment that use the Instinct virtue cannot try to avoid frenzy. Local authorities who have any interest in the Masquerade will not take kindly to this.
• A Path should be selected with an eye to which would be the most interesting in terms of roleplay potential, rather than which would make life easier.
• Someone who begins play with a Path must adhere to the guidelines in the V20 Core Rulebook: they can start with a Path rating of no more than 5, and they must spend Virtue points to raise Conviction and Instinct (if they have either one) from 0 to 1.
• Someone who adopts a Path in play must also adhere to the appropriate guidelines from the Core Rulebook: your Humanity must be 3 or lower, virtues not used by the Path you’re trying to adopt must be lowered to 1, you must have a tutor, and you must spend a substantial amount of time in studying your target Path before attempting to switch (the book says a year, which we will not strictly enforce, but you should expect that the switch will be more difficult the shorter your period of study has been).
• You should expect that staff will scrutinize requests to raise your Path rating more closely than they will requests to raise Humanity, and will be substantially more strict in applying the tenets of your Path than they will be for characters who follow Humanity.
• Applications for independents from clans that follow a Path specific to that clan are subject to the usual approval requirements for independents (generally, two approvals are required). Applications for vampires following a path not specific to the clan, or for Camarilla or Anarch vampires following a Path, will require approval from a majority of active staff. Because of this, we strongly advise that you consult with staff before submitting an application for a vampire following a Path, and to have an alternate way forward with the concept in the event that you requested path is denied.