Humanity
The core theme of Vampire: the Requiem is the character’s struggle to hold on to their dwindling humanity in the face of the monster they have become – a character’s humanity rating is represented by a number from 1 to 10.
A character’s humanity rating represents the extent to which they can control the monstrous urges that their condition imposes on them – the more they remember their humanity, the easier it is for them to do. The more they are reminded that they are an unnatural monster, the harder it is for them to do.
It determines the chance that they will hurt or kill a human while feeding in downtime, and the chance that using vampiric disciplines will cause their beast to stir, imposing RP effects on them for the rest of the current uptime session, (or until they are fed).
A character must test to see if they can hold onto their humanity if they commit any of the sins (or things that are equivalent to them – the list is illustrative, not exhaustive) listed at their current level of humanity or below. Their chance of passing the test is determined by the level of the break point, not their current humanity rating.
| Humanity | Chance of Feeding Accident | Chance of RP on discipline use | Sample Breakpoints | Chance of passing humanity check |
| 10 | 10% | 10% | One night without human contact. Lying in defense of the Masquerade. | 75% |
| 9 | 15% | 15% | Watching humans eat a meal. Committing a superhuman feat of physical prowess. Feeding from the unwilling or unknowing. | 75% |
| 8 | 20% | 20% | Creating a ghoul. Rejected by a human. Riding the wave of frenzy. | 70% |
| 7 | 20% | 25% | One week active without human contact. Surviving something that would hospitalize a human. Injuring someone over blood. Activating more than one Discipline in a night. Watching a mortal be harmed by another vampire. | 70% |
| 6 | 25% | 30% | Falling into torpor. Feeding from a child. Reading their own obituary. Experiencing a car crash or other immense physical trauma. Urging another’s behavior with a Discipline. Watching a mortal be violently killed by another vampire. | 60% |
| 5 | 30% | 35% | Two weeks active without human contact. Death of a mortal family member. Controlling another with a Discipline. Watching a mortal be killed for food by another vampire. | 55% |
| 4 | 40% | 40% | Learning Crúac. Impassioned violence. Spending a year or more in torpor. Surviving a century. Accidentally killing. Being blood bonded to another. | 50% |
| 3 | 45% | 45% | One month active without human contact. Death of a mortal spouse or child. Impassioned killing. Blood-binding another. | 45% |
| 2 | 50% | 45% | One year active without human contact. Premeditated killing. Seeing a culture that didn’t exist when you were alive. Surviving 500 years. Creating a revenant. | 30% |
| 1 | 60% | 45% | One decade active without human contact. Heinous, spree, or mass murder. | 0% |
For the purposes of these rules, “Human Contact” means at least 15 minutes genuine conversation with a human who is unaware of their Vampiric nature, with whom they have a meaningful emotional bond.
Feeding Accidents
These represent the chance that the character will hurt or kill a mortal human each downtime. Characters with a humanity 5 or higher may chose whether or not they have hurt or killed the human in question (if you elect for your character to have killed them, please inform a ref – we assume that if you make this choice, you wish to hazard some of your character’s humanity because you believe this will be a fun thing to play.) See the Downtime Rules for more information about what these mean.
Banes
If a character suffers a loss of humanity due to a particular act, they may chose to “take a bane” rather than that ever having to test for humanity owning to that particular breakpoint ever again.
This represents them permanently accepting part of their own monstrous nature, instead of choosing to struggle against it, but in the process, they give ground to the supernatural monster inside them, and it permanently marks them as inhuman, giving them additional vampiric weaknesses. See the separate page for a list of possible banes and their effects.
Not that this applies to the act, not the level of humanity. A vampire who took a bane as a result of feeding from a child would still have to test for humanity if they read their own obituary.
Each bane a character takes is assumed to make it harder for them to feed inconspicuously, and their chance of suffering a feeding accident in downtime is therefore raised by 5% per bane they have taken.