The Toreador are the artists, the clan closest to mortals. They seek beauty in all its forms, and feel most strongly what was lost in the Embrace. They have the gift of sight, and can see in art much that mortals do not.
- Clan Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Presence
- Advantages: Because of their ties to Humanity, Toreador start with 1 level of Herd and receive advantage on Inhumanity Checks. Toreador also can purchase the Masquerade skill for the same XP cost as Home Lores and do not require a teacher to learn it. Some Toreador can also create special retainers after Chargen. (Details concerning this last advantage are locked to approved Toreador characters with requisite Toreador Lore.)
- Disadvantages: Because of their poignant sense of lost Humanity, Toreador must spend twice as much XP to buy off an Inhumanity Trait.
Toreador Theme
The Toreador theme is a lonely one: lost vitality. No clan is closer to humanity, and no clan feels more poignantly the absence of the creative spark, destroyed in becoming one of the walking dead. Some vampires try to fan the dying embers of their own vitality, drowning themselves in the world of decadence and excess, others try to touch the pulse of life by nurturing mortal talent, acting as patrons, or inspirational shadows. The Toreador represent what was lost in the Embrace, but Los Angeles is a superficial city. In their desperation to recover what was lost, to fill the void, the Toreador are at once the most social of vampires, but can often become the most spiteful, petty, and jealous as well.
Toreador in Los Angeles
"Image is Everything. Thirst? Well, it needs be quenched to stave off the Beast. But one should still look good while drinking."
The Toreador of Los Angeles are intimately wrapped up with the style and image of the city. Hollywood, television studios, and much of the world's fashion comes out of Los Angeles. The Oscars are here. The Toreador have been influencing the movie business since the beginning, and Hollywood is, to a great degree, a Toreador creation.
By contrast, the Toreador have taken a surprisingly small role in the goings on of vampiric society, preferring to attend to their own interests. Under the Treaty of La Ciegena there was one Toreador Prince: Gillian Ventriss rules South Orange County. It is something of a conceit that the Toreador of Los Angeles tend to see themselves (not the clan, mind you, but themselves individually) as "above" the petty wrangling of vampire politics.
Many Toreador their niche in the music industry, entertainment industry or the art world, and forget about the rest of the city. Some even have reached the point where they believe that the entertainment industry /is/ the city, so completely have they bought into the mortal media's imagery.
Regardless of this solipsism, all vampires find that they must scramble to achieve and maintain power in Los Angeles. Los Angeles is a city of transitory allegiances and uncertain footing, but the Toreador are, by and large, masters of this game.
Hollywood and Newport Beach are the centers of Toreador Influence, but the clan's members can most often be found in Los Angeles' famous museums, particularly the Getty Center and LACMA. Even outside the clan's strongholds, however, they wield a great deal of influence through mortal artists, agents, artisans, and visionaries.
