Aapilum (singular aapilu) are a form of spiritual being that metaphysically resides within the vitae of every vampire in the world.
Overview[]
The ashipu were the Mesopotamian first practitioners of Blood Sorcery, or so the Banu Haqim believe. They elevated themselves to commune with — or better, to become as — the gods or angels. Observing these entities, deciding to perceive them, draws them to you, or perhaps it draws them out of you. Every Kindred knows that they have a separate self in their Blood urging them to inhuman acts, a dark voice called their Beast. The ashipu also spoke inwardly, to those parts of themselves, and to other voices in their Blood.
Sometimes, those voices speak back. In Akkadian, "the one who answers" is the aapilu, a word that also connotes "door-keeper" and "soothsayer". It’s related to the word "abaalu", meaning echo, or reflection. Aapilum, or abaalum, come from out of the Blood — the sorcerer’s Blood, or that of their lineage — in response to the sorcerer’s evocation. They manifest in candle flame, drugged haze, echoing laughter, serpentine whisper, shadows, and very old bloodstains. Sometimes they even take physical form, but mostly they just answer the call.
General abilities[]
They provide the sorcerer with a service or Gift, usually at some cost. At higher levels, aapilum negotiate the costs with an uncanny inside knowledge of the sorcerer’s weaknesses and desires. Aapilum are immune to mind control powers. Like vampires, sunlight weakens aapilum: they lose one dot of Aapilu Level in reflected or dim sunlight, and two dots in direct or bright sunlight. Rituals exist to ward against aapilum, but mostly in Sumerian. If an aapilu takes physical form, it takes damage as a vampire, not as a mortal, and its talons or fangs do Aggravated damage to Kindred. Some aapilu can set fires by touch, turn meat to rotting dust, attract flies or locusts, or demonstrate other supernatural powers.
Aapilu types[]
Aapilum range in power, from manifested sins dwelling within the Blood of a single Kindred, to horrific incarnations that claim an entire clan's vitae as their territory. In game terms, from one to five dots of Aapilu Level. Currently, any type of aapilu that corresponds to three dots of Aapilu Level has not been described.
The aapilum listed below are only a representative sampling. Many others get summoned or encountered under less favorable conditions by redworkers and other vampires who call up what they can’t always put down. Most often, sorcerers summon them to receive one of their associated Gifts.
Arnu[]
Hideous clots of remembered or potential sin, arnum (also called nefas) bob up to enter mortal or animal bodies for some hideous errand. The caster spits the blackish-red glob out into a bone bowl, where it wriggles and whispers sinful suggestions until introduced into another being — ideally, one sleeping, restrained, or otherwise unaware . While contaminated, the subject obsesses over, often commits, and sometimes wallows in, the sin. Contamination lasts until the next noon. Arnu remind their summoners of something in their memory, but on – often unwise — further investigation, they turn out to be the worst act committed by the worst people the sorcerer or their sire has drunk from; the spiritual equivalent of heavy metal poisoning building up in the summoner’s Blood.
Dealing with the arnu causes the sin to flare brightly in the summoner’s mind. It might nag at their memory, show up in nightmares, or otherwise recur or blow back into their unlives.
Gift: The arnu can find the Ambition and the Desire of any being it contaminates, and the Desire of any being it succeeds at an Insight contest against. The sorcerer suddenly realizes the answer. Or, the nefas can shift a possessed mortal’s blood Resonance toward the flavor most appropriate to its sin (such as sanguine from lust, melancholy from suicide, choleric from murder, phlegmatic from selfishness or apathy) with a Persuasion contest; on a critical win the host gains a suitable dyscrasia.
Zar[]
Also called flickers, from their common appearance as balls of colored witch light, these aapilum embody various kinds of sorcerous or vampiric powers. Zar sometimes remain invisible, manifesting only as a strange-smelling wind, oddly hot or cold for the environment. Modern sorcerers believe zar come from the potential and past of the sorcerer’s Blood: powers they could have wielded or arts their lineage learned and lost.
Gift: Zar can teach their summoner their power in exchange for an overt act against one of the Chronicle Tenets (or potentially their Convictions), one that can incur a Stain. The power lasts for three nights, including the night of the summoning or pact. This power can be from a Discipline the character doesn’t have, as long as it’s in their clan’s (or their sire’s clan’s, for Caitiff or thin-bloods) lineage somewhere. Alternatively, a zar can provide a dice bonus equal to its Aapilu Level to the summoner’s Discipline pool if it’s equal to the zar's; the price and duration of this Gift are the same.
Manis[]
The ancient Romans placated the manes — the good ones — with gifts of blood, and recognized their ancestors within them. They often appear as chalk-pale figures, not unlike statues. A manis brings ancient knowledge, lore, rituals, and secrets known only to previous sires in the sorcerer’s lineage.
Gift: Manes teach magical lore: rituals, locations of furcae, and lost secrets, among other things. They always demand a number of specific services, usually aggrandizing their lineage or pointlessly reviving some ancient feud, along with the standard debased or dehumanizing action: blood sacrifice of a Touchstone’s child, or the Embrace of a virtuous mortal. Manes also often keep their favors for the future as a Life Boon owed them, and call them in at the most inconvenient moments.
Parshum[]
Go far enough back along every vampire’s bloodline and you encounter superhuman monstrosities of almost godlike power, who ruled a city cursed by God. Rituals that summon uparsim — old ones — actually only awaken or embody a fraction of their power: just the amount to refract through a single Blood sorcerer, say.
The uparsim take monstrous forms when summoned, and have very little patience for error or disrespect on the part of their so-called invokers. Any failure on any test or contest in the presence of a parshum triggers an immediate terror frenzy test. A summoner dealing with a parshum is in constant danger of outright losing a point of Humanity: not necessarily as a price paid for a service, but as a simple consequence of exposure to their dark majesty.
Gift: The mind reels at what uparsim can provide: the location of a methuselah’s grave, the summoner’s Blood thickened to that of an earlier generation, or sheer, overwhelming power directed at some inconvenient city block. Likewise, what an Old One might want from a summoner is impossible to guess, but is usually city-upending in its apocalyptic potential.
Version Differences[]
Aapilum exist to provide an explanation for the nebulously-defined 'demons' alluded to throughout the history of Vampire: The Masquerade, which for the first decade or so of the game's lifetime were mostly meant to be accepted at face value. The release of Demon: The Fallen identified these 'demons' as Earthbound, but maintaining that explanation into 5th edition would result in having to deal with the Fallen in general, which have been controversial since their release due to their 'steamrolling' of the other World of Darkness cosmologies and assertion of their own as irrefutably correct, which 5th edition especially prefers to avoid. As such, aapilum were introduced to serve as a more cosmologically flexible explanation that are also easier for player characters to interact with than the universally insane and impossibly powerful Earthbound.
Gallery[]
References[]
- VTM: Blood Sigils, p. 128-130