Martial Creed

The Martial creed is one of the five creeds practiced by mortal Hunters. Members of the Martial creed favor direct, combative, even overtly violent approaches to the Hunt. They reason that destruction is the least common denominator of monster hunting, and that the best defense against the supernatural is decisive offense. Most are smart enough to realize that they’re perpetual underdogs against the supernatural, of course, and try to equalize those odds with extensive training and firepower. Other Hunters may see them as courting unnecessary risk, but when the chips are down and the quarry isn’t exactly where they thought it would be or vulnerable to what they thought it was, everybody wants a Martial Hunter on their side.

Overview

The Martial creed is a creed that of course lends itself to certain stereotypes, but for every ex-military sharpshooter, there are a dozen wrench-wielding plumbers who have had enough, magazine editors taking advantage of their self-defense classes, and gearheads who know that even a vampire won’t get up from being run over by a heavy - and fast - enough car.

A Martial Hunter might expect to fight a desiccated vampire in its shabby mansion, ambush a werewolf prowling through the slums, attack the corrupt cultists of a demented warlock, shoot their way out of a Coalition kill box, or strike the bloodsucker who thought they’d found a powerless victim.

Backgrounds

The Martial creed suggests a simplistic approach, but in truth this creed includes a breadth of Hunters who are Driven by a wide spectrum of motivations. Some are idealistic neophytes who favor unambiguous action, some have served and trained in militaries, and some want to “cut out the middleman” and bring down the supernatural whatever the cost. Martial creed Hunters may not even be on the front lines themselves, operating in more of an engineering or support capacity for their cell, but preferring the combative solution nonetheless.

Other creeds sometimes misidentify the Martial creed as hasty or even bull-headed, but the nuances of the creed don’t bear this out. More so than foolhardiness, the Martial Hunters usually seek finality. Whatever brought them to the Hunt, they don’t want to risk the same tragedies for other people, and they Hunt to protect as much out of any inherent stubbornness. The only good monster is a dead monster, and preferably one they killed themselves, so there’s no ambiguity about the outcome.

Tactics

Find the quarry; destroy the quarry. That’s the root of the Martial creed. To speak rather tautologically, the one quality that unifies all the tens of thousands of quarries that have faced destruction since the dawn of humanity is the fact that they could be destroyed (or at least banished). To the Martial ethos, any strategy that deviates from the most efficient possible path to that endpoint is a flawed strategy.

In practice there’s more nuance to the Martial creed, but at its essence is driving the critical stake through the heart or putting the silver bullet in the beast’s head. Martial creed Hunters know the value of intel gathering and preparation, but the focus of their Hunt is dealing with the quarry so that it can no longer prey on its victims. This can be everything from brutishly breaking down a door and taking the head off the undead to a nights-long stakeout, tracking the quarry’s every movement, and finally pulling the trigger from a sniper’s perch on a factory rooftop almost a kilometer away from the abandoned machine shop where the monster hides. As with all the creeds, the Martial creed is not a method; it's a philosophy from which methods arise.

Given the broad attitude assumed by Martial Hunters, the playbook is huge, covering everything from “entering Transylvania” and eliminating targets to performing extensive reconnaissance beforehand and handling confidentiality breaches in the aftermath. The extensive outfitting and rigorous training many Martial Hunters bring to bear play a role in making sure their ops’ outcomes conform to the cell’s desires. Depending on the cell itself, that might be a nigh-military breach-and-clear or it might be a forensic breakthrough or even a public relations success. It all depends on the objective.

Many Martial strategies understandably eschew dealing with live targets, fearing mind control, emotional coercion, and supernatural violence, so almost all information comes to the Hunter at some level of remove. Supernatural creatures are complex and diverse, and what’s true of some bat-faced vampire is different from what’s known about this werewolf, let alone that werewolf — to say nothing of the factions that seemingly exist among the societies of the monsters, anyway.

Creed Field

When Desperation comes to the fore, Martials are at their best when it comes to any sort of physical conflict while on the Hunt; be it with the quarry itself, with its minions, or even with an interfering org.

Gallery

A Martial Hunter

From Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition Core Rulebook

References

• HTR: 5th Edition Core Book, p. 45-47