Domitor

Contents

Domitors and Vampires • Regnants and Ghouls

A domitor is a vampire who holds someone else in thrall, usually as the result of a blood bond but also sometimes through the use of disciplines or blood sorcery with permanent effects. Any strength of blood bond is considered to qualify, so a vampire who has bound an underling only once is just as much their domitor as if they had done so all three times.

Domitors and Vampires

Many vampires have domitors, most commonly their sires or elders in their House or other family group; at their most benevolent, a domitor may simply be an older and more experienced vampire who takes care of a younger one who is bound to them to make them heed their advice. Vampires tend away from the altruistic, however, and so domitors are more often taskmasters and overseers, using those bound to them as tools, pawns, or strategic leverage for their own gains.

Most vampires are aware of their domitors, especially if they voluntarily bound themselves (for example, in a wedding ceremony), but this is not always the case. If a vampire was secretly bloodbound by their domitor, they may be unaware that their judgment and free will have been compromised, merely believing that they're becoming very fond of that person or that they are having normal daydreams about them. Domitors seeking to keep their control a secret usually have to employ fairly extensive secrecy, and they always risk their servant realizing the truth the next time they give an order that they would normally resist.

Regnants and Ghouls

Although "domitor" is more common in modern nights, vampires who hold ghouls in thrall were called regnants in older times, signifying their sovereign power over their hapless mortal servants. The term is not appreciably different from "domitor", except that regnants generally have fewer concerns about their subjects going rogue, as ghouls have even less ability than other vampires to fight the insidious effects of the blood bond.

While it is not technically incorrect for a vampire to refer to themself as another vampire's regnant, it would be considered exceptionally rude, as it implies that they believe that the vampire in question is almost as pathetic as a human and just as easily controlled.