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When the Gilgul ritual is performed on a mage, their Avatar is shattered into pieces and scattered across the universe, into the ether. As a result, they become permanently Sleeper and will never again be able to use true magick.

What happens, however, if a vampire turns a mage into a vampire and they lose their Avatar because of that? Does the Avatar die like a living organism in that case, rather than being dispersed into the ether as with Gilgul? Is there any difference? Could you give an objective answer to this question?

I’m asking because I had an antagonist who was originally a corrupt Nephandus. He was captured by the Technocracy and sentenced to Gilgul, losing his Avatar. Afterwards, they released him, and he wanted to commit suicide, as is usually the case with mages who have undergone the Gilgul ritual. However, a Setite noticed him and, for some ulterior motive, turned him into a vampire.

The character was initiated into Disciplines, dark magics, and over time became able to step into the Umbra as well. Somehow, he managed to gather the billions upon billions of fragments of his shattered Avatar and piece them back together. He became capable of using true magick again, and even achieved Golconda despite being morally extremely corrupt. He also managed to lower his generation to around 4–5. Paradox affected him minimally or not at all.

He was able to lure many vampires and other supernatural beings—werewolves, the Fera, etc.—to his side with promises of Golconda and enlightenment. Instead of granting them these, he corrupted them with dark teachings, building an apocalyptic cult. He formed alliances with the Baali, the Lasombra, and even the Devil himself.

He was perhaps the most powerful antagonist I’ve created so far in the World of Darkness, although I probably broke the WoD lore in several places.

Feel free to use this antagonist concept in your own chronicles if you like it.

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First of all, any special splat in the World of Darkness is connected to a mark on the soul (or lack thereoff) of the character. Fera and Garou are half spirit, half soul. Mages are an avatar attached to a soul. Hunters are a mark pressed upon an otherwise entirely bland human soul. Kuei-Jin are corrupted, split souls bound to a body, wraiths are shattered souls without a body. Mummies are merged souls components. Demons use the body of a broken soul, and Vampires are living souls bound to their dead bodies, corrupted by a curse.

Trying to mix and merge these splats is historically bad, and only two cases of crossover characters canonically exist:

  1. Fera getting embraced can become abominations, special murdermonstervampirewerewolfs. They are almost all insane.
  2. The sole exception that is Samual Haight. He stole all his powers. First stealing the skins of Garou. Then he stole the blood of vampires. Then he literally robbed an Avatar from someone else. Now he is an ashtray.

Your question.

What happens, however, if a vampire turns a mage into a vampire and they lose their Avatar because of that? Does the Avatar die like a living organism in that case, rather than being dispersed into the ether as with Gilgul? Is there any difference? Could you give an objective answer to this question?

Well, there is a thread here, what happens on Embrace. If a mage gets embraced, his avatar is shatterd. Very much akin to Gigul, but worse: they become incapable of holding an Avatar because the remainder of the soul is changed. As I pointed out above, a vampire's soul is marked by undeath, and that makes it incapable to connect to an Avatar or any other magic splat. The curse overwrites the markings of other splats where it can.

Your antagonist is absolutly impossible under lore.

And violates rules. You are literally not supposed to mix splats like that.. Or gain powers from other splats. Let me quote the rules for mage GMs here:

And sometimes you really DO have to say No in order to keep the game from getting out of hand. (No, you CAN’T be a vampire-changeling Garou mage…)
- Mage 20th anniversary edition, p.342

Now, lemme critique the character.

He became capable of using true magick again, and even achieved Golconda despite being morally extremely corrupt.

I don't even hate to break it to you, you just tried to create a Samual Haight. The most hated character in the WoD, and who was killed off for good in 2nd Edition because of the backlash of people. And he was meant to be the single most badass to be a standalone. He's not an example to try to achieve.

You left the path of published gamelines and rules with the piece quoted. The moment you become embraced and undead, your soul is condemned. It is marked with undeath. Any avatar is fundamentally incapable of bonding to your soul, because you don't have a normal soul anymore that it could attach to. It's why the Tremere can not do true magick anymore after embrace. Your body is incapable of connecting to an avatar. Even Samual Haight was not a full vampire when he stole the avatar using a special magic sword - he was a Ghoul hunting Vampires for fun and power.

Golconda and moral corruption are impossible to combine. Golconda requires Humanity 7 or more. The moment you drop below, you lose all progress to golconda. But following any path, including the path of corruption of Setites, fully exclusively locks you out of Golconda.

He formed alliances with [...] and even the Devil himself.

You torture the lore here: There is no Devil. Demon helpfulyl will provicde you the lore on this: While God exists, and the angels and emons (elohim and their fallen siblings) do so too, there is no Devil. At least not as a single entity that is ruling Hell. Because there isn't a single hell, but hell can mean one of multiple places, among them the spot where the fallen elohim were banished to, the Abyss, and where Lucifer, a fallen elohim, was one of the leaders of the houses.

The closest thing to the Devil from the bible under normal lore are the nephandic Dark Lords, but even that is a bad comparison: the Dark Lords are cthuloid, they are much more akin to The Great Old Ones and Outer Gods than "the Devil". They fundamentally don't care for you or humanity. Or even interact with their own followers. At best, creatures from the host of those Dark Lords interact with the followers.

He was perhaps the most powerful antagonist I’ve created so far in the World of Darkness, although I probably broke the WoD lore in several places.

Oh yes, you broke lore. A lot. And you tried otu outshine Samual Haight.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I expected something like this. Thank you for your long response!! \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 3 at 12:38
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    \$\begingroup\$ "you just tried to create a Samual Haight." underline this In red. Then circle it. Draw some arrows to it, too. It deserves the most attention. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 3 at 20:10
  • \$\begingroup\$ But on another note, I am not sure the Embrace destroys the Avatar. Mages turned vampires definitely don't have an Avatar but I was under the impression it's lost and returned to the cycle. I'll see if I can track down a reference for that and verify - I might also be wrong. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 3 at 20:12
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    \$\begingroup\$ OK, I was indeed wrong - in Gods & Monsters (the M20 supplement) on p. 61 the side bar "Night-Folk Mages?" says "the vampiric Embrace shreds an Awakened Avatar." So, it is actually destroyed. \$\endgroup\$ Commented Apr 3 at 20:26

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