Thread by @jachilli

Thy Domain is thy concern. All others owe thee respect while in it. None may challenge thy word in thy Domain.

Those are some potent words, and millennia of interpretation has emerged surrounding what exactly this Tradition of Domain means.

#vamily #VampireTheMasquerade

In anything but the most tyrannical of cities, every Kindred has the right to some amount of domain. It may be as little as "your haven is your domain and anything else you have to enforce." It may be "a few blocks surrounding your domain."

Kindred in positions of authority who court popular support usually err on the more lenient side of interpreting the Tradition of Domain. For all that a city is a finite amount of space, vampires are rare enough that having a claim of one's own goes far.

It shows that that Prince / Baron/ local bigshot respects the other Kindred's right to exist, and their autonomy to lead their own unlives.

(And, yes, this is one of the ironies of being a vampire, that your existence is almost certain to cause the end of one or mortals' existences, but that your existence needs to be respected. Hypocrisy is perhaps the greatest Kindred luxury.)

This interpretation makes for interesting decentralization of cities. On the one hand, hey, property! On the other hand, recognizing domain makes the individual Kindred responsible for what happens in that domain.

So, Mr. Malkavian, would you care to tell me why exactly the Sabbat pack was found to have had a safe house in your domain? Or, Ms. Tremere, why the staked body of an Archon was found in your domain?

More despotic or authoritarian figureheads may frame it so that Domain begins and ends with them, that Domain refers to the city as a whole and that Kindred in the city have no right to exist exist at all beyond their recognition by that despot.

Needless to say, there's probably a lot of abasing oneself and jumping-through-hoops required to justify one's own existence. Such tyrannical domains usually ripen for insurrection quickly, unless claimed by immensely powerful vampires.

It gets a little weirder outside the cities. Granted, that's usually the territory of supernatural creatures other than vampires, but some potent Autarkis dwell outside urban areas, as do Kindred who prefer extreme privacy — and those with something to hide.

These non-city domains are harder to demarcate, often to the pleasure of the Kindred who claim them. "Just being here is a challenge to me" is the attitude many isolated Kindred carry. They've chosen to dwell outside the gilded cage of the city for some reason or another.