Smart/secure ways to hide/protect yourself while sleeping in Vampire the Masquerade

[Brock Samson]

So far our storyteller hasn't even asked about our sleeping arrangements yet, but that doesn't mean at some point he's not going to have someone invade our homes while we're sleeping to try and off us. My character is quite rich (Resources 5), a Brujah with Presence 5, Celerity 4, and Potence 4, I have a retainer that's basically my manservant to help watch over me during the day, as well as 3 blood bound German Shepherds. Still, I feel like I need more.

So, I was wondering, what various ways are there to hide/protect yourself while sleeping?

Some things I was considering:
Installing an indoor pool, and have a large/long step that runs around the bottom of the pool, which has a secret door where I can climb in at night so I'm not only hidden, but under water (so first someone would have to find me, and they couldn't just set my place on fire and expect me dead).

Sleeping in the walls of the house. Very hidey.

I'd love to hear more ideas though. What's everyone got?

[Project_Mayhem]

Well. In our group, the gangrel slept in the ground, the lasombra had a time locked underground vault, the social toreador had many guards, and the badass toreador had a few guards and enough reflexes to kill anything and go back to sllep

[Crossblade]

Sleeping under water might not be the best idea. One or more leaks, and a big enough barricade and you'll be sleeping with the fishes 24 hours a day instead of 8.
(Yes, I made the pun first)

If you want to be very paranoid, if you're so rich, higher 2 or 5 more man servants. Then you can be watched over in 8 hour shifts by 1 or 2 people or in 4 hour shifts by 1 person.
(Hrm, that came out more confusing that it should have... 3 shifts, each 8 hours. 3x8=24hrs or 6 shifts, each 4 hours = 24hrs)

Or steal ideas from popular vampire stories. Have a large stone coffin... so large that it has a fake door (or 2) in the bottom of it. Sleep in the bottom section under the fact door(s).

Sleep in a room with HUNDREDS of coffins. Make sure they're not wood though, or they'll just burn them all. It could take hours to find you if they have to open hundreds of locked and bolted coffins.

[comicshorse]

Sleeping in a completely flooded room is good ( you don't need to breathe after all). Poison gas is even better ( if hard to get hold of) .
With resources 5 you have money so its time to put it to use. Get the best locks and alarms you can afford. Make sure the room you sleep in is basically a bank-vault and make contacts among the police so you're a priority for investigations of your alarm going off.

[The White Knight]

Poison gas is even better ( if hard to get hold of) .

A couple of dots in Science should give one the chemical know-how to just make some out of otherwise inconspicuous materials.

[deuxhero]

Sleep in a room with HUNDREDS of coffins. Make sure they're not wood though, or they'll just burn them all. It could take hours to find you if they have to open hundreds of locked and bolted coffins.

If a vampire did that I'd just check for the heaviest one, so put correctly weighted dummies in each.

[Fax Celestis]

Two dots Protean. Done.

Also try: a couple of dots of Chimerstry, Serpentis, or Thaumaturgy: Path of Blood.

[Crossblade]

If a vampire did that I'd just check for the heaviest one, so put correctly weighted dummies in each.

You've never seen a casket carried before, have you?
I suppose that's not a bad thing...

It takes 6-8 people to carry one for a reason. They're heavy even while empty.

[Riffington]

Electronically-targetted machineguns. When anyone walks in, guards look at the images and delete any people they see.
They don't see anyone with obfuscate, so the guns fire.

[cupkeyk]

Allies can Cast defense of the sacred haven for you too. (Is that what its called? I play VTR now)

[W3bDragon]

Get a piece of wood with a flat bottom and attach it to your chest to make it look like you're staked. As a last line of defense, it might confuse your enemies long enough for you to get the drop on them, assuming your humanity is high enough to remain awake for a bit.

[derfenrirwolv]

Do you own any rental properties? One of the most effective things you can do is to have a dozen or so buildings that you COULD be in, so a search for you (by looking or just burning the place down) takes multiple attempts per night.

Buy a man sized safe that opens from the inside. Put pressurized tanks inside filled with chlorine gas. Sleep in a steel bunker under the bed. Since you have a potence of 4 there's no locking mechanism... you can either lift 2,000 pounds or you can't.

The bottom of a lake.

A cave with a lot of bats and poor air quality.

Its hard to describe without drawing, but an insanely heavy rock thats easy to open from the inside but hard to open from the outside

[deuxhero]

You've never seen a casket carried before, have you?
I suppose that's not a bad thing...

It takes 6-8 people to carry one for a reason. They're heavy even while empty.

You don't need to pick it up. If it's standing you could push at it (and if it is empty, you will notice it). Sitting down is a bit of an issue.


Come to think of it, don't bother with that idea. If you are within a mile or so of a hardware store (and how many people aren't) the effort is worthless if they grab a drill.

[avr]

Who wants to wake up soaking wet every night? Just fill a room below ground level with CO2 from a fire suppression system or something.

Escape tunnels with swinging axe blades or whatever are a classic. Make it so you need celerity 4 to get past them safely.

Also remember: As an elder vampire, you are an evil overlord. The usual advice applies.

[FatR]

The only way that works against serious opponents is secrecy. Adding costly and noticeable precautions only makes your location conspicous, and whatever defenses you install, your enemies can send enough cannonfodder to dismantle, simply because you're giving the initiative to them. Living in a mini-fortress only works if you're a figurehead and a public face for more powerful (and actually active) vampires. And in crossover games most of the other supernaturals have ways to make physical obsctacles meaningless.

So either sleep in the earth and change locations every night, or have many havens and change locations every night.

[Lord Vukodlak]

If the storyteller wants to kill you in your sleep its going to happen. If your location is a fortress they send in an army if its secret they find it.

I had an idea once of having a Forensic Scientist a close personal friend and sleeping in the police morgue. If your enemy has enough firepower to assault a police station your screwed anyway.

Another one was to simply sleep in the back of a truck, my servant would drive from sunrise to sunset. If your on the movie its much harder for your enemies to corner you.

On the subject of having multiple coffins in the room, booby trap the others if a frag grenade rips a few grunts to shreds when they force open the first coffin those left alive will think twice before opening another.

You really only need a reasonable level of secrecy, security, and an escape route. You want a good humanity so you can wake up and make a run for it when trouble starts. You don't need the security to stop a serious incursion just slow it down while you run away.

[Kurald Galain]

Rituals like Wake With Evening's Freshness, which let you wake up when an intruder comes.

There's an even funnier one that ensures that whenever people enter your haven, it is dusk now. Wait, what?

[Quincunx]

Put some blood sources between you and the Potence trap, on the off-chance that you have to stumble back to your haven, drained, at the end of the night. Entombing yourself since you're unable to burn blood for Potence would be counterproductive. For you, the ghouled dogs should probably work as that fail-safe.

Maybe buy a building that used to be a bank and remodel it to suit your taste, and put in a good cover story for when a clueless mortal wanders in trying to find the bathroom and says to herself, "What the bleep have I just walked into here?"--or at least put in some better signage for said bathroom. (Yes creepy nightclub in Tallinn, I mean you.)

Known players' havens:
Lasombra: Under a wealthy church with ghouled clergy and hundreds of candles and torches. Few vampires could face that much fire.
Gangrel: Slept in the lake. Assaulted by creature of black tendrils. (Lasombra blamed.)
Brujah/Malkavian: Manor trapped with Potence doors and Dementation locks.
Cappadocian/???: In the boneyard. . .somewhere. Reports of things attacking grave robbers were not traced to any particular Animalism-using clan member.
Malkavian/Gangrel: Buried themselves at the fringes of the towns. One dug deep and the other woke easily. Both loved to hunt.

[Cespenar]

Sleep in a room with HUNDREDS of coffins. Make sure they're not wood though, or they'll just burn them all. It could take hours to find you if they have to open hundreds of locked and bolted coffins.

This is, while not foolproof, one of the most effective ideas. Let them be massive stone sarcophagi instead, and you're done. Seal them too, so that only the superhumanly strong can open them and mooks can't help you rush it through.

[Psyx]

The only way that works against serious opponents is secrecy. Adding costly and noticeable precautions only makes your location conspicous, and whatever defenses you install, your enemies can send enough cannonfodder to dismantle, simply because you're giving the initiative to them. Living in a mini-fortress only works if you're a figurehead and a public face for more powerful (and actually active) vampires. And in crossover games most of the other supernaturals have ways to make physical obsctacles meaningless.

So either sleel in the earth and change locations every night, or have many haves and change locations every night.

^This.

Multiple havens or Protean 2 FTW.

Although if you must hide in a hole in the ground, may I recommend buying a closed bank, and using the vault?

Or hide in the attic. Perhaps in a chimney. Every looks in the basement. Nobody checks upstairs for a Vampire. You can't escape from basements. Roof-tops are easy.

[comicshorse]

The only way that works against serious opponents is secrecy. Adding costly and noticeable precautions only makes your location conspicous, and whatever defenses you install, your enemies can send enough cannonfodder to dismantle, simply because you're giving the initiative to them. Living in a mini-fortress only works if you're a figurehead and a public face for more powerful (and actually active) vampires. And in crossover games most of the other supernaturals have ways to make physical obsctacles meaningless.

I'm going to disagree with this ..........a bit. While I feel this is a good point it assumes that you're enemies will have an army. Many groups trying to assault a vampire (hunters, low-level Sabbat packs, anarch diablerists) will be stoppable by fortress type security. Even those enemies who do have an army will think twice before deploying them in such a blatant way as it stirs up all sorts of trouble and leaves all sort of evidence pointing at them.
Of course if you're opponents are massively supernaturally powerful and can avoid the defences with powers then yes secrecy is very much your best bet. Then again if they're supernaturally powerful they probably have powers to hunt you down.
Also try living in an area where massive security is common. A Lasombra I played lived in a exclusive, gated community in L.A. There he would have stood out if his house DIDN'T have electic fences, gaurd dogs and security camera's.

P.S
Thaumaturgy, Necromancy and Koldunic Sorcery or all great for creating defences that cannot be seen by the mortals and probably can't be understood by your attackers. If you don't have them yourself but have a friend who you ABSOLUTELY trust who has them there are lots of nasty things that can de done to protect you

[KillianHawkeye]

Two dots Protean. Done.

Multiple havens or Protean 2 FTW.

And how does having razor sharp claws help you safely sleep through the day?

I think you mean Protean 3 "Earth Meld," right?

[Dragosai]

Already mentioned but I think it's pretty hard to beat the good old bank vault, a good security system with some guards as well as automated camera/gun turrets. Also since you are richie rich have several places like this around town is a good idea to keep would be attackers guessing at what location you sleep at on any given day. If you need more then that then you are playing in a style of game I know I would not enjoy. Even what I mentioned above might be overkill depending on the game and storyteller. Basically you could spend real time hours and days thinking up the most elaborate secure place to sleep and it may not matter if your ST is never planning on making that part of the game. I guess that could change if your character likes to make a lot of enemies and/or if the game is going to have a lot of "coffin crashin" in it. I would talk with your ST and find out if any planning is needed, or if that sort of thing is just hand waved since it will just not come up in their game or the other side where they are running a vamp game all about home defense which does not seem like fun to me, if I want that much tactical play I would swap to a table top mini strat game.

[Eldan]

If you have a lot of money, get a time-locked bank vault. Done.

[Project_Mayhem]

And how does having razor sharp claws help you safely sleep through the day?

I think you mean Protean 3 "Earth Meld," right?

common mistake. In Requiem they swapped those powers round.

[Kurald Galain]

If you don't have them yourself but have a friend who you ABSOLUTELY trust

This being vampire... said friend will probably end up staking you.

[Autonomy]

There's plenty of good ones spread across the books, without getting into any of the overly dungeoneering-esque methods above. I quite like the bodybag + lake combo from Guide to the Anarchs and the nest under the bridge mentioned in the Giovanni clan novel (scaffolding and tarpaulin covering it, vampire attached to the underside of the bridge).

Your pool idea has merit but suffers from a number of drawbacks, namely the fact that you're going to have to get someone to build it and that someone will most likely be mortal. To modify the idea slightly, simply have an overhang built under one end and you'll be safe without having the liability of the pool engineer wondering exactly what that rich guy was going to do with his secret compartment under the pool.

[comicshorse]

Your pool idea has merit but suffers from a number of drawbacks, namely the fact that you're going to have to get someone to build it and that someone will most likely be mortal. To modify the idea slightly, simply have an overhang built under one end and you'll be safe without having the liability of the pool engineer wondering exactly what that rich guy was going to do with his secret compartment under the pool.

Or use Dominate to replace his memories of that with something much more mundane

[Hawriel]

Build a panaic room. Your big rich bastard. Alot of rich peaple have panic rooms. Make one under the basment of your house(s). It will of corse be a secret room. You can have micro security cameras in the house that are on a wireless fead to the room. Also have a mini fridge with blood. Just in case. And a play station 3.

[Cespenar]

Build a panaic room. Your big rich bastard. Alot of rich peaple have panic rooms. Make one under the basment of your house(s). It will of corse be a secret room. You can have micro security cameras in the house that are on a wireless fead to the room. Also have a mini fridge with blood. Just in case. And a play station 3.

Even a panic room has to have a ventilation of some sorts. Find that, flood the place with holy water.