An excerpt taken from a letter written by Charles Morganti to another kindred.

The advance of technology has been immeasurably useful to my trade. Where once providing a musician for a private affair involved earplugs, blindfolds and other such instruments to disguise the truth of affairs, now technology provides an answer. From the gramophones introduced at the turn of the last century, which enabled music to be played at will at the turn of a crank to the modern electric music devices that transcend such basic principles. In modern nights, I can have a favoured musician play in a private room and their art is conveyed through electrics to a room elsewhere providing the unique experience of a personal musician without the dangers of having a kine musician included in a kindred matter.

You might ask why I don’t simply solve two problems at once and make a favoured musician of mine into a ghoul to provide safety and loyalty. The answers are myriad: I provide discrete services, and even a ghoul being present can break that creed; providing a variety of musical talent in this way would be expensive in vitae; and then there is the foremost reason – the lack of creativity in the ghouled. There is no shame in admitting that the mortal mind adapts better to new situations and creates more readily than the minds of the kindred. Our immortal nature bestows a certain slowness in thought, and the ghouled take on some measure of that. A ghoul is less likely to be original, or to create new works. Even the bond is dangerous as it focuses the kine on yourself rather than the creation of new works. In art and music, you want nothing other than the best unsullied by the nature of vitae.

Of course, the problem with using only kine untouched by the blood is that they all too soon wither and lose their talent. At some point, one must ask oneself whether this treasured artist is at the peak of their abilities and whether you wish to retain them as they are, or whether one lets them continue to create and age as a mortal. This is another solution that technology has overcome to a degree. The ability to store the art of a musician’s craft in electrics such that their beauty can be recounted at any point is itself a marvel and one which I offer freely to my clientèle should they desire musical accompaniment to their activities. As previously described, a personal performance can also be arranged through the use of an insulated music room for the performer or performers which also allows for the composition of original or custom pieces for a particular event.

The scale of technological advancement seems to leap exponentially with every passing decade. There seems to be little now that cannot be accomplished through the power of electrics – the cities quite literally thrum with the energy passing through the aether at times.

I was given the phrase “comfortable lies” to base a bit of fiction off of. What follows appears to be an excerpt from my Requiem character‘s mind, specifically regarding the creation of useful tools and servants. It doesn’t really go anywhere, but does bring up some of his notions about how the kine and ghouls should be treated.

Normally I would share this sort of thing across my social networks, but it’s almost a little too strange for me to want to do that, so I’ll just leave it here and point people at it later.

The human mind is a wonderful thing. Given enough of a push, it can come to believe anything – it can even lie to itself and twist truth and fallacy so completely they become indiscernible.

Push someone to their breaking point enough and they come to accept it as part of their life, they may even come to welcome it. They forget that things weren’t always like this and convince themselves that this is better; they come to welcome a brief respite as if it were a month-long vacation. They tell themselves that the lie is true, that they’re better off, that the respite is better than a holiday.

Push someone to their breaking point enough and they convince themselves that they’re unbroken while they remould themselves in the forge you present to them. There’s no challenge in breaking someone and reforging them; it’s a long process and you often have to start from nothing. Convincing someone that they remain unbroken, that they have chosen this path instead of being forced into it – that is a much more entertaining prospect.

Those who survive the process are fit to serve – convinced by themselves that this is where they should be without the weaknesses of a broken mind. Perhaps they long for the day that they can strike back, but can’t imagine what they would do without you – it doesn’t matter as long as they serve; and the ones who think they deserve to end your existence will fight harder to stop someone else doing so.

Of course, the process also eradicates their candidacy for elevation, at least in the superior clan. The lesser clans may find their twisted nature compatible, but they lack the elegance required for our family.