Overview
The game takes place in modern-day earth where vampires form complex societies hidden from human awareness. Vampires that share common physical powers and qualities group themselves into "clans", but they also join "covenants" along religious, political or philosophical lines (a player's covenant is generally more important to his character than his clan). These groups differ radically in purpose and outlook and are often in conflict, though one principle they agree upon is that they must hide their existence from humans.
Vampires are unliving humans created when a vampire drains a human dry of blood and then feeds the corpse a few drops of its own vampiric blood. This process is called the Embrace and is draining for the sire, so vampires do not procreate often.
Vampires generally dwell in large cities, where they can find plenty of prey and easily remain inconspicuous. Vampires do not need to kill humans to steal blood; humans go into a trance when a vampire feeds on them and do not remember the moment, and a vampire can erase the bite marks it made by licking them. Every evening, their bodies consume a portion of their stored blood in order to rise from their daytime slumber - a vampire will enter an extended period of torpor if it does not have any blood.
Read more about this topic: Vampire: The Requiem