Emem of Clan Toreador is one of three playable characters inVampire: The Masquerade - Swansong. A stylish and fiery club owner with no love for kindred politics, Emem is reluctantly pulled into the events of the game by both the machinations of the prince and a desire to help her friend Journey, who is in danger of being blamed for the disaster that kicks off the game’s plot. This guide will explain her clan, disciplines, and recommended skills.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansongis a narrative RPG developed by Big Bad Wolf and published by Nacon. Set in the World of Darkness, in the City of Boston, Swansong dives into the dangerous world of Kindred society as a disaster threatens their very existence. Playing as Emem, Galeb, and Leysha, players must work to survive in the aftermath of a massacre of kindred and their mortal servants by an initially unknown threat, uncovering secrets and strengthening their own positions in the process.
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Emem’s Clan and Disciplines
Emem is a Toreador, the clan of the Rose. Known for being expressive, glamourous, and emotional, Toreador are artists, innovators, and seducers whose gatherings often include parties, art shows, and dinners. As a Rose, Emem has access to three vampiric disciplines: Auspex, Presence, and Celerity.
All upgrades for a skill also grant +1 to that skill’s rating, thus improving its effectiveness and/or reducing the hunger costs of using that discipline in dialog or exploration.
Auspex
The Vampiric Discipline of supernatural senses,Auspex allows Emem to heighten her senses and pierce the illusions of the Obfuscate Discipline, making her better at investigating and uncovering people’s secrets.
Emem benefits greatly from gathering extra information and reading other characters in order to better manipulate them, so grabbing Auspex skills can be very useful.
Presence
The Vampiric Discipline of supernatural allure and emotional manipulation is a staple of the Toreador, allowing them to attract and sway the opinions of others through charm or fear.
As a Toreador, Emem gets plenty of opportunities to manipulate people in dialog, and Presence is an excellent way of enhancing her ability to do so.
Celerity
The Vampiric Discipline of supernatural quickness and reflexes allowsEmem to blink between celerity points in exploration and slow down timeto perform actions that would be impossible at normal speed.
Emem has to make very frequent use of Celerity in her exploration segments, so upgrading it to minimize the hunger costs is extremely useful and an excellent use of experience.
Attributes and Skills
Emem is a socialite and an expert on getting what she wants through convincing and manipulating others. As such,she benefits greatly from improving her Social attributeand its associated skills: Rhetoric and Persuasion.
Rhetoric is Emem’s ability to identify and react to social conventions and is critical for allowing her to effortlessly navigate social situations and identify when people are acting strangely in such situations. Meanwhile, Persuasion makes her better at convincing others to agree with her via logical arguments or by appealing to their emotions. When paired with Presence, this makes her tremendously effective in dialog.
Other skills beneficial to Emem’s conversational aptitude include psychology, for analyzing people’s motivations and connections to others, and intimidation for when more polite methods fail.
Emem also has to do plenty of investigating and exploration during gameplay, so grabbing some levels of education and investigation can also be useful to her, allowing her to make use of her knowledge of human and vampire society in dialog, and to make deductions and inferences based on information in the game’s world.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Swansongis available for PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch.
