Post by Seth on Dec 6, 2011 11:48:18 GMT -5
There are three factions of vampire, Camarilla, Sabbat, and the Anarchs.
The Camarilla
Camarilla policy is that vampires should try to fit in with and hide from the rest of humanity, as to easily feed on them. For this reason, they created a web of lies and misinformation, called the Masquerade, to make the public believe that supernatural beings like vampires could not possibly exist. The Camarilla also believes that the only way the vampire species can survive in these modern nights is if it unites—any breach of the Masquerade by any vampire risks exposing the entire race. Both viewpoints are fundamentally opposed by the Sabbat.
The Camarilla also enforces the Eldest as ruling class over the younger vampires.
The Sabbat
Freedom is preached in accordance to the Sabbat belief that every vampire is free to create their own destiny without being hindered by the reputations of their elders, and that no Sabbat has to lay down their life for cowards who cannot take care of their own matters. Of course, it does not always work like this in practice.
Also unlike the Camarilla, the Sabbat believes in Antediluvians, and for the most part considers them a great threat. This is unsurprising, especially considering that the Sabbat was formed in the wake of the Anarch Revolt, and both of the core clans, the Tzimisce and Lasombra, claim that their clan founders were killed during this period of upheaval.
All Sabbat adhere to a code of conduct called "The Code of Milan", which preaches loyalty to sect and packmates, and to one's own freedom within the sect, as long as one's own good is never placed above the good of the Sabbat itself.
In addition to a very firm "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality, the sect considers vampires to be a higher form of life than humanity, and is based upon the principles of Loyalty and Freedom. Loyalty to the sect and to one's comrades is one of the important aspects of the sect, and the Sabbat vampires maintain this loyalty through a ritual called Vaulderie, where strong emotional bonds are created between members of the Sabbat.
The Anarchs
Anarchs are vampires who reject the status quo of vampire society. They especially resent the privileged status held by Elders within the Camarilla and other vampire organisations; when the eldest hold the most power in a society of immortals, the lot of Neonates is not a happy one.
Anarchs are often targeted for recruitment by the Sabbat, but most respect the Masquerade and some of the other Traditions, even if they do not respect the vampires who enforce them. Anarchs, like all vampires, are considered members of the Camarilla by default, but unlike the Sabbat they are tolerated, as per the terms of the Convention of Thorns.
The Anarch's historical origins lie in the Anarch Revolt which birthed the Sabbat, but in the modern nights they are mostly an unorganised rabble of younger vampires and Caitiff. "Anarch" was originally a name imposed upon them by Camarilla Elders, since they sought to overthrow the leadership structures of Cainite society, but while many new Anarchs are indeed anarchists, the more traditional desire has been to bring democracy (or at least meritocracy) to Kindred society.
Vampire Traditions
Elysium
The rules of Elysium are put in place by the local Prince or head vampire elected by the Camarilla. All rules must be adhered to. Any offenders will lose status or even face death by execution if the breach is severe or be re-offenders.
Elysium
* Violence is not allowed, and individuals are expected to keep tempers in check.
* No art is to be destroyed, on pain of Final Death.
* Elysium is neutral ground.
* Remember the Masquerade at all times. Even in the gathering places of Kindred,you must be mindful of mortals that may be around.
* All swords and daggers must have a peace knot in place on entry of Elysium.
* Ranged weaponry must have all ammunition removed from the weapon. Ammunition must be handed to either the Kindred's ghoul or guard prior to meeting with the owner of the domain.
* If Elysium is broken, the owner of the domain/sanctuary reserves the right to use necessary force to detain the breacher, or to expell them from the premises. If detained, they are to be held in custody until the Keeper of the Elsyium arrives.
* No disciplines, irrelevant if it is a passive discipline.
Boons
The art of giving and granting favors - Boons
The world of vampires has a currency just like any other, but vampires are not generally that impressed with cold hard cash. They deal in something a bit more complicated, boons.
A boon is like a debt. You do someone a favor, and if they acknowledge that you helped them out, they now owe you a boon. Sounds pretty simple, but nothing in the world of darkness is ever simple when you take everything into account.
Also understand that a boon isn’t owed just when you take it upon yourself to declare it. If someone saves your existence by choice, and others see him do so, if you don’t acknowledge the boon, the court may destroy you. If a vampire becomes known as untrustworthy or an oath breaker, the harpies may allow others to ignore their debt to him later. (And it becomes very hard to trade in boons in any event.)
One thing to remember is that boons must be paid off because the social order demands it. If a Prince doesn’t enforce boons, then the people who owe him boons might not have to pay him off, and he isn’t going to tolerate that.
Boons fall into three categories: minor, major, and life boons. A simple request made in Elysium could very well be interpreted in the sense of boons. Failing to honor a boon can result in a drop in status.
Boons can also be traded like currency, you may have originally been indebted to Bob, the Brujah, Bob may trade that debt to someone else in order to pay off his own. In any case it can get very difficult to keep track of. Generally, harpies will keep track of boons, and they have a special knack for listening and marking favors asked and granted. Sometimes younger kindred do not even realize when they've accidentally placed themselves into the debt of another.
Clans
Catiff
Lacking patrons or allies, holding no real power as a group, Caitiff are held in contempt by the Camarilla. The Sabbat's Caitiff are treated as a Clan; known as Pander, a title whose namesake is a politically powerful and clanless vampire Joseph Pander, they find direction through the Sabbat.
Since they are clanless, they do not specialize in any particular discipline, but have the freedom to learn any discipline or develop their own. However, finding a mentor for such a pursuit can be difficult. Storytellers, however, often frown upon Catiff characters choosing the unique disciplines of established Clans (e.g. Thanatosis).
Clanlessness can stem from many circumstances - the sire rejected the individual, the embrace went wrong, their blood is too thin to develop the peculiar characteristics of the sire's clan, or the sire was also a Caitiff.
Some take great pride in lacking a clan, claiming to be descended directly from Caine. Since Caine was the first vampire, he lacked the flaws of his descendants who founded various clans and bloodlines. Caitiff tend to be thin-blooded; far removed from Caine, 13th generation or worse, they can be viewed as omens of Gehenna. Most clans tolerate the Caitiff, as long as they maintain the Masquerade, honor the traditions, and stay out of politics. Still, there are exceptions to this rule; Muktar Bey, the Caitiff Prince of Cairo, has ruled for over 500 years.
Disciplines: any 3, but if none are chosen, then it is Fortitude, Potence, and Presence.
Weaknesses: Caitiff suffer a social stigma from not being a part of an accepted clan. As a result, more established Kindred feel free to snub or denigrate Caitiff freely. Caitiff require far more time (4 times longer than a normal vampire) to develope Disciplines and refine them.
Tremere
The Tremere backstory is heavily based on Ars Magica, and the original House Tremere appeared as a Hermetic house in that game system. As the World of Darkness progressively diverged from Ars Magica's medieval Europe, certain elements of the backstory become problematic. The background originally has Tremere were originally a group of human mages from House Tremere of the Order of Hermes. When they found their magical life-extending elixirs started failing due to the growing lack of belief in magic, they started looking elsewhere. They captured vampires of the Tzimisce clan and conducted experiments on their bodies and blood, and they found how to become immortal with the help of a fellow patron named the Comte de Saint Germain. They became immortal as promised, however, in exchange, they turned into vampires.
After their transformation, the Tremere were beset with enemies on all sides: the Tzimisce wanted revenge, the Order outlawed them, and their awakened Avatars left them on the transition to death, taking their magic with them. Tremere crafted the art of blood magic, Thaumaturgy, and they defended themselves. Wanting more power for his bloodline, Tremere found the resting place of Saulot, the Antediluvian founder of clan Salubri, and diablerized him, consuming his very essence and gaining his power. Tremere declared his bloodline a full Clan, and started spreading rumours that the Salubri were soul-stealers, and managed to hunt them to near-extinction; it is believed that no more than seven Salubri survive into the Final Nights.
The Tremere are one of the youngest vampire clans, having just come into existence during the dark ages. In the little time since then they made incredible inroads within vampiric society and are arguably the most powerful clan in the modern nights. This was due in no small part to their strict hierarchy, secretive nature, and mastery of Thaumaturgy, the clan's trademark disciplne, all of which brought suspicion, fear, and respect from other Cainites. The Warlocks were a pillar of the Camarilla and were one of its main defenders, despite the fact that they existed almost as a subsect. Some even went as far as to consider themselves the evolution of vampirism, citing their extreme versatility of blood magic and lack of a true clan curse.
Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Thaumaturgy
Weaknesses: All Tremere characters are at least one step toward being Blood Bound to the clan
Toreador
The Toreador are some of the most beautiful and glamorous of the Kindred. Famous (and infamous) as a clan of artists and innovators they are one of the bastions of the Camarilla, as their very survival depends on the facades of civility and grace on which the sect prides itself.
It is said that the Clan's founder, Arikel was a mortal painter in the First City. Famed throughout the lands for her work, after her Embrace she painted a mural on which the past, present and future of Kindred society was depicted. When Caine saw a terrible future for his race, he cursed her with the affliction that affects Toreador today - the art that she loved most dearly would now be her obsession and distraction above all things.
In the middle age, the Toreador were a member of the High Clans, and their numbers were made up of the same types that are common in the modern nights - minstrels, painters, poets and actors.
Like most Clans, some of the members left the Clan proper upon the formation of the Sabbat. Toreador antitribu are the dark reflection of their Camarilla cousins - while they are beautiful social butterflies, their weakness has twisted so that all antitribu derive joy from the emotional, physical and mental suffering of others.
The Toreador revelled in the Victorian age. The Industrial Revolution led to a phenomenon that only the rich had been previously afforded - leisure time. A heyday of theatre, music and art began in cultural nexuses like New York, London and Paris and spread throughout the globe. While the influence of the Church in people's lives (and consequently, the influence Toreador held over the church) waned, those Kindred that latched themselves onto businessmen prospered. Possibly the one thing most Toreador love with the exception of beauty is money, and it was now accessible from places other than the landed gentry of the time. While the Clan has had peaks and troughs, this was a time that cemented them as a true power in the Camarilla.
Discipline: Auspex, Celerity, Presence
Weaknesses: The members of this clan are as much prisoners of their artistic vision and sensitivity as they are its beneficiaries. They are often overcome by the beauty they see around them, and become immobilized with fascination. Such things as paintings, neon signs, or even sunrises can captivate them. It requires a successful Willpower roll to break the fascination quickly; otherwise, the Toreador will stand, awed and helpless, for minutes or even hours. This trait explains why Toreador so often fall in love with mortals.
Brujah
Brujah childer conduct their political conventions amongst the noise of raves and punk rock concerts. Their Ancilla have long used secret, impromptu, and often violent rants to propel their anarchic culture. In comparison to other vampires, the Brujah are especially violent. Currently the most popular symbol of Brujah is upside-down form of Circle A Red. The Brujah were not always so anarchic: in the past, they were warrior-philosophers, and they engineered the creation of Carthage, the fabled city where Kindred and kine walked freely amongst each other. However, the dream would not be realized, as the city was destroyed by forces within and without; the Brujah of the modern nights primarily blame the Ventrue, Toreador and Malkavians for Carthage's fall, though they are also suspicious of the Lasombra for a suspected role in the fall of their city. Many, if not all Brujah dream of re-making their fabled Carthage, unfortunately most of the Brujah have a very different vision of what it should be. Of course the utopia that the Brujah aspire to may not be all that the clan elders describe, with rumors of links to the diabolic Baali and their infernal practices.
In modern times, the Brujah have split into two primary groups: the intelligent, politically active Brujah, many of which are fiery and outspoken among the vampires society, and the raging, angry counter-culture Brujah that most other vampires think of when they try to picture a member of the Clan. Strangely enough, Brujah Princes are relatively common among the Camarilla, ranking perhaps second for the number of Princes ruling over a city.
Like all vampires, Brujah have a clan flaw associated with them. Brujah are known for their fiery and often violent tempers, having more trouble than any clan does to keep their homicidal tendencies at bay. They fall to their Beast with disturbing frequency, and tend to get quite agitated if this flaw is ever mentioned in their presence.
Members of this clan are haunted by rumors of a bloodline calling itself the True Brujah.
Discipline Celerity, Potence, Presence
Weaknesses: extremely difficult to resist frenzies, very common for Brujah childer to gain an uncontrable rage when angered or in a fight.
Malkavian
Malkavians suffer from a specific flaw: in this case, they are incurably insane. This makes for interesting roleplaying as many storytellers will allow a Malkavian player to engage in breaking the fourth wall as an aspect of the vampire's insanity (i.e. the Malkavian is aware that he/she is a character in a game). However, many Malkavians believe their insanity to be a strength rather than a weakness. Exactly why they all suffer from insanity is unknown, but according to the Book of Nod, all third-generation vampires were cursed by Caine after the second-generation vampires were destroyed. One of these third-generation vampires was Malkav, from whom Malkavians come.
According to Malkavian legend, when Malkav was killed, all his childer came to his corpse and drank the blood of their father, thus collectively diablerizing Malkav. He is said to speak inside each and every Malkavian's soul and connects them into one collective consciousness. This "hive mind" is sometimes called "the Cobweb" or "the Malkavian Madness Network", which contains each thought and memory that any Malkavian in the world has ever had (and sometimes is about to have).
The Malkavians possess a rare ability (Discipline) called Dementation, which can alter the way a victim senses reality. It can be used to increase the Malkavian's own oracular ability or to induce insanity in others. In earlier editions of the game, this power was the initial province of the Malkavian antitribu, but now can be found in the vast majority of the clan's membership. Some Sabbat Tzimisce elders endeavor to learn Dementation, however, to gain insight in the great ways of the Jyhad if they succeed. Most Malkavians are willing to attempt to educate others of their rare power, but unfortunately, learning Dementation will often turn a non-Malkavian insane themselves; as a result, study of the Discipline is rare among other Clans and the Malkavians themselves are often viewed with a mixture of suspicion and contempt.
With the formation of the Camarilla, the Malkavian elders came to the conclusion for the clan to survive they would have to remove Dementation, instead taking up the commonly-known mental Discipline Dominate. According to the Malkavian Clanbook, Dementation was blocked by six of the oldest Malkavians who called for a gathering of the entire clan through the Malkavian Madness Network. This became known as The Great Prank, and strangely, no one else noticed that the Malkavians were gone. When almost all the Malkavians had been collected, they were changed.
Roughly one-tenth of Malkavians did not attend for whatever reason, and as a result the clan was split into two parts - the changed and the unchanged. Those who had their grasp of Dementation blocked remained part of the main clan, while those who refused to do so became known as the antitribu - most of whom later joined the Sabbat. The Malkavian antitribu continue to practice Dementation, growing steadily more insane due to the brutal conditions of Sabbat unlife.
Discipline: Auspex, Obfuscate, Dementation
Weaknesses: Every last vampire of Malkav's blood is irredeemably insane in some form or another. Some attribute this to a curse of the blood, while other Lunatics actually call it a special blessing, a gift of insight. When a Malkavian character is created, the player must choose at least one derangement for that character at the time of the Embrace; this derangement can be temporarily fought with Willpower, but can never be permanently overcome.
Nosferatu
The most visibly cursed of all Kindred, the Embrace warps each Nosferatu into a hideously deformed creature; the archetypal Nosferatu resembles Max Shreck's Count Orlok, though the curse has any number of variations. The Nosferatu are the spymasters of the dead, collecting information and selling it for a dear price. They are also the masters of the underground, living in the sewers for protection.
As with all the Antediluvians, the Nosferatu Antediluvian (referred to as Absimiliard) was embraced in the shadow of Enoch. Powerful and vain, Absimiliard was a hunter of great skill and beauty who attracted the attention of one of the second generation, who stalked him down as prey. The Embrace was quick, but left him with a tiny facial scar that inflamed his vanity. His wounded pride, coupled with his ego, led him to resent, then hate, then kill his sire, precipitating the revolt by the Antediluvians.
As with his brethren, Absimiliard had sired a small clique of childer by the time of the Second City. His childer, hunters all, remained loyal to him except for one woman who fled further than he could chase. When Caine returned in judgment, he cursed Nosferatu with hideousness, a curse passed to all his descendants, including the hidden maid. Since that time, Absimiliard's eldest descendants, the Nictuku, have chased her. Absimiliard hopes to exterminate all of her childer, the clan Nosferatu, in atonement for his crimes before Caine or in bitter vengeance. The result is the same either way.
In the middle age, Nosferatu were one of the Low Clans, and notable in particular for their embrace of Christianity and redemption.
The Nosferatu did effectively split during the formation of the Sabbat, however Nosferatu antitribu are largely identical to their Camarilla kin. Nosferatu tend to place a higher emphasis on clan unity and mutual survival, and are consequently fairly cordial with each other even though technically enemies.
The Bay't Mutasharid, or Nosferatu of the Middle East, eagerly embraced Islam in hope of ridding themselves of their monstrous nature. As some of the most fervent followers, Mutasharidin were also among the most powerful of the Ashirra. As proof, more Mutasharidin managed to enter the holy sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina, than any other bay't; as the sites are the purist places in the Arabic world, it is nearly impossible for any kindred to enter.
Discipline: Animalism, Obfuscate, Potence
Weaknesses: Nosferatu are absolutely loathsome to look at. All Nosferatu have Appearance ratings of zero. They may not improve Appearance. Most Social actions based on first impressions, except intimidation and the like, fail automatically.
Ventrue
The Ventrue are the rulers, leaders and politicos of the Camarilla, sometimes known as the Patrician Clan or the Kingship Clan. In Ancient Rome, they were generals and warlords of the Empire, and in the Dark Ages, they were knights and barons, leading crusades and conquests. In modern times the Ventrue still have great ambition and see themselves as conquerors, but their ways have changed, using courts and companies instead of feifdoms and mighty armies. Targets for Embrace by the Ventrue have always been people in positions of power, whether these people were aristocracy or company CEOs. The Ventrue perceive themselves as the most powerful of the vampiric clans thanks to their wealth, social influence, and powers over the thoughts and feelings of mortals. The clan as a whole is typified as conservative, be it in actions or customs. The Ventrue have their own nigh-inviolable code of etiquette. The clan's Elders have been known to punish violations of these unwritten rules with greater ferocity and resolve than the Traditions of the Camarilla.
The Ventrue claim that ruling vampires is their duty, their burden, a task which is interlocked with their fate, given by Caine himself (if he ever existed). The reality is that excessive pride and ambition seem a more convenient explanation as to why they strive to expand their already vast influence and assert themselves over other Kindred. They tend to be politicians, businessmen, military officers, crime lords, important members of powerful religions, sects and cults.
In response to what they perceive as a degeneration of the clan from its noble roots, a smaller segment of the clan has forsworn their ties to the Camarilla to join the Sabbat as antitribu. They believe that greed has led the body of the clan astray from its previous glory, so their quest is for righteous military and tyrannical power over other Kindred to reestablish what they believe to be the proper order. The Camarilla Ventrue casually dismiss their antitribu cousins as idealists doomed to failure. Both Ventrue and Ventrue antitribu refer to themselves as the sole "true" heirs of the name.
In comparison to the other vampiric clans, the Ventrue are considered to be especially particular about whose blood they drink. In fact, any given Ventrue can only drink blood from a specific kind of mortal, or from mortals under a specific sort of circumstance. Some may only prey upon a given ethnicity, while others can only feed from humans of a certain occupation or even religion. Some Ventrue can only find nourishment from blood that carries a more rarefied quality such as anger, fear or innocence. Regardless of the sort of blood the Ventrue requires, other blood is regurgitated or simply cannot be swallowed. They may feed from other Kindred with no such restriction. Ventrue prefer to view this flaw as a matter of refined tastes. Of course, with the power (both supernatural and temporal) most Ventrue possess, few go hungry.
Discipline: Dominate, Fortitude, Presence
Weaknesses: Ventrue have exacting and rarefied tastes, even when it comes to blood. The player must pick a restriction on the type of blood her character can feed upon, e.g. only young men, no animals, only virgins, etc. The character will feed on no other type of blood, not even if she is starving or under duress.
Assamite
The Assamites are one of the thirteen vampire clans of the Classic World of Darkness. Based in their hidden fortress Alamut in the Middle East, they are traditionally seen by Western Kindred as dangerous assassins and diablerists, but in truth they are guardians, warriors and scholars who seek to distance themselves from the Jyhad. Throughout their history, they have remained self-sufficient and independent clan.
Assamites are divided into three castes, which often have a semi-antagonistic relationship with each other. While all Assamites grow dark with age, have access to Quietus as a clan Discipline, and have a weakness related to some form of lust so powerful that it stains their aura, the different castes also have different Disciplines and weaknesses. The castes are all hereditary, that is a warrior Assamite will always sire warrior caste childer and never sorcerers or viziers. Despite this, the three castes are considered equally close to the Antediluvian Haqim who is said to have sired Assamites of all three types in the Second City.
Warrior Assamites are the primary fighters of the clan. They are the Assamites most likely to take assassination contracts and most likely to adhere to the Path of Blood. When other vampires think of Assamites, they are most likely to picture a warrior.
Younger Warriors typically came from Islamic countries, and may mix the tenants of the Path of Blood with Islamic ideas about holy war. They are often fanatical and ready to die for the cause. Elder Warriors may come from other religions entirely, and see themselves more as judges (and executioners) than as holy warriors or assassins.
Their weakness is an addiction to vampire vitae and an aura stained by diablerie. Even if they have never actually engaged in diablerie, their aura shows their blood lust clearly.
Assamites typically try to embrace someone who will be 'useful' to the clan as a whole. This most often means someone who be willing to fight and die for the clan's (or at least their sire's) goals. However, during the long period that the clan labored under the Tremere blood curse, people may also have been embraced for knowledge in a specific (often obscure) area. Typically this had something to do with sorcery or medical research involving blood, but may also have included more obscure areas of research as well.
Assamites typically choose people with somewhat obsessive personalities for the Embrace. As they are typically involved with either hunting down miscreants or conducting obscure research, they tend to be highly motivated individuals. This often results in Assamites picking individuals who are fanatically devoted to a cause, religion, theory, or activity. The various caste flaws and the training they undergo after the Embrace tends to accentuate this even more. Thus Assamites can be said to select childer that will be eager to chase down their prey no matter how long it takes or how far they must go. That prey may be a physical target, an obscure piece of knowledge, or even pursuing the perfection of an art form.
The Assamites draw most of their childer from the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding areas, but this does not mean they are all Arab. They also Embrace childer from the Indian subcontinent, Persians, Turks, Malays, Central Asia groups such as the Uzbeks and Kazaks, and various Mediterranean groups. Assamites from European or far Eastern ethnic groups aren't unheard of, but are not common.
When thinking of the Assamites, most other vampires assume they will be Muslim. While they do draw the majority of their childer from the Middle East and other Muslim countries, this does not mean all Assamites are Muslims. While most are, and some Assamites from pre-Islamic times converted, it is not considered the official Assamite religion by any stretch of the imagination. Many elder Assamites come from pre-Islamic cultures practicing some form of animism or ancestor worship. Some are Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrianism, as these were also common in the area before the coming of Islam, and are still present in the modern era, though to a lesser extent. Virtually any religious background is acceptable for an Assamite, being a Muslim is just most likely.
Assamites tend to Embrace more men than women overall. In 1st edition sources, it was even indicated that they did not Embrace women at all until roughly 200 years ago. Later editions refuted this. They still tend to embrace more men than women. The exact ratios have varied with time and depend on caste.
Warriors typically embrace far more men than women, and may be the source of the rumor that the Assamites actually banned embracing women. Women are less likely to have the skills that warriors favor. They also tend to be physically smaller and less aggressive than men. That they were typically married off young and were raising children also limited the number embraced as Warriors. Female warriors thus tend to have unusual skills or backgrounds that lead to their Embrace. Some may have disguised themselves as men to fight, be skilled with more subtle means of assassination (such as poison), or less physical aspects of warfare (such as diplomacy)
Cappadocians
The Cappadocians, the "Clan of Death", were one of the thirteen vampire clans of the Classic World of Darkness. Detached scholars obsessed with the mysteries of death and the soul, they are now (theoretically) extinct, having been systematically eliminated through a coup de famille conducted by Augustus Giovanni. Unfortunately for the Giovanni, they may have underestimated what it takes to kill a clan of experts on death.
The Cappadocians maintained a rather collegial organization: the clan was generally friendly towards each other, but loosely organized. Cappadocians would correspond extensively on their work, but generally were solitary, with sire-childe relationships being the most common. The clan had respected elders, but given the generally loose structure of the clan, clan prestige and power was mostly associated with insight into the mysteries of death and life.
The one word that sums up the old clan is "passive". The Cappadocians had their own projects and plans, and generally focused on those while ignoring the larger affairs of the world. Blessed with an unusually active Antediluvian and a generally placid nature, the Cappadocians were much less concerned about Gehenna, political backstabbing and the other niceties of undead life. This, of course, made them natural targets for the Giovanni.
The Cappadocians were well-known for partnering with the Ventrue, often serving as stewards or aides to Ventrue Princes. In this fashion, a Cappadocian could acquire what resources and protection he needed to pursue his own projects.
The Cappadocians were also highly religious, and would often adapt Christian religious practices, even if Embraced before Christianity. As a result, there were a large number of Cappadocian monks, priests and the like.
The Islamic Cappadocians were known as Qabilat al-Mawt, and were among the most learned of the kindred of the Middle East. The Qabilat al-Mawt had to be careful in their studies of the dead as Islam holds the dead in high regard; desecration of corpses could have attracted the attention of both mortals and the Ashirra, or organized Islamic kindred. Very few Qabilet al-Mawt were also true Muslims; many used the Islamic teachings as one of many means of information.
appadocians usually choose scholars or other intellectuals for the Embrace. The clan's morbid predilections meant that they often desensitized new embraces by burying them or interring them in crypts shortly after the change. In this way, the childe could acquire first-hand familiarity with death.
Followers of Set (Setites)
The Followers of Set (or Setites) are a clan of vampires who believe their founder was the Egyptian god Set. Orthodox Setite belief dictates that Set will one day return to rule or consume the world, and devout Setites prepare the way for his resurrection. To this end, the clan remains independent of the Sects of other Kindred, and practice with great skill the arts of corruption, deceit and ancient sorcery.
Setites practice the Discipline called Serpentis. Most fear and resent the Followers of Set for their ancient knowledge of sorcery and their tricky reputation. The reputation is not undue however, as they are known for being crafty and treacherous.
In the modern nights many Setites see the signs of Gehenna as portents that Set will soon arise, and indeed many Gehenna scenarios involve his return. They remain staunchly independent, but since they must still acquire power and wealth to ease the return of their god, they have ventured far from Egypt. Modern Setites frequently live in Camarilla (or, less often, Sabbat) cities, seducing and corrupting other Kindred, staying outside Sect politics except to serve their own ends. Few among the other clans trust them, but they have many secrets and are often able to infiltrate a Prince's court by trading information or promising favours. Such deals always work out in the Setite's favor.
The Serpents of the Light are a heretical Setite bloodline — essentially "Setite antitribu" — who practice voodoun. They originated in 1960s when a group of independent Setites in Haiti formed an alliance with the newly-arrived Sabbat, ignoring orders from senior Setites to have nothing to do with the Sect. The Serpents (or "Cobras") are committed to combating the Antediluvians, and believe Set to be among their enemies; they are considered traitors by other Setites. Apart from their ideological and spiritual beliefs, however, there are no significant differences between Cobras and their parent clan: they learn the same Disciplines, and share the same weakness to light.
The Tlacique reside in Latin America and are believed to be descended from the Followers of Set. Rather than Set, these Mesoamerican vampires venerate Tezcatlipoca, the god of the darkness and sorcery. This variant possesses Protean instead of the clan discipline of Serpentis, often taking the shape of a jaguar rather than a wolf. They also practice a unique type of shamanistic blood sorcery known as Nahuallotl.
When European vampires arrived in Mexico, they found the Tlacique openly ruling over the Aztecs, Inca and other civilizations as blood-thirsty gods who demanded human sacrifices. At first the Jaguars welcomed the Camarilla, but this turned to resentment as the Spaniards destroyed the civilizations that worshiped the Tlacique. Used to ruling over mortals, the Tlacique couldn't understand that the Camarilla didn't do the same. They allied with the Sabbat, working together to drive the Camarilla out of Mexico. But while the Sabbat gladly adopted the bloodiest elements of Tlacique ritual, they lacked the spiritual beliefs the Tlacique cherished. Soon the Sabbat turned against them too.
In modern nights, the Tlacique are widely believed to be extinct by the few Kindred outside of the bloodline who even remember their existence. However, a handful of bitter survivors persist on the fringes of vampire society, scattered from the jungles and mountains of South America to barrios in the American Southwest. They Embrace exclusively from Native American groups, still resenting the European destruction of their homelands. Increasingly, they are forming an alliance with the Pisanob Necromancers.
Gangrel
The Gangrel are one of the thirteen vampire clans found in the Classic World of Darkness. Nomads who hold closer ties to the wild places than most of their city-bound cousins, they are also closer to the animal aspect of the Beast, and are masters of the Protean Discipline. They were one of the seven founding clans of the Camarilla, but became disillusioned with the sect in the Final Nights, its elders eventually deciding to sever its ties and become an independent clan.
Following the Sabbat invasion of the East Coast, the Camarilla suffered another blow with the departure of the Gangrel. The reasons for their withdrawal are unknown; it is rumored then Justicar Xaviar went before the Inner Circle, uttered a single sentence, and left. Word spread through the clan, and over the course of a month the majority of the clan abandoned the sect and became independent
Status in general among the Gangrel is decided by rites, and these rites involve one of two things: combat or boasting. Combat is usually basic and unarmed; two Gangrel who know each other well may simply spar, but those who are strangers battle until one of the fighters is incapacitated or surrenders. Boasting involves the two Gangrel making larger claims until one Gangrel backs down or asks for proof. The challenged Gangrel must then show proof of their claims or lose the rite and their status.
What little formal organization the Gangrel has is placed around the aptly-named Gather, which are occasional meetings at which local and visiting Gangrel can exchange news, information and stories and decide on local matters. Gathers usually involve notice weeks in advance, as news travels more slowly among the limited network of the Gangrel. Once begun, Gathers usually involve the rites demonstrating status to decide on leadership for the meeting. The rites can take days to accomplish, and must be redone for every Gather, as no two will have the same Gangrel meeting under the same circumstances. Once the hierarchy for the Gather is established, the business at hand can be dealt with. No matter the circumstances, Gathers always break up after a week.
Gathers can also be used to form Revels, which are essentially calls to battle. The Gangrel who participate in a Revel form parties to track down and destroy enemies, such as enemy kindred, Garou, or others who have dared to invade the clan's territory.
There are also meetings called Great Gathers. As a Great Gather relies on a powerful Gangrel who is respected by most of the clan to be called, they are extremely rare. When one is called, any member of the clan who can must travel to the meeting place. There, similar rites of strength and status that are found in a regular Gather take place; however, there are no time limits to either the rites or the Great Gather. Even more rare but related are Grand Revels, which are essentially wars and battles involving the entire clan. Both are considered to be signs of bad luck by most Gangrel, and the fact neither have been called in centuries is seen as a good sign.
Two bloodlines exist among the Sabbat; the Country Gangrel and the City Gangrel. The Country Gangrel are the same as the main clan, with the Fortitude, Animalism and Protean disciplines. The City Gangrel have adapted to city life, forgoing Animalism and Fortitude for Celerity and Obfuscate. Both are collectively referred to as "Gangrel antitribu."
The Gangrel are considered the most feral and predatory of the kindred, and because of their reclusive natures, animalistic tendencies and loose organization, are the least social of the Cainites, preferring solitude to society. They also tend to be extremely territorial and possessive and to enter a Gangrel's territory without permission is certain death. They do have their role and reputation among the kindred as fierce warriors, but to get a Gangrel to agree to work with others, even other Gangrel, can be a difficult, if not impossible, task.
The Gangrel also have ties to the Rroma, and therefore will protect and shelter them, especially from other kindred. The Ravnos would also lay claim to the Gypsies, however, and as a result the two clans have a mutual hatred for each other that goes back centuries.
A Gangrel sire often chooses a prospective candidate for the Embrace during feeding. If the mortal prey resists, fighting against what is happening, then his reward after death may be a taste of Gangrel blood. The clan makes many Gangrel this way, dating back to the first warriors selected by Ennoia to fight her war. This method produces a Gangrel with a fierce desire to survive, even if he does not have all the tools. We also find prospective Gangrel through observation. While most mortals remain safely hidden during the night, a few risk the darkness. When one of our clan encounters a mortal like this, she will watch instead of attacking. It takes courage to wander these nights, after all. The Gangrel observes the mortal, watching for any signs of bravery or a knack for survival. Sometimes, a mortal out at night is simply lost - if this proves to be the case, he becomes prey. However, if the mortal shows skill moving about at night, is no coward, and maintains the interest of the observer, he is a good candidate for the Embrace. When we punish, however, there is little effort wasted. A mortal who insults or threatens one of our clan receives a nighttime visit. The Gangrel Embraces the mortal, making the process as painful and terror-filled as possible, and leaves her. Usually the Embrace happens indoors, in the rooms of the person punished, assuring their discovery and destruction. In recent nights, this punishment has fallen into disuse, though there are still some who actively enact it. A choice is almost never offered. This has become a tradition with the clan, since so few of them had a choice. The offspring of these Gangrel are considered by some to be inferior stock, even if they do survive. While not considered outcasts, a Gangrel given a choice rarely receives the same respect of those Embraced traditionally, even after the rites of status. Embracing foes has the potential to backfire on the Gangrel. Should an enemy survive the first nights and develop his power, he could turn his new abilities to hunting the one who cursed him. This is a rare occurrence - part of the punishment is to stack the Odds so that survival is nearly impossible. A new Gangrel who manages to survive has an enviable combination of cunning, raw ability and luck -clearly a dangerous foe to have in pursuit, but possibly one with a bright future in the clan.
After the Embrace, the sire disappears into the night, leaving the new Gangrel on his own. The Gangrel believe that it is better to save the effort of training a childe until after he has proven that he can survive. Thus, the sire completely abandons his new creation in the early nights, leaving him alone to face the struggle of survival. Many do not last beyond even the first night. That first hunger is the strongest, and it brings the Beast quickly to the surface. In the hare of that first wild rage, a childe makes any number of mistakes. If Lupines and mortals don't destroy him, the first sunrise may. If the sire has chosen well, however, the childe quickly grasps his situation and adjusts. The reward for that first night is one of Ennoia's marks. Any Gangrel resilient and capable enough to survive the first few nights soon develops the tools that Gangrel use to survive those that follow. Over time, the childe must learn to grow claws, speak with the animals, and come to terms with our strengths and weaknesses. He must also learn to make decisions on his own, rapidly. The Vampiric condition does not permit long reflection on the proper course to take. Such indecision leads to the Final Death. This is a dangerous time for the childe, lost and without guidance.
A new Gangrel must survive at least one winter before he is worthy of teaching. "How many winters?" is often the first question a Gangrel asks upon first meeting another in the wilderness. A new Gangrel rarely has the correct answer, and thus reveals himself. Tradition has it that any pup so encountered becomes a responsibility. The older Gangrel must aid him in his survival and teach him the ways of the clan, at least until his nature is revealed. If the pup ends up being from the Cainite broods, the Gangrel leaves him to his fate. Once accepted, the new Gangrel learns the stories and traditions of the clan, particularly the greeting ritual and the rites of status. Instruction in the use of the Gangrel gifts follows. The lessons include descriptions of their relationships with the Ravnos, Lupines and Cainites. After months of this teaching, a close bond forms between the student and teacher, similar to the relationship between a sire and childe among the Cainites. After this training, a Gangrel is officially a member of the clan.
Giovanni
The usurpers of clan Cappadocian and the youngest clan of Caine, the Giovanni are both a clan and a family. They Embrace exclusively within their family (one of many things kept within the family), and are heavily focused on two goals: money and (necromantic) power.
In 1005, in the hollows of Erciyes and under the shadow of Cappadocius' torpid form, Augustus Giovanni was brought into clan Cappadocian, directly embraced with the blood of the Founder and under the watch of Japheth and Constancia. While the embrace is relatively well known, what is not well known is the horse-trading before it.
The Clan of Death, the Cappadocians followed their Founder in a quest to understand the mysteries of death and God, including Cappadocius' plan to diablerize the Almighty. However, lacking knowledge about the soul (the Cappadocians' signature discipline of Mortis focused more on the act of dying then the events afterwards), the Founder began to shop for experts.
Enter the Giovanni, a family of prosperous Venetian traders who had for centuries depended on Necromatic skill to provide a business edge. Interested in expanding his family's power and seeing Vampirism as the route to doing so, Augustus Giovanni had been studying the clans and entertaining offers from various vampiric elders for the Embrace. The Cappadocian offer was the most attractive, providing the highest generation (as well as the most manipulable clan).
As a result, and despite the protests of Cappadocius' eldest childer, the Antediluvian rose from Torpor and provided Japheth with a small vial of his blood. Japheth reluctantly did so, draining Augustus and pouring most of Cappadocius' donated blood into the throat of a drained Giovanni (The remainder was hidden by Japheth, the True Vessel becoming a major element Giovanni rumor).
Following his ascent into the blood, Augustus Giovanni immediately began embracing his own family. In the course of doing so, the Giovanni became something between a bloodline and a cult within the Cappadocian clan. Acknowledged as the experts on Necromancy (and rapidly expanding the field), the Giovanni maintained themselves slightly separate from the mother clan. This, as the Giovanni claim is because Augustus had planned to usurp his sire from before he was Embraced.
In 1444, these plans came to fruition. Augustus Giovanni's childe, Claudius Giovanni formed a conspiracy to diablerize Japheth, the most beloved of Cappadocius' childer. The Conspiracy of Isaac was a criminal force in itself, but ultimately a distraction - since Hardestadt and other founders of the Camarilla had turned their eye towards the diablerie of elder vampires, Augustus wanted a catspaw, an obvious plan to distract them while he went after the greater prize. In 1444, both plans came to fruition, with Japheth dead, Cappadocius dead and both Giovanni raised a generation.
Taking advantage of the chaos of the era, Augustus began a purge of the Cappadocians that, while taking centuries to wipe out the stragglers, would be sufficiently successful that by 1528, he could negotiate a peace with the Camarilla. The Giovanni were left alone and left the Camarilla alone, exactly as the Giovanni wanted it.
Renaissance Onwards Edit
The ultimate goal of the clan was outlined by Augustus Giovanni after reviewing Cappadocius' original plan. Clan Giovanni acquired the bulk of its power by the hold it maintained over wraiths, so by tearing down the Shroud, the clan of Death would be able to increase its power beyond conception. Giovanni outlined plans to do so, with the most difficult goal being the acquisition of vast numbers of souls to enact the necromantic rituals necessary.
From 1528 onwards, the Giovanni were basically left alone to pursue their goals. By opting out from the increasingly hot Camarilla/Sabbat wars, their resources were devoted to three goals: increasing necromantic knowledge, acquiring additional financial clout, and eliminating the remaining Cappadocians and Lamia. Each of these goals tied back into their eventual plan to tear down the Shroud: Necromantic knowledge to acquire the souls, finance to increase the soul supply by buying slaves and engineering economic disasters, and eliminating Cappadocians to keep the only possible squealers tightly shut.
During this period, the Giovanni involved themselves in a variety of occult activities, primary through the clan's notorious scholar Ambrogino Giovanni. At the same time, the Giovanni made bargains with entities like The Capuchin to acquire Necromantic information.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, the Giovanni were riding high. They expanded the clan into other families (notably the Milliners, della Pasaglia, Pisanob and Ghiberti), wiped out the last of the Cappadocians and their Lamia protectors, and prepared to rend the Shroud and bring the dead to the living.
By the end of the century, things had gone pear shaped. Mysterious vampires, the Harbingers of Skulls, claimed vengeance on the clan for reasons unknown; the Sixth Great Maelstrom shredded the wraiths' society; and the apocalyptic events of the Week of Nightmares destroyed their spiritual assets.
As the Final Nights ran out, the Giovanni began to wonder if maybe they'd made a mistake. Maybe Augustus Giovanni had underestimated the Antediluvians; maybe the dead would become more potent if the Shroud were pulled down; maybe Caine was real and in the end all of these petty plays and power moves had been nothing but a diversion until Gehenna.
The Giovanni are a highly organized clan, consisting of a network of interrelated families who share a common culture and fealty to the ancestral Giovanni family. As a result, despite popular conception, not all Giovanni are Italian. The major families include:
Ghiberti Italian necromancers with an active interest in Africa.
Della Pasaglia Another Italian family focusing on the Middle East.
Dunsirn Scottish bankers and cannibals.
Milliner American financiers brought into the family in the 1950's
Pisanob South American necromancers.
Minor families are spread across the globe, and include:
Beryn: Flemish traders with inroads into Africa.
Hidalgo: Another Mexican branch rumored to be wiped out by the Sabbat.
Li Weng: Chinese geomancers based out of San Francisco's Chinatown.
Rosselini: Accomplished though forceful necromancers. Considered near equal to the main family.
Putanesca: Sicilian thugs with a nasty temper.
St John: Cabal of English Masons.
Rothstein: Jewish-American Kabbalists centered in Las Vegas.
The Giovanni are organized as something between a highly ruthless mafia dynasty and a highly ruthless corporation. Favors such as financial responsibilities (and rewards), ghouling, and the Embrace are dependent on performance; vicious backstabbing and cutthroat competition are the order of the day in a Giovanni household.
The Giovanni maintain their own internal Masquerade; a member of the family may be aware that his family is into some weird stuff, but beyond the relatively benign (in comparison) incest and high-finance backstabbing, be blissfully unaware that he's a catspaw for cannibalistic blood-drinking necromancers.
Decisions in the Giovanni are made by councils of elders, with age, rank and competence all playing a role. Giovanni are highly family-oriented, even after the Embrace, and will spend centuries guiding their descendants for the greater good of the family (and themselves). In many ways, the Giovanni are a Ghoul Family with less visibly disgusting parts. This doesn't mean the Giovanni aren't as warped as the Bratovitch clan; the Giovanni are repulsive and degenerate in a more subtle manner. It is said that younger generations o the Giovanni were found to be very attractive. Some even say they put on the irresistible look of a succubi pre-change. Also, some are known to shape shifters.
Effective Giovanni are sadistic Giovanni. Controlling wraiths means acquiring fine control over a variety of psychological levers (understanding Passions and Fetters) and then ruthlessly manipulating these tools to make a spirit do what you want. The Giovanni have been sadistic, manipulative and vicious since before the diablerie of Cappadocius, and it bleeds out into everything else they do. The outer shell of the Giovanni clan, the public face is less visibly cruel and horrid, but only because these vampires are explicitly tasked to deal with the outside world.
The most notorious example of this bleed off is the Giovanni Proxy Kiss. Giovanni make an art out of ghouling, since ghouling is a rite of passage for the Giovanni - ghouling means that the Giovanni is now part of the people who make the family work. Not necessarily a mover and shaker, but something akin to a made man: the Masquerade is pulled back and the truth about vampires is revealed. Giovanni tend to make Proxy Kisses aesthetic efforts, and take a point in pride in producing especially memorable or mind-destroying ones - blood received via fellatio, blasphemous masses and the like are all popular choices.
The sadism and weirdness of Giovanni internal culture is enhanced by its incestuous nature. Giovanni can spend the majority of their lives interacting with nobody except other Giovanni, and the resulting insularity breeds additional problems. The Giovanni are, in particular, arrogant and prone to underestimating the world around them.
The Giovanni are, if anything, severely lapsed Catholics. Due to their practice of Necromancy, they have seen what "the other side" and "life beyond death" really mean, which tends to completely eradicate any faith in a benevolent deity. Giovanni, in a ways similar to the Lasombra Clan, often present the appearance of Catholicism in ritual and Family culture, but have twisted the vestments all around to better fit a vampiric frame. They may attend a certain kind of Mass, where the holy water is blood and the priest a Family elder, but these sorts of ceremonies tend to devolve into orgies, massacres, or other kinds of deviant practices behind closed doors.
The Giovanni relationship to the spirit world means that they have a very casual attitude towards such things as torture, dismemberment, and death. After all, if your victim dies in the chair, you can always yank his spirit back from Hell and get information out of him another way. What the Giovanni are really focused on is efficiency: bribery, seduction, and all other sorts of under-handed means are taught to new members of the Clan as a matter of course. If all other methods fail, then killing off the competition becomes a very viable alternative.
EmbracesEdit
In 1444, Claudius Giovanni embraced a peasant girl named Marianna into the clan as a distraction. For 500 years Marianna was a constant for the clan. Marianna is also the only non-Giovanni to be embraced by the clan and to survive longer than about a month. The Giovanni do not embrace outside of the family; they do not embrace without permission. Not if they know what's good for them at least.
Like everything else in the family, the Embrace is a reward. Promotion for good service, and more than other clans, the Giovanni actively consider factors like generation in the embrace. Being embraced by a lower-generation clan member is considered a performance bonus.
While not uncommon, it is frowned upon to Embrace another of your own mortal family. This would encourage nepotism, and Giovanni much prefer to have the loyalty of their Neonates as divided as possible within the family. For example, while Agatha Milliner might put her own grandson forward for the Embrace, it is much more likely that Stefano Giovanni does the deed. Even better for the Clan if Agatha and Stefano are rivals - the neonate now has loyalty to his own grandmother and his own sire, which forces (somewhat) the two elders to avoid plotting against the other, lest the new childe betray either of them.
La Sombra
The leaders of the Sabbat, clan Lasombra are social Darwinists, predators, elegant and inhuman. Firm believers in the worthy ruling and the unworthy serving, the Lasombra have maintained their traditions even as they have turned the Sabbat to their own purposes.
Several thousand years ago B.C., a tribe of Masai were ordered by a pale spirit to produce a child for him. This child was trained to lead by having every member of the tribe obey him, and he was trained to be loyal by extensive gifts and rewards from the Antediluvian [Lasombra]. The experiment failed.
Before rerunning the experiment, [Lasombra] was visited by his child's playmate, Ontai. This shaman in training offered his life to [Lasombra] (who had already punished the tribe by wiping out half of its population) - in life, death and beyond, with no price offered. Lasombra, disturbed by the offer and Ontai's already impeccable honor, tested the shaman's resolve by demanding he slaughter his tribe.
Ontai obeyed, and a shaken [Lasombra] called off the execution and embrace Ontai, renaming him Montano and bringing him to the Mediterranean. To his grave, [Lasombra] was uncertain whether his childe's unswerving honor had gotten the better of him.
Lasombra naturally seek positions of power and authority, as a result they form the bulk of the Sabbat's administrative offices - ducti, prisci and the like. Tzimisce are more likely to be pack priests, while the Lasombra focus on the practical matters of administration and leadership.
Separate from Sabbat organization, the Lasombra maintain a clan-specific organization, the Friends of the Night, usually called les amies noir (amici noctis during the Dark Ages). While a Lasombra can be in the clan and not a Friend of the Night, all Lasombra who matter are part of the organization. The Friends are something of a formalized favor network within the Lasombra - they grant prestige and prestation, but the most notable feature of the friends are the Courts of Blood, which regulate diablerie.
The Camarilla
Camarilla policy is that vampires should try to fit in with and hide from the rest of humanity, as to easily feed on them. For this reason, they created a web of lies and misinformation, called the Masquerade, to make the public believe that supernatural beings like vampires could not possibly exist. The Camarilla also believes that the only way the vampire species can survive in these modern nights is if it unites—any breach of the Masquerade by any vampire risks exposing the entire race. Both viewpoints are fundamentally opposed by the Sabbat.
The Camarilla also enforces the Eldest as ruling class over the younger vampires.
The Sabbat
Freedom is preached in accordance to the Sabbat belief that every vampire is free to create their own destiny without being hindered by the reputations of their elders, and that no Sabbat has to lay down their life for cowards who cannot take care of their own matters. Of course, it does not always work like this in practice.
Also unlike the Camarilla, the Sabbat believes in Antediluvians, and for the most part considers them a great threat. This is unsurprising, especially considering that the Sabbat was formed in the wake of the Anarch Revolt, and both of the core clans, the Tzimisce and Lasombra, claim that their clan founders were killed during this period of upheaval.
All Sabbat adhere to a code of conduct called "The Code of Milan", which preaches loyalty to sect and packmates, and to one's own freedom within the sect, as long as one's own good is never placed above the good of the Sabbat itself.
In addition to a very firm "if you're not with us, you're against us" mentality, the sect considers vampires to be a higher form of life than humanity, and is based upon the principles of Loyalty and Freedom. Loyalty to the sect and to one's comrades is one of the important aspects of the sect, and the Sabbat vampires maintain this loyalty through a ritual called Vaulderie, where strong emotional bonds are created between members of the Sabbat.
The Anarchs
Anarchs are vampires who reject the status quo of vampire society. They especially resent the privileged status held by Elders within the Camarilla and other vampire organisations; when the eldest hold the most power in a society of immortals, the lot of Neonates is not a happy one.
Anarchs are often targeted for recruitment by the Sabbat, but most respect the Masquerade and some of the other Traditions, even if they do not respect the vampires who enforce them. Anarchs, like all vampires, are considered members of the Camarilla by default, but unlike the Sabbat they are tolerated, as per the terms of the Convention of Thorns.
The Anarch's historical origins lie in the Anarch Revolt which birthed the Sabbat, but in the modern nights they are mostly an unorganised rabble of younger vampires and Caitiff. "Anarch" was originally a name imposed upon them by Camarilla Elders, since they sought to overthrow the leadership structures of Cainite society, but while many new Anarchs are indeed anarchists, the more traditional desire has been to bring democracy (or at least meritocracy) to Kindred society.
Vampire Traditions
Elysium
The rules of Elysium are put in place by the local Prince or head vampire elected by the Camarilla. All rules must be adhered to. Any offenders will lose status or even face death by execution if the breach is severe or be re-offenders.
Elysium
* Violence is not allowed, and individuals are expected to keep tempers in check.
* No art is to be destroyed, on pain of Final Death.
* Elysium is neutral ground.
* Remember the Masquerade at all times. Even in the gathering places of Kindred,you must be mindful of mortals that may be around.
* All swords and daggers must have a peace knot in place on entry of Elysium.
* Ranged weaponry must have all ammunition removed from the weapon. Ammunition must be handed to either the Kindred's ghoul or guard prior to meeting with the owner of the domain.
* If Elysium is broken, the owner of the domain/sanctuary reserves the right to use necessary force to detain the breacher, or to expell them from the premises. If detained, they are to be held in custody until the Keeper of the Elsyium arrives.
* No disciplines, irrelevant if it is a passive discipline.
Boons
The art of giving and granting favors - Boons
The world of vampires has a currency just like any other, but vampires are not generally that impressed with cold hard cash. They deal in something a bit more complicated, boons.
A boon is like a debt. You do someone a favor, and if they acknowledge that you helped them out, they now owe you a boon. Sounds pretty simple, but nothing in the world of darkness is ever simple when you take everything into account.
Also understand that a boon isn’t owed just when you take it upon yourself to declare it. If someone saves your existence by choice, and others see him do so, if you don’t acknowledge the boon, the court may destroy you. If a vampire becomes known as untrustworthy or an oath breaker, the harpies may allow others to ignore their debt to him later. (And it becomes very hard to trade in boons in any event.)
One thing to remember is that boons must be paid off because the social order demands it. If a Prince doesn’t enforce boons, then the people who owe him boons might not have to pay him off, and he isn’t going to tolerate that.
Boons fall into three categories: minor, major, and life boons. A simple request made in Elysium could very well be interpreted in the sense of boons. Failing to honor a boon can result in a drop in status.
Boons can also be traded like currency, you may have originally been indebted to Bob, the Brujah, Bob may trade that debt to someone else in order to pay off his own. In any case it can get very difficult to keep track of. Generally, harpies will keep track of boons, and they have a special knack for listening and marking favors asked and granted. Sometimes younger kindred do not even realize when they've accidentally placed themselves into the debt of another.
Clans
Catiff
Lacking patrons or allies, holding no real power as a group, Caitiff are held in contempt by the Camarilla. The Sabbat's Caitiff are treated as a Clan; known as Pander, a title whose namesake is a politically powerful and clanless vampire Joseph Pander, they find direction through the Sabbat.
Since they are clanless, they do not specialize in any particular discipline, but have the freedom to learn any discipline or develop their own. However, finding a mentor for such a pursuit can be difficult. Storytellers, however, often frown upon Catiff characters choosing the unique disciplines of established Clans (e.g. Thanatosis).
Clanlessness can stem from many circumstances - the sire rejected the individual, the embrace went wrong, their blood is too thin to develop the peculiar characteristics of the sire's clan, or the sire was also a Caitiff.
Some take great pride in lacking a clan, claiming to be descended directly from Caine. Since Caine was the first vampire, he lacked the flaws of his descendants who founded various clans and bloodlines. Caitiff tend to be thin-blooded; far removed from Caine, 13th generation or worse, they can be viewed as omens of Gehenna. Most clans tolerate the Caitiff, as long as they maintain the Masquerade, honor the traditions, and stay out of politics. Still, there are exceptions to this rule; Muktar Bey, the Caitiff Prince of Cairo, has ruled for over 500 years.
Disciplines: any 3, but if none are chosen, then it is Fortitude, Potence, and Presence.
Weaknesses: Caitiff suffer a social stigma from not being a part of an accepted clan. As a result, more established Kindred feel free to snub or denigrate Caitiff freely. Caitiff require far more time (4 times longer than a normal vampire) to develope Disciplines and refine them.
Tremere
The Tremere backstory is heavily based on Ars Magica, and the original House Tremere appeared as a Hermetic house in that game system. As the World of Darkness progressively diverged from Ars Magica's medieval Europe, certain elements of the backstory become problematic. The background originally has Tremere were originally a group of human mages from House Tremere of the Order of Hermes. When they found their magical life-extending elixirs started failing due to the growing lack of belief in magic, they started looking elsewhere. They captured vampires of the Tzimisce clan and conducted experiments on their bodies and blood, and they found how to become immortal with the help of a fellow patron named the Comte de Saint Germain. They became immortal as promised, however, in exchange, they turned into vampires.
After their transformation, the Tremere were beset with enemies on all sides: the Tzimisce wanted revenge, the Order outlawed them, and their awakened Avatars left them on the transition to death, taking their magic with them. Tremere crafted the art of blood magic, Thaumaturgy, and they defended themselves. Wanting more power for his bloodline, Tremere found the resting place of Saulot, the Antediluvian founder of clan Salubri, and diablerized him, consuming his very essence and gaining his power. Tremere declared his bloodline a full Clan, and started spreading rumours that the Salubri were soul-stealers, and managed to hunt them to near-extinction; it is believed that no more than seven Salubri survive into the Final Nights.
The Tremere are one of the youngest vampire clans, having just come into existence during the dark ages. In the little time since then they made incredible inroads within vampiric society and are arguably the most powerful clan in the modern nights. This was due in no small part to their strict hierarchy, secretive nature, and mastery of Thaumaturgy, the clan's trademark disciplne, all of which brought suspicion, fear, and respect from other Cainites. The Warlocks were a pillar of the Camarilla and were one of its main defenders, despite the fact that they existed almost as a subsect. Some even went as far as to consider themselves the evolution of vampirism, citing their extreme versatility of blood magic and lack of a true clan curse.
Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Thaumaturgy
Weaknesses: All Tremere characters are at least one step toward being Blood Bound to the clan
Toreador
The Toreador are some of the most beautiful and glamorous of the Kindred. Famous (and infamous) as a clan of artists and innovators they are one of the bastions of the Camarilla, as their very survival depends on the facades of civility and grace on which the sect prides itself.
It is said that the Clan's founder, Arikel was a mortal painter in the First City. Famed throughout the lands for her work, after her Embrace she painted a mural on which the past, present and future of Kindred society was depicted. When Caine saw a terrible future for his race, he cursed her with the affliction that affects Toreador today - the art that she loved most dearly would now be her obsession and distraction above all things.
In the middle age, the Toreador were a member of the High Clans, and their numbers were made up of the same types that are common in the modern nights - minstrels, painters, poets and actors.
Like most Clans, some of the members left the Clan proper upon the formation of the Sabbat. Toreador antitribu are the dark reflection of their Camarilla cousins - while they are beautiful social butterflies, their weakness has twisted so that all antitribu derive joy from the emotional, physical and mental suffering of others.
The Toreador revelled in the Victorian age. The Industrial Revolution led to a phenomenon that only the rich had been previously afforded - leisure time. A heyday of theatre, music and art began in cultural nexuses like New York, London and Paris and spread throughout the globe. While the influence of the Church in people's lives (and consequently, the influence Toreador held over the church) waned, those Kindred that latched themselves onto businessmen prospered. Possibly the one thing most Toreador love with the exception of beauty is money, and it was now accessible from places other than the landed gentry of the time. While the Clan has had peaks and troughs, this was a time that cemented them as a true power in the Camarilla.
Discipline: Auspex, Celerity, Presence
Weaknesses: The members of this clan are as much prisoners of their artistic vision and sensitivity as they are its beneficiaries. They are often overcome by the beauty they see around them, and become immobilized with fascination. Such things as paintings, neon signs, or even sunrises can captivate them. It requires a successful Willpower roll to break the fascination quickly; otherwise, the Toreador will stand, awed and helpless, for minutes or even hours. This trait explains why Toreador so often fall in love with mortals.
Brujah
Brujah childer conduct their political conventions amongst the noise of raves and punk rock concerts. Their Ancilla have long used secret, impromptu, and often violent rants to propel their anarchic culture. In comparison to other vampires, the Brujah are especially violent. Currently the most popular symbol of Brujah is upside-down form of Circle A Red. The Brujah were not always so anarchic: in the past, they were warrior-philosophers, and they engineered the creation of Carthage, the fabled city where Kindred and kine walked freely amongst each other. However, the dream would not be realized, as the city was destroyed by forces within and without; the Brujah of the modern nights primarily blame the Ventrue, Toreador and Malkavians for Carthage's fall, though they are also suspicious of the Lasombra for a suspected role in the fall of their city. Many, if not all Brujah dream of re-making their fabled Carthage, unfortunately most of the Brujah have a very different vision of what it should be. Of course the utopia that the Brujah aspire to may not be all that the clan elders describe, with rumors of links to the diabolic Baali and their infernal practices.
In modern times, the Brujah have split into two primary groups: the intelligent, politically active Brujah, many of which are fiery and outspoken among the vampires society, and the raging, angry counter-culture Brujah that most other vampires think of when they try to picture a member of the Clan. Strangely enough, Brujah Princes are relatively common among the Camarilla, ranking perhaps second for the number of Princes ruling over a city.
Like all vampires, Brujah have a clan flaw associated with them. Brujah are known for their fiery and often violent tempers, having more trouble than any clan does to keep their homicidal tendencies at bay. They fall to their Beast with disturbing frequency, and tend to get quite agitated if this flaw is ever mentioned in their presence.
Members of this clan are haunted by rumors of a bloodline calling itself the True Brujah.
Discipline Celerity, Potence, Presence
Weaknesses: extremely difficult to resist frenzies, very common for Brujah childer to gain an uncontrable rage when angered or in a fight.
Malkavian
Malkavians suffer from a specific flaw: in this case, they are incurably insane. This makes for interesting roleplaying as many storytellers will allow a Malkavian player to engage in breaking the fourth wall as an aspect of the vampire's insanity (i.e. the Malkavian is aware that he/she is a character in a game). However, many Malkavians believe their insanity to be a strength rather than a weakness. Exactly why they all suffer from insanity is unknown, but according to the Book of Nod, all third-generation vampires were cursed by Caine after the second-generation vampires were destroyed. One of these third-generation vampires was Malkav, from whom Malkavians come.
According to Malkavian legend, when Malkav was killed, all his childer came to his corpse and drank the blood of their father, thus collectively diablerizing Malkav. He is said to speak inside each and every Malkavian's soul and connects them into one collective consciousness. This "hive mind" is sometimes called "the Cobweb" or "the Malkavian Madness Network", which contains each thought and memory that any Malkavian in the world has ever had (and sometimes is about to have).
The Malkavians possess a rare ability (Discipline) called Dementation, which can alter the way a victim senses reality. It can be used to increase the Malkavian's own oracular ability or to induce insanity in others. In earlier editions of the game, this power was the initial province of the Malkavian antitribu, but now can be found in the vast majority of the clan's membership. Some Sabbat Tzimisce elders endeavor to learn Dementation, however, to gain insight in the great ways of the Jyhad if they succeed. Most Malkavians are willing to attempt to educate others of their rare power, but unfortunately, learning Dementation will often turn a non-Malkavian insane themselves; as a result, study of the Discipline is rare among other Clans and the Malkavians themselves are often viewed with a mixture of suspicion and contempt.
With the formation of the Camarilla, the Malkavian elders came to the conclusion for the clan to survive they would have to remove Dementation, instead taking up the commonly-known mental Discipline Dominate. According to the Malkavian Clanbook, Dementation was blocked by six of the oldest Malkavians who called for a gathering of the entire clan through the Malkavian Madness Network. This became known as The Great Prank, and strangely, no one else noticed that the Malkavians were gone. When almost all the Malkavians had been collected, they were changed.
Roughly one-tenth of Malkavians did not attend for whatever reason, and as a result the clan was split into two parts - the changed and the unchanged. Those who had their grasp of Dementation blocked remained part of the main clan, while those who refused to do so became known as the antitribu - most of whom later joined the Sabbat. The Malkavian antitribu continue to practice Dementation, growing steadily more insane due to the brutal conditions of Sabbat unlife.
Discipline: Auspex, Obfuscate, Dementation
Weaknesses: Every last vampire of Malkav's blood is irredeemably insane in some form or another. Some attribute this to a curse of the blood, while other Lunatics actually call it a special blessing, a gift of insight. When a Malkavian character is created, the player must choose at least one derangement for that character at the time of the Embrace; this derangement can be temporarily fought with Willpower, but can never be permanently overcome.
Nosferatu
The most visibly cursed of all Kindred, the Embrace warps each Nosferatu into a hideously deformed creature; the archetypal Nosferatu resembles Max Shreck's Count Orlok, though the curse has any number of variations. The Nosferatu are the spymasters of the dead, collecting information and selling it for a dear price. They are also the masters of the underground, living in the sewers for protection.
As with all the Antediluvians, the Nosferatu Antediluvian (referred to as Absimiliard) was embraced in the shadow of Enoch. Powerful and vain, Absimiliard was a hunter of great skill and beauty who attracted the attention of one of the second generation, who stalked him down as prey. The Embrace was quick, but left him with a tiny facial scar that inflamed his vanity. His wounded pride, coupled with his ego, led him to resent, then hate, then kill his sire, precipitating the revolt by the Antediluvians.
As with his brethren, Absimiliard had sired a small clique of childer by the time of the Second City. His childer, hunters all, remained loyal to him except for one woman who fled further than he could chase. When Caine returned in judgment, he cursed Nosferatu with hideousness, a curse passed to all his descendants, including the hidden maid. Since that time, Absimiliard's eldest descendants, the Nictuku, have chased her. Absimiliard hopes to exterminate all of her childer, the clan Nosferatu, in atonement for his crimes before Caine or in bitter vengeance. The result is the same either way.
In the middle age, Nosferatu were one of the Low Clans, and notable in particular for their embrace of Christianity and redemption.
The Nosferatu did effectively split during the formation of the Sabbat, however Nosferatu antitribu are largely identical to their Camarilla kin. Nosferatu tend to place a higher emphasis on clan unity and mutual survival, and are consequently fairly cordial with each other even though technically enemies.
The Bay't Mutasharid, or Nosferatu of the Middle East, eagerly embraced Islam in hope of ridding themselves of their monstrous nature. As some of the most fervent followers, Mutasharidin were also among the most powerful of the Ashirra. As proof, more Mutasharidin managed to enter the holy sites of Islam, Mecca and Medina, than any other bay't; as the sites are the purist places in the Arabic world, it is nearly impossible for any kindred to enter.
Discipline: Animalism, Obfuscate, Potence
Weaknesses: Nosferatu are absolutely loathsome to look at. All Nosferatu have Appearance ratings of zero. They may not improve Appearance. Most Social actions based on first impressions, except intimidation and the like, fail automatically.
Ventrue
The Ventrue are the rulers, leaders and politicos of the Camarilla, sometimes known as the Patrician Clan or the Kingship Clan. In Ancient Rome, they were generals and warlords of the Empire, and in the Dark Ages, they were knights and barons, leading crusades and conquests. In modern times the Ventrue still have great ambition and see themselves as conquerors, but their ways have changed, using courts and companies instead of feifdoms and mighty armies. Targets for Embrace by the Ventrue have always been people in positions of power, whether these people were aristocracy or company CEOs. The Ventrue perceive themselves as the most powerful of the vampiric clans thanks to their wealth, social influence, and powers over the thoughts and feelings of mortals. The clan as a whole is typified as conservative, be it in actions or customs. The Ventrue have their own nigh-inviolable code of etiquette. The clan's Elders have been known to punish violations of these unwritten rules with greater ferocity and resolve than the Traditions of the Camarilla.
The Ventrue claim that ruling vampires is their duty, their burden, a task which is interlocked with their fate, given by Caine himself (if he ever existed). The reality is that excessive pride and ambition seem a more convenient explanation as to why they strive to expand their already vast influence and assert themselves over other Kindred. They tend to be politicians, businessmen, military officers, crime lords, important members of powerful religions, sects and cults.
In response to what they perceive as a degeneration of the clan from its noble roots, a smaller segment of the clan has forsworn their ties to the Camarilla to join the Sabbat as antitribu. They believe that greed has led the body of the clan astray from its previous glory, so their quest is for righteous military and tyrannical power over other Kindred to reestablish what they believe to be the proper order. The Camarilla Ventrue casually dismiss their antitribu cousins as idealists doomed to failure. Both Ventrue and Ventrue antitribu refer to themselves as the sole "true" heirs of the name.
In comparison to the other vampiric clans, the Ventrue are considered to be especially particular about whose blood they drink. In fact, any given Ventrue can only drink blood from a specific kind of mortal, or from mortals under a specific sort of circumstance. Some may only prey upon a given ethnicity, while others can only feed from humans of a certain occupation or even religion. Some Ventrue can only find nourishment from blood that carries a more rarefied quality such as anger, fear or innocence. Regardless of the sort of blood the Ventrue requires, other blood is regurgitated or simply cannot be swallowed. They may feed from other Kindred with no such restriction. Ventrue prefer to view this flaw as a matter of refined tastes. Of course, with the power (both supernatural and temporal) most Ventrue possess, few go hungry.
Discipline: Dominate, Fortitude, Presence
Weaknesses: Ventrue have exacting and rarefied tastes, even when it comes to blood. The player must pick a restriction on the type of blood her character can feed upon, e.g. only young men, no animals, only virgins, etc. The character will feed on no other type of blood, not even if she is starving or under duress.
Assamite
The Assamites are one of the thirteen vampire clans of the Classic World of Darkness. Based in their hidden fortress Alamut in the Middle East, they are traditionally seen by Western Kindred as dangerous assassins and diablerists, but in truth they are guardians, warriors and scholars who seek to distance themselves from the Jyhad. Throughout their history, they have remained self-sufficient and independent clan.
Assamites are divided into three castes, which often have a semi-antagonistic relationship with each other. While all Assamites grow dark with age, have access to Quietus as a clan Discipline, and have a weakness related to some form of lust so powerful that it stains their aura, the different castes also have different Disciplines and weaknesses. The castes are all hereditary, that is a warrior Assamite will always sire warrior caste childer and never sorcerers or viziers. Despite this, the three castes are considered equally close to the Antediluvian Haqim who is said to have sired Assamites of all three types in the Second City.
Warrior Assamites are the primary fighters of the clan. They are the Assamites most likely to take assassination contracts and most likely to adhere to the Path of Blood. When other vampires think of Assamites, they are most likely to picture a warrior.
Younger Warriors typically came from Islamic countries, and may mix the tenants of the Path of Blood with Islamic ideas about holy war. They are often fanatical and ready to die for the cause. Elder Warriors may come from other religions entirely, and see themselves more as judges (and executioners) than as holy warriors or assassins.
Their weakness is an addiction to vampire vitae and an aura stained by diablerie. Even if they have never actually engaged in diablerie, their aura shows their blood lust clearly.
Assamites typically try to embrace someone who will be 'useful' to the clan as a whole. This most often means someone who be willing to fight and die for the clan's (or at least their sire's) goals. However, during the long period that the clan labored under the Tremere blood curse, people may also have been embraced for knowledge in a specific (often obscure) area. Typically this had something to do with sorcery or medical research involving blood, but may also have included more obscure areas of research as well.
Assamites typically choose people with somewhat obsessive personalities for the Embrace. As they are typically involved with either hunting down miscreants or conducting obscure research, they tend to be highly motivated individuals. This often results in Assamites picking individuals who are fanatically devoted to a cause, religion, theory, or activity. The various caste flaws and the training they undergo after the Embrace tends to accentuate this even more. Thus Assamites can be said to select childer that will be eager to chase down their prey no matter how long it takes or how far they must go. That prey may be a physical target, an obscure piece of knowledge, or even pursuing the perfection of an art form.
The Assamites draw most of their childer from the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding areas, but this does not mean they are all Arab. They also Embrace childer from the Indian subcontinent, Persians, Turks, Malays, Central Asia groups such as the Uzbeks and Kazaks, and various Mediterranean groups. Assamites from European or far Eastern ethnic groups aren't unheard of, but are not common.
When thinking of the Assamites, most other vampires assume they will be Muslim. While they do draw the majority of their childer from the Middle East and other Muslim countries, this does not mean all Assamites are Muslims. While most are, and some Assamites from pre-Islamic times converted, it is not considered the official Assamite religion by any stretch of the imagination. Many elder Assamites come from pre-Islamic cultures practicing some form of animism or ancestor worship. Some are Jews, Christians, or Zoroastrianism, as these were also common in the area before the coming of Islam, and are still present in the modern era, though to a lesser extent. Virtually any religious background is acceptable for an Assamite, being a Muslim is just most likely.
Assamites tend to Embrace more men than women overall. In 1st edition sources, it was even indicated that they did not Embrace women at all until roughly 200 years ago. Later editions refuted this. They still tend to embrace more men than women. The exact ratios have varied with time and depend on caste.
Warriors typically embrace far more men than women, and may be the source of the rumor that the Assamites actually banned embracing women. Women are less likely to have the skills that warriors favor. They also tend to be physically smaller and less aggressive than men. That they were typically married off young and were raising children also limited the number embraced as Warriors. Female warriors thus tend to have unusual skills or backgrounds that lead to their Embrace. Some may have disguised themselves as men to fight, be skilled with more subtle means of assassination (such as poison), or less physical aspects of warfare (such as diplomacy)
Cappadocians
The Cappadocians, the "Clan of Death", were one of the thirteen vampire clans of the Classic World of Darkness. Detached scholars obsessed with the mysteries of death and the soul, they are now (theoretically) extinct, having been systematically eliminated through a coup de famille conducted by Augustus Giovanni. Unfortunately for the Giovanni, they may have underestimated what it takes to kill a clan of experts on death.
The Cappadocians maintained a rather collegial organization: the clan was generally friendly towards each other, but loosely organized. Cappadocians would correspond extensively on their work, but generally were solitary, with sire-childe relationships being the most common. The clan had respected elders, but given the generally loose structure of the clan, clan prestige and power was mostly associated with insight into the mysteries of death and life.
The one word that sums up the old clan is "passive". The Cappadocians had their own projects and plans, and generally focused on those while ignoring the larger affairs of the world. Blessed with an unusually active Antediluvian and a generally placid nature, the Cappadocians were much less concerned about Gehenna, political backstabbing and the other niceties of undead life. This, of course, made them natural targets for the Giovanni.
The Cappadocians were well-known for partnering with the Ventrue, often serving as stewards or aides to Ventrue Princes. In this fashion, a Cappadocian could acquire what resources and protection he needed to pursue his own projects.
The Cappadocians were also highly religious, and would often adapt Christian religious practices, even if Embraced before Christianity. As a result, there were a large number of Cappadocian monks, priests and the like.
The Islamic Cappadocians were known as Qabilat al-Mawt, and were among the most learned of the kindred of the Middle East. The Qabilat al-Mawt had to be careful in their studies of the dead as Islam holds the dead in high regard; desecration of corpses could have attracted the attention of both mortals and the Ashirra, or organized Islamic kindred. Very few Qabilet al-Mawt were also true Muslims; many used the Islamic teachings as one of many means of information.
appadocians usually choose scholars or other intellectuals for the Embrace. The clan's morbid predilections meant that they often desensitized new embraces by burying them or interring them in crypts shortly after the change. In this way, the childe could acquire first-hand familiarity with death.
Followers of Set (Setites)
The Followers of Set (or Setites) are a clan of vampires who believe their founder was the Egyptian god Set. Orthodox Setite belief dictates that Set will one day return to rule or consume the world, and devout Setites prepare the way for his resurrection. To this end, the clan remains independent of the Sects of other Kindred, and practice with great skill the arts of corruption, deceit and ancient sorcery.
Setites practice the Discipline called Serpentis. Most fear and resent the Followers of Set for their ancient knowledge of sorcery and their tricky reputation. The reputation is not undue however, as they are known for being crafty and treacherous.
In the modern nights many Setites see the signs of Gehenna as portents that Set will soon arise, and indeed many Gehenna scenarios involve his return. They remain staunchly independent, but since they must still acquire power and wealth to ease the return of their god, they have ventured far from Egypt. Modern Setites frequently live in Camarilla (or, less often, Sabbat) cities, seducing and corrupting other Kindred, staying outside Sect politics except to serve their own ends. Few among the other clans trust them, but they have many secrets and are often able to infiltrate a Prince's court by trading information or promising favours. Such deals always work out in the Setite's favor.
The Serpents of the Light are a heretical Setite bloodline — essentially "Setite antitribu" — who practice voodoun. They originated in 1960s when a group of independent Setites in Haiti formed an alliance with the newly-arrived Sabbat, ignoring orders from senior Setites to have nothing to do with the Sect. The Serpents (or "Cobras") are committed to combating the Antediluvians, and believe Set to be among their enemies; they are considered traitors by other Setites. Apart from their ideological and spiritual beliefs, however, there are no significant differences between Cobras and their parent clan: they learn the same Disciplines, and share the same weakness to light.
The Tlacique reside in Latin America and are believed to be descended from the Followers of Set. Rather than Set, these Mesoamerican vampires venerate Tezcatlipoca, the god of the darkness and sorcery. This variant possesses Protean instead of the clan discipline of Serpentis, often taking the shape of a jaguar rather than a wolf. They also practice a unique type of shamanistic blood sorcery known as Nahuallotl.
When European vampires arrived in Mexico, they found the Tlacique openly ruling over the Aztecs, Inca and other civilizations as blood-thirsty gods who demanded human sacrifices. At first the Jaguars welcomed the Camarilla, but this turned to resentment as the Spaniards destroyed the civilizations that worshiped the Tlacique. Used to ruling over mortals, the Tlacique couldn't understand that the Camarilla didn't do the same. They allied with the Sabbat, working together to drive the Camarilla out of Mexico. But while the Sabbat gladly adopted the bloodiest elements of Tlacique ritual, they lacked the spiritual beliefs the Tlacique cherished. Soon the Sabbat turned against them too.
In modern nights, the Tlacique are widely believed to be extinct by the few Kindred outside of the bloodline who even remember their existence. However, a handful of bitter survivors persist on the fringes of vampire society, scattered from the jungles and mountains of South America to barrios in the American Southwest. They Embrace exclusively from Native American groups, still resenting the European destruction of their homelands. Increasingly, they are forming an alliance with the Pisanob Necromancers.
Gangrel
The Gangrel are one of the thirteen vampire clans found in the Classic World of Darkness. Nomads who hold closer ties to the wild places than most of their city-bound cousins, they are also closer to the animal aspect of the Beast, and are masters of the Protean Discipline. They were one of the seven founding clans of the Camarilla, but became disillusioned with the sect in the Final Nights, its elders eventually deciding to sever its ties and become an independent clan.
Following the Sabbat invasion of the East Coast, the Camarilla suffered another blow with the departure of the Gangrel. The reasons for their withdrawal are unknown; it is rumored then Justicar Xaviar went before the Inner Circle, uttered a single sentence, and left. Word spread through the clan, and over the course of a month the majority of the clan abandoned the sect and became independent
Status in general among the Gangrel is decided by rites, and these rites involve one of two things: combat or boasting. Combat is usually basic and unarmed; two Gangrel who know each other well may simply spar, but those who are strangers battle until one of the fighters is incapacitated or surrenders. Boasting involves the two Gangrel making larger claims until one Gangrel backs down or asks for proof. The challenged Gangrel must then show proof of their claims or lose the rite and their status.
What little formal organization the Gangrel has is placed around the aptly-named Gather, which are occasional meetings at which local and visiting Gangrel can exchange news, information and stories and decide on local matters. Gathers usually involve notice weeks in advance, as news travels more slowly among the limited network of the Gangrel. Once begun, Gathers usually involve the rites demonstrating status to decide on leadership for the meeting. The rites can take days to accomplish, and must be redone for every Gather, as no two will have the same Gangrel meeting under the same circumstances. Once the hierarchy for the Gather is established, the business at hand can be dealt with. No matter the circumstances, Gathers always break up after a week.
Gathers can also be used to form Revels, which are essentially calls to battle. The Gangrel who participate in a Revel form parties to track down and destroy enemies, such as enemy kindred, Garou, or others who have dared to invade the clan's territory.
There are also meetings called Great Gathers. As a Great Gather relies on a powerful Gangrel who is respected by most of the clan to be called, they are extremely rare. When one is called, any member of the clan who can must travel to the meeting place. There, similar rites of strength and status that are found in a regular Gather take place; however, there are no time limits to either the rites or the Great Gather. Even more rare but related are Grand Revels, which are essentially wars and battles involving the entire clan. Both are considered to be signs of bad luck by most Gangrel, and the fact neither have been called in centuries is seen as a good sign.
Two bloodlines exist among the Sabbat; the Country Gangrel and the City Gangrel. The Country Gangrel are the same as the main clan, with the Fortitude, Animalism and Protean disciplines. The City Gangrel have adapted to city life, forgoing Animalism and Fortitude for Celerity and Obfuscate. Both are collectively referred to as "Gangrel antitribu."
The Gangrel are considered the most feral and predatory of the kindred, and because of their reclusive natures, animalistic tendencies and loose organization, are the least social of the Cainites, preferring solitude to society. They also tend to be extremely territorial and possessive and to enter a Gangrel's territory without permission is certain death. They do have their role and reputation among the kindred as fierce warriors, but to get a Gangrel to agree to work with others, even other Gangrel, can be a difficult, if not impossible, task.
The Gangrel also have ties to the Rroma, and therefore will protect and shelter them, especially from other kindred. The Ravnos would also lay claim to the Gypsies, however, and as a result the two clans have a mutual hatred for each other that goes back centuries.
A Gangrel sire often chooses a prospective candidate for the Embrace during feeding. If the mortal prey resists, fighting against what is happening, then his reward after death may be a taste of Gangrel blood. The clan makes many Gangrel this way, dating back to the first warriors selected by Ennoia to fight her war. This method produces a Gangrel with a fierce desire to survive, even if he does not have all the tools. We also find prospective Gangrel through observation. While most mortals remain safely hidden during the night, a few risk the darkness. When one of our clan encounters a mortal like this, she will watch instead of attacking. It takes courage to wander these nights, after all. The Gangrel observes the mortal, watching for any signs of bravery or a knack for survival. Sometimes, a mortal out at night is simply lost - if this proves to be the case, he becomes prey. However, if the mortal shows skill moving about at night, is no coward, and maintains the interest of the observer, he is a good candidate for the Embrace. When we punish, however, there is little effort wasted. A mortal who insults or threatens one of our clan receives a nighttime visit. The Gangrel Embraces the mortal, making the process as painful and terror-filled as possible, and leaves her. Usually the Embrace happens indoors, in the rooms of the person punished, assuring their discovery and destruction. In recent nights, this punishment has fallen into disuse, though there are still some who actively enact it. A choice is almost never offered. This has become a tradition with the clan, since so few of them had a choice. The offspring of these Gangrel are considered by some to be inferior stock, even if they do survive. While not considered outcasts, a Gangrel given a choice rarely receives the same respect of those Embraced traditionally, even after the rites of status. Embracing foes has the potential to backfire on the Gangrel. Should an enemy survive the first nights and develop his power, he could turn his new abilities to hunting the one who cursed him. This is a rare occurrence - part of the punishment is to stack the Odds so that survival is nearly impossible. A new Gangrel who manages to survive has an enviable combination of cunning, raw ability and luck -clearly a dangerous foe to have in pursuit, but possibly one with a bright future in the clan.
After the Embrace, the sire disappears into the night, leaving the new Gangrel on his own. The Gangrel believe that it is better to save the effort of training a childe until after he has proven that he can survive. Thus, the sire completely abandons his new creation in the early nights, leaving him alone to face the struggle of survival. Many do not last beyond even the first night. That first hunger is the strongest, and it brings the Beast quickly to the surface. In the hare of that first wild rage, a childe makes any number of mistakes. If Lupines and mortals don't destroy him, the first sunrise may. If the sire has chosen well, however, the childe quickly grasps his situation and adjusts. The reward for that first night is one of Ennoia's marks. Any Gangrel resilient and capable enough to survive the first few nights soon develops the tools that Gangrel use to survive those that follow. Over time, the childe must learn to grow claws, speak with the animals, and come to terms with our strengths and weaknesses. He must also learn to make decisions on his own, rapidly. The Vampiric condition does not permit long reflection on the proper course to take. Such indecision leads to the Final Death. This is a dangerous time for the childe, lost and without guidance.
A new Gangrel must survive at least one winter before he is worthy of teaching. "How many winters?" is often the first question a Gangrel asks upon first meeting another in the wilderness. A new Gangrel rarely has the correct answer, and thus reveals himself. Tradition has it that any pup so encountered becomes a responsibility. The older Gangrel must aid him in his survival and teach him the ways of the clan, at least until his nature is revealed. If the pup ends up being from the Cainite broods, the Gangrel leaves him to his fate. Once accepted, the new Gangrel learns the stories and traditions of the clan, particularly the greeting ritual and the rites of status. Instruction in the use of the Gangrel gifts follows. The lessons include descriptions of their relationships with the Ravnos, Lupines and Cainites. After months of this teaching, a close bond forms between the student and teacher, similar to the relationship between a sire and childe among the Cainites. After this training, a Gangrel is officially a member of the clan.
Giovanni
The usurpers of clan Cappadocian and the youngest clan of Caine, the Giovanni are both a clan and a family. They Embrace exclusively within their family (one of many things kept within the family), and are heavily focused on two goals: money and (necromantic) power.
In 1005, in the hollows of Erciyes and under the shadow of Cappadocius' torpid form, Augustus Giovanni was brought into clan Cappadocian, directly embraced with the blood of the Founder and under the watch of Japheth and Constancia. While the embrace is relatively well known, what is not well known is the horse-trading before it.
The Clan of Death, the Cappadocians followed their Founder in a quest to understand the mysteries of death and God, including Cappadocius' plan to diablerize the Almighty. However, lacking knowledge about the soul (the Cappadocians' signature discipline of Mortis focused more on the act of dying then the events afterwards), the Founder began to shop for experts.
Enter the Giovanni, a family of prosperous Venetian traders who had for centuries depended on Necromatic skill to provide a business edge. Interested in expanding his family's power and seeing Vampirism as the route to doing so, Augustus Giovanni had been studying the clans and entertaining offers from various vampiric elders for the Embrace. The Cappadocian offer was the most attractive, providing the highest generation (as well as the most manipulable clan).
As a result, and despite the protests of Cappadocius' eldest childer, the Antediluvian rose from Torpor and provided Japheth with a small vial of his blood. Japheth reluctantly did so, draining Augustus and pouring most of Cappadocius' donated blood into the throat of a drained Giovanni (The remainder was hidden by Japheth, the True Vessel becoming a major element Giovanni rumor).
Following his ascent into the blood, Augustus Giovanni immediately began embracing his own family. In the course of doing so, the Giovanni became something between a bloodline and a cult within the Cappadocian clan. Acknowledged as the experts on Necromancy (and rapidly expanding the field), the Giovanni maintained themselves slightly separate from the mother clan. This, as the Giovanni claim is because Augustus had planned to usurp his sire from before he was Embraced.
In 1444, these plans came to fruition. Augustus Giovanni's childe, Claudius Giovanni formed a conspiracy to diablerize Japheth, the most beloved of Cappadocius' childer. The Conspiracy of Isaac was a criminal force in itself, but ultimately a distraction - since Hardestadt and other founders of the Camarilla had turned their eye towards the diablerie of elder vampires, Augustus wanted a catspaw, an obvious plan to distract them while he went after the greater prize. In 1444, both plans came to fruition, with Japheth dead, Cappadocius dead and both Giovanni raised a generation.
Taking advantage of the chaos of the era, Augustus began a purge of the Cappadocians that, while taking centuries to wipe out the stragglers, would be sufficiently successful that by 1528, he could negotiate a peace with the Camarilla. The Giovanni were left alone and left the Camarilla alone, exactly as the Giovanni wanted it.
Renaissance Onwards Edit
The ultimate goal of the clan was outlined by Augustus Giovanni after reviewing Cappadocius' original plan. Clan Giovanni acquired the bulk of its power by the hold it maintained over wraiths, so by tearing down the Shroud, the clan of Death would be able to increase its power beyond conception. Giovanni outlined plans to do so, with the most difficult goal being the acquisition of vast numbers of souls to enact the necromantic rituals necessary.
From 1528 onwards, the Giovanni were basically left alone to pursue their goals. By opting out from the increasingly hot Camarilla/Sabbat wars, their resources were devoted to three goals: increasing necromantic knowledge, acquiring additional financial clout, and eliminating the remaining Cappadocians and Lamia. Each of these goals tied back into their eventual plan to tear down the Shroud: Necromantic knowledge to acquire the souls, finance to increase the soul supply by buying slaves and engineering economic disasters, and eliminating Cappadocians to keep the only possible squealers tightly shut.
During this period, the Giovanni involved themselves in a variety of occult activities, primary through the clan's notorious scholar Ambrogino Giovanni. At the same time, the Giovanni made bargains with entities like The Capuchin to acquire Necromantic information.
In the beginning of the twentieth century, the Giovanni were riding high. They expanded the clan into other families (notably the Milliners, della Pasaglia, Pisanob and Ghiberti), wiped out the last of the Cappadocians and their Lamia protectors, and prepared to rend the Shroud and bring the dead to the living.
By the end of the century, things had gone pear shaped. Mysterious vampires, the Harbingers of Skulls, claimed vengeance on the clan for reasons unknown; the Sixth Great Maelstrom shredded the wraiths' society; and the apocalyptic events of the Week of Nightmares destroyed their spiritual assets.
As the Final Nights ran out, the Giovanni began to wonder if maybe they'd made a mistake. Maybe Augustus Giovanni had underestimated the Antediluvians; maybe the dead would become more potent if the Shroud were pulled down; maybe Caine was real and in the end all of these petty plays and power moves had been nothing but a diversion until Gehenna.
The Giovanni are a highly organized clan, consisting of a network of interrelated families who share a common culture and fealty to the ancestral Giovanni family. As a result, despite popular conception, not all Giovanni are Italian. The major families include:
Ghiberti Italian necromancers with an active interest in Africa.
Della Pasaglia Another Italian family focusing on the Middle East.
Dunsirn Scottish bankers and cannibals.
Milliner American financiers brought into the family in the 1950's
Pisanob South American necromancers.
Minor families are spread across the globe, and include:
Beryn: Flemish traders with inroads into Africa.
Hidalgo: Another Mexican branch rumored to be wiped out by the Sabbat.
Li Weng: Chinese geomancers based out of San Francisco's Chinatown.
Rosselini: Accomplished though forceful necromancers. Considered near equal to the main family.
Putanesca: Sicilian thugs with a nasty temper.
St John: Cabal of English Masons.
Rothstein: Jewish-American Kabbalists centered in Las Vegas.
The Giovanni are organized as something between a highly ruthless mafia dynasty and a highly ruthless corporation. Favors such as financial responsibilities (and rewards), ghouling, and the Embrace are dependent on performance; vicious backstabbing and cutthroat competition are the order of the day in a Giovanni household.
The Giovanni maintain their own internal Masquerade; a member of the family may be aware that his family is into some weird stuff, but beyond the relatively benign (in comparison) incest and high-finance backstabbing, be blissfully unaware that he's a catspaw for cannibalistic blood-drinking necromancers.
Decisions in the Giovanni are made by councils of elders, with age, rank and competence all playing a role. Giovanni are highly family-oriented, even after the Embrace, and will spend centuries guiding their descendants for the greater good of the family (and themselves). In many ways, the Giovanni are a Ghoul Family with less visibly disgusting parts. This doesn't mean the Giovanni aren't as warped as the Bratovitch clan; the Giovanni are repulsive and degenerate in a more subtle manner. It is said that younger generations o the Giovanni were found to be very attractive. Some even say they put on the irresistible look of a succubi pre-change. Also, some are known to shape shifters.
Effective Giovanni are sadistic Giovanni. Controlling wraiths means acquiring fine control over a variety of psychological levers (understanding Passions and Fetters) and then ruthlessly manipulating these tools to make a spirit do what you want. The Giovanni have been sadistic, manipulative and vicious since before the diablerie of Cappadocius, and it bleeds out into everything else they do. The outer shell of the Giovanni clan, the public face is less visibly cruel and horrid, but only because these vampires are explicitly tasked to deal with the outside world.
The most notorious example of this bleed off is the Giovanni Proxy Kiss. Giovanni make an art out of ghouling, since ghouling is a rite of passage for the Giovanni - ghouling means that the Giovanni is now part of the people who make the family work. Not necessarily a mover and shaker, but something akin to a made man: the Masquerade is pulled back and the truth about vampires is revealed. Giovanni tend to make Proxy Kisses aesthetic efforts, and take a point in pride in producing especially memorable or mind-destroying ones - blood received via fellatio, blasphemous masses and the like are all popular choices.
The sadism and weirdness of Giovanni internal culture is enhanced by its incestuous nature. Giovanni can spend the majority of their lives interacting with nobody except other Giovanni, and the resulting insularity breeds additional problems. The Giovanni are, in particular, arrogant and prone to underestimating the world around them.
The Giovanni are, if anything, severely lapsed Catholics. Due to their practice of Necromancy, they have seen what "the other side" and "life beyond death" really mean, which tends to completely eradicate any faith in a benevolent deity. Giovanni, in a ways similar to the Lasombra Clan, often present the appearance of Catholicism in ritual and Family culture, but have twisted the vestments all around to better fit a vampiric frame. They may attend a certain kind of Mass, where the holy water is blood and the priest a Family elder, but these sorts of ceremonies tend to devolve into orgies, massacres, or other kinds of deviant practices behind closed doors.
The Giovanni relationship to the spirit world means that they have a very casual attitude towards such things as torture, dismemberment, and death. After all, if your victim dies in the chair, you can always yank his spirit back from Hell and get information out of him another way. What the Giovanni are really focused on is efficiency: bribery, seduction, and all other sorts of under-handed means are taught to new members of the Clan as a matter of course. If all other methods fail, then killing off the competition becomes a very viable alternative.
EmbracesEdit
In 1444, Claudius Giovanni embraced a peasant girl named Marianna into the clan as a distraction. For 500 years Marianna was a constant for the clan. Marianna is also the only non-Giovanni to be embraced by the clan and to survive longer than about a month. The Giovanni do not embrace outside of the family; they do not embrace without permission. Not if they know what's good for them at least.
Like everything else in the family, the Embrace is a reward. Promotion for good service, and more than other clans, the Giovanni actively consider factors like generation in the embrace. Being embraced by a lower-generation clan member is considered a performance bonus.
While not uncommon, it is frowned upon to Embrace another of your own mortal family. This would encourage nepotism, and Giovanni much prefer to have the loyalty of their Neonates as divided as possible within the family. For example, while Agatha Milliner might put her own grandson forward for the Embrace, it is much more likely that Stefano Giovanni does the deed. Even better for the Clan if Agatha and Stefano are rivals - the neonate now has loyalty to his own grandmother and his own sire, which forces (somewhat) the two elders to avoid plotting against the other, lest the new childe betray either of them.
La Sombra
The leaders of the Sabbat, clan Lasombra are social Darwinists, predators, elegant and inhuman. Firm believers in the worthy ruling and the unworthy serving, the Lasombra have maintained their traditions even as they have turned the Sabbat to their own purposes.
Several thousand years ago B.C., a tribe of Masai were ordered by a pale spirit to produce a child for him. This child was trained to lead by having every member of the tribe obey him, and he was trained to be loyal by extensive gifts and rewards from the Antediluvian [Lasombra]. The experiment failed.
Before rerunning the experiment, [Lasombra] was visited by his child's playmate, Ontai. This shaman in training offered his life to [Lasombra] (who had already punished the tribe by wiping out half of its population) - in life, death and beyond, with no price offered. Lasombra, disturbed by the offer and Ontai's already impeccable honor, tested the shaman's resolve by demanding he slaughter his tribe.
Ontai obeyed, and a shaken [Lasombra] called off the execution and embrace Ontai, renaming him Montano and bringing him to the Mediterranean. To his grave, [Lasombra] was uncertain whether his childe's unswerving honor had gotten the better of him.
Lasombra naturally seek positions of power and authority, as a result they form the bulk of the Sabbat's administrative offices - ducti, prisci and the like. Tzimisce are more likely to be pack priests, while the Lasombra focus on the practical matters of administration and leadership.
Separate from Sabbat organization, the Lasombra maintain a clan-specific organization, the Friends of the Night, usually called les amies noir (amici noctis during the Dark Ages). While a Lasombra can be in the clan and not a Friend of the Night, all Lasombra who matter are part of the organization. The Friends are something of a formalized favor network within the Lasombra - they grant prestige and prestation, but the most notable feature of the friends are the Courts of Blood, which regulate diablerie.