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  One of the smallest and most un-
  usual bloodlines in Kindred history,
  the Barjot have their origin in late
  1860s France, spawned by the fateful
  meeting of an impressionable unaligned
  Gangrel named Amaury Jelinek and the
  early proponents of the mortal Bohemian
  movement. Immediately attracted to the free-
  dom and defiant wonder of the disenchanted Pa-
  risian art community, Jelinek quickly made the
  acquaintance of several progressive thinkers, spend-
  ing nearly all of his time in their company. Although
  he lacked the education and intellectual rigor to hold
  his own in debate with these mortals, he was end-
  lessly fascinated by their meandering conversations
  on philosophy, politics and the undeniable truths of
  human emotion. One night, overwhelmed by the ex-
  citement one night’s discussion sparked in him, Jelinek
  struck both of his heroes down and immediately Em-
  braced them in defiance of local law.
  Jelinek and his new childer were brought before the
  Prince of the domain, forced to stand in judgment for
  his impetuousness. Unwilling to issue a personal order
  for the destruction of Jelinek (whom he considered little
  better than a rogue) and noticing that the three Kin-
  dred bore a strange, nearly painful aversion to separa-
  tion, the Prince declared all three exiled, announcing
  that they could live together in eternal codependence,
  so long as they didn’t do it within the boundaries of his
  territory. “Jobard,” he called them. “Insane.”
  Dejected and banished, the three began a stint of
  relatively aimless wandering, moving from place to
  place with little more in mind than the application of
  their hopeful musings. They would own nothing, they
  decided, and they would never put down roots that
  could not be pulled up at any moment. They had been
  given the opportunity to exist as they always imag-
  ined: free of obligation, free of material concern and
  the bounds of polite society. As they wandered, they
  slowly picked up more members, an impassioned Em-
  brace here, a carefully considered selection there. At
  their peak, the brood numbered more than 20 Kin-
  dred. At first identifying themselves as Jobard, they
  soon adopted a verlan slang version of the name:
  Barjot. The insult eventually became an inside joke,
  co-opted by the bloodline and re-
  versed into a proud name. What be-
  gan as a sad exile turned, within
  years, into a strangely empowered rov-
  ing party of outlaw vampires.
  As decades passed, the close ties of the
  brood mystically tightened and solidified, super-
  naturally forcing the members of the Barjot to
  remain in one another’s company. Individual
  members who separated themselves from their
  brothers and sisters became insurmountably anxious,
  eventually struggling to return to the fold. Some of the
  original members began to sour on the group, claiming
  that the proximity of their fellow members soon became
  a trap more insidious and more frustrating than any of
  the rules of society. One of Jelinek’s original two childer
  actually committed suicide in the early years of the 20th
  century, forever traumatizing the rest of the line.
  When the line passed through Amsterdam on a jour-
  ney across northern Europe, they found immediate
  welcome and purpose in the Carthian Movement
  there. Realizing that they were nothing less than an
  experimental society of their own, Jelinek declared
  himself and his line to be ardent Carthians, formuliz-
  ing and carrying out an ongoing experiment in anti-
  materialist communal existence. Received as a char-
  ismatic ally, he was made most welcome in the do-
  main and allowed to move freely through the terri-
  tory. But before long, the reckless tendencies of the
  Barjot began to annoy their hosts and damage the
  reputation of the line. Avoiding a potential clash,
  Jelinek gathered his brood and left the domain.
  For decades, they traveled. Brussels, Geneva, Budapest,
  Prague, Rome — all played host to the Barjot at one
  time or another, and all rapidly ushered them out soon
  after. It never helped that the brood spread the word of
  their own revolutionary brand of Carthianism wherever
  they went, embellishing the tales in an attempt to con-
  vince younger, more impressionable Kindred to join up
  and throw off the traditions of their elders. Many times,
  the Barjot were forced to flee a domain before facing
  charges of corrupting neonates and fomenting rebellion
  — a thoroughly legitimate claim.
  The Barjot were caught in Copenhagen during the
  Nazi occupation of World War II, and a disastrous at-
  Barjot
  “Hey, you can keep your territory and your obligations.
  I’m not interested in any of that garbage. All I need are my brothers and sisters,
  and they’re always with me no matter what else I got.”
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  tempt to cross the border led to the destruction of three members of the
  line at once. Never having suffered such a degree of bloodshed before,
  they were devastated. Jelinek’s remaining childe went into
  voluntary torpor, declaring his intent to sleep “one cen-
  tury for each sad loss.” The rest of the line chose to
  carry his inert body with them in their travels, and
  have done so ever since.
  As soon as they were able, the entire line picked
  up and left for the Americas, eager to leave the
  painful memories of Europe behind. First land-
  ing at New York harbor, they were quickly
  turned out by the Kindred of the city and
  set to wandering again.
  In the decades that followed, the
  Barjot have been up and down the
  Americas, traveling as far south as Rio
  de Janeiro and as far north as Anchor-
  age, Alaska. Every so often, they are made
  welcome in a domain and they stay for as
  long as they can. Rarely tolerated for long,
  they eventually move on, looking for a
  city that can accept their strange ways.
  Parent Clan: Gangrel. The founder,
  Amaury Jelinek, is a vampire of ap-
  proximately 250 years of age. He still
  wanders the night with his strange,
  close-knit line, and is rumored to have
  spent no more than 10 or 11 years in
  torpor throughout his existence, a sur-
  prising circumstance for a vampire of
  his age. Jelinek attributes his staying
  power to the close ties he shares with
  his blood relations.
  Nickname: Jelinenes. The Barjot dislike
  this term because it suggests a worship of Jelinek
  that they all deny. While it’s true that they tend
  to dote on him, no one of them is central to the
  bloodline, they say, and no one of
  them deserves to be exalted above
  the rest. On any given night, they
  are likely to indulge and idolize one of
  their neonates just as much as their founder.
  Covenant: The Barjot identify themselves as
  Carthians, without exception. The Barjot are a small state
  unto themselves, and they believe that they should be al-
  lowed to determine the parameters of their own government,
  complete with its laws and customs. Because of their extremely
  insular behavior and their tendency to wander away, en masse,
  from any situation that upsets them, the members of the bloodline
  are sometimes referred to as “Carthian by default.” That is to say,
  they are too organized to be spoken of as unaligned, but they are too
  unusual and unmannerly to be considered members of any covenant
  except the Carthian Movement.
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  The Barjot have flirted with membership in both
  the Lancea Sanctum and the Circle of the Crone in
  the past, participating happily in religious or mystic
  rituals and readings. The Barjot never stay for long,
  though, and they rarely bother to learn much from
  the teachings of either group. It’s not that the Barjot
  are incompatible with them, but rather that the Barjot
  just don’t care enough to take the trouble.
  The free-spirited Barjot are simply not compatible
  with the staid etiquette of the Invictus or the guarded
  secrecy and long study of the Ordo Dracul. Any mem-
  bers of the bloodline who have made any attempt
  whatsoever to join those covenants in the past have
  done so half-heartedly, and have been rejected on
  every occasion. Even those single members who might
  be considered for membership are unable to spend
  enough time away from their compatriots to learn the
  lessons of these covenants.
  Appearance: Considering that wild experimenta-
  tion and creative expression are the norm for Jelinene
  Kindred, the mainstream boundaries of gender, mod-
  esty and good taste are of no concern. Loose, flowing
  garments seem fashionable, as are colorful, comfort-
  able fabrics and revealing cuts.
  Most of the Barjot refuse to style their hair, often
  allowing dreadlocks to form (if they have enough
  length) or taking a laissez-faire attitude to their coifs.
  Many are not quite as anxious about hygiene as one
  might hope, and are dusted with a layer of soot and
  grime that grows thicker as the years pass.
  If the bloodline has a single rule about one’s appear-
  ance, it is this: nothing should be bought. If a vampire
  of the bloodline is seen to wear matching suits or manu-
  factured dresses, she’s likely to face the jeers of her breth-
  ren as a “sell out” or a “bourgeois wannabe.” Instead,
  the Barjot either hand-sew their garments from scratch
  or patch them together from a collection of found fab-
  rics and otherwise cannibalized clothing.
  The Barjot often accessorize with items that are beau-
  tiful, but assertively worthless. Cheap plastic baubles,
  telephone wire necklaces, iridescent Saran-Wrap brace-
  lets — anything that’s both eye-catching and easy to
  find works as Barjot adornment. They may look like
  crazy people, but they tend to claim that it’s a state-
  ment on the arbitrary nature of value assignment, and
  will gleefully defend their choices. The useless is el-
  evated to magnificence in their eyes, and commonly
  accepted precious items are no better than trash.
  Haven: The Jelinenes will dwell anywhere that’s free,
  light-tight and large enough to house all of them. Squats
  in ruined hotels, waterfront warehouses and abandoned
  factories are favorites for the bloodline, providing the
  shelter they require without walling the members off
  from one another. Not all of them know how to in-
  voke the haven of Soil, and those who do don’t like to
  isolate themselves from their brothers and sisters.
  Wherever they make a home, the Barjot inevitably
  “decorate”: painting the walls with unusual imagery,
  scrawling poetry and messages on every available sur-
  face and scattering toys, swatches of fabric and any-
  thing else they choose to entertain themselves with
  all around. Their havens are often jokingly referred
  to as “nests” because of this behavior, but many a vis-
  iting vampire has been struck by the awful resemblance
  to an animal’s den.
  On rare occasion, the Barjot are invited to share
  the haven of an outsider. Without fail, they leave it as
  ruined as their own homes, testing the limits of their
  host’s patience with their combined ignorance of com-
  mon courtesy and absolute disregard for another’s pri-
  vacy. To those who know the Barjot, hosting the
  bloodline is considered a great (or insanely foolish)
  act of tolerance and charity. A few French Kindred
  regularly welcome them into their homes, viewing the
  inevitable destruction of their property as a kind of
  penance. Most Kindred, however, are nowhere near
  as broadminded in their approach.
  Background: Those mortals who can both draw the
  attention of the Barjot and then survive the first few
  years as Kindred without going completely insane are
  a singular type: charismatic outsiders and frustrated
  eccentrics, assured of their own intellectual worth and
  vaguely (or completely) dissatisfied with mainstream
  life. They are artists and talkers, rebels and freaks, at-
  tracted to the unusual existence of the vampires and
  willing participants in their commune.
  Social and Physical Attributes are considered more
  favorable for Barjot candidates than Mental ones,
  and such “friendly skills” as Expression, Socialize,
  Drive and Athletics are much more appealing to the
  line than such “unfriendly” ones as Brawl, Weap-
  onry or Subterfuge.
  Character Creation: Almost all of the Jelinenes are
  peaceful intellectuals, many of whom have given
  themselves over to a free-spirited, hedonistic Requiem.
  As a result, Mental Attributes are commonly primary
  (despite the Gangrel weakness), but Social Skills are
  usually prominent. Material Merits are discouraged,
  as every member of the bloodline must be prepared to
  abandon all possessions — either in sharing with one
  another, or in ridding oneself of material ties to a par-
  ticular domain. A good number of the bloodline bear
  the Striking Looks merit, even if it may be hidden
  under a layer of grime.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Celerity, Pro-
  tean, Resilience
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  Weakness: Every member of the bloodline suffers
  the weakness of the Gangrel clan. In addition, none
  of the Jelinenes can stand to be removed from the
  company of his brood. If any one member of the group
  loses contact (visual, aural or tactile) with any mem-
  ber of the line, he must immediately make a Resolve
  + Composure roll. Each success he accumulates al-
  lows him to remain in place (or moving in his chosen
  direction) for one turn. As soon as these turns of free
  action are used up, he must immediately seek out his
  line-mates, seeking them to the best of his ability.
  While he seeks the rest of the Barjot, he will lose in-
  terest in all other activities, and any rolls to perform
  actions unrelated to locating and rejoining his family
  suffer a –3 penalty.
  This roll applies only to single members of the blood-
  line, isolated from the rest. While the other members
  of the line are likely to become agitated when a mem-
  ber goes missing, they do not suffer the penalty that
  applies to their lost line-mate. A pair of Barjot apart
  from their brood likewise will not suffer the penalty,
  though they certainly feel a pull to rejoin their blood-
  line as quickly as possible.
  Organization: The Barjot move in familial troupes,
  splitting only rarely into smaller sub-groups. Each
  member relates (and refers) to the others as brothers
  and sisters, even when dealing with her sire or childer.
  There are no distinctions of age or class within the
  Barjot, and there is no intrinsic value to inheritance.
  Many Barjot are actually Jelinek’s childer or
  grandchilder, with a few exceptions, and all share the
  close ties of Blood Sympathy.
  Amorous affairs are both common and mercurial
  among the Barjot. Partnerships are formed, traded and
  dissolved with remarkable frequency, more as a plea-
  sure game than any serious expression of emotion.
  Reprehensible as it is to more traditional Kindred, the
  ready exchange of physical love among the members
  of the bloodline is arguably one of the factors that
  help maintain each member’s Humanity. Those who
  seem to be slipping are often subjected to increased
  attention from their brood-mates, benefiting from
  their gentle touch and intimate understanding.
  The Barjot engage in their own version of the
  Carthian Chain at least once a week, if not more of-
  ten, exchanging gifts and items of clothing (often
  wearing them to the ceremony and removing them
  just before handing them over) back and forth, occa-
  sionally receiving presents that they themselves had
  given away years previous. The gifts exchanged are
  appreciated, but there isn’t much relevance attached
  to the relative value. Outsiders often question the
  Barjot’s practice of the Chain, considering that they
  define all of their possessions as the shared property
  of the line. Members of the bloodline invariably re-
  spond that the practice of the Chain is about the act
  of giving and receiving, not about the ownership of
  the gifts themselves. It is a practice that encourages
  friendly contact and a union of intent and interest.
  Outsiders are frequently and happily invited to prac-
  tice the Chain with the Barjot, demonstrating that
  the line is willing to surrender items in exchange for
  the gifts of foreigners as well.
  Spending as much time in one another’s company
  as they do, the Kindred of the Barjot often engage in
  cooperative feeding practice. The joint hunt is surely
  a joy for the brothers and sisters of the line, but must
  be horrifying for their targets. The entire line often
  descends on a small group of mortals, picking a small
  neighborhood clean in their passing. A definite threat
  to the Masquerade, the Barjot group hunt often de-
  fies the logic and necessity of stealth in Kindred af-
  fairs, and the permanent residents of several domains
  have been forced to clean up the bloodline’s mess on
  more than one occasion.
  In a ritual exercise that is extremely unusual for
  vampires, the Barjot all recall and celebrate their
  mortal birthdays, throwing wild parties and taking
  the whole line into the streets for a roving bash. As
  the night of revelry draws to a close, the honoree is
  often drawn into the telling of tales, recalling the
  highlights of his mortal days. Once again, this prac-
  tice seems bizarre or unnecessary to many Kindred,
  but it has a definite positive effect on the Humanity
  of the bloodline’s members.
  Another common ritual for the Barjot is the “crash,”
  a planned outing to a public event (or Elysium gath-
  ering). In preparation, the members of the bloodline
  dress up in “disguise,” snagging cheap or free suits and
  dresses and doing their best to emulate the “normal”
  crowd. At some predetermined point, they suddenly
  shred or strip off their outfits, reveling in the relative
  freedom of their usual garb. This moment of shedding
  is considered by many a reinforcing of the values of
  the Barjot, allowing them to exult in a moment of
  liberation after the hours-long tension of trying to fit
  in with the crowd around them. It certainly seems
  enjoyable to those on the outside: the release is ac-
  companied by laughter and song, often drawing the
  curious attention of the crowd.
  Concepts: Atavistic philosopher-poet, easygoing
  hitchhiker, enlightened communist punk, free-spir-
  ited wild child, gentle warrior-gone-soft, manic
  codependent brat, sleepy-eyed jokester, soothing big
  sister, talentless avant-garde scribbler, trapped-in-
  hell introvert
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  The Deucalion bloodline simmers
  with rage. Interacting with other
  Kindred, necessary for night-to-
  night existence and especially im-
  portant among the Carthian Move-
  ment, frustrates and infuriates them.
  They are stone while all others are clay. They might
  not all be perfect, but they are unflawed, as least as
  far as Kindred go. While all other clans and blood-
  lines carry some sort of weakness, some imper-
  fection that makes them ugly, stupid or weak,
  the Deucaliones have only themselves and not
  their Blood to blame when they fail.
  Of course, they usually have to keep these attitudes
  to themselves. It might be true that the horrific
  Nosferatu acting as Prince of a domain is worthless,
  because she cannot even hunt without revealing her-
  self to any mortal who might be watching, but if her
  Embrace antedates that of the Deucalion’s by a half-
  century then insults are unwise. The Deucalion blood-
  line isn’t good at being patient, but it must be. So the
  Deucaliones save their vitriol for the targets they can
  afford to attack — younger Kindred, ghouls and mor-
  tal pawns. Just as Americans once felt that one black
  relative was enough to consider a person “black,” the
  Deucaliones feel that the touch of tainted blood is
  enough to pass on the weakness.
  History of the Deucaliones
  The Deucaliones are a young bloodline, formed
  sometime within the last 50 years. The founder, a
  Ventrue named Victor Spanos, was Embraced during
  a period of high immigration in New York. Greek by
  ancestry but American by birth, he watched as Ital-
  ians, Irish, Greeks and others tried to mix into the
  “melting pot” of the city. He decided, though, that
  the “melting pot” was more a bowl of marbles than
  anything else. The people didn’t melt, didn’t change
  and didn’t allow themselves to be changed. They clung
  to their ways, their foibles and their weaknesses. Vic-
  tor decided that America, despite her flaws, was supe-
  rior because she had left behind the weaknesses of the
  Old Country. Victor, in the years leading up to his
  Embrace, was a constant force against immigrants’
  rights unless they learned American English (with-
  Deucalion
  “It’s OK. You can’t help what you are.”
  out accent), could work in America
  and didn’t ask for silly things like
  Catholic or Greek Orthodox
  holidays. “They have freedom of
  religion,” he said, “but I shouldn’t
  lose money because of it.”
  Victor’s sire was a member of the Invictus who
  wanted the fiery young man’s connections to vari-
  ous businesses in the city. After the Embrace,
  though, Victor threw himself headlong into the
  Requiem. He severed ties with the mortals who
  knew him (killing them, in some cases), liqui-
  dated his accounts, arranged circumstances so that he
  was declared dead and began learning all he could
  about the clans and the covenants. His sire, disgusted,
  declared Victor’s Embrace a mistake that he would
  correct, but Victor had already made arrangements.
  Just under a year after his Embrace, he was on a train
  heading west.
  WHERE?
  Victor began his unlife in New York and from
  there headed west — and that’s about as specific
  as it’s going to get. The Deucalion bloodline is
  prevalent in several American cities, but it’s not
  really necessary to nail down which ones here. (In
  your chronicle, of course, one of those cities can
  be the one your coterie resides in and the
  surrounding ones, if you wish to incorporate the
  bloodline.)
  Nothing says that Victor necessarily needed to
  start in New York, of course. London has its own
  issues with immigration, and Victor could easily
  have fled to mainland Europe. Use whatever
  locales work for your chronicle, and tweak the
  bloodline’s particulars as necessary.
  Impurity
  Victor had been an avid student of vampirism since
  the first night of his Embrace. Although not particu-
  larly interested in mythology or esoteric lore in life,
  the notion that vampires had hunted humanity for
  centuries intrigued him, and he dug into the history
  of his former people with vigor, trying to find the
  “cracks” in the Masquerade. History, he found, wasn’t
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  a good source, because so much of it had been sanitized and rewritten
  to match expectations, one of which was that vampires didn’t ex-
  ist. Victor turned instead to mythology, focusing on the rich lore
  of ancient Greece.
  At the same time, he was trying to find his feet among the
  Kindred. He had no real interest in joining the Invictus,
  and the two religious covenants conflicted with his secu-
  lar view of the world. The Ordo Dracul seemed like a
  natural fit, and when he arrived in his new home he
  immediately petitioned to join these scholars. He never
  gained much status, however, because, whereas most
  Dragons were interested in studying the occult to fur-
  ther their own understanding of the Coils of the
  Dragon, Victor was interested in knowledge for his
  own sake and had no particular desire to “transcend”
  anything. What’s more, as he researched mythology
  and observed the Kindred around him, he came to a
  very familiar (for him) conclusion: certain types of vam-
  pires were weaker by nature, whereas he and vam-
  pires like him were without this inherent weakness.
  The Ventrue, he decided, were without intrin-
  sic flaws. The Nosferatu were obvious monsters —
  fine if one wished to terrorize fairy-tale children,
  but not conducive to a modern Requiem. The
  Gangrel could not think rationally, at least not pre-
  dictably, and this kind of chaotic thought process made
  them dangerous to rely upon. The Daeva were slaves to
  their base impulses, and Victor saw that this led to the Daeva
  either degenerating into madness or becoming mentally ex-
  hausted in short order. The Mekhet, of course, had even
  less tolerance for light than most Kindred. (Victor consid-
  ered the Mekhet the least of the Kindred, but his disdain
  was tempered with fear and jealousy over their ability to
  read minds.)
  Above all the clans, though, stood the Ventrue. Victor per-
  ceived talk of the Lords being predisposed toward madness
  as motivated by jealousy and speculation — any vampire
  might go mad with the weight of years and sin, after all. In his
  mythological studies, Victor came across the story of Deucalion,
  the descendant of Prometheus who was one of the last survivors
  after Zeus flooded the world. Deucalion consulted the Oracle of
  Themis for advice on how to repopulate the Earth, and was told
  to throw stones over his shoulder. A race of people sprang up be-
  hind him, made from stone (rather than the original inhabitants of
  the world, who had been made from clay and were thus not strong
  enough to withstand the sins released from Pandora’s box).
  This fable sparked something in Victor. He believed that he
  had found a representation of the Ventrue in the myth. The other
  clans were made from clay, but his clan was of stone, strong
  enough to resist sunlight, fire and sin and rise above all
  other Kindred. Other vampires were impure, by no one’s
  fault but the blood they bore. Victor wrote up a long, ac-
  cusatory treatise “proving” that the Ventrue should hold
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  162
  power in every city, though other, “impure” clans
  would be allowed to hold offices at the Ventrue’s suf-
  ferance. He presented this treatise to his superiors in
  the Order, sure that it would finally be his ticket out
  of the lower ranks. He wasn’t entirely prepared for
  the result.
  The Carthian Movement
  The Dragons in Victor’s new city read his proposal
  and immediately expelled him. “What you should, but
  probably won’t, understand, Slave Victor,” one of them
  wrote to him, “is that we are not expelling you from
  the Order because you are wrong, though you most
  assuredly are. We are expelling you because you are a
  failure as a scientist, because you see only what con-
  firms what you have always believed. There are other
  covenants for Kindred like you, Kindred who refuse
  to let the world change them.”
  Victor read the comments to his treatise and came
  to the conclusion that he had been wrong to show it
  to them. Not because he was mistaken, of course, but
  simply because he couldn’t expect them to accept it.
  Would old and powerful Kindred acknowledge the
  truths that he had realized? Of course not, for Victor
  was not far from his Embrace. He was fighting a battle
  that would not only prove unpopular with four-fifths
  of the Kindred in existence, but that also required el-
  ders to take the word of a neonate. He therefore de-
  cided that his former superior’s suggestion of seeking
  a covenant better suited to his temperament was a
  good idea, but he needed a covenant that would lis-
  ten to the words of a young vampire. In the Carthian
  Movement, he found a home.
  Mission and Position: Deucaliones
  Victor evangelized his “Deucalion” mission immedi-
  ately upon joining the Carthian Movement. Of course,
  most of the Carthians in the city promptly refused to
  speak to him again. Some, though (mostly, though not
  entirely, Ventrue), found his notions intriguing.
  Victor’s position, simply put, was that clan Ventrue
  was inherently unflawed, but that individual mem-
  bers of the clan still made mistakes and possessed char-
  acter and moral failings. (Victor himself magnani-
  mously admitted to being somewhat conceited, in
  perhaps the greatest understatement the city’s Kin-
  dred had ever heard.) Other clans were inherently
  flawed, but could aspire to great accomplishments and
  virtue. They merely had more to overcome.
  Most of the city’s Kindred recognized this position as
  the condescending pap that it was, but enough of the
  Carthians in the area responded favorably the Victor
  was able to build up a small power base. He made it his
  mission to help the Ventrue remain pure and make the
  most of their special status, and to help the members of
  the other clans rise above the impurities of their blood.
  Over time, strangely enough, he started to do just that.
  He developed strategies for Gangrel to cope with the
  lack of cognitive faculty that their particular weakness
  brought. He helped the Succubi find ways to avoid be-
  ing put in positions where they had to either abstain or
  indulge, and he encouraged the Nosferatu to hone their
  abilities in stealth rather than in engendering fear. (“It’s
  a useful trick,” he’d say, “but it’s a holdover from centu-
  ries past. You want to scare someone nowadays, pull a
  gun.”) He had nothing to offer the Mekhet, however,
  claiming that they were a “mud clan” among the Kin-
  dred that had somehow managed to survive despite their
  obvious inferiority. Again, though, he didn’t blame in-
  dividual Mekhet for being Mekhet, since no Kindred
  chooses her clan. He simply stated that he couldn’t help
  them, and advised them to move as far north as pos-
  sible where the nights lasted longer. When he found
  that Mekhet in the city had Embraced, however, he
  became incensed and railed at them whenever he saw
  them. Being Cursed was something no vampire could
  help. Passing on that Curse was unforgivable.
  This state of affairs continued for several decades, and
  Victor gained a kind of cult of personality in his city
  and those nearby. Many Kindred hated him, but those
  who had actually met him found him agreeable, if a
  little patronizing. A number of vampires admitted that
  he had some good ideas for avoiding the bloodborne
  curses, though they chortled that he had also come
  across the best way to cope with his own: deny it.
  Then, one winter night, a visitor arrived in the city
  who would send the Deucalion mission in a new direc-
  tion, and ultimately lead to its status as a bloodline.
  A New Wrinkle
  Like many vampires, Victor had operated under the
  assumption that only five clans existed. He had heard
  rumors that “other clans” existed in other countries,
  but he didn’t spare them much of a thought.
  But one night in February, Victor was taking a meet-
  ing with a particularly volatile Gangrel, trying to teach
  her to keep her mind uncluttered even in the face of
  myriad distractions. He was making progress, he
  thought, when he heard a knock at the door. When
  he answered it, standing there was a truly pathetic-
  looking vampire. She was so thin that her ribs were
  plainly visible under her shirt. Her hair had fallen out
  in patches, and although she had not masked her
  Beast, the Predator’s Taint barely flickered in Victor’s
  soul. His own Beast saw her as a worm, a parasite not
  worth the trouble of killing. Victor at first thought
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  she was a Nosferatu, and invited her in, but after some
  discussion she claimed to be a member of a minor line
  consisting only of herself and her sire. Intrigued, Vic-
  tor listened as she spoke at length of changing her
  blood, watching in horror as her body changed, los-
  ing her facility for strengthening her flesh but gaining
  the power to flawlessly track other Kindred, even if
  she knew only a name.
  Eventually, Victor asked her what clan she had been
  Embraced into, assuming it to be Gangrel. He was not
  prepared for her answer: “Ventrue.” Victor flew into
  frenzy and attacked her, draining her dry and con-
  suming her soul.
  Horrified at what he had done (in part because he
  was afraid he had absorbed her weakness), he con-
  tacted every Kindred who would speak to him and
  asked about these strange “sub-clans.” Few knew any-
  thing, but a small number confirmed what the unfor-
  tunate waif had told him: it was possible for blood-
  lines to form from the clans.
  Victor was sickened at this news. He had held up
  the Ventrue as the pinnacle of vampiric achievement
  for so long, but now it was clear that their position
  wasn’t by any means secure. He entered torpor for over
  a year, and emerged with a renewed determination
  and a slightly altered mission. It was possible, he con-
  ceded, for Ventrue to lose their purity, but he was con-
  vinced that a vampire could not alter his blood by
  accident. Therefore, the choice to join a bloodline
  was still a choice, and any fallibility among the Lords
  came from a particular vampire’s foibles, not from the
  Blood. His mission, then, was to determine whether
  it was possible for other clans to become pure, losing
  their weaknesses and joining the Ventrue as unflawed
  Kindred. To that end, he informed his few fellow
  Deucaliones to begin research, interviews and legwork
  to find and catalog as many deviations from the five
  clans as they could.
  SO HOW MANY ARE THERE?
  What did the Deucaliones find? How many
  bloodlines have they unearthed? That’s really a
  matter for the Storyteller and the players to
  decide. If you want to keep the number of
  bloodlines low, maybe the Deucaliones have only
  discovered one or two (and maybe they’re just a
  faction of Kindred rather than a bloodline
  themselves). If you like the notion of Kindred
  blood being mutable, then the Deucaliones might
  have discovered any or all of the bloodlines
  mentioned in Vampire: The Requiem and any
  of the other books that include new lineages
  (including Bloodlines: The Hidden and
  Bloodlines: The Legendary).
  What Victor wasn’t telling his followers, of course,
  was that he had plans beyond simple categorization.
  He wanted to begin his own bloodline. He just needed
  to know how to do it.
  The Bloodline of the Unflawed
  Over the course of next few decades, Victor estab-
  lished a network of information about the various blood-
  lines. He managed to find members of several who were
  willing to aid him in his research, and he discovered
  the arcane process of altering his blood. Reportedly, he
  even entertained offers from more than one would-be
  Avus, but he declined these in favor of refining his blood
  to the point that he could begin his own line. How he
  managed such potent blood in a short span of time, he
  has never said, but he undoubtedly committed diablerie
  more than once during his studies. As the 20th cen-
  tury drew to a close, Victor decided he was ready.
  He once again entered torpor, with the intention of
  emerging with new strength and purity. This time, he
  remained in slumber much longer — a side effect of
  his murderous habits over the preceding years. He
  emerged from his state nearly a decade later, claiming
  to have seen how to alter his blood in the fevered
  dreams of the torpid state. “Like clay,” he whispered,
  trembling. “My blood was clay, and when I touched
  it, it became stone. I am Deucalion, and any who
  choose to follow me are my children.”
  Victor immediately set to work on honing his skills,
  and discovered, to his delight, that he had been given
  dominion over all Kindred weakness. With a glance
  or a gentle touch, he could inflict the weaknesses of
  the lesser clans upon other Kindred. And, he noted
  with some satisfaction, only the weaknesses of the four
  flawed clans were within his power. This proved (to
  him) what he had believed all along — the Ventrue
  were without blemish.
  He invited any Ventrue who had followed him to
  join his bloodline, and soon thereafter opened that in-
  vitation to any Lord who wished to “wash away the
  stains of the world, and face the Requiem with the for-
  titude of stone.” He received few takers, but those who
  did join him agreed with his assessment: by becoming
  Deucaliones, they absolved themselves of whatever
  foolishness they had committed before that point.
  Victor, however, had made enemies, and they did
  not wish to see him or his bloodline come to power.
  Within a year of rising from torpor and declaring the
  Deucaliones a bloodline as well as an ideological fac-
  tion, Victor Spanos found that someone had put a
  price on his head. In order to minimize the risk to his
  bloodline’s members, he disappeared, staying in con-
  tact only by letters and online transmissions.
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  164
  Deucaliones Tonight
  The Deucalion bloodline thrives only in a few
  proximate cities, and its members know and aid each
  other (the bloodline numbers only a score or so).
  Despite their exclusionary propaganda, they actively
  court new members, and are rumored to provide in-
  terested Ventrue with the means to quickly
  strengthen their blood to the point that they can
  join the bloodline (that is, diablerie). Deucaliones
  hold positions of moderate power in several cities,
  but rarely gain enough support to take a title such as
  Prince or Prefect.
  Deucaliones normally have one of three main po-
  sitions, all inherited from their founder. The first is
  superiority: the Deucalion works toward the ac-
  knowledged superiority of clan Ventrue and the
  Deucalion philosophy.
  The second position is knowledge: the Deucalion
  searches for knowledge of bloodlines. Interviews with
  bloodline members are especially prized, as are con-
  firmed reports of strange Disciplines and weaknesses.
  Some Deucaliones hope to find Kindred who have
  transcended their parent clan’s weakness; other
  Deucaliones desperately hope that no such bloodline
  exists, because it would challenge the notion of
  Ventrue superiority.
  The third position is instruction: the Deucalion en-
  deavors to help non–Ventrue Kindred cope with their
  inborn failings. If potential students can learn to ig-
  nore the blinding condescension inherent in this at-
  titude, they can actually learn some useful tricks from
  the Deucaliones. As mentioned, many Kindred find
  it ironic that the Deucaliones are so expert in helping
  other clans manage their problems while never even
  acknowledging their own.
  As his bloodline expands, Victor waits. Rumor
  has it he somehow changed his face and took the
  position of Hound or Sheriff in a nearby domain,
  lurking until he can find out who put the price on
  his unlife and slay him. Other rumors state that he
  has already died, and that all of the letters and com-
  munications from his bloodline don’t go to him but
  to another interested party, probably the same one
  who called in the hit. The Ordo Dracul is the most
  commonly named conspirator, but Victor’s sire is
  another contender.
  COPING WITH WEAKNESSES
  No, there are no game systems specifically
  geared toward dodging the clan weaknesses of
  the Gangrel, Nosferatu, Mekhet and Daeva. The
  coping mechanisms that the Deucaliones teach are
  entirely story-based, and any game effects that
  they have are up to the Storyteller. Here are some
  examples, though of the sorts of things that the
  Skinheads might recommend.
  • Daeva: The Deucaliones teach the Succubi
  avoidance. Since indulging in Vice is dangerous on
  a spiritual level and ignoring Vice is dangerous on
  a psychological level, the lesson is to avoid being
  in a position in which indulging is too morally shaky.
  Deucaliones teach Succubi to enjoy their lascivious
  (or gluttonous or slothful) habits outside of unlife-
  or-death situations, and to feed slowly so that
  accidentally killing a vessel isn’t as easy.
  • Gangrel: The Gangrel suffer from something
  resembling senile dementia. Since this problem
  seems inborn and insurmountable, Deucaliones
  teach the Gangrel how to cope. Note-taking,
  patience, anger-avoidance techniques and
  mnemonics are all possibilities.
  • Nosferatu: What advice a Deucalion can give
  a Haunt depends greatly on that Haunt’s particular
  problem. Some Nosferatu are simply hideous, and
  for that there is no immediate solution; all the
  Deucalion can do is advise honing one’s skills at
  remaining hidden and hope for the best. If the
  Nosferatu has a more subtle manifestation of her
  curse, the Deucalion often teaches the same
  techniques taught to method actors — inventing
  a persona that can cope with other people and
  adopting that persona’s mindset.
  • 
  Mekhet: 
  Many 
  Deucaliones 
  are
  contemptuous of the Mekhet, and the
  Deucaliones’ advice often ends at “stay out of the
  sun.” Some Skinheads attempt to teach the
  Shadows methods of telling time without clocks
  (lengths of shadows, position of the moon and so
  on), but, for the most part, Victor’s biases creep
  through.
  Parent Clan: Ventrue
  Nickname: Skinheads, though they call themselves
  the “Unflawed”
  Covenant: The Deucaliones are largely a
  Carthian bloodline, but are sometimes accepted by
  other covenants, normally the Invictus or the Ordo
  Dracul. Some Deucaliones act as spies or double
  agents for the Carthian Movement, but such
  Deucaliones don’t tend to remain secret for very
  long, as their natural temperament betrays them.
  Deucaliones who don’t belong to any of these cov-
  enants tend to be unaligned or founders of their
  own proto-covenants that they feel sure will one
  night overthrow the existing Kindred power struc-
  ture. The Lancea Sanctum and the Circle of the
  Crone don’t appeal to the Skinheads as a rule; those
  convenants’ dogma repels the Deucaliones.
  Appearance: Despite the nickname, not all
  Deucaliones were Skinheads or even racial suprema-
  cists in life. Many were normal members of whatever
  society they descended from, and retain that normalcy
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  as vampires. Most Deucaliones look healthy and fit,
  but in terms of clothing run the gamut from the height
  of fashion to last decade’s work clothes.
  Haven: Deucaliones stick close to their sires or
  Avuses initially. After Deucaliones are “turned loose,”
  they often try to build up a small, tight-knit group of
  like-minded Kindred, and often establish a commu-
  nal haven. Failing that, they usually choose one ha-
  ven and fortify it beyond all reason. Many Deucalion
  havens have a “kill switch” that sets the place ablaze
  or blows it up should escape ever prove impossible.
  Background: Not all Deucaliones are recruited from
  supremacist groups, but most have some sort of exclu-
  sionary background in life. Fundamentalist churches,
  old boy’s clubs, neighborhood associations and, of
  course, racist groups all provide the right kind of
  mindset, namely, “We are the strong, others are weak
  by nature.” The trick, of course, is making a neonate
  understand that because a person is black does not
  make him weak (for instance), because among Kin-
  dred, clan is the sole trait that matters. This
  deprogramming is one reason that young Skinheads
  remain close to their sires for a time after the Em-
  brace. Letting a neonate Deucalion who was, for in-
  stance, a member of the Aryan Brotherhood until his
  Embrace run wild in Kindred society is a good way to
  lose a perfectly good childe, if he goes mouthing off
  to the wrong vampires.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Dominate, Im-
  purity, Resilience
  Weakness: Deucaliones suffer the Ventrue clan
  weakness, not that they’d admit it (–2 penalty to Hu-
  manity rolls to avoid acquiring derangements after fail-
  ing a degeneration roll). In addition, Skinheads are
  arrogant in the extreme. To their mind, they don’t
  make mistakes, but are simply subject to occasional
  runs of bad luck or conspiracy; they can do no wrong.
  In game terms, while they can still gain Willpower
  for accomplishing their goals, they lose Willpower for
  failing. The Storyteller needs to adjudicate what con-
  stitutes failure. An Intelligence + Occult roll to know
  an obscure fact that doesn’t produce any successes
  might not be a failure to the Deucalion — he simply
  doesn’t know, and that’s no fault of his. Attempting
  to jump between two buildings and failing, though,
  should certainly cost a Willpower point (in addition,
  probably, to some Health points).
  Organization: Deucaliones like to keep to their own,
  especially since they are taught from their Embraces
  that the only Kindred to be trusted are Ventrue and
  other Deucaliones. After having been released from
  their sires’ care for a while, though, Deucaliones func-
  tion much as other Kindred, but Deucaliones always
  give the Lords the benefit of the doubt. Deucaliones
  are expected to check in with their sires or (more of-
  ten) Avuses once a month or so (phone or email is
  acceptable if they dwell in different cities) and keep
  them abreast of the news of the area and any discov-
  eries they have made. The sires, in turn, pass this in-
  formation along to their sires, and so on. In theory,
  Victor Spanos, wherever he is, receives information
  from every Deucalion in the world each month.
  Concepts: Biased peacekeeper, Kindred genealogist,
  occult archivist, Ordo Dracul reject, psychologist,
  rabble-rouser, racist slime, radical leader, rich patron,
  vampire assassin, vampire-behaviorist
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  166
  Zelani
  “It’s time.”
  No bloodline is exactly prolific. Some
  consist of only one member, but most
  bloodlines of note contain at least a dozen
  constituents. The enigmatic Zelani blood-
  line only has enough members to form a
  single coterie — at present. The founder
  of the bloodline has great, noble plans for its
  destiny, and, now that the time is right, she en-
  courages the Zelani to rise to their rightful place
  as the leaders of the Carthian Movement.
  History
  No one knows exactly when Lorna Zelan was
  Embraced. She tells the story often, and most of
  the details don’t change. One night, she says, she
  was at home nursing her youngest child when a band
  of Kindred crashed through the door and slaugh-
  tered her family, one by one. She went into shock as
  she watched them pull her husband’s head from his
  body, and doesn’t remember exactly what happened
  to her eight children, but when her vision cleared,
  they were all dead. The only reason she had been
  spared was that the leader of this murderous coterie
  (which she now believes to have been Belial’s Brood)
  had chosen her as his consort and eventual victim. A
  ghoul servant watched over her while the Kindred
  took refuge from the sun in her root cellar. The ghoul,
  however, did more than simply watch her. While
  Lorna has never gone into detail, she claims that the
  ghoul lived out every depraved fantasy possible with
  her that morning. Lorna was so numb by that point,
  though, that she scarcely noticed.
  As afternoon wore on, a neighbor woman came over
  to check on Lorna, since she knew that the Zelan fam-
  ily had a new baby and many mouths to feed already.
  She found Lorna pinned under the ghoul on the liv-
  ing room floor, and screamed for help. No one was
  within earshot, however, and the ghoul leapt up and
  made short work of the woman. By that time, Lorna
  had retrieved her late husband’s shotgun from its perch
  over the mantle. She claims it took four shots to kill
  the ghoul.
  Lorna knew the Kindred were in the basement, but
  she had never heard the word “vampire” before and
  knew nothing of them. (Lorna also admits to being
  illiterate at that point.) Dazed and still in
  shock, she set about trying to bury her fam-
  ily, and opened the wide cellar doors to re-
  trieve a shovel. The sunlight streamed in
  and destroyed four of the five Kindred in
  moments, and Lorna watched, unable to
  believe her eyes, as the monsters turned to
  dust before her. When the chaos was over, she
  found her spade and went to work.
  She claims that she was in the midst of burying
  one of her family when the full horror of what
  had happened hit her, and she dropped to her
  knees and wept. She was still crying when the sun
  set, and the last of the Kindred emerged from the
  cellar. As fate would have it, the only survivor was
  the same vampire who had chosen her to be his play-
  thing. He found his intended victim crying over the
  half-buried corpses of her family, and something —
  perhaps her face, perhaps the blood-soaked ground
  — awakened in him the last shred of humanity he
  possessed. He knelt next to her and waited for her to
  regain her composure, and then asked what she would
  have him do, if any forgiveness was possible.
  Here Lorna’s story varies a bit. She has, at times,
  claimed that she asked him for the Embrace (which
  begs the question of what exactly she asked, since by
  her own admission she had no knowledge of vampires),
  and, at others, asserted that he cursed her with unlife
  in a twisted attempt at absolution. In any case, she is
  very clear on one point — only by forfeiting his life
  could he gain her forgiveness. So, the depraved vam-
  pire Embraced her, and then she tied him to a post
  and set him on fire.
  Knowing that she couldn’t keep her new existence
  secret in her hometown, Lorna finished burying her
  family and left, soon arriving in “the big city.” (She
  refuses to say which city was her first domain.)
  HOW OLD IS LORNA?
  Lorna loves telling the story of her Embrace,
  especially to neonates who think they had a bad
  time of it. She doesn’t vary the story on many
  points, either, but she never says in what year or
  even in what century it took place. Given that her
  blood has enough power for her to form her own
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  bloodline, though, and that she has never committed
  diablerie (she says), she must be fairly old. The content of
  her story also speaks of an agrarian society, but that in
  itself doesn’t give the listener a good sense of zeitgeist.
  Add to this the fact that Lorna has, by her own admission,
  spent a great deal of time in torpor, and it becomes clear
  that she is either lying or far older than her comfort with
  modern technology and practices would imply.
  Patience and Timing
  While Lorna is quick to the tell the tale of her Em-
  brace to anyone who asks, she doesn’t like to talk about
  her early years among the Kindred. This might be be-
  cause she doesn’t like to date herself, but another rea-
  son is probably that she is somewhat ashamed of some
  of the things that she did. After leaving her home be-
  hind, Lorna posed as a prostitute, the better to allow
  her victims to come to her. She met other Kindred and
  learned of their society, but became involved only pe-
  ripherally. One thing she refused to do was enter a
  mortal’s (or even a vampire’s) home without permission.
  People who walked the streets at night were fair game
  for predation, as far as she was concerned, but the home
  should be sacrosanct. That this sort of thing had been a
  staple of vampire legends in some parts of the world for
  years came as a surprise to Lorna, but she simply took it
  as evidence that she was in the right.
  Although Lorna never joined a coterie and never be-
  came involved in the Danse Macabre, she kept abreast of
  events in her city and gained something of a reputation as a
  power waiting to happen. The other Kindred in the city could
  sense a growing prescience in the young Daeva, and one even
  attempted to slay her in order to be on the safe side. That Kin-
  dred, however, timed his attack wrong and ran afoul of a gang of
  young toughs who felt that attempting to stab a whore with a
  wooden stake was ignoble. To Lorna’s knowledge, he’s still at the
  bottom of a nearby river, the stake intended for her jutting from
  his chest. That attack was the beginning of a new reputation for
  her — after word got around that her assailant had been taken
  down by sheer happenstance, the vampires of the city started call-
  ing her “Lucky Lorna.”
  Lorna, for her part, felt that what guided her was a much greater force than
  luck. She never had a name for it, and “fate” and “destiny” were too mystical
  for her tastes. It wasn’t until the Carthian Movement arrived in the city that
  she truly came into her own.
  Lucky Lorna and the Carthians
  Again, dates are fuzzy, but Lorna admits that the when the Carthian
  Movement gained a presence in her home city, the Movement was still a
  very young covenant, only recently recognized as any kind of power. Lorna
  seemed to know that it was going to snowball, however, because she threw her
  loyalty in with the Carthians immediately. She never attempted to seize any real
  power or position in the covenant, though, preferring to be known as a solid sup-
  porter rather than an ambitious up-and-comer. Once again, many of the Kindred in
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  168
  the city sensed that she was simply biding her time,
  and they considered her opinion very carefully when
  deciding what to do about this new faction.
  Could Lorna read the future, or did the fact that
  other Kindred respected her opinion help her realize
  her eventual goal? The question is intriguing, but
  largely irrelevant. The covenant in command of the
  city lost power, slowly but surely, and the Carthians’
  ideas took hold. Their style of government was ini-
  tially a meritocracy, and Lorna, having no wish to
  compete, sank into torpor. Seeing this, several other
  influential Kindred either did likewise or removed
  themselves from Kindred politics in other ways, wait-
  ing for “Lucky Lorna” to recover. Her awakening
  gained a kind of mythical status in the city. “When
  Lorna wakes” became a general phrase among the city’s
  Kindred, applied to any event that was favorable but
  wouldn’t happen in the foreseeable future.
  The Brave New World
  Lorna rose from torpor just under a decade ago, and
  discovered that though the Carthians still held power
  in the city, their methods had changed. Now, the sys-
  tem was democratic — all the city’s Kindred voted on
  a leader known as a Prime Minister, and that leader
  was responsible for making policy and adjudicating
  breaches of the law. Lorna woke four nights before
  the elections and threw her hat into the ring, partici-
  pated in several debates and was elected by a land-
  slide. She seemed to know the recent history of the
  city as though she had been watching it closely, she
  was comfortable with the new technology and strang-
  est of all, she had two childer with her who seemed as
  savvy as she was.
  After she took power, she immediately split her at-
  tention between doing her job as Prime Minister and
  propagating her own bloodline, the Zelani. Already
  her childer have sired other childer and the Zelani
  have spread throughout the city, acting as Regents of
  tenurial domains. Some of the city’s Kindred accuse
  Lorna of nepotism, but she keeps an open relation-
  ship with all of the city’s Kindred inhabitants and
  welcomes suggestions and criticisms, so such accusa-
  tions tend to be met with shrugs and statements of “It
  ain’t broke, so let’s not fix it.” Lorna’s reputation and
  support comes largely from her perceived disdain of
  keeping secrets, her fair and impartial judgments on
  Kindred affairs and her uncanny ability to say and do
  the right thing at the right time.
  The Ugly Truth
  The fact is, though, that Lorna Zelan does keep se-
  crets. She has allies and contacts in other cities that
  she never mentions. Carthians all over the country
  know her name and owe her favors, because they rely
  on her insights to make important decisions. In fact,
  her list of correspondents includes members of the
  Invictus, the Ordo Dracul and even the Lancea Sanc-
  tum. Lorna is unique in Kindred society because she
  is considered a power but not a threat.
  Is Lorna a threat? No one knows, but she does have
  a plan for her city, and perhaps for the covenant as a
  whole. She is actively courting Daeva of other cov-
  enants to join her bloodline, and since her knack for
  fortuitous timing seems to pass to these Kindred, she
  will likely have some takers soon. What happens when
  she has enough followers in the right places? Only
  time will tell.
  SO WHAT’S REALLY HAPPENING?
  It’s up to you. If a player wishes to take on the
  role of a Zelani Kindred, the player should work
  with the Storyteller to decide what Lorna has asked
  of the player’s character and what the ultimate goal
  of the bloodline is. Here are a few suggestions:
  • Power: Lorna wishes to take over the Carthian
  Movement in her country, perhaps the entire
  world, and remake it in her image. Alternately,
  perhaps she wishes to take over clan Daeva and
  change it into clan Zelani, phasing out the Succubi
  and all of their bloodlines over time. This
  motivation is significantly outside the local scope
  of most Vampire chronicles, but that’s not to say
  it can’t happen.
  • Revenge: Lorna has been waiting decades,
  maybe even centuries, to strike at the Kindred who
  murdered her family. Although those Kindred are
  dead, Lorna has discovered a way to call their souls
  back and infuse them into the bodies of Kindred
  who bear her blood. She can do this as many times
  as she likes, as long as members of her bloodline
  remain, meaning she can kill them again, and
  again and again . . . .
  • Armageddon: Lorna doesn’t really care
  about power among the Kindred, she just wants
  members of her bloodline in as many cities as
  possible. Lorna is in possession of a lost fragment
  of the Testament of Longinus, one that gives
  instructions for bringing about a kind of Rapture
  for the Kindred. Enacting it, though, means that
  a certain number of Kindred must perform a ritual
  during an eclipse. That eclipse will take place in
  10 years, so Lorna needs loyal Kindred in as many
  cities as possible before then. Fortunately, she’s
  ahead of schedule. She doesn’t really care about
  the Carthian Movement per se, but figured that
  the other covenants would be too nosy as to her
  agenda.
  Parent Clan: Daeva
  Nickname: None. (The Zelani have not existed
  as a bloodline for long enough to gain a nickname,
  zelani
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  168
  
  169
  factions and bloodlines
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  so the Daeva sobriquet “Succubi” is still used to
  describe them.)
  Covenant: All currently existing Zelani belong to
  the Carthian Movement. Lorna is eager for them to
  branch out to other covenants, but as only a handful
  of them exist at all, this hasn’t happened yet.
  Appearance: Lorna does not Embrace based on
  looks or station in life, but rather based on her own
  sense of who is “right” for the bloodline. Therefore,
  no real commonality exists among the Zelani.
  Haven: Lorna Zelan owns several pieces of property
  in various parts of her domain, and allows the mem-
  bers of her bloodline to use them at their pleasure. Be-
  cause of the bloodline’s weakness, having a secure ha-
  ven where they can bring potential vessels is critical.
  Background: Zelani can come from any walk of life.
  The only requirement for the Embrace is crossing
  Lorna Zelan’s path on the right night.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Celerity, Majesty, Serendip-
  ity, Vigor
  Weakness: Just as all Daeva, the Zelani have trouble
  resisting their base impulses. Any time a Zelani has
  the chance to indulge in her Vice and chooses not to
  do so, she loses two points of Willpower (as opposed
  to gaining one by partaking in its pleasures).
  In addition, Lorna Zelan bears the psychological
  scars of her hideous Embrace and has passed her aver-
  sion to invading people’s homes on to her bloodline.
  Zelani are unable to enter a residence of any kind
  (apartment buildings, houses, even hotels) without
  an invitation from someone who dwells there. The
  invitation doesn’t have to come from the rightful
  owner, but must be issued by a resident rather than a
  visitor. Until such an invitation is issued, the Zelani
  cannot cross the threshold into the building. The
  vampire cannot directly force an invitation (with
  Dominate, for instance), but can use Majesty to en-
  tice one or Serendipity to arrive at the right mo-
  ment to be invited. If the Zelani enters a building
  without an invitation or is forced to do so, roll the
  character’s Resolve + Strength. Each success inflicts
  one level of aggravated damage upon the character
  (so it is possible for a Zelani to crumble to dust if she
  violates this taboo).
  Organization: All Zelani are loyal to Lorna, and
  this loyalty is periodically reinforced by a taste of her
  blood. If the bloodline’s numbers expand as she fore-
  sees, however, she will lose control over its members.
  She recognizes this, and thus encourages her childer
  to become active members in their covenants, so they
  have someplace to belong once the family grows too
  large for her to oversee.
  Concepts: Artist, cab driver, Carthian lawyer,
  “crazy” street person, drifter, fortune teller, gambler,
  hotel manager, real estate agent, seductress
  169
  zelani
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  factions and bloodlines
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  The Annunaku bloodline’s origin vanishes into
  the mists of ancient history. The Annunaku have
  no legend about their founder — they say they
  always existed as rulers of the land. The
  bloodline takes its name from
  Mesopotamian gods of the Underworld
  — or maybe it’s the other way around.
  The Annunaku point to ancient legends
  about the patron gods of cities, tomb-
  guardians and sacred caves inhabited by
  oracular spirits. “That’s us,” they say.
  When the Roman Empire invaded
  Greece, Anatolia and Mesopotamia, the
  Annunaku followed the legions home. By
  the empire’s fall, the Annunaku had spread
  throughout Europe. Instead of inhabiting caves and
  tombs, they moved into manor houses to rule over re-
  mote villages. Generation after generation, the peasants
  lived in fear of the undead lord who drank their blood,
  but they dared not leave. He would know if they tried,
  and become angry.
  As civilization and the Renaissance spread through-
  out Europe, the Annunaku moved into the growing cit-
  ies. Some Annunaku found their villages burgeoning into
  towns. Other Annunaku sent childer to seek their for-
  tunes and restore the bloodline’s ancient traditions as
  lords of the cities. A few took the wrenching step of
  abandoning their rural Demesnes, when their supernatu-
  ral powers could not defend them from cannon fire. More
  Annunaku chose to finally die as their ancient manses
  toppled and burned. Others sank into the ground to sleep
  away the centuries until they could start anew on king-
  doms of animal blood.
  Modern cities gave the Annunaku new forms of terri-
  tory, with new tenants to rule. The Annunaku learned
  about business and universities, churches and the civil
  service. They encountered other vampires, and taught
  them to respect the borders the Annunaku set. Where
  the Annunaku ruled, they ruled supreme. The land it-
  self bent to their will, revealing intruders and defending
  its lord, through a Discipline called Tenure.
  Territory obsesses these Kindred. A “Landlord” dis-
  likes leaving his Demesne, though friendly company can
  mitigate the instinctive terror the Landlords feel on
  unfamiliar ground. These Kindred regard every mortal
  who lives in their Demesnes as their property. On the
  other hand, the Annunaku take great care of their
  fiefdoms. Annunaku may rule their mortal ten-
  ants with utter cruelty, but the Landlords also
  protect them from any outside threat.
  The bloodline’s pride in ownership also
  expresses itself in a code of hospitality. Al-
  though Annunaku hate trespassers, many
  Annunaku adore guests. A guest gives a
  Landlord a chance to display aristocratic
  virtues of generosity and etiquette and to
  show off his Demesne. An honor-besot-
  ted Landlord might treat a guest to blood
  feasts every night and risk his unlife to pro-
  tect her. A fine line, however, separates the
  revered guest from the boorish intruder. Any in-
  sult might switch a visitor from one category to the
  other — and each Annunaku can have his own arcane
  standards of acceptable behavior.
  Some Annunaku still dwell in isolated rural fiefdoms,
  lording over terrified mortal tenants. Other Annunaku
  dwell apart from mortals, losing themselves in their roles
  as spirits of the land. Most Annunaku, however, now
  dwell in cities like other Kindred. These Annunaku,
  many of them comparatively young, necessarily aban-
  don the roles of feudal lords. Younger Annunaku feel
  the same drive to possess and master a territory, how-
  ever, even if their Demesne is just a block of apartments
  or small businesses that they own.
  OTHER ANNUNAKU?
  Some legends suggest that in ancient
  Mesopotamia, the Annunaku were a covenant
  rather than a bloodline. The members of this
  early covenant supposedly all acted as minor
  gods of their cities and learned Tenure to
  enforce their rule.
  The legend is not entirely implausible. Not only
  have Invictus of other clans apparently learned
  Tenure in ages past, some Invictus members teach
  it to their childer as well. A few Ventrue lineages
  have taught Tenure for generations, and also call
  themselves “Annunaku.” Perhaps they have
  become a parallel bloodline. Without mystical
  tests, it may be hard to tell the difference between
  a member of one bloodline and a member of a
  similar — possibly sibling — bloodline.
  ANNUNAKU
  159
  annunaku
  chapter four
  (Elder): “Here I rule. Here I shall stay.
  And, you, dear guest, here you too shall stay, for a very long time.”
  (Neonate): “My turf. My rules.”
  
  factions and bloodlines
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  160
  Parent Clan: Annunaku emerge from the Gangrel
  clan. Unlike some in their parent clan, Annunaku feel
  perfectly comfortable in cities, without any special
  longings for personal mobility or freedom. Some
  Annunaku view their medieval rustication as an un-
  fortunate hiccup in their millennial history as Mas-
  ters of the City.
  Nickname: Landlords
  Covenant: Most Landlords join the Invictus,
  considering it the covenant that most fully appre-
  ciates the bond between master, territory and
  tenant. A few Annunaku — mostly re-
  cent scions of the old village Land-
  lords — join the Circle of the
  Crone, seeing connections be-
  tween its pagan mysticism and
  their own mystical connection
  to the land. Even fewer join
  the Carthians or Lancea
  Sanctum, though an occa-
  sional Landlord feels the uto-
  pian lure of planned communities
  or sees the church and parish as the
  contemporary version of the city and
  its patron god. Quite a number of
  Annunaku are unaligned, however,
  because they see joining a covenant
  as compromising their claims of ab-
  solute authority over their Demesnes.
  Appearance: Annunaku take childer
  from both genders and any race, so the
  physical appearance of the Annunaku is
  quite diverse. Clothing also varies widely,
  and often depends on the way a Land-
  lord establishes himself as master of a
  neighborhood. A merchant who owns
  several businesses in a neighborhood
  might dress in a sober three-piece suit,
  while a gang leader who holds a slum
  in terrified subjection might choose a
  black leather jacket, T-shirt, ripped
  jeans and brightly hued bandanna.
  When conducting the bloodline’s ar-
  chaic rituals, however, any Landlord
  might dress in a Babylonian kilt, the
  sleeveless robe of an Egyptian priest, a
  medieval noble’s garb or nothing at all.
  Some Annunaku believe that when
  they act as spirits of the land, they
  should discard all signs of their mortal
  origin, including clothing.
  Haven: Landlords are similarly di-
  verse in their choice of havens.
  Most prefer large,
  handsomely
  furnished and comfortable havens, though the details
  vary with the particulars of a Landlord’s chosen role.
  Whenever possible, though, a Landlord chooses a ha-
  ven with a plot of earth: a lawn or garden, or at
  least a cellar with a dirt floor. Even those
  Annunaku who lack the power to merge with
  the soil feel uncomfortable sleeping too far
  removed from the land they rule. Many of
  them actually like to sleep on the soil they
  claim as theirs.
  Background: Annunaku rarely sire childer,
  for they do not like to share their domains
  with any other Kindred for long. Any
  Landlord’s choice for a childe, therefore,
  is likely to be idiosyncratic: anyone
  from a mortal descendant to a stranger
  the Landlord fancies has a “noble
  spirit.” Sometimes a Landlord wants
  a childe to serve as his assistant and
  caretaker during torpor, perhaps lead-
  ing to a cyclical dynasty; sometimes a
  Landlord might seek an eternal con-
  sort. Now and then, an Annunaku
  Embraces someone who lives near, or
  cares for, some great monument or
  natural wonder because the Landlord
  thinks the place needs a guardian. Pro-
  spective childer often serve as ghouls
  before their Embrace, as the sires test
  their abilities and train them for their
  new duties.
  Character Creation: Unlike many
  Gangrel, most Annunaku are strong
  in Social Attributes and Skills such
  as Intimidation, Persuasion or Social-
  ize. Mental Attributes may be high,
  but Mental Skills tend to be few and
  specialized. Practical knowledge such
  as Investigation or Politics is most
  common, with Occult for the
  bloodline’s mystical heritage, but
  Annunaku can surprise other Kin-
  dred with their mastery of unex-
  pected fields such as ancient his-
  tory (Academics) or hobby elec-
  tronics (Crafts and Science). Few
  Annunaku skimp on their Physi-
  cal Skills, though; the Annunaku
  tend to be well-rounded Kindred
  — perhaps with odd
  specialties.
  Bloodline
  Disciplines:
  A n i m a l i s m ,
  Protean, Resil-
  ience, Tenure
  annunaku
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  160
  
  161
  factions and bloodlines
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  Weakness: Annunaku retain the animalistic minds
  of other Gangrel. The 10-again rule does not apply to
  dice pools involving Intelligence or Wits, and any 1’s
  rolled are subtracted from the number of successes. This
  weakness does not apply to dice pools involving percep-
  tion or reaction to surprise, and subtracted successes do
  not turn a normal failure into a dramatic failure.
  The Landlords’ powerful connection to their De-
  mesnes also renders them uncomfortable when they
  leave. Outside of her chosen Demesne, a Landlord suf-
  fers a –2 penalty to all dice pools (including reflexive
  rolls to resist Disciplines and the rolls of the special
  Annunaku Discipline, Tenure) because of her anxious
  yearning for her home turf or her uneasy awareness of
  being out of her element. This penalty drops to –1 on
  familiar ground where the character is accepted, such as
  Elysium. The company of familiar and allied vampires
  — such as the character’s coterie — also reduces the
  penalty to –1. For another Kindred to qualify as a “fa-
  miliar vampire,” the Annunaku must drink from her at
  least once and spend one Willpower point. An
  Annunaku can only “familiarize” herself with a number
  of other Kindred equal to her Composure. Attempts to
  exceed that number result in strained relationships as
  the Annunaku subtly sabotages her own trusts, growing
  suspicious and doubtful over several weeks until, finally,
  she no longer feels the blood-settling comfort of cama-
  raderie with one of her allies.
  Kindred who share Status with an Annunaku — such
  as other Invictus vampires — do not grant the vampire
  any special comfort. The bonus to Social dice pools af-
  forded by Status does counterbalance the penalties for
  the Annunaku’s unease, but the unease itself is not alle-
  viated by such delicate allegiances.
  Organization: Within the bloodline, Annunaku ac-
  knowledge no organization beyond the sire and childe.
  Landlords routinely subject their childer to Vincula, and
  a childe may remain with his sire for centuries. By tradi-
  tion, only after tending his sire’s domain through a tor-
  por may a childe depart to seek a domain of his own.
  Concubines remain bound to their sires forever, or at
  least until they can muster the will to defy the Vincula
  and escape. Cyclical dynasties are common among this
  bloodline, but many Annunaku do not want to be part-
  time Landlords.
   The Annunaku retain many rituals and titles of great
  antiquity. Forging the mystical bond to the land that’s
  so important to Tenure requires rituals to honor the spir-
  its of the land or gods of the city, so that they accept the
  vampire as one of their own. The climactic ritual in-
  volves a sacrifice of Vitae to bare earth and running wa-
  ter. Annunaku oaths often involve rituals to invoke earth
  or water, such as participants mixing soil from their ter-
  ritories and then sprinkling it in a ceremonial pool called
  an Abzu. “By the earth of my haven!” is a common pledge
  or exclamation for older Annunaku.
  The most exalted title within the bloodline is Lugal-
  Irra, or “Great Lord.” It is reserved for Annunaku who
  become Prince or Regent of an extended domain. Land-
  lords do not scorn other Kindred offices, but they don’t
  assign special names to them.
  Annunaku who guard tombs, temples or other sacred
  places are called Galla-Ki, “Daemon of the Earth,” or
  Abgal-Ki, “Priest of the Earth.” Modern cities don’t have
  many temples to Marduk or sacred groves, but modern
  Landlords extend the concept to monuments of civic
  and national pride such as war memorials and historic
  landmarks. Even in the New World, some Annunaku
  dare to dwell outside cities as the guardians of a grotto,
  patch of forest, mountain or other natural location that
  seems especially sublime or historic. Of course, rural
  Landlords need sufficient Protean they can merge with
  the land they protect. The bloodline’s legends say the
  Old World has Galla-Ki millennia old, who transcended
  undeath to become true spirits of the land.
  Landlords also award titles based on mastering par-
  ticular Disciplines. For instance, a vampire who fully
  masters Animalism is addressed as Shakkan or Sumaqan,
  from Mesopotamian gods who protected wild animals.
  Concepts: Feudal relic, tenured professor, odd-shoppe
  proprietor, community activist, feared gang leader, real-
  estate tycoon, flophouse night manager, apartment su-
  perintendent, phantom of the [fill in the blank], guard-
  ian of the graveyard, historic site’s caretaker, oracle of
  the cave
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  annunaku
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  factions and bloodlines
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  162
  The Kallisti are an old, scattered bloodline. Though
  their exact origin has long been lost to time and torpor,
  those Kindred who specialize in such things have as-
  sembled documents kept by elders that suggest that
  these Kindred split from the main clan well over a
  thousand years ago somewhere along the north-
  ernmost edge of Europe or Eastern Europe —
  Scandinavia, Finland or perhaps northern
  Russia. They’re still strongest in the north of
  Europe, but a number of Ravagers have also made
  it to the New World, where Québec appears to
  be the center of their population.
  Icy manipulators of Kindred and kine alike, the
  so-called Ravagers are destroyers of the social fabric
  — cultivating isolation, mistrust and paranoia among
  those who have seen them in action. They take great
  delight in watching others slowly form bonds of trust
  and interdependence — and then cutting those bonds
  and watching the ensuing drama unfold. It is, to the
  Kallisti, the most fascinating game around, and they are
  uniquely adept at it.
  Cold elegance and frigid beauty all but radiate from these
  striking Kindred. Others fall all over themselves to serve
  them, to appease them, to nourish them. The Kallisti may
  create small cults of personality around themselves. They
  may direct a business venture of some sort (if such a thing
  satisfies their narcissistic impulses). They may surround
  themselves with servants, groupies, worshippers and slaves,
  but Ravagers pass their Requiems without true intimacy
  or allies, and they would never dream of compromising
  themselves by trusting anyone else. They know all too
  well the consequences of that kind of folly, because they
  are well versed in pitting ally against ally — though mostly
  as a strategy against boredom.
  Parent Clan: Daeva
  Nickname: Ravagers
  Covenant: Invictus
  Appearance: Most Ravagers are strikingly beautiful.
  Many dress in such a way as to flawlessly emphasize that
  beauty. They are, to a one, narcissists, intent on being
  the most beautiful, most desired and best dressed in any
  room they’re in, and, on those rare occasions when they
  Embrace mortals, it’s because they’ve found ones suffi-
  ciently beautiful to carry on the bloodline.
  Haven: The Kallisti have stunningly tasteful and well-
  appointed havens. Ravagers are generally fans of beautiful,
  elegant and minimalist decors. Their havens are typi-
  cally architecturally impressive and clean to the
  point of sterility, which is just one more factor
  that enforces their isolation (they would never
  bring mortals here to feed lest their food sully
  their chillingly tidy spaces). On those exceed-
  ingly rare occasions when the Kallisti do allow
  other Kindred into their havens, it’s almost al-
  ways Daeva or an offshoot of that clan, as Kallisti tend
  to think of every other clan as unwashed rabble. Only
  Daeva (and their offshoots) have sufficiently cultivated
  taste to appreciate the subtle aesthetic nuances of a
  Kallisti haven.
  Kallisti are more likely to emphasize security than
  convenience in their havens. They’re fully aware of
  their own reputation, and they don’t care to have those
  they’ve socially damaged show up unexpectedly.
  Where a Ravager of important sleeps and where she
  holds court are two entirely different spaces. These Kin-
  dred are likely to hold court in private clubs or in the
  back rooms of certain exclusive nightclubs where kine
  discretely compete to be the evening’s meal. Some Rav-
  agers keep multiple havens for peace of mind and prac-
  ticality. If a Kallisti shows off her haven, even to her cote-
  rie-mates, it probably isn’t the one where she really sleeps.
  Background: Kallisti Embrace cold, beautiful people
  who are socially adept but emotionally distant — only
  mortals at the peak of physical beauty, and only those
  with a manipulative bent. When Ravagers get it in
  their heads to Embrace, they actively look for the most
  heartless bitches (or bastards) they can find and then
  gift them with immortality. Some Ravagers cull pri-
  marily from the aristocracy (where there is one) or
  from the wealthiest and most isolated classes where
  there is no aristocracy per se. Ice queens, workaholics,
  con artists, heartless aristocrats, sociopaths and oth-
  ers who tend to go through life without establishing
  close bonds with others are among the favored stock
  from which Ravagers Embrace. Likewise, actors, mod-
  els, personal trainers, dancers and other physically
  perfect specimens are common choices for new
  Kallisti. They are suave and elegant, cool and slick,
  and they have no feeling for others whatsoever. In
  the eyes of the Kallisti, the Requiem is a game — a
  dance that can be won — and little else. A few have
  even proved blasé about their own Final Deaths,
  laughing even as they were destroyed, as though they
  kallisti
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  162
  “Don’t feel guilty for wanting it. Urges don’t lie. Do what you want.”
  
  163
  factions and bloodlines
  chapter four
  felt they’d already beaten life by preserving their beauty
  for so long.
  Character Creation: Social Attributes (and Skills) are
  always Primary, with Presence being foremost among these.
  Most Kallisti are gorgeous, but even those who aren’t physi-
  cally perfect are mesmerizing and possess pronounced ani-
  mal magnetism. Mental Attributes may get emphasized over
  time as Ravagers come to understand the need to be men-
  tally sharp if they’re going to have any chance
  of surviving in the wake of the
  kind of the social mayhem
  they tend to cause. For all the threat they pose socially, the
  Kallisti are rarely very physically robust. Physical Attributes
  are almost always Tertiary.
  The most common Merit among Ravagers, by far, is Strik-
  ing Looks (see the World of Darkness Rulebook, p. 117).
  Kallisti rarely give the Embrace to those who do not have
  this Merit. Ravagers rarely trust others enough to have the
  Allies or Mentor Merits, although Retainer is common
  enough. Meanwhile, Herd is a common Merit for the terri-
  bly beautiful Kindred of this bloodline. Likewise, many
  Kallisti are modestly rich at the moment of their Embrace
  — or become so in short order, once they learn
  to use their Disciplines and their looks to
  the greatest effect.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Celerity,
  Dominate, Majesty, Perfidy
  Weakness: In addition to the
  weakness of the Daeva, their par-
  ent clan, Kallisti have the addi-
  tional burden of not being able to
  form the Vinculum in others. An-
  other vampire may taste the blood of
  one of these Kindred 20 times, and
  it won’t result in so much as a kind
  thought. It’s an appropriate curse for
  this bloodline, but the ramifications
  of their curse go far beyond the in-
  ability to secure loyalty from other
  Kindred. It also means that they ab-
  solutely must not allow themselves to
  be identified as Kallisti, because there
  are many hungry elders out there who
  would love nothing more than to
  ram a tap into one of these Kindred
  and feed at will without emotional
  repercussions. This is one of the
  reasons, incidentally, that
  Kallisti are allowed in Invictus
  domains (despite being anti-
  thetical to the social order
  that the First Estate so aggres-
  sively enforces): they repre-
  sent a safe source of Vitae
  for elders.
  In addition, all
  Kallisti suffer from
  the Narcissism de-
  rangement auto-
  matically and per-
  manently. When a
  Kallisti’s Human-
  ity drops below 5,
  she automatically
  develops the Megalo-
  mania derangement in
  163
  kallisti
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  factions and bloodlines
  chapter four
  164
  its place. Should her Humanity rise to 5 or higher,
  however, this derangement settles down to Narcis-
  sism again. These derangements are in addition to
  any gained through the normal consequences for Hu-
  manity loss.
  Organization: Next to none. Kallisti may watch one
  another from the shadows, but they rarely form con-
  nections or alliances outside of personal compacts. The
  Kallisti don’t trust one another, and they aren’t fond of
  each other’s company. It’s not that they hate one an-
  other, and they’re certainly not going to attack one
  another on sight (unless extraordinary circumstances
  warrant it), but Ravagers simply don’t trust one an-
  other enough to have a default organization or familial
  society to fall back on. Moreover, the power of blood
  ties makes Perfidy, the bloodline’s proprietary Disci-
  pline, more powerful when used against Kindred who
  are “related” to one another and, having seen its ef-
  fects on others, they don’t care to submit themselves
  to that possibility.
  Additionally, they are keenly aware of how destruc-
  tive they can be to the social fabric of a place, and
  they feel that it’s better for their numbers to be as
  spread out as possible. That said, these Kindred do
  have a sense of themselves as part of a bloodline —a
  rare and beautiful bloodline at that — and even
  though they may not like each other, they generally
  dislike other Kindred more. As far as Ravagers are
  concerned, every one of their number is a precious
  work of art, and any vampire who develops a reputa-
  tion for preying on Kallisti will likely find himself
  marked for vicious reprisals as only these coldest of
  Kindred can carry them out.
  Within larger Kindred society, the Kallisti are happy
  to pass as Daeva or Toreador, fulfilling the same roles
  as those Kindred would — at least until they get bored
  — at which time, they would likely start entertaining
  themselves with increasingly more elaborate uses of
  Perfidy, until such time as they get themselves ban-
  ished or blood-hunted.
  Concepts: Agent provocateur, spy, malicious
  courtier, home wrecker, domain wrecker, subversive
  Harpy, cold gray eminence, Sheriff’s Interrogator,
  elder’s pet
  kallisti
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  The Lynx are the youngest bloodline affili-
  ated with the Invictus. Indeed, it is a mere mat-
  ter of months since the first Kindred of this
  bloodline’s third generation manifested the
  line’s distinctive powers, thus confirming that the
  Lynx truly is a bloodline — and not merely the
  quirk of a bizarre vampire. As a result, not all
  Kindred who know of the Lynx know that they
  are truly a bloodline, and those Kindred who rec-
  ognize the name are a select, but growing, group.
  The Lynx themselves never refer to them-
  selves as a bloodline, insisting that they are a
  blood web, instead. As the line does contain a
  handful of Kindred who are not direct descen-
  dants of the founder, Martin Thomas, there is
  even some justification for the claim, as the lines of re-
  lationship do not all flow straight down. However, that
  is true of many bloodlines, and most Kindred refer to
  the Lynx in the normal way, regarding their insistence
  on different terminology as merely one more manifesta-
  tion of the bloodline’s obsession.
  That obsession is networks. Martin Thomas was fasci-
  nated by networks, particularly communications and com-
  mercial networks, even before his Embrace. He managed
  to map the physical connections in his local telephone
  network and was working on a map showing the connec-
  tions between all local businesses. There were lines show-
  ing who bought from whom, who owed money to whom
  and which businesses banded together to lobby for changes.
  The shape of the network convinced Thomas that there
  was at least one player in the scene who had no public face
  at all. Thomas was careful to make no direct inquiries, con-
  centrating instead on building up a picture from indirect
  evidence, because the possibility that this player was an
  outfit of organized crime had occurred to him.
  The possibility that it was a vampire had not. Natasha
  Danilov, a Mekhet, realized that someone was snooping
  around her business connections and, suspecting an en-
  emy, conducted her own investigations. When she found
  out that Thomas was independent, and apparently mo-
  tivated by nothing but curiosity, she decided that he
  would make a valuable servant, and Embraced him.
  The transition to undeath was a major shock to Thomas,
  and he was not the asset that Danilov had hoped for. He
  retreated from society, obsessing over the details of networks,
  trying to discover everything, but with no desire to do any-
  thing with the information. A few patient Kindred used him
  as a source of information, but it took so long to
  coax anything out of him that there was almost al-
  ways a faster source for what they wanted to know.
  The coming of the Internet changed every-
  thing. Thomas was involved almost from the be-
  ginning, unable to resist being involved in a
  worldwide network. In the days before the Web,
  there were newsgroups, and Thomas found him-
  self fascinated by the social networks revealed in
  the postings. One day, he was unable to resist
  experimenting, and posted to a group.
  Within a week he was hooked, posting to many
  newsgroups and spending the whole night post-
  ing and downloading over a slow modem. Within
  a month, he was well known on a number of groups, and
  after one poster noticed that he only ever posted at night,
  local time, he was nicknamed “the Vampire.”
  As Thomas tells it, that was the critical moment. He
  realized that he was, indeed, a vampire, and could not
  hide by burying himself in networks. He emerged from
  his cocoon, re-entered the Danse Macabre and quickly
  made a name for himself as a purveyor of information.
  By the time he had gathered enough power to found his
  own bloodline, the World Wide Web had arrived, and
  he chose the name Lynx for his progeny. The lynx had,
  in legend, eyes so sharp it could see through walls, and
  networks are, of course, made of links. But the original
  motive was Lynx, an early web browser. Thomas always
  remained a bit of a geek.
  All members of the bloodline share Thomas’ fascina-
  tion with networks of all sorts (particularly electronic
  and commercial), although social and political networks
  have received more attention in recent years. Thomas
  himself is still highly active, maintaining electronic com-
  munication with all members of the bloodline, although
  young and unimportant Kindred do not hear from him
  very often. Those who meet him in person are generally
  surprised: Thomas is African American and big. He isn’t
  fat — he is tall and broad-boned, with the result that he
  looks like he should be a bouncer, not a networking geek.
  Parent Clan: Mekhet
  Nickname: By popular standards, the Lynx have no
  nickname (or, by the reckoning of many formal Invictus,
  they have only a nickname). In some domains, the blood-
  line is called “the Links,” however, and a single vampire
  of its lineage is known as a Link.
  LYNX
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  “Don’t only connect. Disconnecting matters too.”
  
  factions and bloodlines
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  166
  and commercial, most members fall into one of two
  groups. Those whose interest is primarily electronic wear
  practical clothes and often look rather geeky. These Lynx
  are never without some form of wireless link to the
  Internet, even in an area where they cannot make a
  connection, and tend to get very sulky if guards try to
  take the link away from them. The commercial side
  of the bloodline dress in conservative business suits
  and are slightly less attached to their cell phones.
  What all Lynx have in common is that each could
  fit perfectly into a gathering of
  people with an interest in
  the same sort of net-
  work. In another con-
  text the Lynx might stand out,
  but, on their own ground, they are per-
  fectly at home.
  Haven: The truly unifying feature of
  Lynx havens is a broadband Internet con-
  nection, generally the fastest that the vam-
  pire can support. Even those Lynx who are
  mainly interested in other sorts of networks
  make sure that they are connected to the
  Internet, because it’s useful for just about ev-
  erything. Beyond that, the haven reflects the
  networking interests of its owner.
  Lynx who are actually most into elec-
  tronic networks have havens filled with
  computers and cables. They normally
  have at least one physical network sepa-
  rate from the Internet, where they can
  play with new ideas for network geom-
  etries and such. Commercial Lynx
  have havens suitable for entertaining
  the players in the higher levels of com-
  merce. In general, these havens look
  more like functional rooms, labs and of-
  fices than homes, as the vampires do not want
  to give the impression that they live there.
  The havens of Lynx with other interests vary greatly. A
  Lynx with an interest in the sewage networks of a city could
  have a haven in the sewers, while a Lynx studying the de-
  livery network might have a haven in a major distributor’s
  warehouse. Lynx obsessed with social networks have ha-
  vens in the thick of the city’s party neighborhoods, enter-
  tainment districts and planned communities.
  Background: Lynx childer fall into one of two cat-
  egories, on the whole. The first are those who
  show a deep interest in a particular sort of net-
  work. It is most common for this to be
  the same sort of network as the sire stud-
  ies, but this is only because the Lynx are
  more likely to become aware of mortals with
  such an interest. Those Lynx who become aware
  of promising mortals with an interest in different sorts
  Covenant: Most Lynx are members of the Invictus,
  primarily because that was the covenant Tho-
  mas joined after his Embrace, at his sire’s
  instructions, and he has never left. These
  Kindred quickly master the networks of
  loyalty within the covenant, and their
  mastery of modern technology (or, at
  least, the Internet) tends to make them
  valuable to more senior Kindred, giving
  them an edge when it comes to climb-
  ing the hierarchy.
  However, the bloodline’s phi-
  losophy does not tie the Lynx
  closely to the Invictus. Indeed,
  the Carthian philosophy is
  much closer to the Lynx’s inter-
  ests, providing more opportuni-
  ties for elaborate networks of loy-
  alty that are not constrained by
  authority from above. As a result,
  the second-largest group in the
  bloodline are Carthians, a situa-
  tion that is already generating
  some tension and will produce
  more if the bloodline grows.
  Members of the bloodline
  do join other covenants, but
  do so for personal reasons.
  There are, however, very
  few unaligned Lynx. The
  Lynx are natural joiners, as
  that embeds them in yet an-
  other network, and, there-
  fore, few Lynx pass up the
  chance to join a covenant.
  Appearance: The appear-
  ance of the Lynx varies
  wildly, depending in large
  part on the sorts of networks
  they are interested in. A
  vampire fascinated by the
  sewage network of a large
  city will look, and smell,
  very different from a vam-
  pire mainly involved in the
  social networks of high so-
  ciety. Racially, they cover
  the full gamut.
  However, as the most
  popular networks with
  the bloodline are
  electronic
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  lynx
  
  167
  factions and bloodlines
  chapter four
  of network often petition to Embrace them, to broaden
  their own influence. These vampires usually find that
  they fit fairly well into the culture of the bloodline,
  and most choose to awaken the potential of their blood.
  The second main group is composed of mortals who
  have power over part of the network that a vampire is
  interested in. These Kindred are Embraced purely to
  further their sires’ ambitions and reach, and the childer
  often find that they do not fit into Lynx society at all:
  you are not necessarily interested in the precise flows of
  money through a city just because you are a mover-and-
  shaker in commerce. Some Lynx, of course, do fit in,
  but many choose not to awaken their blood and join
  the bloodline proper.
  The Lynx are, as noted above, willing to adopt
  other Mekhet with no descent from Thomas. The
  Lynx believe that this makes the bloodline stronger,
  as extending the bloodline makes it into more of a
  net and less of a chain. Almost any Mekhet inter-
  ested enough to want to join the Lynx meets their
  standards for acceptance.
  Character Creation: Mental or Social Attributes tend
  to be the most important, depending on whether the
  character’s interest is in abstract or human networks. A
  few Lynx, who are interested in wholly physical networks
  and like climbing around in them, have Physical At-
  tributes as primary. Social Merits, particularly Allies and
  Contacts, are extremely common; indeed, it’s an unusual
  Lynx who has no dots at all in these. Computer, Investi-
  gation and Socialize are very common Skills, although
  a Lynx’s Skill choices are, naturally, very strongly influ-
  enced by his network of interest.
  The Haven Location and Haven Security Merits are
  of great importance to many Lynx, though Haven Size
  is rarely so valuable. Status is something a Lynx appreci-
  ates and studies but doesn’t necessarily seek to gain.
  Merits like Herd, Contacts and Allies are popular with
  social Lynx, who are fascinated by the social circles and
  degrees of separation such acquaintances can lead to.
  Finally, all Lynx learn Web, as that Discipline is ex-
  tremely helpful to anyone trying to manipulate networks.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Obfuscate, Web
  Weakness: Like the Mekhet from whom they are de-
  rived, the Lynx take an additional point of aggravated
  damage whenever they suffer injuries from sunlight or fire.
  In addition, the Lynx need to feel connected. Every
  Lynx must choose a particular network, and remain con-
  nected to that network at all times. The network must
  extend beyond the Lynx, but may be a network of friends,
  the Internet or a network of trading contacts. Anything
  that threatens to cut a Lynx off from his network might
  inspire a fear or anger frenzy, as described on p. 178 of
  Vampire: The Requiem. The Lynx suffers a –2 penalty
  to dice pools to resist a network-related frenzy. In such a
  frenzy, the Lynx tries desperately to protect his connec-
  tion to the network.
  The connection need not be currently active; a Lynx
  reliant on the Internet does not need to be surfing all
  the time. However, a Lynx does need to check his net-
  work every so often, to be sure that it is working. Lynx
  reliant on their friends might make calls or send text
  messages a couple of times every night, for example, while
  a trader would make at least one deal. Frenzy can strike
  whenever the Lynx believes that he has been cut off. Of
  course, as with the other possible sources of fear, the
  visceral reaction of terror comes not from the truth but
  from the perception of the truth.
  Storytellers and players have quite a bit of latitude
  when describing a Lynx’s network. In general, a Lynx’s
  core network can be defined by a Merit such as Herd,
  Contacts or Allies. A Lynx must possess at least four
  dots in one of these Merits, to represent his network. If
  the Lynx loses one of these dots — or is in danger of
  losing one of these dots — he is immediately subject to
  a fear or anger frenzy.
  Finally, a Lynx’s sensitivity to social networks renders
  him more vulnerable to the ties of blood. Kindred rela-
  tives attempting to affect a Lynx with powers subject to
  the +2 bonus for blood ties gain a +3 bonus, instead.
  Organization: The Lynx are, naturally, organized into
  a network. Thomas studies this network, and ensures
  that it is always organized so that, if a number of Lynx
  are destroyed, no more than half that number of Lynx
  can be put out of contact with the rest of the bloodline.
  This means that every Lynx must know at least two oth-
  ers, and at least one is generally in a different city. The
  Lynx expect members to keep contacts between cities
  alive, but accept the reality that contacts within one
  city are far more important.
  Within the network, there is very little in the way of
  hierarchy. Obviously, Thomas receives a great deal of
  respect as the founder of the bloodline, but he isn’t the
  kind to issue orders. Nor, come to that, are most of the
  other members of the bloodline; they prefer to get things
  done by the subtle pulling of strings.
  Concepts: Internet geek, criminal fixer, owner of a
  logistics business (trucks, trains, boats, or similar), ob-
  sessive sewer rat, nomad always riding the roads or rails,
  the socialite who is everyone’s friend, official at the
  Prince’s court keeping track of all in the city and what
  they want, alliance-building politician, scion of ancient
  nobility carefully tracking all his relatives out to the nth
  degree, urban ecologist studying the food webs of the
  metropolis (from the top)
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  168
  Many Kindred take their freedom to roam the
  night for granted. They prowl the Rack, vie for
  prestige and power in Elysium and return to their
  havens to feed or pass the day, never realizing
  that there are others who are not so free as they.
  Scattered here and there, on the edges of cit-
  ies, in withering neighborhoods of failing wealth
  or in crumbling communities with vanishing popu-
  lations, there are houses — old houses — that still ex-
  ude the odors of wealth, nobility and prestige. Occu-
  pied and yet not occupied, haunted and yet not
  haunted, these grand old mansions of brick and
  oak are lairs for the nigh-sessile Kindred called
  the Malocusians.
  Malocusians are bound to their havens by bonds
  of blood. Outside of their havens, they are weaker
  than many Kindred, but, within the bounds of their ter-
  ritory, the Spiders are truly the masters of their domain,
  and woe unto any Kindred who picks a fight with the
  Spiders on their own ground.
  Parent Clan: Ventrue
  Nickname: Spiders
  Covenant: Invictus (and, rarely, Ordo Dracul)
  Appearance: On the whole, Malocusians represent the
  quintessential landed gentry. They manifest all the traits
  common to the erudite and wealthy.
  Their sartorial tastes are profoundly conservative, al-
  most to an extreme: Malocusians are known to wear
  clothes 50, 60 or even 70 years out of fashion. Depend-
  ing on the dates involved, this might make them seem
  “retro” or simply crazy.
  Haven: Malocusians build their entire unlives around
  their havens. Their sires only release them from their
  oversight after the childer acquire suitable havens of their
  own and, to the Malocusians, “suitable” may as well be
  a synonym for “palatial.” Few Malocusian sires would
  ever release childer who had not found themselves ha-
  vens with several rooms, a den, a comprehensive library,
  several salons and, possibly, a ballroom.
  Contrary to the assumptions of those Kindred who know
  the ways of Spiders, however, Malocusians have a much
  greater interest (and ability) in adapting to modern or
  decrepit spaces than they may imply. Some Spiders nest
  in palaces that seem, from the outside, to be bombed-out
  firetraps or holes in the ground. Outright grandeur is not
  the only tool a Malocusian has for luring flies.
  Background: Wealth, isolation and intellect are
  the key features of those who become Malocusians.
  The son of the wealthy family who didn’t have
  the advantage of primogeniture, the reclusive
  widow who inherited her husband’s fortune and
  estate after his tragic accident, the eccentric
  scholar whose work proved unexpectedly lucra-
  tive — any of these would be ideal candidates for
  the Malocusian line. (The bloodline does show a
  slight preference for families from “old money” over the
  nouveau riche, however.) Political families, eccentric
  artists and scions of debauched dynasties comprise the
  core of the Malocusian line. Ideal candidates for this
  kind of Requiem are, for obvious reasons, rare, but so
  are members of this bloodline in general. Some elders
  have been known to adopt optimistically if they find
  souls who don’t have the estates or the money but who
  seem to have many of the other traits individual Spiders
  considers ideal.
  Character Creation: Brilliant (if somewhat crazed)
  minds are a hallmark of the Malocusian bloodline. Men-
  tal Attributes (and Skills) are primary. Some of these
  Kindred pass decades, even centuries, without leaving
  their havens. As a result, their Physical Attributes are
  almost always tertiary; it takes a certain kind of mind
  (and physique) to acclimate to that existence.
  Many Malocusians are at least moderately wealthy at
  the time of their Embrace. Most should have at least three
  dots worth of Resources, and preferably four or more.
  Likewise, many Spiders already have homes worthy of
  five dots of Haven Size when they are Embraced.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Domus, Presence,
  Resilience
  Weakness: The Requiem of a Malocusian vampire
  takes place almost entirely in his haven — and neces-
  sarily so. In addition to the weakness of the Ventrue clan,
  Malocusians suffer from a debilitating dependence on
  their havens. To even cross the threshold of her haven
  and enter the outside night, a Spider must spend a Will-
  power point. Every Willpower point spent in this way
  enables a Malocusian to operate away from her haven
  for a number of hours equal to her Humanity. Once those
  hours are up, she must spend another Willpower point
  to remain out and about. If the Malocusian does not
  make this Willpower expenditure, she suffers a –1 pen-
  alty to all Mental and Social dice pools until she does.
  malocusians
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  168
  “You are under my roof, now.”
  
  169
  factions and bloodlines
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  Organization: Despite rarely leaving their havens, Malocusians main-
  tain tight networks among themselves. Once upon a time, they man-
  aged this through written or oral correspondence delivered by animal
  messengers, although in the modern era they use telephones and the
  Internet. They’re quite aware of the danger this network of theirs
  presents to the Masquerade, but they’re fastidiously attentive to
  discretion, and a few of them are adept at cryptography. Still,
  tonight’s most sensitive messages are delivered by animals, as
  the communications were centuries ago.
  Due to the time Malocusians spend scouring newspapers
  and the media for signs of the outside world, the first news
  of big developments in the mortal lives of other cities
  often comes through a Malocusian contact, and many
  Princes (and rumormongers) maintain connections
  with the Spiders for that reason alone. Outside of
  that, Malocusians are often overlooked members of
  the Kindred population, a fact they’re happy to use
  to their advantage.
  Concepts: Noble-in-exile, housebound scholar, keeper of the
  Prince’s library, creepy shut-in, scheming spider at the center of an
  influence web, crippled mob boss
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  malocusians
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  factions and bloodlines
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  170
  In the 16th century, Europeans came into
  sustained contact with the people of Japan
  for the first time and, in turn, the Japa-
  nese met their first Europeans. Fujita
  Kunimasa, the founder of the Sotoha
  (SO-to-ha), was Embraced some time
  fairly early in that century. His sire
  was a Ventrue, but Kunimasa spoke
  little of him in later years, even less
  than he spoke of the beginning of his
  Requiem in Japan. That period is the
  subject of considerable speculation
  among those of his blood, but almost
  nothing is known for certain.
  What is known is that in the 17th century
  Tokugawa Iemitsu closed the country, cutting off almost
  all contact with foreigners. Kunimasa, who had built up a
  strong power base among European traders and mission-
  aries, realized that if he remained in his homeland he
  would be rendered almost powerless — and so he chose
  to leave. As it happened, his best servants had recently
  established themselves in the New World, so Kunimasa
  chose to travel to the Americas, rather than Europe.
  There, he found himself alone and in exile. He still had
  his mundane Retainers, so he was not isolated in that
  sense, but no one around him shared his culture, his com-
  mitment to bushido or, indeed, his language. He sired his
  childer and created his bloodline, the Sotoha or “group
  of people on the outside,” to fill his need for family as
  much as to increase his power. Kunimasa succeeded in
  his aims, and while he has not been noticeably active for
  decades — and may be in torpor — his descendants re-
  main mostly loyal to their founder’s ideals.
  The most important of those ideals is loyalty. Kindred
  of the Sotoha are expected to show absolute and un-
  questioning loyalty to their immediate superior, and this
  loyalty is supposed to take priority over any claim that a
  higher authority might have. Thus, if a Kindred’s imme-
  diate superior rebels against the Prince, the inferiors
  should support him, even if they have sworn loyalty to
  the Prince themselves. In theory, this situation would
  never occur, as the Kindred’s lord would maintain his
  loyalty to the Prince just as the Kindred served his lord;
  in practice, it is all too common.
  Kindred are expected to obey any orders from their
  lords without question, even if the order is suicidal. A
  vassal’s Requiem is of no importance compared
  to the commands of his lord. Lords are ex-
  pected not to waste the lives of their fol-
  lowers, and those within this bloodline
  do not, as long as they are in their right
  minds. While, in theory, even an in-
  sane lord is due absolute obedience,
  this is one place where theory tends
  to break down in the face of practice.
  There are, traditionally, two ways in
  which a Kindred may legitimately
  break his link with his lord. The first is
  harakiri, or seppuku. In this rite, the Kin-
  dred cuts his stomach open with his sword, in
  front of witnesses, declaring that he is protesting
  against his lord’s decisions. The vampire must inflict
  enough damage to himself to drive himself into torpor,
  so the witnesses need to be Kindred, or sometimes ghouls,
  whom he trusts completely. When the Kindred comes
  out of torpor, he is freed of all obligations to his former
  lord, and may freely seek a new lord.
  The second protest is more dramatic. A vassal may
  choose to destroy himself, traditionally by facing the
  morning sun. This frees all of the lord’s other vassals
  from their loyalty to that lord, and gives the lord’s lord
  proper grounds to renounce him. Such suicides are
  known as hinomi (hee-noh-MEE — “sun viewing”), not
  harakiri or seppuku, both of which mean “stomach cut-
  ting.” Only two instances of hinomi are recorded in the
  bloodline’s history. The most famed is that of the Kin-
  dred now known as Fujita Yuko (“child of the sun”), a
  vassal of Fujita Pedro. Fujita Pedro had surrendered al-
  most entirely to the Beast and was a known diablerist,
  but the vassals he retained from his days of sanity made
  it impossible for any Kindred to move against him safely.
  Fujita Yuko’s sacrifice stripped Fujita Pedro of all sup-
  port, and he was staked out over Fujita Yuko’s ashes, to
  face the sun as she had.
  The second ideal is constant calm, showing no vio-
  lent emotions. Obviously, this is extremely hard for Kin-
  dred, beset as they are by the Beast, and the bloodline’s
  unique discipline, Kamen (the Mask), is devoted to
  making constant calm more possible. However, only
  violent emotions are disallowed. A gentle melancholy
  at the passing of ephemeral life is permitted and, in-
  deed, encouraged.
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  “Blood shed at twilight pledges the heart’s true service until dawn brightens.”
  
  171
  factions and bloodlines
  chapter four
  In fact, such an appreciation forms the third ideal of the bloodline. All its members
  are supposed to appreciate the beauty of things condemned to a short life span, such as
  cherry blossoms (which fall within a week) or cut flowers (which soon wither
  and die). Fujita Kunimasa’s eldest childe, Taro, is renowned for a set of
  poems he wrote reflecting on the greatest tragedy of the Kindred: that
  their curse robs them of such an ending. Other Kindred suspect that most
  members of the bloodline do not really believe this, but they certainly
  claim to be sincere.
  Any Kindred who enters this bloodline takes the name “Fujita” to indicate
  that he has become part of Kunimasa’s family. While most such Kindred are
  Embraced by a member of the bloodline, adoption was a well-established cus-
  tom in Kunimasa’s Japan, and the bloodline is happy to accept suitable Kin-
  dred from outside.
  Parent Clan: Ventrue
  Nickname: Samurai or Outsiders (note that the Sotoha never refer to
  themselves as Samurai)
  Covenants: Almost all Sotoha are members of the Invictus, as Fujita
  Kunimasa has always been a member of that covenant, and requires his
  vassals and their vassals to remain members. Those Sotoha outside the
  covenant either committed harakiri themselves or are descended from Kin-
  dred who did. The Ordo Dracul contains the next largest concentration of
  the bloodline, as the idea of overcoming the curses of Kindred nature is
  one that appeals to them. A few Sotoha are also in the Lancea Sanc-
  tum, and this group has the best relations with the main body of the
  bloodline. Sotoha in the Carthian Movement or the Circle of the Crone
  are lone renegades, protected from the vengeance of the bloodline
  only by the rights granted by their acts of harakiri.
  Appearance: While the Sotoha think like Japanese, they do not,
  these days, look like Japanese. Indeed, after Kunimasa, there were sev-
  eral generations of the bloodline containing no Kindred of Japanese
  extraction. In the last century or so, a number of Ventrue of Japanese
  descent have chosen to join the bloodline, forming the main body
  of those adopted into the family. All members of the bloodline be-
  lieve that sharing in Kunimasa’s blood makes them Japanese, how-
  ever, and most make an effort to learn the language.
  The Sotoha almost never wear samurai armor; most do not
  own any and would not know how to wear it if they did.
  They dress in formal, subdued clothes, often suits, with the
  result that they look much like Japanese salarymen. How-
  ever, every Sotoha has a sword, and carries it with him if
  at all possible.
  Haven: A strong Japanese influence on interior de-
  sign is very common in Sotoha havens. The floors
  are often covered in tatami mats, and calligraphy
  makes for popular wall hangings. The older mem-
  bers of the bloodline regard woodblock prints as a
  product of the degeneration of Japanese culture
  under the Tokugawa, but younger members
  collect this art form eagerly.
  Larger havens almost always include a dark
  garden. Developed from the
  dry gardens of Zen temples,
  these gardens include rocks,
  raked gravel of various
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  172
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  172
  kinds and flowing water and pools. Nothing lives within
  them. Sotoha Kindred are known to spend hours sit-
  ting in their gardens, meditating on their fate.
  Background: Kindred of this bloodline prefer to Em-
  brace mortals who have demonstrated loyalty, self-con-
  trol and an aptitude for the acquisition and maintenance
  of power. As a result, Sotoha childer tend to be taken
  from the upper ranks of the civil service and large com-
  panies. Leaders are rarely Embraced, as they have not
  demonstrated loyalty to anyone else, and those in lower
  ranks are deemed not to have proved themselves.
  The Sotoha have no particular preference for people
  of Japanese descent. Indeed, the Sotoha tend to look
  down on Japanese kine, believing that these kine have
  lost the soul of their nation, a soul that is preserved only
  among the Sotoha. Kindred of Japanese extraction who
  wish to join the bloodline are, however, welcome.
  Character Creation: The Resistance Attributes (Re-
  solve, Stamina and Composure) are the most important
  to the Sotoha. As the bloodline tends to recruit from
  the upper ranks of white-collar workers, Social and
  Mental Attributes are likely to be more important than
  Physical. Similarly, known Skills are those useful in run-
  ning an organization, rather than fighting on the ground.
  This is one reason why the members of the bloodline
  never refer to themselves as samurai. That said, there is
  a certain amount of hankering after that element of their
  past, so Sotoha who have developed substantial combat
  abilities are not uncommon.
  Almost all Sotoha develop at least the basics of Kamen, as
  that Discipline virtually defines the nature of the bloodline.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Dominate, Kamen,
  Resilience
  Weakness: In addition to the clan weakness of the
  Ventrue, the Sotoha devote so much energy to suppress-
  ing their Beast that, when it emerges, the Beast grabs its
  freedom for all it is worth. Sotoha frenzies do not end
  naturally. When the Storyteller decides a frenzy should
  end, he may instead require the Sotoha’s player to make
  an extended Resolve + Composure roll to bring his char-
  acter out of frenzy, rolling once per turn or minute, as
  the Storyteller sees fit. A total of five successes are needed
  to pull out of an involuntary frenzy. If the character was
  riding the wave (see p. 181 of Vampire: The Requiem),
  only three successes are needed to pull out.
  Finally, a Sotoha in frenzy cannot simply spend one
  Willpower point to take control of himself for one turn
  (see p. 180 of Vampire: The Requiem). Instead, the
  character must earn the right to spend that Willpower
  point by succeeding on a reflexive Resolve + Compo-
  sure action. If the roll succeeds, he may spend the Will-
  power point that turn. If not, he is helpless before the
  Beast during that turn.
  Organization: The Sotoha are one of the most rigidly
  organized bloodlines. Every Kindred has a lord, and most
  also have vassals. A vampire’s first lord is the Kindred who
  Embraced him, and the only way to change his lord is
  through the rite of harakiri. The Sotoha enforce this even
  on Kindred who do not choose to awaken their blood.
  As noted above, a vassal is expected to show abso-
  lute loyalty to his lord. The lord’s orders and interests
  should take precedence over everything, including the
  vassal’s very survival. If the lord is harmed or killed,
  the vassals have a duty to hunt down and attempt to
  kill the offenders, even if that means certain death.
  The Sotoha, on the whole, take these obligations very
  seriously. Lords are permitted to order the deaths of
  their vassals. However, that vassal’s vassals then have
  a duty to hunt down their lord’s former lord. As a re-
  sult, this option is rarely exercised.
  Torpor does not normally interrupt the claims of loy-
  alty; the only exception is torpor due to harakiri, which
  releases a vassal from the chain of fealty. Final Death
  transfers the loyalty of the vassals to the lord’s lord, with
  the exception of death through hinomi, which leaves
  them free.
  A Sotoha without a lord, a ronin (and the Sotoha do
  use that term), is accorded very little respect or status,
  and cannot have any dots in Clan Status as the rest of
  the Ventrue take this shunning seriously. However, the
  rite of harakiri is respected, and no action is taken against
  Sotoha who choose to remain ronin. The attitude of the
  bloodline toward a member who swears fealty to some-
  one outside it depends entirely on the attitude to the
  new master.
  Concepts: Fiercely loyal urban samurai, sensitive
  warrior-poet, power-broker just waiting for the right
  moment to separate from his lord, trapped vassal of a
  tyrannical lord, over-enthusiastic Japanophile, ideal-
  istic ronin Carthian, artist of deaths and endings, a
  Seneschal as impassive as the traditional English but-
  ler, ronin searching desperately for a worthy lord, Kin-
  dred determined to make his own unlife a brief and
  glorious thing
  
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  The members of the Order of the Thorned
  Wreath follow the teachings of Artus Le Jumel.
  Spina vampires have his teachings in their
  very blood, for they are of his bloodline.
  The overwhelming majority of members
  of this bloodline are also members of the
  Thorned Wreath; joining the Order is
  usually a prerequisite to finding a spon-
  sor to awaken the bloodline — and leav-
  ing the Order is normally regarded, and
  punished, as betrayal. Still, the Order and
  the bloodline are not identical.
  Le Jumel explained it thus: “The Order of
  the Thorned Wreath is a duty, a task that we have
  taken on. We perform that duty because we have sworn
  to perform it, but had we chosen to swear a different
  oath, we would also have chosen a different duty. Our
  blood is what we are. We fight with courtesy because of
  our nature, not because of any oath. Had we chosen to
  swear to bring the Invictus down to the dust, we would
  yet have done so without descending to boorishness.”
  Members of this bloodline believe those words even
  tonight. If anything, the Kindred who have left the
  Thorned Wreath hold this belief even more strongly than
  those within. Spina might abandon the Invictus, or even
  support its enemies, but they are still courteous warriors.
  They maintain their courtesy and courage as highly pub-
  lic virtues, to prove that they are still Spina, even if they
  have pledged allegiance to a different organization.
  Courtesy is what most Kindred think of when they think
  of the Spina. It is relatively easy to find a vampire who will
  claim that a Spina has been rude to him; rather harder to
  find one who can produce any reliable witnesses to the
  event. From the night of their Embrace, all potential Spina
  are taught how to maintain their calm in all situations and
  the correct polite responses to a wide range of insults. In
  time, these become second nature, allowing a Spina to be-
  little another vampire mercilessly without once saying any-
  thing that steps across the bounds of politesse.
  It is very important to remember that the Spina are
  polite; they are not nice. One meaning of their name is
  “thorn,” and they see themselves as the thorns in the
  Thorned Wreath. The Spina are sharp and wounding,
  and not merely in physical combat. Spina not infre-
  quently become Harpies, dreaded for their satires and
  respected out of pure fear.
  Publicly losing control to frenzy is a source of
  great shame within the Spina. The Beast is
  many things, but it is certainly not courte-
  ous. Most Spina also try to avoid losing
  control in private, as you never know who
  might be watching. The bloodline’s great-
  est contempt, however, is reserved for
  those who “ride the wave,” sacrificing
  courtesy for a little raw power. Absolutes
  are dangerous, so one should not say that
  the Spina never “ride the wave.” However,
  no vampire known to have done so is ever
  accepted into the bloodline.
  While courtesy is more visible, the Spina de-
  fine themselves equally by their courage. This is prima-
  rily physical courage; the Spina do not back down from a
  fight because it is dangerous. As most Spina are highly
  trained warriors, this attitude results in fewer losses than
  might be expected. However, physical courage is not the
  only kind. Spina are expected to stand up for their beliefs
  and stand by their wards, even under severe moral pres-
  sure. Most Spina live up to this standard, and the blood-
  line loses more members to hunts called by Princes defied
  on matters of principle than it does to battles in which
  the Spina fought despite overwhelming odds.
  The importance of courage means that, of all the types
  of frenzy, fear frenzy is regarded as the worst. Many Spina
  try to train themselves to react less badly to fire or sunlight,
  but that fear is deeply rooted in vampire nature, and such
  training typically has no effect other than to inspire a few
  unnecessary frenzies. Still, “spina” can also mean “spine,”
  and the Spina like to think that they have backbone.
  Indeed, more broadly, they see themselves as provid-
  ing the backbone of any organization to which they be-
  long. They do not generally seek to rule; Le Jumel was
  quite clear in his rejection of wide-ranging authority.
  The Spina do, on the other hand, believe that they have
  the right, and indeed the duty, to judge the rulers. Criti-
  cisms should be voiced, politely, of course, but repeat-
  edly, until they are addressed. The Spina are also happy
  to enforce the standards of a group on others, and, in
  many cases, they have the capacity to do so.
  For those Spina in the Order of the Thorned Wreath,
  this tendency to become an Inquisition of sorts is held in
  check by their oaths of loyalty, which prevent them from
  moving against any members of the Invictus. However,
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  “I should be profoundly grateful  if you would permit me the chance to defeat you.”
  
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  174
  Spina outside the Thorned Wreath have no such restric-
  tion, and frequently cause trouble for other Kindred.
  One group of non-Thorn Wreath-aligned Spina are
  still members of the Invictus, and have a certain level of
  notoriety and even respect from the Thorned Wreath
  itself. These Kindred listen for rumors of vampires who
  abuse the service of the Thorned Wreath, and then pun-
  ish these vampires in public, and generally spectacular,
  ways. It is possible to survive such a punishment, but it
  is not common. This group takes no name for itself, but
  many in the Invictus call them the Furies. Their num-
  bers are unknown, and they may not, in fact, be orga-
  nized in any way. A few Spina, such as the French vam-
  pire Martine de Perpignan, have become renowned and
  dreaded as Furies. Martine cuts the right arms off her
  victims, and then chains them to watch their own flesh
  burn. It takes some time to heal an arm, in the best case,
  but if she feels the abuse was severe she chains the arm
  to the vampire’s chest before setting it afire.
  Parent Clan: Daeva
  Nickname: Barbs (as in barbed wire, barbed words)
  Covenant: The Spina are overwhelmingly members
  of the Invictus, and fit very well into that covenant’s
  structure. A significant number are also found within
  the Lancea Sanctum, and these vampires have gener-
  ally changed because of the strength of their religious
  convictions. Most of the Spina who have left the Order
  of the Thorned Wreath without being declared traitors
  are found among the Sanctified. A handful have joined
  the Ordo Dracul in an attempt to overcome frenzies and
  the fears inherent to their natures. The Circle of the
  Crone boasts maybe one or two Spina.
  The Carthians, however, claim the allegiance of a sig-
  nificant group of Spina, Kindred who found their ideals
  leading them in opposition to their elders, and who took
  the bloodline’s injunction to bravely stand up for their
  ideals quite seriously. All Spina among the Carthians are
  regarded as traitors by the Order of the Thorned Wreath,
  but those who still walk the night are regarded as too much
  trouble to hunt down. If the opportunity were to arise,
  these Spina would be killed in a moment, but they have
  proved well capable of defending themselves.
  Finally, a few Spina find that their ideals prevent them
  remaining loyal even to the Carthians, and these Spina
  end up among the unaligned. Most of these Kindred af-
  fect the pose of the elegant outlaw, although the outlaw
  part, at least, is generally real enough.
  Appearance: Unsurprisingly, the basic appearance of the
  Spina is very similar to the basic appearance of members of
  the Thorned Wreath. Those members of the bloodline who
  are members of the Order of the Thorned Wreath uphold its
  standards with enthusiasm, and always display its symbol.
  The barbed wire version is less popular within the bloodline
  than with external recruits, but some younger members still
  affect it. The Daeva influence is clear in the strong tendency
  of Spina to maintain individual styles, while still contriving
  to look like warriors of the Order of the Thorned Wreath.
  Those Spina outside the Order of the Thorned Wreath
  generally try to send two signals with their styles of dress.
  First, they are elegant, sophisticated and utterly confident
  in their own style. Second, they are clearly and completely
  distinct from the Thorned Wreath. On the whole, these
  Spina try to keep their outfits practical for combat, as most
  Spina see themselves as warriors, but Nur of Zagreb was
  renowned, during his time in Bremen, for wearing noth-
  ing but hundreds of chains, of dozens of different weights.
  Almost all Spina carry a “polite” weapon visibly at all
  times. In Kindred society, this often means a firearm, as
  the vampire resistance to bullets makes such weapons
  less of a threat. Antique dueling pistols, or modern imi-
  tations of such, are quite popular, combining as they do
  elegance with near-complete uselessness, which means
  that there are quite a few Princes who will even permit
  the Spina to carry such weapons in their presence.
  Haven: Spina havens are always elegant, usually beautiful
  and appointed for polite conversation and high-class soirees.
  It would be unpardonably rude to ambush someone you have
  invited to your haven, so those who are not actually enemies
  of the Spina might learn to accept such invitations when
  they are offered. The Spina issue such invitations fairly fre-
  quently, as well, as invitations allow them to display both
  courtesy, in treating guests well, and courage, in allowing the
  locations of their havens to become known.
  Of course, the Spina are not stupid. Almost all have
  at least one secondary haven, where they can rest if their
  enemies decide to attack the main one.
  Almost all Spina havens also include an armory and
  martial training area. The armory not infrequently
  doubles as a collection of noteworthy historical weap-
  ons, and may be shown to visitors. Almost all Spina ar-
  mories include a flamethrower, prominently displayed
  but never mentioned to visitors. Asking whether it is
  loaded is extremely boorish; many are not, but there are
  some Spina who refuse to admit that sort of weakness
  even to themselves, and keep the weapon charged.
  The training area may double as a dueling ground, for
  dealing with guests who are so rude as to require a physical
  lesson. Guests get quite a bit of leeway, but refusing to leave
  when asked to do so often provokes a duel, as does attack-
  ing the host. Attacking another guest gets you attacked on
  the spot, as the host defends his own hospitality.
  Background: It is important not to forget that the Spina
  are a Daeva bloodline. They do not Embrace unalluring
  people, and are drawn to beauty almost as much as their
  parent clan. However, as the Spina do have additional cri-
  teria they are more willing to Embrace those who may fall
  short of stunning beauty. The primary additional criteria
  are a natural courtesy and a degree of courage. Spina tend
  to test both of these, quite deliberately, before deciding on
  an Embrace, but they do not expect someone to live up to
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  175
  factions and bloodlines
  chapter four
  the standards of the bloodline right
  away. Some Spina train potential childer
  while they are still mortals; other Spina Em-
  brace those who have the potential and only ac-
  cept them into the bloodline if the potential is ful-
  filled. The first group believe that the second pass the Curse
  on too casually; the second group believe that the first underes-
  timate the influence of vampirism on mortals’ characters.
  The Spina do not, on the whole, care about class, race, sex, money or
  age. The elderly, once Embraced, can be just as strong as the young, and
  are often better at both courage and courtesy. The Spina very rarely Em-
  brace the young, as most children find true courage (as opposed to simply
  not thinking about risks) as hard as being polite.
  Character Creation: Physical and Social Attributes are the most impor-
  tant to most Spina, which inevitably leads to Mental Attributes getting
  short shrift. Martial Skills are important, and Social Skills like Persuasion
  and Socialize are also vital to maintaining a proper level of courtesy. Some
  level of the Striking Looks Merit is also a good idea, as most members of
  the bloodline are attractive and admirable, even if not truly beautiful.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Celerity, Courtoisie, Majesty, Vigor
  Weakness: Like the Daeva, Spina find it difficult to resist their
  impulses, and lose two Willpower points when they opt not to in-
  dulge their Vices.
  In addition, the Spina simply cannot tolerate rudeness. They
  suffer a –2 penalty to Resolve + Composure dice pools to resist
  any frenzy inspired by reckless, crass or insulting behavior. Of
  course, an anger frenzy is never polite behavior, so the Spina
  loathe this weakness of their souls. It is perhaps fortunate for
  them that most Kindred realize that deliberately goading a
  skilled warrior into frenzy is extremely foolish.
  Further, all Spina vampires suffer from a kind of De-
  lusional Obsession (see p. 189 of Vampire: The Re-
  quiem) built around the concept that courtesy is the
  saving grace of the Damned. With time and vigilance,
  the attitude of courtesy may eventually domesticate
  the feral nature of the Beast, or so say some Spina. A
  Spina Kindred must expend one point of Willpower
  to act in a discourteous manner to any creature.
  Organization: The Spina, as a bloodline, have no or-
  ganization independent of the Order of the Thorned
  Wreath. Those few Spina who are outside the Thorned
  Wreath may join other groups, but they are not orga-
  nized qua Spina.
  Concepts: Thorned Wreath Knight, aspiring
  Harpy, Thorned Wreath Knight with doubts
  about his calling, Fury avenging abuses of the
  Thorned Wreath, Sanctified vampire spread-
  ing his faith with courtesy and obstinacy, vam-
  pire struggling to overcome his Beast and be-
  come perfectly courteous, bodyguard to a
  powerful Kindred, puppeteer of a powerful
  Kindred pretending to be a mere bodyguard,
  revolutionary concealing his true beliefs in
  order to strike at the system from within,
  violent upholder of the social order
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  167
  factions and bloodlines
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  Since the end of the Icarian Heresy, generally marked
  by the bloodline’s failed attempt to win Avignon in 1724,
  Dynasts have reevaluated their philosophies and tac-
  tics. If the Sanctified regard the childer of Arch-
  bishop Icarius as self-aggrandizing heretics, how
  can there ever be a secure and beloved union
  between an Icarian Archbishop and her vas-
  sals?
  The Icarian solution is calculated,
  well-reasoned and insidious. The
  Dynasts have come to understand that they
  must reclaim their good name through many years of pious
  service and demonstrations of skill. The Icarians plan to
  join the ranks of the Anointed, fill municipal roles in favor
  of the Sanctified and use their supernatural talents to ben-
  efit sitting Princes and Archbishops. They will prove that
  they are meant to rule. The modern mantra of the Icarians
  is this: “An Icarian serves to rule.” As the Dynasts see it,
  that sentence signifies the Icarian destiny of rulership, their
  commitment to scale the ladders of hierarchy and their
  acknowledgement that they must first support the current
  Princes of the Damned.
  That said, every Icarian is looking for a short-cut to the
  control of her local domain. A new, peacefully ascended
  Dynast Prince or Archbishop could truly prove that only the
  Icarians are meant to speak for the Sanctified and govern the
  Damned. And if peaceful ascension is not possible, an Icarian
  is entitled to do what is necessary to climb those final few
  steps. When the Icarians win new power, all the other Kin-
  dred shall see the truth. When the Icarians can gain control
  of the city without losing the favor of the Kindred, then shall
  they be loved.
  Parent Clan: Ventrue
  Nickname: Dynasts (sometimes Holy Dynasts)
  Covenant: The roots of the Icarian bloodline reach deep
  into the history of the Lancea Sanctum and few Dynasts have
  much reason to leave their holy origins. Some, however, stifled
  by the demands of religious strictures on one side and the
  demands of a Prince on the other, feel not just rooted in the
  covenant, but trapped beneath it. Others feel the Lancea
  Sanctum’s long memory, and the unhappy memory of the
  Icarian Heresy, will forever limit Icarian power in the cov-
  enant and prevent future Dynasts from taking the reigns of
  other cities. Icarians find the notion of sliding slowly into
  impotence terrifying. That the Sanctified would let such a
  My sire has held this city for centuries. When he falls to torpor, as we all must, I will take over his position.
  Think about that before you raise your voice to me again.
  It’s common knowledge among the Sanctified of Europe
  that Icarians trace their origin back to one of the most
  revered leaders the covenant has ever seen: Icarius,
  Archbishop of Naples, pilgrim to the Black Ab-
  bey and Anointed by the hand of the
  Monachus. In 1388, Archbishop Icarius was
  attacked while he slept and diablerized by a
  vengeful Succubus (see p. 38). She then
  took control of the city. Three nights
  later, vampires of the Lancea Sanctum,
  rallied by the childer of Icarius, brought
  her down, and the progeny of the Archbishop declared
  themselves the heirs to his magnificent rule.
  In the centuries that followed, the Icarians cultivated their
  combination of religious fervor, famed blood and validated
  vengeance into a belief that the scions of Icarius — who
  they call the Great Archbishop — are blessed by God with
  a divine right to rule the Damned. Icarian “divine heirs”
  strode throughout Mediterranean Europe from the fifteenth
  through the seventeenth centuries, displacing dozens of
  Princes and Archbishops and replacing them with Icarian
  rulers. The scions of Icarius, seen by the larger body of the
  Lancea Sanctum as heretical usurpers with no regard for the
  covenant hierarchy, lost momentum as the image of the
  noble-blooded Dynast, wronged and grieving faded beneath
  self-righteous claims of heavenly inheritance. As more and
  more cities faced the so-called “Icarian Heresy” with outright
  force, the Dynasts relented. They kept whatever cities they
  had claimed by right, but sought no others for many decades.
  Some elders who were close to the medieval Icarians claim
  the death of Icarius marked the birth of the bloodline, that
  the blood of his childer was changed by fevered vengeance,
  not by God. Icarians insist, however, that their line has held
  its own supernatural powers since Icarius Embraced his first
  childe. The surge of new Icarians practicing the heritage’s rare
  Discipline is merely the result of many dozens of childer rush-
  ing to fill the impossible void left by their departed father.
  Icarians truly believe they are meant to rule the Damned as
  pious and noble lords, with the blood of the Great Archishop
  as their license. In past nights, they saw themselves as holy
  political crusaders, restoring the thrones of Kindred domains
  to the Icarian Archbishops that God intended to govern them.
  That some stubborn Princes, blind to the sanguineous grace
  of the Dynasts, had to be burned out of their seats was a re-
  grettable shame, but how could the Dynasts — or any of the
  Sanctified — tolerate a pretender on the throne?
  
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  168
  thing happen when the Dynasts are so plainly intended as
  rulers is a sad shame.
  So it is that modern nights find the Icarians seeking out
  other avenues of power. Most Icarians don’t intend to betray
  the Sanctified, of course — merely secure themselves Status
  in the city or with other temporal powers so the bloodline
  can prove that it is no threat to the Lancea Sanctum. Indeed,
  the Icarians have always been a great boon to the covenant
  and as the pious heirs to the blood of the Great Archbishop,
  they intend to go on as pious servants of the Sanctified the
  only way they know how: by organizing and commanding other
  Kindred to the benefit of the covenant.
  The Icarian bloodline as a long, amicable history of dealing
  with the Kindred of the Invictus, and a younger, more cautious
  relationship with vampires of the Carthian Movement. Both
  covenants have been by Icarians as well-meaning organizations
  with a sad lack of religious motive among some of its greatest
  leaders. An Icarian would be comfortable dealing with the agents
  of either covenant, and could conceivably even pursue mem-
  bership in one or the other if he had a plan for winding his path
  back to a higher station among the Sanctified.
  Icarians hardly regard the Circle of the Crone and the Ordo
  Dracul at all, traditionally. Pagan heresies are the business of
  Inquisitors and crusaders, and the Dynasts interact with them
  predominantly as distant adversaries. It is the great shame of
  the bloodline that the Icarians are sometimes ignorantly
  lumped together with such heathens as “strays from the Spear.”
  Appearance: Dynasts maintain dignity in all things, includ-
  ing their dress. They prefer Italian suits, cut to the modern
  fashion, when they dress to contemporary styles. For formal
  covenant functions, such as Creation Rites and the Gran Ballo,
  Icarians have traditionally worn more archaic garb with flour-
  ishes reminiscent of a Bishop’s vestments: red and white em-
  broidery, iconic spears, signet rings, and so forth.  As a rule of
  thumb, Icarians don’t dress down for the sake of lower-class
  associates or informal social settings.
  Beyond their dress, Icarians are known for the sense of se-
  rene confidence they exude. Icarians are resolute in the ex-
  treme, renowned for maintaining calm poise in the face of
  dire threats and armed enemies. The humorous Icarian ste-
  reotype, in fact, (as invented following the line’s failed at-
  tempt to win control of Avignon in 1724) is the calm and
  collected vampire who negotiates terms while on fire. The
  fearsome Icarian reputation, however, whispered of tonight
  as it once was long ago, is that of the Spanish Icarian Fortuno
  who calmly ordered his enemies to douse his flaming body…
  and was obeyed.
  Haven: Many, even most, Icarians have the wealth to main-
  tain large, elaborate havens — often in well-appointed man-
  sions or townhouses, typically staffed with loyal ghouls or at-
  tendant neonates, always equipped with the latest security fea-
  tures. Icarians richly appoint their nests with antiques, archaic
  furniture and fine linens. Historically, Icarians favored religious
  art that depicts the earliest nights of the Sanctified, such as
  imagery of the Centurion, etchings of the Black Abbey as drawn
  from the imagination and ornamental spears. In modern nights,
  it has become something of a fad among Dynasts to collect
  mortal art depicting the era of the Old Testament.
  Dynasts can’t abide the thought of their kin dwelling in unsafe
  conditions, so Icarians unable to secure their own lavish havens
  may be invited into another’s sanctuary. In some domains, it’s
  even customary for the eldest Icarian to supply a haven for his
  younger brethren, whether they are his childer or another’s. Such
  gifted havens are rarely lavish, but always secure.
  Some wealthy Dynasts go so far as to host non-Icarian visi-
  tors in their huge havens. Modern Icarians accept that with
  authority and power must come visibility, and few expect to
  keep an elaborate haven a secret for long. What’s the point of
  a lavish display is no one else can see it? Icarian custom de-
  mands the host see to it that his guest is safe, fed and enter-
  tained, as a symbolic effort of his high station.
  Of course, Icarians still recall the origin of their line, so no
  Dynast sleeps in the same space as a guest. Many Icarians keep
  isolated, secure vaults in which to sleep, protected by loyal
  electronics and well-tested guards. The first rule of every
  Icarian haven is said to be the same: He who looks upon a
  sleeping scion of Icarius shall die.
  Background: Most Dynasts are of European or Middle-East-
  ern descent, as the bloodline only selected childer from Italy,
  Iberia, France, Germany and Turkey for many centuries. Gradu-
  ally, as the Icarians seek to find new roles for themselves, a
  more diverse range of Kindred are being represented amid the
  Icarians, but whole decades go by without a new Icarian adopt-
  ing the bloodline. The standards of any Dynast are high, to say
  the least. The Icarians are the descendants of a vampire one
  step removed from the Dark Messiah himself — the prize of
  such gloriously noble blood can never be awarded lightly.
  Dynasts may monitor a potential childe for decades before
  presenting her to other Icarians as a potential new family mem-
  ber. Icarians follow all the old Sanctified traditions surround-
  ing the Embrace, from the Choice to the Creation Rite, but
  they add their own customs in the earliest stages: Once a would-
  be Icarian has chosen Damnation over death, three other
  Icarians must be consulted to support her choice. If any one of
  the three decides the supplicant is not up to par — is too com-
  mon, or lacking in willpower or dignity — then her choice is
  overruled and she must be destroyed as evidence of a Masquer-
  ade breach. Few Dynasts, therefore, present a prospective childe
  to their kin without first securing her approval by other means
  — many Icarian sires are thus indebted to their kin.
  Character Creation: Social Attributes rank high among
  the Dynasts, especially Composure. Resolve is a key Icarian
  Attribute, as the Dynasts prize an unwavering, resolute com-
  mitment to the bloodline and the Lancea Sanctum above all
  else. Willpower is essential. No Icarian should be without dots
  in Intimidation, Persuasion, Politics and Socialize. Academ-
  ics is also valued, as leaders must be well educated. To repre-
  sent an established, archetypal Dynast, Merits must be given
  extra attention. City and Covenant Status, Contacts, Haven,
  Resources and Retainer are definitive traits for the Icarians
  
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  — those who cannot be well-rounded should strive to excel in one Merit of value to the
  parish or the local bloodline. A great many Dynasts seek out Sanctified or Invictus Daeva to
  teach them the magic of Majesty. Blood Potency, beyond being necessary to join the blood-
  line, is also a good way to represent the might of the blood of the Great Archbishop.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Constance, Dominate, Resilience
  Weakness: All Dynasts suffer from the Ventrue clan weakness. Common Icarian
  derangements include suspicion, paranoia, narcissism, megalomania and delusion ob-
  session. Many Dynasts eventually suspect that other Kindred seek to diablerize them
  as Icarius was diablerized, to steal their noble blood. Others, already taught the truth
  of their divine mandate, come to accept (usually on faith) some personal delusion as
  the undeniable truth: that the Dynast is destined by God to rule Milan, for
  example, or that the current Prince of Boston is an Acolyte spy. These
  derangements may manifest even in response to unrelated stimuli —
  as if they are roused from the Icarian blood itself.
  In addition to the shortcomings of the Ventrue, Icarians have
  their own weakness. The long-term goal of power over the Damned
  is of primary importance to all Dynasts. As a result, they derive
  less satisfaction from the smaller, intervening victories that come
  along the way. An Icarian regains only half as much Willpower
  when a scene plays out according to her Virtues. A full night’s rest
  recovers no Willpower for an Icarian — instead of feeling recharged,
  she feels as though she’s wasted time sleeping that could be spent
  fulfilling her great destiny. An Icarian does regain Willpower when
  scenes play out consistent with her Vice, and whenever the Story-
  teller chooses to reward the character with a Willpower point. All of an
  Icarian’s Willpower is recovered at the conclusion of each story, as usual.
  Organization: The Icarians have long slipped themselves into the larger
  organizations of covenant and city hierarchies. Historically, they have sought
  to control such social structures, but not to reform them. Dynasts do not
  have a single, shared philosophy of rule, only the belief they feel in their
  blood: that they are entitled and intended to rule other Damned.
  As a bloodline, the Icarians interact like an extended, aristocratic family.
  They gather for family functions that vary by domain — some meet every
  year, others reunite in a favorite, central city every 50 years or so — and con-
  sult with each other based primarily on age. In general, Dynasts divide them-
  selves into three generations: the youngest, neonate and ancilla alike, who are
  regard each other as siblings, even sire and childe; the eldest, whether elder or
  ancient, who are respected as beloved grandparents; and Icarius himself, whose grace
  and magnificence is beyond comparison.
  Icarians meet to socialize and exchange news, but also to trade advice and secrets.
  Icarian siblings that dwell in the same domain probably see a great deal of each other.
  Ventrue cousins and Sanctified compatriots may be seen as vital allies, loyal advisors
  and confidants, but only other Icarians are family — even the case of the Icarian
  childe of a “plain” Ventrue sire. An invisible, inviolate circle of love and loyalty sur-
  rounds the Dynasts, and only the scions of the Great Archbishop are allowed inside.
  Concepts: Boy king, dignified executive, expectant heir, hand-
  some dignitary, host of Elysium, humble reformer, paranoid
  Prince, spoiled brat, well-groomed vizier, wise grandfather.
  
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  170
  Mortifiers of the Flesh
  I have sinned, I must repent. I have sinned,
  I must repent. I have sinned, I must repent.
  earthly role — how can the Sanctified exalt a role he
  feels ashamed of? Many wise Anointed have come to
  conclude, however, that guilt and penitence — even
  when they are counted as weaknesses — can exist
  alongside reverence of the predatory role.
  As Giancarlo of Naples, a Flagellant Priest,
  wrote to his Archbishop in 1611: “It is
  not that I believe my earthly service
  to be shameful, for I strive to fulfill
  the expectations held for me in
  Heaven, but how can I deny that
  my earthly state is sinful? As I
  have been Damned by the Lord,
  I am stretched in two ways, as if
  on the Rack: I must strive to serve
  as best I can even while I must be
  punished for the crimes that have
  led me into service.”
  During the sixteenth and seventeenth
  centuries, Mortifiers were more influential
  within the covenant — seen as admirably deranged
  devotees on the extreme border of selfless penitence
  —but their single-minded dedication to spiritual mat-
  ters slowly withered their political relevance as the Lancea
  Sanctum’s union with the Invictus grew more solid. Sanctified
  authorities have found that such gruesome extremism is often
  best kept “off the recruitment poster,” so to speak. Flagellants are
  still sometimes found in political positions within the covenant,
  however, particularly in more conservative domains.
  To Flagellants, the flesh is sinful. The flesh is the domain
  of the Devil and the Curse’s fuel. By filling the body with
  pain, they can drive the Devil out, for a time. Flagellants draw
  out their Vitae to free themselves from it, but must always
  search for more. “The Blood was given to us,” wrote Giancarlo,
  “so that we would have more to spend in penance.”
  But the soul is pure. The soul can never be touched by the
  pain inflicted upon the body. The more pain a Flagellant experi-
  ences, the more he knows about the limits of the body. In time,
  he may learn where the body truly ends and the soul begins. One
  night, he may find that his body finally gives up his soul to Heaven,
  even while it continues to toil for Vitae on earth.
  Mortifiers do their best to keep their spirits pure and strive
  to keep the Devil out of their body by avoiding frenzy. They
  seek to avoid all violations of the Traditions, believing they
  were given to the Kindred as a test — just three command-
  ments to obey, but for all eternity. (“No matter how many or
  how few laws are held up, sinners shall sin,” wrote one
  Mortifier.) As a result of their strict piety and avoidance of
  The Mortifiers of the Flesh are, in some domains,
  as much a faction within the Lancea Sanctum as
  they are a bloodline. Dedicated to penitence
  through personal pain and tribulation, as well as
  to the religious dogma of the covenant, the so-
  called Flagellants are often as feared as
  they are misunderstood.
  The bloodline is thought to be
  as old, at least, as the Black Ab-
  bey. Some claim it was begun
  by the Monachus himself, and
  that the bloodline’s accessibil-
  ity from any clan is evidence
  that its founder was not too far
  removed from Longinus him-
  self. The more popular history of the
  Mortifiers, as put forth by more main-
  stream factions of the covenant, claim that
  it was founded by enlightened and penitent mem-
  bers of clan Daeva, who gathered after the fall of
  the Black Monastery and punished themselves for
  the loss of the Monachus. Some scholars of the Curse
  — including occultists of the Ordo Dracul — have sug-
  gested that Flagellant Blood does not carry the power of
  any sire (and so is not strictly a bloodline) but can only be
  transmuted through a force of will. Whatever the truth is, the
  genealogy of the Mortifiers has clearly been lost to time.
  Despite its bloodline’s lost origins, the Mortifiers can trace
  their history back centuries into the medieval nights. It seems
  clear that the Mortifiers were inspired by heretically extreme
  flagellant movements of the mortal church; the eldest
  Mortifiers claim to have practiced flagellation prior to accept-
  ing the Curse. Though members of the line may have had
  power over the Blood before being subsumed by the covenant,
  Mortifiers have been included in the membership of the
  Lancea Sanctum by default since the late fourteenth century.
  Flagellation movements did not last long in the churches of
  the kine, but they have no yet died out among the Sanctified.
  Modern Mortifiers, like those in centuries past, are assumed
  to be Sanctified, though a few Flagellants must exist outside
  of the covenant somewhere.
  Mortifiers believe that the Curse is a divine punishment in
  addition to a conscription into holy service, and that vampirism
  a sin for which the Damned must eternally repent. Taking the
  Sanctified dogma to the extreme, Mortifiers show penitence
  through scarification and painful rites that inflict horrible wounds
  upon themselves. Some Sanctified theologians argue that such
  penitence reveals a terrible lack of acceptance of the vampire’s
  
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  the Blood, Mortifiers also avoid the Vinculum and all tastes of Kindred Vitae whenever possible. Many Mortifiers undertake
  voluntary torpor to diminish the demands of the Blood, so they may never have to feed on vampires.
  The Mortifiers have, over the centuries, developed a Discipline called Scourge, tied to their knowledge of pain and the flesh. It is this
  supernatural power, itself caused by a change in the Blood, that proved the Mortifiers to be a bloodline despite their unknown origins and
  lack of a parent clan. Still, relatively few of the Sanctified who are categorized as Flagellants are able to learn the Discipline, because so few
  have the will to change their Blood. So it is that many Kindred who are thought to be Mortifiers having difficulty mastering Scourge have
  not, in fact, even become a part of the bloodline. As a result, those Kindred who are rumored to have left
  (or failed out of) the Mortifier bloodline were more likely never truly a part of it.
  The Flagellants do not recruit Kindred into their ranks, but neither do they keep their
  ways secret. Vampires who wish to become Mortifiers of the Flesh are challenged to
  exist as Flagellants for a year and a day before they attempt to trans-
  form their Blood through the Ritual of Initiation. During this
  year, the petitioner is overseen by a Mortifier Avus
  and guided through philosophical contemplations
  of penitence and sin, of the body and the soul.
  The Avus guides the student through the Testament
  as it appears to a Flagellant, challenges him to undergo
  new extremes of penance (lashes with barbed wire,
  swallowing razor blades to symbolize the pains of Kin-
  dred service and braving red-hot nails through the
  flesh) and prompts him to identify his own sins. Only
  when this year of trials has passed can a Kindred undergo
  the Ritual of Initiation (see “Organization,” below).
  Parent Clan: Daeva. The Mortifiers of the Flesh, how-
  ever, seem to have an origin beyond that of simple lin-
  eage. At Blood Potency 4, a vampire of any clan can
  join the Mortifiers of the Flesh if they are granted
  membership by an Avus.
  Nickname: Flagellants
  Covenant: The Mortifiers of the Flesh are con-
  sidered a unique part of the Lancea Sanctum, first
  spawned by the monks of the Black Abbey. From
  time to time, Flagellants do leave the Lancea
  Sanctum, but most are subsequently excommu-
  nicated from the society of the bloodline and
  no longer considered Mortifiers, despite the re-
  tention of the bloodline’s mystical qualities.
  Such outcasts seldom feel welcome anywhere
  else and become unbound.
  Appearance: Flagellants traditionally
  avoid wearing fancy or expensive clothing,
  preferring simple, muted and colorless fab-
  rics. They avoid any kind of worldly luxury
  and do not wear jewelry or other mam-
  mon. Most Mortifiers remove any tattoos
  and piercings left over from their mortal
  days. Though Mortifiers may keep plainly
  visible scars as evidence of their piety
  (or reminders of their sins), such marks
  are not displayed as a social distinction
  — they’re possessions kept for the
  Mortifier’s benefit and no one else’s.
  Mortifiers often wear minimal clothing (well-
  worn pants or shorts, for example) when away from
  mortal eyes, so as not to protect their bodies from simple pains.
  Some Mortifiers believe it is an essential act of will to retain scars from important
  bouts of flagellation. Others believe the unnatural capacity for the undead body to revert to its unscarred state is a defining facet of
  the Curse: a Flagellant can never be penitent enough. Each night demands new sufferings in pursuit of wisdom and piety.
  
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  Haven: In domains with at least a few Mortifiers, there may
  be a communal haven (often called a monastery), where Flagel-
  lants can retreat and perform their penitence. Such communal
  havens are  generally well equipped with the tools of mortifica-
  tion, but are otherwise notably bare. Flagellants usually sit and
  sleep on hard, undecorated floors. Because they have such simple
  needs, Flagellants can make use of any remote and private space
  as a haven. Abandoned factories and industrial sites, littered with
  rusted and rotten hammers, hooks, wrenches, chains and other
  tools attract Flagellants. Stone or cement buildings and cold or
  dark environments are favored over more comfortable options.
  Kindred who ask for hospitality within a Mortifier monas-
  tery are only turned away if the monastery’s de facto decision-
  makers have reason to believe the visitor is an outright enemy.
  Few Kindred, however, seek hospitality at a Mortifier monas-
  tery if she has any idea of what goes on there. Mortifiers don’t
  pressure others to behave as they do, but even many vampires
  lack the nerves to look on as flesh is beaten and flayed. Visiting
  Kindred who are susceptible to frenzy may be turned away.
  Flagellants who do not stay in a monastery maintain simple
  havens of their own. In the rare case that a Mortifier keeps a
  haven more elaborate than a single, bare cell, he may set aside
  a room for flagellation.
  Background: Mortifiers very rarely Embrace, as any existing
  vampire can be inducted into their ranks. Most Mortifiers don’t
  believe it is their place to bestow the Curse on others; they hold
  the Traditions to be inviolate. Mortifiers who do choose to sire a
  childe suffer a –2 penalty on degeneration and derangement rolls
  resulting from the Embrace. In the rare cases when Mortifiers do
  Embrace, they always choose deeply spiritual childer — they need
  not be Christians, but they must possess a degree of devotion and
  piety that can withstand the centuries.
  Contrary to the stereotype, very few Mortifiers are masochists.
  Mortifiers do not endure their sufferings because they enjoy pain;
  quite the opposite. As penitents, they humble themselves through
  mortification of the flesh. While some twisted individuals among
  the Mortifiers do get some strange pleasure out of self-flagella-
  tion, their love of pain develops after the Blood has been changed.
  A vampire could not summon the strength of will of change his
  Blood into that of a Mortifier of the Flesh if his motives were
  based on anything but spiritual penitence — you cannot lie to
  the Blood. Mortifiers experience a sad, spiritual comfort from
  their penitence, but it cannot rightly be considered pleasure.
  Character Creation: Mortifiers come from all walks of life and
  all manner of Requiems. A Mortifier’s Requiem puts his Resis-
  tance Attributes to the test. Most Mortifiers are academics, how-
  ever, who rarely resort to violence against others, so Mental Skills
  are typically favored. While their reputation might suggest a high
  Willpower score, many Mortifiers turned to flagellation because
  they consider themselves to be lacking in it. As a result, many
  Mortifiers begin with an average Willpower score, then build it
  up over time. Despite the frequent use a Mortifier gets from the
  Weaponry Skill, most consider proficiency with weapons to be
  beside the point. Subterfuge, however, is useful for hiding gro-
  tesque scars from narrow-minded Kindred and skittish prey. Re-
  member, also, that a character must have at least a second dot in
  Blood Potency to be eligible for a bloodline.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Mortifiers retain the Disciplines of their
  parent clan in addition to gaining access to the Discipline of Scourge.
  Weakness: In addition to the weakness inherited from his
  parent clan, a Flagellant feels the weight of his sins on his flesh.
  Once a Mortifier feeds, he is unable to spend Willpower points
  until he flagellates himself. For his penitence to overcome his
  weakness, the Flagellant must make a Resolve + Weaponry roll
  against himself (ignoring his own Defense) and accept what-
  ever damage he does. (The Mortifier can use any weapon he
  likes; he does not have to use a whip or scourge.) If the Mortifier
  feeds later on during a night when he has already flagellated
  himself, he must repent again with a new Resolve + Weaponry
  roll or be unable to spend Willpower points.
  In addition, a Flagellant who fails a degeneration roll suffers a
  –1 penalty to all actions until he endures penance through pain.
  To overcome this nagging guilt, the Flagellant must cause dam-
  age (of any type) to himself, equal to his Health and delivered by
  a weapon in his own hand. A short and simple flagellation ses-
  sion isn’t enough: The character must undertake his penance
  slowly, like a meditation. Treat this penance as an extended
  Resolve + Weaponry action, with each roll requiring one hour.
  At the Storyteller’s discretion, such penance may aid in the reso-
  lution of any derangements resulting from the loss of Humanity.
  Organization: Flagellants are (theoretically) all sworn to follow the
  Lancea Sanctum leadership and, as such, faithfully follow any Sancti-
  fied with a rank within the covenant or city hierarchy. As for the
  internal relations of the Mortifiers, most cities with sizeable Flagellant
  populations have a formal or informal leader, called an Abbot. This
  leader, usually the eldest of the domain’s Mortifiers, is expected to
  guide the spiritual growth of (and command absolute loyalty from)
  her fellow Flagellants. The Abbot is also in charge of the monastery,
  overseeing those decisions that affect the haven as a whole. A Flagel-
  lant who disobeys her Abbot or a member of the Anointed is ex-
  pected to perform an act of atonement (such as the Ritual of Piercing,
  see below) and can be excommunicated if she refuses.
  The Ritual of Piercing is performed as penance for transgres-
  sions against earthly authorities, such as a failure to respectfully
  follow the Bishop’s orders or an insult against the Prince. It uses a
  nail with a length of barbed wire affixed on to one end. The nail is
  pushed through the flesh of the penitent Mortifier’s hand or arm,
  and then the barbed wire is pulled through the wound. A success-
  ful Resolve roll is required to begin the ritual, followed by three or
  more Strength rolls (depending on the length of the barbed wire)
  to complete the ritual. Each success on each of these rolls causes
  one point of bashing damage to the penitent Mortifier.
  The Ritual of Initiation, held by the Mortifiers of the Flesh to be
  the most sacred rite a Kindred can attempt, is not actually a ritual
  at all. After a year and a day spent preparing for the Ritual of
  Initiation, a petitioner is released to police his own behaviors and
  administer his own punishments to himself. As a blessing, the Avus
  bestows a single Vitae (and a dot of Willpower) to the petitioner
  so that he may join the Mortifiers of the Flesh. Normally, such
  blood-sharing would be taboo among the Flagellants, so this act is
  kept secret — hidden behind the fictitious Rite of Initiation.
  Concepts: Fallen priest, Father Confessor, prison warden,
  reclusive monk, religious advisor, religious prisoner, spiritual
  guide, torturer, visionary.
  
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  Osites
  There it was! did you see it? that was it... her last moment. Amazing.
  This small, enigmatic and almost extinct bloodline
  claims, like many faithful bloodlines, to be descended
  from one of the first Sanctified — a former mortu-
  ary priest and scholar of the dead. The name of this
  progenitor is lost, but the bloodline’s name comes
  from the lineage’s ancient nickname: Bone Monks.
  Osites (from os, meaning “bone”) seek to de-
  rive spiritual understanding of the Re-
  quiem by studying that which God has
  withheld from the Damned: death. Osites
  traditionally regard funerary rites as fasci-
  nating cultural and occult events; they ex-
  amine corpses, cemeteries, morgues and
  churchyards for some evidence of what lies
  beyond the mortal coil. By understanding
  both life (which the Osites have already experienced)
  and death, the Bone Monks believe they can better
  master the state of undeath and celebrate the Curse.
  Some say the Osites used to be the keepers of cata-
  combs beneath Rome; that they are the remnants of a
  Roman ancestor cult. Others claim they were a secret
  society of necromancers prior to the Embrace of their
  leader by the Monachus. Most often believed, however, is
  the tale told by elder Osites: that they were simple scriveners
  and morticians for the Sanctified in the early nights of the Black
  Abbey. It fell to the forbears of the Bone Monks to dispose of
  human corpses following Sanctified rites and ceremonies. Even-
  tually, it fell to them to deal with the bodies of humans acci-
  dentally slain by sloppy predators. Within a few decades, the
  so-called Bone Monks were surrounded by death perpetrated
  by the Lancea Sanctum. Then, one night, the forgotten founder
  of the Osite bloodline saw that he was not alone in the crypts
  beneath the Black Abbey — he was surrounded by ghosts.
  Since that night, the descendants of the first Osite have
  been pursuing the study of death. What, exactly, they seek
  varies with each Bone Monk — the sensation of dying, in-
  sight into the spiritual architecture of the world, the ability to
  return a soul to its body — but most agree that they’ll recog-
  nize the secret when they find it.
  Osites occultism speculates that the living and the dead
  each have their own spiritual energies, and that those ener-
  gies are intermingled in the bodies of the Damned. Accord-
  ing to Osites, when a creature dies, its living, physical essence
  (perhaps the mystic energy that separates blood from Vitae)
  is transmuted into a spiritual essence, and the moment of that
  transmutation (that is, the moment of death) is an instant of
  sublime and miraculous power. In that moment, ev-
  erything about a person may be revealed. It is the only
  instant of true, naked honesty in the existence of any
  creature.
  When something dies, a residue of its living es-
  sence might remain in the body, like a fragment of
  the self left behind when the soul broke free
  of the form. The Osite Discipline of Me-
  mento Mori is an attempt to make use of
  that residue. With it, and centuries of oc-
  cult study, Osites hope to one day see the
  mechanisms of the universe and under-
  stand the mystical system God created.
  Parent Clan: Mekhet
  Nickname: Bone Monks
  Covenant: The Osites claim their lineage began in
  the catacombs beneath the Black Abbey, and most
  Bone Monks have been Sanctified since the Embrace.
  Many Osites can hardly be called devout members of
  the covenant, however, as they tend to visit the mini-
  mum observances necessary to maintain good standing
  in the parish and provide little of value to Anointed who
  have nothing to gain from their macabre studies. Individual Osites
  are often privately pious — most are deeply spiritual — but few
  Osites have an interest in the quality of faith held by other Sanc-
  tified. The parish, and the Invictus or Carthian authorities, may
  demand that a local Osite earn his keep by using his supernatural
  insight to investigate even mildly suspicious deaths in the do-
  main. Perhaps a Priest’s Herd has been thinned or a Primogen’s
  Retainer has been found dead and it is the Osite’s responsibility
  to label the death a crime or an accident — or prove it to be
  what the Prince has already labeled it.
  Osites tend to have fewer qualms than other Sanctified
  about dealing with pagan Kindred. They follow investigations
  and research wherever it leads, and are as fascinated by pagan
  perceptions of death as they are by Sanctified scripture. Over
  the centuries, a few Osites have chosen their occult studies
  over their dedication to Longinus and left the Sanctified for
  the ranks of the Acolytes or, more often, the Dragons. It’s
  more common for Osites to maintain secret ties with other
  covenants, however, rather than risk losing the protection of
  the Lancea Sanctum.
  Appearance: Most Osites care little for their appearance,
  appearing dirty and unkempt, whether in monks’ robes or
  modern dress. Some dress like gravediggers or sewer workers,
  
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  174
  others wear plastic aprons like a coroner or the tweed jacket of a college professor. Most Osites
  have given up on matters of fashion and style, though many are sociable and even pleasant. They
  appear as they are: fastidious scholars distracted from the Requiem by their obsession.
  All Osites are pale and discolored like a corpse, with dark stains in the fingers and feet, where their
  blood pools and settles. Many develop bluish lips and red, stiff eyes. They are clearly no longer living
  creatures. They do not rot, however, but remain forever in a state like that of the recently deceased.
  Haven: Most Osites make their havens near cemeteries, mortuaries, or historic catacombs and
  ossuaries. Osites don’t concern themselves with creature comforts, but do collect texts, bones,
  memento mori images and all manner of funerary artworks, from Mexican sugar skulls to Egyptian
  scarab pendants. An Osite’s haven is likely to be cluttered with photographs seemingly snapped at
  an autopsy, books on anthropology and medicine, morticians’ trade publications, medical examiner’s
  tools and other trappings of the macabre hobbyist. Wealthy or well-connected
  Bone Monks may have basement rooms with plenty of drainage for storing, ex-
  amining and interviewing the dead. The poorest Osites sleep in secret nooks
  and crawlspaces beneath funeral parlors or mausoleums.
  Background: It is a rare night when an Osite sires a vampire. Few
  mortals with a passion for death are willing to avoid it for eter-
  nity. Rather, most new Osites are drawn from the ranks of
  Mekhet Kindred who develop a fascination with death
  over the course of their own Requiems. Still, not many
  Osites have an interest in becoming the Avus for
  another vampire. The Bone Monks have little in-
  terest in, and less need to, expand their mem-
  bership or increase the number of Kindred
  who can practice the bloodline’s unique su-
  pernatural arts. The secrets an Osite uncov-
  ers are meant to satisfy his own spiritual pursuits
  and intellectual curiosities, not to grant the Lancea
  Sanctum some power over the dead.
  Character Creation: Osites favor Mental Attributes, al-
  most without exception. Wits is paramount, for an Osite
  must be perceptive, but Intelligence is also vital if he is to
  understand what he sees. Mental Skills such as Investiga-
  tion, Medicine and Occult are essential to an Osite’s stud-
  ies. Physical Skills get overlooked by most Osites, though
  some dots in Larceny and Stealth can aid a Bone Monk
  that plans on trespassing in morgues and graveyards. Osites
  may seek Contacts in funeral homes, cemeteries and hospitals
  throughout the city, or keep a Retainer to run errands for him
  among mortals. Remember that a character must have at least a
  second dot of Blood Potency to even be eligible for the bloodline.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Memento Mori, Obfuscate
  Weakness: Osites are touched by death, and it shows in their
  flesh and Vitae. Beyond the clan weakness of the Mekhet, which
  the Bone Monks have inherited, the corpses of these Kindred
  are slow to heal and quick to stagnate. The livid body of an Osite
  bruises like a corpse, even in undeath, darkening from even mi-
  nor bumps and scrapes. Blood pools in an Osite’s fingertips and
  feet when he stands upright and in his back when he
  lays sleeping, turning the flesh a sickly purple-
  black and making it difficult for the char-
  acter to stir his languid Vitae.
  
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  An Osite who wishes to spend Vitae in the current scene
  must first use one Vitae to excite and circulate his blood. This
  first Vitae cannot power any Disciplines or other powers of
  the blood — it only makes it possible for the character to
  spend Vitae as usual for the rest of the scene. An Osite also
  requires two Vitae to wake each night.
  An Osite character finds his body is sluggish to respond to
  the healing powers of Vitae. Unlike normal Kindred, an Osite
  heals only one point of bashing damage per Vitae spent; two
  Vitae are needed to heal a single point of lethal damage. Osites
  heal aggravated damage as other vampires do.
  Organization: Modern Osites don’t often organize outside
  whatever social structure is imposed on them by the covenant.
  The Bone Monks are so few and far between that little or no
  communication takes place between them anymore. Domains
  with more than one Osite are very rare. Those with more than
  two Osites have, in almost every case, been the home of a
  “chapter” (some say “cult”) of Bone Monks for hundreds of
  years; such domains are thought to exist only in Europe. The
  Bone Monks of such a relatively crowded parish have prob-
  ably been organized by the resident Bishop to serve some pur-
  pose for the covenant, perhaps searching catacombs for relics
  or researching some deathly rite of Theban Sorcery.
  Outside of the covenant hierarchy, Osites sometimes work
  together as mentor-and-student or researcher-and-assistant
  pairs. Historically, such relationships are intended to repay
  an Osite Avus for admitting a new Bone Monk into the line.
  In practice that’s certainly the case sometimes, but other Bone
  Monks work together for a short while (say, 10 or 15 years) to
  master the supernatural powers of Osite blood or investigate
  some larger mystery, such as a mass grave, a rash of hauntings
  or the motives of a serial killer.
  Concepts: Cynical EMT, deranged ER doctor, eager mor-
  tician, gravedigger, hospice nurse, medical examiner, obitu-
  ary writer, occult archaeologist.
  
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  Among certain circles of Kindred — especially among
  the Ordo Dracul of eastern Europe — the Nosferatu
  bloodline known as the Azerkatil are infamous and leg-
  endary: it is the bloodline bred to destroy Dracula.
  According to the Rites of the Dragon, when the
  Impaler returned to Castle Dracula around the year
  1475, he found Turkish vampires — which
  he called ghuls — residing there in the
  darkness. Those Kindred were Invictus
  from Adrianople, the
  Ottoman capitol of the
  Impaler’s time. They de-
  feated Dracula in battle
  that night, but in so doing
  stirred him to seek out
  more of their kind in Adrianople.
  Between 1475 and 1480 A.D., Dracula tracked, ob-
  served and studied the Turkish ghuls of Adrianople’s ba-
  zaars and palaces. Tonight, little is known of what pre-
  cisely Dracula learned of the Turkish Damned, but it
  seems clear that, from the end of the 15th century on-
  ward, some Kindred of the Ottoman Empire knew about
  him and, later, the Ordo Dracul. Tales of the vampire-
  dragon, Embraced by God, circulated throughout the
  Kindred courts of the Empire. Like dragons themselves,
  these stories grew longer and more fearsome over the
  years. They coiled together and slithered into tangled
  tales of venomous hate and bloody wrath.
  To protect the Kindred of the Ottoman Empire and
  confront the old enemy of the mortal Sultan, a handful
  of dedicated warriors and assassins gave their Requiems
  to the service of their undead caliph and succumbed to
  the mystic experiments of Turkish blood sorcerers. They
  became the first “Dragonslayers” — ghuls dedicated to
  the pursuit and elimination of the Wallachian demon
  known as Dracula.
  The Court of the Red Sultan
  In the nights of the 16th century, a powerful society of
  ghuls concerned with protecting Ottoman Kindred from
  outside threats, from occult menaces and from the hun-
  gry jaws of other vampires was operating in
  Constantinople. Not much remains of that society to-
  night —not much that is easy to find, at any rate. Mod-
  ern knowledge of that ghul faction exists primarily in the
  form of confused legends, badly weathered rumors and
  the hazy memories of the most ancient Azerkatil. In its
  This is the last night for one of us, I promise you.
  night, however, it was known as the Court of the Red
  Sultan (sometimes called the Blood Sultan), who may
  or may not have once been a Prince of Adrianople (to-
  night called Edirne). It seems likely that the Red
  Sultan was himself Invictus, but that his followers
  included sorcerers of an Islamic creed of the Lancea
  Sanctum and Acolytes of the Crone. The
  Red Sultan’s Court, it seems, was a kind of
  mystic guard for the Princes of Turkey
  — they practiced blood
  rituals and created
  ghoulish soldiers for the
  defense of the Damned of
  the Ottoman Empire.
  The Red Sultan himself
  was a paranoid occultist and brilliant
  thinker. In his time, he was renowned by his Court as a
  master of mathematics and science. He may even have
  been a sorcerer in his own right, and might have been
  the equivalent of the Bishop of Constantinople into the
  17th century. The Sultan vanishes from Kindred lore in
  the late 1600s, possibly falling into torpor as a result of
  his presumably considerable age. Without his leadership,
  his Court seems to have dissolved into smaller, compet-
  ing coteries of self-serving mystics.
  Legends of the Dragon
  It’s unclear tonight exactly when the Red Sultan first
  became aware of Dracula the Damned, but is easy to see
  that the Court had little first-hand contact with the
  Impaler. Rather, they were reacting to overblown tales
  of “the damned dragon, the Impaler returned from be-
  yond death.” It seems the Court believed Dracula to be
  a bloodthirsty monster more fearsome than common
  Kindred. One account written a Turkish Kindred of the
  16th century and discovered by the Ordo Dracul in
  Istanbul in 1924 describes Dracula as “a demon escaped
  from the Pit to drink the souls of the Damned in death
  as he did the blood of the living in life… he is as much
  vampire as devil.” They called him, simply, “the Dragon.”
  Some tales of the time claimed the Dragon could con-
  sume blood through his fingers, transform himself into a
  great serpent and breathe fire. Other stories depicted
  him as a skinless figure with two mouths that flew scream-
  ing through the night. His fingers, it was said, were like
  knives and his tongue was a venomous snake. His scream
  was thought to drive mortals and Kindred insane.
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  The Red Sultan and his sorcerers believed Dracula was
  creating an undead army in preparation for a bloody re-
  turn to Turkey and a conquest of the Ottoman Empire.
  They were terrified that the Impaler, who was mad in
  life, would be uncontrollable in undeath. They feared
  that Dracula — who might not be a vampire at all, but
  the recipient of some other unholy curse — would de-
  stroy the secrecy that kept the Kindred safe and plunge
  the Empire into a supernatural war.
  To save the Empire, and all Kindred, they created
  the Azerkatil.
  Fathers of the Dragonslayers
  The Red Sultan, unwilling to wait for the Dragon to
  come and threaten the Empire, demanded his sorcerers
  conceive a force of assassins to locate and destroy
  Dracula. In response, the Court experimented with many
  changes of the Blood, mystically altering the  Vitae of
  newly Embraced ghuls to create a breed of the Damned
  capable of facing off against the Dragon’s considerable
  powers. It’s impossible to know how many Kindred gave
  themselves up to the Court’s experiments and changed
  their blood at the order of the Sultan’s sorcerers.
  No Azerkatil knows the whole truth of the bloodline’s
  creation. It’s said that Kindred of every clan were sub-
  jected to arcane rituals to influence the properties of
  their blood. As desirable mystic traits emerged, the sub-
  jects were consumed — diablerized — by other vam-
  pires of the court. In time, the Sultan thought, the right
  collection of mystic qualities could be absorbed into the
  Vitae of a single vampire, and that vampire would be-
  come the progenitor of a new lineage of deathless assas-
  sins. In time, it seems, the Sultan was proved right.
  The blood of the Azerkatil contains mystic power
  drawn from the Vitae of an untold number of clans and
  short-lived bloodlines populated by lone vampires. The
  Azerkatil’s unique Discipline contains grains of power
  sifted from the diablerized souls of countless extinct
  bloodlines. The weakness of its blood comes, in part,
  from the last of the Court’s subjects, from the vampire
  that first manifested the change of Vitae that pleased
  the Sultan.
  The true founder of the Azerkatil bloodline is lost to
  history, however. All that is known of that mysterious
  ghul is that he or she was a Nosferatu, as the Red Sultan
  is believed to have been. Some Dragon historians specu-
  late that the Red Sultan himself was the Kindred who
  consumed the earlier subjects and became the father of
  the Dragonslayers.
  The secret sect of the first Dragonslayers was made up
  of mortal mercenaries, soldiers and assassins chosen by
  the Red Sultan and Embraced into the bloodline by two
  or three followers of the first Azerkatil Avus. Those first
  sires were not dispatched to Europe by the Sultan, and
  all the vampires who once knew the first Azerkatil are
  either asleep, destroyed or keeping quiet. The so-called
  First Dragonslayers are therefore not actually the first of
  the line at all. Rather, they are the original force of as-
  sassins assembled and dispatched by the Sultan in the
  16th century.
  The Name
  The name “Azerkatil” is something of a mystery itself.
  Half of the name seems to be the Turkish word katil,
  meaning “killer” or “murderer,” but the other half is
  unclear. The word azer meaning “fire” might be drawn
  from the Greek spoken throughout portions of western
  Turkey, but it’s just as likely that the name is some ab-
  struse invention of the Red Sultan. Historically, most
  Azerkatil refer to themselves simply as Dragonslayers in
  whatever language they like.
  THE RED SULTAN
  If the Red Sultan vanished in the late 1600s and
  reappeared tonight, in 2005, it might mean he’d
  laid torpid for almost 300 years. That suggests a
  Nosferatu of about Blood Potency 6 and with a
  Humanity of 2. If he really was the first Azerkatil,
  he probably has considerable control over the
  bloodline’s unique Discipline, Suikast. If he never
  became a Dragonslayer himself, perhaps he was
  a part of some other bloodline, and knew first-
  hand of the possibilities of willing changes into
  the Blood. If your chronicle is making use of the
  Vampire sourcebook Bloodlines: The Hidden,
  the Sultan might even be a member of the
  Rakshasa bloodline detailed in that book.
  Mission Against the Dragon
  The facts of the Dragonslayers’ mission are clouded
  by dreams of torpor. Every one of the Azerkatil that sur-
  vived the initial mission against the Dragon had gone
  into torpor by the 19th century as a result of mystic ritu-
  als and efforts of will to increase the potency of their
  blood. Most of the First Dragonslayers are still thought
  to be torpid tonight, though the exact number that sur-
  vived to the modern night is uncertain.
  The First Dragonslayers were dispatched from
  Constantinople to Europe over a period of roughly
  twenty years in the middle of the 16th century. None of
  the First Dragonslayers, therefore, knew exactly how
  many of their brethren had undertaken the mission
  against the Dragon with them. Six Dragonslayers, it’s
  rumored, set out on the first night, however, bound for
  Castle Dracula.
  The Dragonslayers’ mission was not simply to elimi-
  nate the Dragon, however. The Red Sultan needed to
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  know what terrible forces the Dragon was amassing and
  what other vampires might be conspiring with him. Thus
  the Azerkatil were meant to scour the land for all infor-
  mation available about Dracula and the rumored “Or-
  der of the Dragon.” If possible, the Azerkatil were to
  infiltrate the ranks of the Order and get close to its lead-
  ers. “Let the Dragon’s pulse dictate your hour to
  strike,” the Red Sul-
  tan was rumored to
  say. “Be patient, but
  do not hesitate.”
  It’s difficult to track
  the history of the Azerkatil
  during those early nights.
  Some modern Dragonslayers
  speculate that their forebears
  worked in small groups in the begin-
  ning, ambushing Dracula’s early fol-
  lowers and following blood trails back
  to the Order’s first chapter houses.
  Other Azerkatil enjoy the rumor that
  the great fire of Bucharest in 1595 was
  the result of a successful “dragon
  hunt.” At least one Dragonslayer was
  revealed in 1663 when she elimi-
  nated three masters of the Coils
  in Prague after studying with
  them for nearly twenty
  years. Most Dragonslayers,
  however, did not infil-
  trate the Order in such
  ways — most singled
  out and ambushed vic-
  tims they hoped would draw out more
  valuable targets.
  Chasing A Myth
  Inevitably, the Dragonslayers dis-
  covered the truth about the Ordo
  Dracul and came to see the hollow-
  ness of the Sultan’s fears. Some
  Dragonslayers realized the truth
  early on and abandoned their mis-
  sion. Most kept their doubts to
  themselves and continued to
  stalk the Ordo Dracul for decades,
  looking for the true threats be-
  hind their philosophizing and mys-
  tic experiments.
  By the end of the 16th century,
  however, with the Red Sultan
  gone and his Court splintering
  back in Constantinople, the
  mission against the Dragon
  had all but unraveled. The
  Dragonslayers, scattered
  throughout Europe and the Mediterranean, drifted away
  from their directive like boats cut loose from a pier.
  Eventually, most every Azerkatil had to accept the
  truth: Dracula was no demon. The Dragonslayers had
  given their Blood in pursuit of a myth. Their mission
  would never be complete.
  A few Azerkatil returned to Turkey in search of ven-
  geance against the
  paranoid fools of the
  Court, but most had
  become too disillusioned
  with their old masters to
  make the perilous journey back
  to Constantinople from Europe.
  In fact, more than a few of the
  Azerkatil turned to the Ordo Dracul
  for their futures. The assassins had good
  reason to pursue new changes in their
  blood, after all. With eternity sprawl-
  ing darkly before them, many
  Azerkatil were desperate to find a new
  reason to go on, a new way to take
  control of their destinies.
  Dragonslayers
  and the Ordo Dracul
  Looking back, it can seem
  strange that the Ordo
  Dracul would accept its
  enemies into its ranks. In
  practice, of course, there
  was never any meeting
  of the covenant in which it was de-
  cided that the Dragonslayers would
  be welcomed into the ranks of the
  Dragons. Surely a few Azerkatil
  continued to be enemies of the
  Dragons; certainly a few are to-
  night. The circumstances of
  each Dragonslayer’s entry into
  the covenant were unique,
  but it is an odd fact of his-
  tory that more than a few did
  become Dragons themselves
  — enough, at least, to inspire
  the generalization.
  For the Ordo Dracul, the
  Azerkatil are an obvious
  source of fascination. They
  embody, by chance, both
  the central philosophy
  and the central methods
  of the Order: change
  and experimentation.
  The Azerkatil exist as a
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  azerkatil
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  148
  result of Dracula’s journey to Adrianople — they are an
  effect of his Damnation, manifested miles away and years
  after the change made to his own existence. What’s more,
  their unique blood is the result of mystic experimenta-
  tion. In a way, the Dragonslayers are model Dragons.
  In the centuries since the First Dragonslayers disap-
  peared, the Azerkatil have come close to vanishing al-
  together. The First Dragonslayers were never intended
  to sire progeny, and indeed it seems the Red Sultan bred
  them to be a single generation of assassins, to prevent
  their prized blood from falling into the service of the
  Dragon. Still, enough Kindred have taken on the mantle
  of the Azerkatil to keep the bloodline in existence. The
  Order itself has facilitated this in some domains, to keep
  the line from dying out. Thus the Ordo Dracul can be
  seen to have adopted the Azerkatil, even though sev-
  eral of the world’s Dragonslayers continue to distrust and
  revile Dracula’s followers to this night.
  Parent Clan: Nosferatu
  Nickname: Dragonslayers. Some Slavic Kindred call
  them Traitors, however, for turning on their Turkish fa-
  thers. Some Turkish vampires call them the same.
  Covenant: Though the Azerkatil bloodline is most
  often associated with the Ordo Dracul tonight, Kindred
  of this lineage cannot truly be said to hold any one loy-
  alty in common. In truth, the Order was little more than
  the bloodline’s portal for passage into Western history.
  It’s through a quirk of fate that Dragonslayers are often
  thought of as members of the covenant they were cre-
  ated to destroy. It’s an oddity of the Dragons’ ancestral
  fascination that the Dragonslayers were accepted into
  the Order as products of Dracula’s time on Earth.
  The first Dragonslayers were agents, indirectly, of the
  Invictus of Turkey. Tonight, Azerkatil are still likely to
  pledge their Requiems to the service of some undead
  ruler, though their master is as likely to be Sanctified as
  Invictus. Indeed, it seems Dragonslayers have an innate
  hunger for servitude, for a master to protect or an en-
  emy to plot against. In this regard, an Azerkatil might
  become involved with any covenant by serving one of
  its leaders or figureheads.
  Appearance: The vast majority of Azerkatil come
  from Near Eastern blood, even tonight. As predators
  of predators, Dragonslayers project an unnaturally dan-
  gerous image to mortals and Kindred alike — they stare
  like hungry tigers through the bars of a cage. This ter-
  rible dread is only exaggerated by the Azerkatils’
  Nosferatu blood. Like the Nosferatu, no two
  Dragonslayers are exactly alike, but in this line a few
  features are common: inhumanly green eyes, widely
  spaced fangs, and spiny black hair.
  Haven: The earliest Dragonslayers were nomads,
  roaming eastern Europe in search of Dracula and his off-
  spring. In the nights since the first Azerkatil failed in
  their hunt, Dragonslayers have taken to nesting like any
  other Nosferatu. As a group, Azerkatil tend to place very
  little importance on personal comfort — many are ef-
  fectively homeless, finding new sunless holes to sleep in
  every few nights. Instinctually, Azerkatil prefer havens
  that are remote and difficult to locate over havens that
  are close to food or even difficult to outright penetrate;
  a Dragonslayer would rather not be found at all than be
  well defended.
  Background: If a stereotypical image of the Azerkatil
  exists, it is that of the first few encountered by the Ordo
  Dracul: adult Turkish men with several days’ worth of
  facial hair, powerful limbs and elaborate outfits befit-
  ting a courtly Ottoman assassin. Even tonight, the ma-
  jority of Azerkatil are thought to be males of Turkish,
  Greek, Israeli or Syrian descent. Most Azerkatil, from
  the 16th century to the 21st, come from the ranks of
  mortal soldiers and mercenaries. Some have formal mili-
  tary training, some have experience as guerilla troops,
  but few are thugs.
  Despite the stereotype, a large number of Azerkatil
  are (and were) women. Though very few Kindred be-
  come Dragonslayers anymore, it’s thought that more fe-
  male vampires than male joined the Azerkatil line in
  the 20th century. This new generation of Azerkatil re-
  flects the larger role female soldiers are playing through-
  out the world, and has brought new purpose to the line.
  They may change the perception of the bloodline from
  a directionless family of failed assassins to a tradition of
  devoted and deadly Archons in service of local Princes,
  like swords of Damocles.
  Character Creation: Physical Attributes are vital to
  a Dragonslayer, who must be able to outclass even the
  most formidable opponents in hand-to-hand combat if
  they’re unique Discipline is to come into play. Skills
  such as Weaponry and Brawl are obvious choices. Com-
  bative Merits, such as Weaponry Dodge and the Two
  Weapons Fighting Style suit their purposes, as well. But
  in the modern night, when experience with bladed
  weapons is rare, Azerkatil are just as likely to focus on
  the other iconic abilities of the bloodline: Skills like
  Stealth and Intimidation. The First Dragonslayers re-
  lied on well-crafted ambushes and surprise as much as
  martial prowess.
  Cunning, also, is vital to a Dragonslayer — dots in
  Wits describe an assassin that is alert and quick. Re-
  solve and Composure give the character the Will-
  power necessary to face fearsome elders and put the
  Beast to use.
  Many Dragonslayers have little use for high levels of
  City or Covenant Status, as recognition is seldom in
  their best interest. An Azerkatil is no less likely to learn
  a covenant’s unique Disciplines, however.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Nightmare, Obfuscate,
  Suikast, Vigor
  
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  azerkatil
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  Weakness: Azerkatil exude a similar disturbing, in-
  human presence as the Nosferatu, though the demeanor
  of the Dragonslayers is almost always one of menace and
  peril, like a calculating killer. Like other Nosferatu, the
  10-again rule does not apply to an Azerkatil’s dice pools
  based on Presence or Manipulation in social situations.
  Additionally, any 1’s that come up on a roll are sub-
  tracted from successes. (This latter part of the weakness
  does not affect dramatic failure rules.) This weakness
  does not apply to dice pools that involve the Intimida-
  tion Skill or the Composure Attribute.
  In addition to that inherited weakness, an Azerkatil
  character is hindered by the cold way he instinctually
  regards other vampires, like a killer waiting to strike. A
  Dragonslayer’s Humanity dots affect Empathy, Persua-
  sion and Socialize dice pools for interactions with other
  Kindred just as they affect interactions with mortals (see
  p. 185 of Vampire: The Requiem).
  Furthermore, the Dragonslayers were never intended
  to reproduce. Though modern Azerkatil can’t be sure
  how the Red Sultan instilled this weakness into the
  bloodline, its effects are undeniable. A Dragonslayer
  must expend two dots of Willpower, instead of just one,
  to Embrace a childe.
  Organization: Though many older Dragonslayers qui-
  etly wonder how things would have been if they’d slain
  their Dragon — imagining a proud domain of Azerkatil
  Sultans and triumphant Regents in the dark mountains
  of Romania — tonight there is virtually no larger orga-
  nization of Azerkatil. The majority of modern
  Dragonslayers dwell in domains with just one or two
  others of their kind, typically a sire, childer or Avus. Of
  those, a large number sulk in the shadows of old leg-
  ends, knowing little more about their Blood than the
  tales told by Dragon historians.
  Azerkatil are typically placed in one of two categories:
  the First Dragonslayers, and all others. Those first fearless
  Dragon-hunters are seen by many modern Azerkatil as he-
  roic father-figures, despite their failure to slay the Dragon.
  If any of them remain tonight, they may lay torpid beneath
  the earth somewhere, intending to resume the hunt for
  Dracula when he returns to prowl the land again. They, no
  doubt, will have little love for the Azerkatil that spawned
  in their absence, against the intent of the Red Sultan.
  Concepts: Assassin who has outlasted all his foes, as-
  sassin-for-hire, bodyguard, deserter from an undead army,
  Kindred terrorist, martyr-in-training, monster hunter,
  Ottoman Empire special forces soldier, reformed killer.
  
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  dragolescu
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  Don’t be so judgmental. The sins you speak of were our  —  pardon me, my  —  ancestor’s.
  The Dragolescu bloodline was very im-
  portant within the Ordo Dracul for a brief
  time. It emerged as a line of modern
  nobility, intelligent, forthright and
  bold. The advances of their founder
  into the realms of the dead and his
  ability to communicate with and
  make use of human ghosts provided
  the basis for much of what the cov-
  enant knows about modern haunts
  and Wyrm’s Nests associated with
  death. But the bloodline fell from
  grace in the middle of the 20th cen-
  tury, and now the name Dragolescu
  has come to be synonymous with syco-
  phancy, name-dropping and the unforgivable
  sin of self-enslavement to otherworldly spirits.
  A Traveler from the East
  Ioan Dragolescu, the bloodline’s founder, changed his
  name to John T. Darlington when he arrived in London
  in 1884. The story of his Embrace is strange. Ioan was a
  Romanian doctor fleeing his native lands for reasons he
  has never fully explained (but given that his interest in
  communing with and enslaving the dead by his own ad-
  mission before his Embrace, that might have had some-
  thing to do with it). While on the ship, Ioan met a vam-
  pire of Clan Ventrue who had once been a member of the
  Ordo Dracul, and was, like Ioan, fleeing from retribution.
  A storm blew the ship off course and the two of them
  commiserated and found common ground on a number
  of points, not the least of which was “modern” medicine
  as applied to theosophical and metaphysical problems.
  Ioan’s sire, whom he swore never to name, decided that
  while he himself was a poor fit for the Ordo Dracul, this
  young physician would be perfect. Since the Ventrue had
  left his old life behind, he suggested that Ioan undergo
  the Embrace and begin his unlife in London. Ioan agreed,
  and rose the following night as one of the Kindred.
  With his sire’s help, Ioan Dragolescu, now John Darlington,
  sought out the Dragons of London and easily passed their
  tests of membership. He particularly excelled in the Coil of
  Blood, learning all three tiers within a decade. In 1895,
  Sigmund Freud’s work inspired him to rethink the way the
  Ordo had been approaching their methods of teaching, and
  Darlington became one of the first Dragons to incorporate
  psychoanalysis into preparations for chrysalises.
  His experiments with these methods didn’t last
  long, however (although his psychological
  work did receive a number of follow-
  ers, and the “Darlington Methods”
  of preparing for learning the Coil
  of the Soul is still popular tonight).
  In 1897, the publication of Bram
  Stoker’s novel Dracula threw the
  covenant and Kindred society in
  general, particularly in England,
  into an uproar. John Darlington was
  known to London’s Kindred as a
  wealthy Ventrue who chose research
  and scholarly pursuits over covenant is-
  sues, — for at the time, the Ordo Dracul was
  more a secret society than a covenant. Follow-
  ing publication of Stoker’s novel, however, the Ordo
  Dracul was revealed for what it was and any “unaligned”
  Kindred came under close scrutiny. Darlington decided
  that the direct approach was safest, and announced to
  the vampiric community that he was a Dragon.
  The Ordo Dracul’s leadership in London had mixed
  feelings about this admission. On the one hand,
  Darlington was a respected membership of the undead
  community and a promising student. On the other, he
  was cocky and bold, and worse, he was a neonate (if a
  talented one). Gossip in London seemed to indicate that
  Darlington was either going to greet a sunrise soon or
  was going to receive a promotion within the Ordo
  Dracul. His next announcement clinched the decision.
  Blood of My Blood
  “Over the last few years, I have carefully researched
  my own mortal lineage,” explained Darlington in let-
  ters sent to key members of the Ordo Dracul and the
  Invictus in London. “As some of you know, I am not
  born of England, much though I have come to love her
  in my time here. My native land is that of Stoker’s
  whimsical fable, and indeed, in my living veins ran the
  blood of Vlad Dracula himself. I am a direct descendant
  of his line, and I am proud to claim membership in both
  his family and the covenant that he founded. The name
  I was born to is Ioan Dragolescu, and that is the name I
  shall use in Kindred circles henceforth.”
  Darlington wisely went underground for a short period
  of time following this announcement, to avoid any hasty
  action on any other vampire’s part. The Ordo Dracul and
  
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  the Invictus both researched his claim and found that he
  was, in fact, correct. The Dragolescu family was descended
  from a peasant family that Dracula had elevated to noble
  status in 1457 after fathering a bastard with one of their
  daughters. The blood claim was weak, but true, and this
  left the Ordo Dracul wondering again what to do about
  John Darlington/Ioan Dragolescu.
  WHY INVICTUS?
  Historians sometimes wonder why Darlington
  sent his letter to the Invictus as well as his own
  covenant. The Invictus, after all, was probably the
  most powerful covenant in London, and could
  easily have covered up the information in the
  letter and slain Darlington. The simple answer is
  that he wanted two opposing factions (the Ordo
  Dracul and the First Estate) to see his claims —
  but then why not involve the Lancea Sanctum or
  the Circle of the Crone?
  The answer is that Darlington knew of the
  Invictus’ penchant for placing importance on
  blood ties. While normally their interest rests
  largely with vampiric rather than mortal lineage,
  a claim of kinship with Dracula (who, remember,
  was much on the minds of Kindred at the time)
  was a claim the Invictus had to investigate, both
  as governors and as aristocrats. The remarkable
  thing about Darlington’s decision wasn’t that he
  chose to involve the First Estate, but that he
  trusted Invictus genealogists to tell the truth about
  their findings.
  The Restless Dead
  In 1901, a few nights after Queen Victoria died, Ioan
  Dragolescu came out of hiding and reentered vampire so-
  ciety. Apart from using his real name among vampires
  (though he kept his “John Darlington” handle for use when
  dealing with mortals), very little about him seemed to have
  changed. Upon returning to London, he immediately gath-
  ered a coterie of Kindred familiar with the spirits of the
  dead and began research into the mysteries of ghosts.
  Why the sudden interest in spirits? In actuality, it
  wasn’t sudden. Dragolescu had always found ghosts fas-
  cinating, but, like most Kindred, he possessed little fa-
  cility for dealing with them himself. After the whirl-
  wind of activity surrounding his lineage and the expo-
  sure of the Ordo Dracul had died down somewhat, how-
  ever, he made these spirits his primary focus. During his
  time in hiding (which he claimed was spent in Ireland),
  he received a visit from a ghost of a vampire victim.
  Fascinated by the notion that Kindred the world over
  had been creating ghosts for time immemorial, he de-
  cided that these restless shades might carry information
  crucial to the transcendence of the undead.
  The Kindred he assembled were of various ages and cov-
  enants, but all shared some experience and knowledge about
  ghosts. On the night of their first meeting, Dragolescu put
  forth his notion that the departed could act as teachers and
  perhaps servants to the undead, a notion that at least one
  of the Kindred present (a Daeva belonging to the Lancea
  Sanctum) found offensive. As she turned to leave, a dis-
  embodied hand, glowing a luminous shade of blue, appeared
  in the air and gestured for her to return to her seat. Un-
  nerved yet inspired by this event, the Kindred took the
  name “the Blue Hand Coterie” thereafter.
  During the years following, the Blue Hand participated
  in séances and exorcisms as often as it could. It was dur-
  ing this period that Dragolescu put forth his theories of
  Essentiaphagia or “soul eating,” which would later evolve
  into a Discipline of the same name. The Blue Hand in-
  vestigated hauntings all over the British Isles and some-
  times even ventured to mainland Europe, but for the most
  part remained focused on London. Members left, fell into
  torpor or met Final Death, of course, but others joined as
  well, including Dragolescu’s first childe, an Irish medium
  named Bridget Derry. The coterie reached 16 members
  in December of 1913, and on the winter solstice that year,
  Ioan Dragolescu once again shocked the Kindred world.
  The Blue Hand Massacre
  Sixteen Kindred and five mortals entered Dragolescu’s
  home outside of London on the night of December 21, 1913.
  Included among the Kindred were the two remaining origi-
  nal members of the Blue Hand (one of whom was the Daeva
  who had triggered the appearance of the hand), Dragolescu
  himself and Bridget Derry. The other 12 Kindred were mostly
  neonates, some of the Ordo Dracul and some of other cov-
  enants, but all of whom had aided Dragolescu in finding and
  cataloging ghosts. The mortals were “sensitives” and medi-
  ums, and all were there under duress.
  Over the course of the night, Dragolescu used methods
  of torture and execution designed and perfected by his in-
  famous ancestor to murder the five mortals. Two of the five
  remained as ghosts. Dragolescu then used a heretofore-un-
  seen Discipline to control and draw power from these shades
  and immobilize the non-Ventrue Kindred present (six of
  those present were Lords). These Ventrue then committed
  diablerie upon their prisoners, each one consuming the souls
  of two of the helpless captives. Dragolescu himself com-
  mitted the foul crime three times in one night.
  Not all of the Ventrue present that night came through
  intact, of course. Two of them went mad, and were de-
  stroyed the following dawn. The others, though, pledged
  themselves to Dragolescu and became part of his new blood-
  line. “The dead shall bow before us, nourish us, guide us
  and provide for us,” Dragolescu reportedly said before fall-
  ing into slumber that morning. “The Coils of the Dragon
  begin with flesh, progress to blood and end with souls.”
  Needless to say, there were repercussions.
  
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  Diablerie is a violation of the Traditions and invites ret-
  ribution from several quarters, but Dragolescu and his con-
  spirators had thought ahead on that point. The Kindred
  whom they chose to diablerize had no childer and their
  sires were either dead or hadn’t been heard from in de-
  cades. Dragolescu knew that he couldn’t get away with
  his crimes forever, but hoped to forestall the con-
  sequences until he and his bloodline had the
  support of the Ordo Dracul. In that he was
  successful. The more important cost of his
  action was to his mind and soul.
  The Ventrue are no stranger to mad-
  ness. Dragolescu, by the time of the
  Blue Hand Massacre, was already suf-
  fering from delusions of grandeur and
  mild paranoia. His triple diablerie
  made his blood powerful and granted
  him facility in Disciplines he had pre-
  viously never known, but it also wors-
  ened his already wavering sanity. Fol-
  lowing the Massacre, Dragolescu began
  referring to himself in plural. At first, other Kin-
  dred thought this to be a form of royal “we,” but
  it soon became clear that Dragolescu actually
  believed that he was more than one being.
  Members of his bloodline adopted this quirk as
  well, but only after they had achieved some
  proficiency in Dragolescu’s new Discipline.
  Worse still, the Dragolescu discovered that
  their minds were never at rest. Plagued by
  knowledge of the afterlife and (for those who
  emerged from the Blue Hand Massacre) by
  the remnants of the souls they had con-
  sumed, they could not take solace from a
  day of sleep or even a sense of achieving
  a goal. Ad infinitum became the
  bloodline’s watchwords, and no accom-
  plishment, no victory, no discovery
  would ever satisfy them again. It was
  this attitude that earned the blood-
  line the nickname of “the Restless.”
  The new bloodline’s members
  spent several weeks after the Massa-
  cre consolidating their forces and
  continuing their research. One of
  them, though records are unclear
  as to which one, sired a childe dur-
  ing this time as well. The childe
  fled London in a panic after an
  “incident” at a haunt, and noth-
  ing more is known of her, in-
  cluding whether or not her
  Dragolescu heritage ever
  came to the fore.
  Dragolescu met with London’s
  Kogaion, and the two of them spent four
  full nights in conversation. When they
  emerged, that Kogaion met with mem-
  bers of the Sworn of all three Orders, and
  after much deliberation (during which
  Dragolescu and his followers were kept
  under “house arrest,” probably to pro-
  tect them), decided that Dragolescu’s
  previous and ongoing contributions
  to the Ordo Dracul were enough to
  balance the crimes he and his fol-
  lowers had committed. The cov-
  enant provided protection to the
  Restless, in some cases promising
  the rest of Kindred society that
  they would handle punishment
  internally. The First World War,
  of course, probably acted to dis-
  tract Kindred in England from
  the matter of Dragolescu, and
  some have even postulated
  that he might have somehow
  sensed the turmoil to come
  and chosen the date for the
  Blue Hand Massacre based
  upon that sense.
  Had Dragolescu made
  public appearances after that
  point, he probably wouldn’t
  have survived. By his own admis-
  sion, though, he was finished with
  playing the political games of Kin-
  dred society, stating that they could
  never be resolved and their players
  would learn nothing. He and his
  bloodline had other concerns.
  During the 1920s and 1930s, the
  Dragolescu bloodline made great ad-
  vances in the Ordo Dracul’s understand-
  ing of ghosts and haunts. The Restless
  corresponded with Kogaions and Kin-
  dred scholars across Europe and in the
  United States. Dragolescu stayed in Lon-
  don, but wrote frequent letters to mem-
  bers of his bloodline in his native Roma-
  nia. Some of those letters survive, and ex-
  press a deep-seated longing to return:
  ”We dream again of Romania, of our
  home and our mortal family. Decades since
  we died, and yet we are still only ancilla in
  the eyes of the Kindred. The other Kindred
  can rest, but they are single beings, one
  body and one soul. We are many…
  
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  chapter four
  ”Is it possible to return? Does anything exist outside of London,
  outside our adopted country? Does the Thames lead anywhere,
  do the ships that leave port ever arrive at their destinations?
  ”Is Romania, then, our home? Or have we always been here?
  No, Romania exists and is our home, for we are descended
  from Him, from Vlad the Impaler. Such ghosts he must have
  created. Such restlessness there in the land of our birth.”
  The Beginning of the End
  No matter what his feelings about his homeland,
  Dragolescu did not leave England. In 1933, Dragolescu re-
  ceived a number of guests, most of them members of the
  Ordo Dracul, at his home in London. It was the first time
  since the Blue Hand Massacre that he had allowed Kin-
  dred other than those of his bloodline into his house, and
  certainly those present felt a great deal of trepidation. Ru-
  mors about a repeat of the Massacre flew, but Dragolescu
  made his plans very public, assuring the Kindred in power
  that he had no intention of harming any of his guests.
  Whether or not that was true will never be known. Over
  the course of the night, Dragolescu claims, the voices of
  the spirits around him grew in volume until he could no
  longer hear those physically present. He called upon his
  fellow Restless to enact rituals to rid the area of spirits so
  that he could think straight, and then explained what he
  had seen. He claimed that the Dragon was rising, and
  that as before, he would lay waste to his country and slay
  a multitude. This time, however, he would use the “breath
  of the Dragon,” rather than his claws. None of the as-
  sembled Kindred had any idea what this could mean, in-
  cluding Dragolescu himself. As the decade wore on, how-
  ever, the meaning became horribly clear.
  The Second World War was hard on England’s Kin-
  dred. With so many of England’s mortal sons fighting,
  the vampires of the Isles had trouble feeding. Many Kin-
  dred sank into torpor rather than take the chance of
  being bombed or starved. Dragolescu, however, was more
  alert than he had been in ages. He followed Germany’s
  progress doggedly, and actually had to be discouraged
  from traveling east to visit the country himself. (His
  bloodline felt that his desire to do so wasn’t entirely ra-
  tional and would end in disaster.) As the war progressed,
  Dragolescu’s dreams became filled with images of poi-
  son, starvation and death, and he quietly supposed that
  Hitler was the rebirth of Dracula and that all other na-
  tions would fall before the Reich.
  Needless to say, this attitude wasn’t popular among the
  Kindred of England. His own covenant warned him to
  keep his opinions about Hitler to himself. Expressing sup-
  port for Hitler was insane enough, but any statement that
  could link the Nazis with the Ordo Dracul on an ideo-
  logical level invited reprisals from other covenants and
  mystic societies, and the Dragons themselves. Dragolescu
  protested that he was not a Nazi and, in fact, didn’t care
  one way or another about Hitler’s racial or political pro-
  paganda. He was only concerned with the effect Hitler’s
  actions would have on the ghostly population of the world;
  for much as Dracula had done in the 15th century, Hitler
  was on the verge of wiping out a significant percentage of
  his country’s citizens. In the end, however, Dragolescu
  agreed to keep quiet, stating that “the end will come to
  pass no matter if we are silenced, and the unquiet spirits
  will serve us as we strive towards infinity.” By then, though,
  several of the influential Kindred of London, and of En-
  gland as a whole, knew the name of Ioan Dragolescu, and
  equated it both with the Ordo Dracul and with the fas-
  cism of Nazi Germany.
  The Sworn of Mysteries and the Sworn of the Axe no-
  ticed this, and began keeping a very close eye on Dragolescu.
  The Dragon Falls
  In April of 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. A
  week later, Germany surrendered. Dragolescu, listening
  as his adopted country celebrated the demise of his hero,
  lost the few remaining shreds of humanity and sanity
  that he possessed.
  A month later, Dragolescu began a ritual designed to
  make his undead body the conduit for every ghost mur-
  dered during Hitler’s regime. He felt that with that much
  spiritual power at his command, he could give some new
  purpose to the millions of dead, salvage some new power
  from the ashes of Europe and, in the process, become
  what Hitler could not. Whether or not it would have
  worked is unknown. Kindred of the Ordo Dracul
  swooped down upon Dragolescu’s home as the ritual built
  in power, razing the building and destroying his notes.
  Dragolescu faced a trial by the Sworn of Mysteries.
  His crime was subjugating himself to the spirits, which
  carried a penalty of destruction. During the trial it be-
  came clear to Dragolescu that he had no way of success-
  fully fighting the charge. He had made his bloodline a
  scapegoat, and for all he had contributed, the Ordo
  Dracul would never trust the Dragolescu bloodline again.
  Dragolescu issued a prediction to the court on August 7,
  1945. He stated that a member of his bloodline would
  one night arise to complete the ritual he had begun, and
  become the unliving embodiment of all of world’s un-
  quiet dead. That day, awaiting sentencing, Dragolescu
  somehow immolated himself, possibly with the help of
  one or more ghosts.
  The Dragolescu Tonight
  The Dragolescu bloodline, however, was too valu-
  able to the Ordo Dracul to exterminate. Their facil-
  ity with ghosts and haunts makes them superb “blood-
  hounds,” and members of the bloodline tend to be
  sent to cities with large numbers of reported
  hauntings. The stigma of their founder’s madness and
  devotion to Hitler’s Germany has stuck with the
  bloodline, however. While Kindred outside of the
  
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  154
  Ordo Dracul have rarely even heard of the Dragolescu,
  those inside the covenant call them “Pretenders,” and
  usually claim that their Essentiaphagia Discipline is
  nothing more than a specialized form of Auspex that
  allows communication with ghosts. This misconcep-
  tion suits the Dragolescu just fine, as they are still
  trying to live down their founder’s actions.
  The Dragolescu are ambitious and driven, but, like
  Ioan himself, most of them are overly focused on the
  spiritual and ignore temporal realities as much as pos-
  sible. As such, the Ordo Dracul finds them useful when
  dealing with spirits, but almost never includes them in
  diplomatic coteries. Modern Dragolescu sometimes feel
  cheated by Ioan’s actions, and many search for a way to
  redeem their line in the eyes of their covenant. Despite
  all that has happened, the Dragolescu are extremely loyal
  to the Dragons, and still take extreme pride in their
  founder’s relationship to Dracula.
  Parent Clan: Ventrue
  Nickname: Formerly the Restless, now Pretenders
  Covenant: Despite their travails, the Dragolescu are
  for the most part still loyal the Ordo Dracul. What few
  remain usually become spiritual bloodhounds for the
  covenant, seeking out haunts and ghosts — under strict
  supervision, of course. Occasionally, a Ventrue from an-
  other covenant, usually the Circle of the Crone, joins
  the bloodline. The Invictus of some domains welcomes
  members of this bloodline, if they can verify their lin-
  eage back to Ioan Dragolescu. Why the First Estate is
  willing to accept the Pretenders is unknown.
  Appearance: The Dragolescu are born of nobility,
  and, being a Ventrue bloodline, many of them are ac-
  quainted with high society. Their attire tends to be
  slightly dressier than appropriate for most occasions,
  and is often somewhat outdated, in favor of fashions
  from the 1940s and 1950s. Since Dragolescu are so of-
  ten in motion, they tend to favor clothing that holds
  up to travel and activity well — something they can
  wear while kneeling in soot.
  Very few non-Caucasian Pretenders exist, but this
  is more a result of the bloodline’s European location
  of origin than of any racial preference. Non-Cauca-
  sian Dragolescu are still likely to be English or other-
  wise European.
  Haven: Unlike some Ventrue, the Dragolescu don’t
  tend toward lavish havens. Spacious, yes, especially if
  the Pretender in question is in the habit of creating
  ghosts rather than simply using them. But since the
  Dragolescu don’t rest easily, they don’t spend much time
  actually in their havens (again, unless engaged in re-
  search). A Pretender’s haven is likely to be sparsely
  furnished but overflowing with books, notes and spiri-
  tualism paraphernalia, and might either be meticulously
  ordered or so cluttered that only the owner could pos-
  sibly make sense of it.
  Background: The Dragolescu Embrace almost exclu-
  sively from the ranks of mortals who have some affinity
  for sensing, communicating with or even controlling
  ghosts. The Essentiaphagia Discipline is much easier to
  master if the practitioner instinctively understands some
  of the truths about spirits, after all. The Pretenders aren’t
  as particular as their parent clan about Embracing from
  high society, but they do prefer people educated in clas-
  sics, literature, folklore, history and the occult, which
  aren’t exactly blue-collar pursuits.
  Ventrue outside of the bloodline may join, but the
  Ordo Dracul regulates this very carefully. Only those
  Ventrue who are judged to be strong enough to handle
  the restlessness and mental rigor of the bloodline are
  allowed to become Dragolescu. Ventrue who do often
  take “Darlington” as a middle name as a nod of respect
  to their new family.
  Character Creation: Mental Attributes are usually
  primary, but Physical or Social might be secondary, de-
  pending on the approach of a given Pretender. Skills
  depend on the background of the Kindred in question,
  but every Dragolescu has some rating in Academics,
  Investigation and Occult (thus Mental Skills are usu-
  ally primary). Mental Merits are appropriate, though
  Social Merits tend to dry up quickly, given the bloodline’s
  reputation in the Ordo Dracul. Remember that a sec-
  ond dot of Blood Potency is necessary to be a member of
  any bloodline.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Dominate,
  Essentiaphagia, Resilience
  Weakness: Dragolescu suffer the Ventrue clan
  weakness (-2 penalty to Humanity rolls to avoid
  acquiring derangements after failing a degenera-
  tion roll). In addition, the Dragolescu know that
  the soul is eternal. Far from giving them hope,
  however, this knowledge wears on them, grinding
  their souls down as they face the prospect of eter-
  nity without rest or succor. Dragolescu characters
  cannot regain Willpower in any other way than
  by fulfilling their Virtue or Vice. They do not re-
  gain Willpower through rest, accomplishing goals
  or even at the end of a story.
  Organization: The seat of Dragolescu power, such as
  it is, still rests in London. Despite the fact that the
  bloodline founder was Romanian by birth, the blood-
  line thinks of itself as undeniably English. Beyond that,
  a city with a Dragolescu presence typically also has a
  greater-than-average number of haunts. The Ordo
  Dracul keeps very close track of the Pretenders, how-
  ever, never sure if or when Ioan Dragolescu’s last pre-
  diction will come to pass.
  Concepts: Blue Hand apologist, detective, disgraced
  Ventrue scion, genealogist, ghost hunter, ghost wran-
  gler, haunt architect, horror writer, medium, prophet,
  student to the Kogaion.
  dragolescu
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  bloodlines and factions
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  Libitinarius
  ”Now sleep the sleep of kings, my lord, and be reborn.”
  The Libitinarius bloodline began as a mortal
  cult hidden behind the scenes of University
  College in the 1880s. It is a manifesta-
  tion of Europe’s renewed scholarly in-
  terest in classical art and culture in
  the late 19th and early 20th centu-
  ries. The so-called Morticians
  have successfully resurrected an-
  cient mortuary rituals and
  funerary magic through the mys-
  tic properties of the Blood. To-
  night, Libitinarius Kindred are
  the undertakers and funeral
  priests of the Damned, preparing
  the corpses and spirits of vampires
  for the long deathlike sleep of torpor.
  In 1884, a wealthy and idle Englishman
  named Ivor Gardner began funding the harmless
  ritual ceremonies of a few overenthusiastic classics
  professors of University College in London. Originally,
  the ceremonies were little more than a colorful way
  of paying respects to the ancient peoples the profes-
  sors were studying every day. Due to their interest in
  religion in the Ptolemaic era, the professors centered
  many of their rituals on Serapis, a composite god com-
  bining elements of Osiris, the Apis bull of Memphis
  and various other Hellenistic deities. The ceremonies
  were secret only because the professors were embar-
  rassed to be spending their time singing in Latin and
  reciting Egyptian “spells.”
  With the addition of Gardner’s interest and money,
  however, the monthly ceremonies became more and
  more elaborate. Before long, Gardner was bringing other
  visitors and guests with him and the ceremonies had
  become something more akin to costume parties. The
  ceremonies were kept secret if only because exclusivity
  is attractive.
  In October of 1885, however, Ivor Gardner died at
  just 44 years of age. In his will, Gardner indicated his
  desire to be buried by his professorial friends in a suit-
  able ancient ceremony. In exchange, he left a consider-
  able fortune to the “secret society of Serapis.” In honor
  of Gardner, the professors buried him according to the
  funeral customs of the Roman goddess of corpses, death
  and funerals — Libitina. Somehow, between the richly
  funded grandeur of the ceremony and the real pathos of
  the participants, the motives of the attendees
  changed. By 1886, the ceremonial club that had
  jokingly called itself the “society of Serapis”
  had become a cult of Libitina.
  In 1888, the cult drew the attention
  of a corpse. One of the original cer-
  emonialist professors, Dr. Henry
  Weeks, was a ghoul in service to a
  vampire of the Ordo Dracul. Weeks
  provided his master with access to
  the university’s library and facilities,
  and Weeks’ master provided him
  with Vitae and tales from ancient
  Kindred. After learning of the cult,
  Weeks’ master slowly insinuated him-
  self into the cult as a figurehead and idol… and
  revealing himself as a vampire to the cultists.
  Pairing the resources of the mortal professors and the
  Ordo Dracul, the cult became a formidable collection
  of minds and texts. The cult and the Dragons, through
  Weeks, cultivated knowledge of Ptolemaic religious prac-
  tices and spells of the ancient world. Due to the unnatu-
  ral needs of the Dragons and the funerary expertise of
  the cultists, the focus of the group’s occult studies re-
  mained on Greek and Roman interpretations of Egyp-
  tian mortuary magic. The beginnings of the Mortualia
  Discipline were coming together in those nights, and
  Weeks and his master knew it.
  By 1891, Kindred of other covenants were also inter-
  acting with London’s cult of Libitina. Not long after,
  the question of the Embrace was brought up again and
  again among the living and the undead of the cult. In
  1892, Weeks was Embraced by his master for the pur-
  poses of taking over as the “risen mouthpiece for the
  dead” within the cult. Shortly thereafter, Weeks over-
  saw the performance of an ancient Greco-Roman fu-
  neral ritual held for the benefit of his aged sire. Using
  artifacts and incantations gathered over the past few
  years, the cult of Libitina prepared the body of Weeks’
  sire for its long sleep — for torpor. The climax of the
  ceremony was the casting of an Egyptian funeral spell
  and the accidental destruction of the ancient urn on
  which it was inscribed.
  Something went wrong. Weeks and the other Drag-
  ons couldn’t explain precisely what might have hap-
  pened, but the broken relic and the spoken spell did
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  156
  produce a magical effect of some kind. The magic of
  the spell was infused into the blood of Weeks — the
  only non-torpid vampire at the ceremony — and trans-
  formed his love for his sleeping sire, his tangible Dam-
  nation and his intangible hope for the future into an
  potent new mixture of the Blood, which Weeks held
  onto with all his will — he refused to let the power of
  the spell in his blood “separate” or thin. Within a year
  of his Embrace, Weeks had become the founder of a
  new bloodline. It was a remarkable achievement for a
  young vampire, and suggested that Weeks had an in-
  tuitive understanding of the Blood and an incredible
  understanding of the mortuary magic he had studied
  for so many years.
  Weeks named his bloodline “Libitinarius,” after the
  Libitina-worshipping morticians of the classical world.
  By 1911, he’d gathered a small circle of fellow Morti-
  cians around him, drawn from the ranks of both the
  Order and the university. Weeks completed his explora-
  tion of the Mortualia Discipline in 1901 and began to
  guide his fellow Morticians in its use soon after.
  Tonight, Weeks continues to practice the art of
  Mortualia at the behest Princes and Regents through-
  out England and Europe.
  Cult of Libitina
  Such is the story shared by the Libitinarii, at least.
  More than a few of Weeks’ fellow Dragons suspect it’s
  fiction, invented by Weeks and his absent master for
  the purpose of getting the artifacts and texts they
  wanted altogether in one place. An investigation per-
  formed by a London Dragon in 1954 turned up suspi-
  ciously little evidence of any professor named Weeks
  working at University College during the time of
  Weeks’ tale. In 1978, an Acolyte occultist and histo-
  rian in Rome found evidence of Kindred “torpor buri-
  als” from the 11th century that make use of many trap-
  pings of the Libitinarius line — Roman-styled canopic
  jars for storing Vitae, etched incantations and “wak-
  ing charms” with many similarities to those used in
  modern Mortualia.
  How is it possible that Weeks became the sire of a
  bloodline so soon after his Embrace? How is it possible
  that he gained mastery over the powers of his Blood so
  quickly? Was it really the result of an “ancient incanta-
  tion?” Some of the scientific minds within the Order
  remain skeptical. Occam’s Razor suggests a simpler al-
  ternative story is more likely: Weeks is a liar.
  Except for a core group of loyal followers, Weeks’ tale
  was witnessed only by mortals (now dead) and the tor-
  pid body of his mysterious master (who has not yet awak-
  ened). No impartial participants remain to corroborate
  the account tonight. How much of it is misremembered
  nostalgia? How much of it is outright fiction? How much
  of it is true?
  Buried
  It is more likely, say the skeptics, that the Libitinarius
  bloodline is old — even ancient — and that Weeks
  and his absent master (if he truly exists) were among
  the last of their kind. Perhaps Weeks was already a
  member of the bloodline when he came upon the So-
  ciety of Serapis. Perhaps Weeks even orchestrated the
  very formation of the society and the subsequent cult
  of Libitina to create a flock of followers and win the
  bloodline some temporal power.
  Kindred scholars of various covenants have speculated
  that the mystic aspects of the Blood may lay dormant in
  childer for generations, as the echoes of power from a
  distant sire. Though the childer may not activate the
  power of the Blood within themselves, it may yet be
  passed on to grandchilder. Thus, even centuries after a
  bloodline dies out, it might be resurrected when a dis-
  tant descendant transforms his Vitae and his Requiem
  into a sanguine mixture like that of his ancestors’. Per-
  haps it’s possible that Weeks’ story was essentially true
  when it first happened centuries (or even millennia) ago
  in Rome or Alexandria.
  THE IMAGINARY VAMPIRE
  The grimmest and most dramatic of the
  Libitinarius conspiracy theories suggests that Weeks’
  sire is a figment of his imagination, given some
  semblance of existence in the minds of his followers
  through the powers of Dominate. Some of Weeks’
  tales suggest his sire was so ancient, and had so many
  names, that his “real name” had become
  meaningless. Practitioners of Dominate could see
  that as a way to cover for the inconsistencies of
  altered memories. Scholars of Egyptian theology and
  the occult could speculate that a being without a
  “true name” does not truly exist.
  –
  On the other hand, perhaps Weeks needed to create a
  cover story to protect himself, his sire or the bloodline
  itself. What if the true origin of the Libitinarius blood-
  line was rooted in some dark crime, such as diablerie?
  Perhaps the first Libitinarius was altered by the blood of
  a mage or other supernatural creature? Perhaps the se-
  crets of Mortualia were dug up from some vampiric tomb
  that Weeks wants to keep to himself?
  Whatever the truth, the Order has not yet had suf-
  ficient reason to challenge Weeks’ story. For a cen-
  tury, Weeks has been a loyal, if shy, member of the
  covenant and an aid to its allies. Though some among
  the Sworn continue to keep watch on the Morticians,
  their scrutiny has been applied with exquisite patience
  for 50 years and isn’t likely to change until some new
  libitinarius
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  156
  
  157
  bloodlines and factions
  chapter four
  facts are unearthed. One night, if the tale is true,
  Week’s sire will awaken…
  Parent Clan: Mekhet
  Nickname: Morticians
  Covenant: The first Libitinarius Kindred were
  members of the Ordo Dracul even before Dr. Weeks
  founded the bloodline in 1892. When Ivor
  Gardner’s Serapis cult expanded beyond the Mas-
  querade, it drew the attention of numerous
  Acolytes. Those Acolytes then brought the Blood
  of Libitina to the Circle of the Crone. Tonight,
  the Libitinarius bloodline continues to be
  made up almost solely of Acolytes and
  Dragons. Invictus and Carthian vam-
  pires may deal with Morticians in any
  domain where they can be found,
  depending more on the interests of
  the individual Kindred and less on
  politics. Sanctified Kindred of
  some domains focus on the shared
  Greco-Egyptian influences on
  Theban Sorcery and Mortualia
  and even participate in
  Libitinarius ceremonies as secu-
  lar performances. In other
  domains, the Sanctified regard
  Morticians as admirably learned
  providers of a service that has
  been sadly and needlessly
  draped in the trappings of pa-
  gan idolatry.
  Appearance: Libitinarius Kin-
  dred come from all races and both
  genders. As academics, many favor
  a classical, professorial style. As age-
  less undead historians, many also
  find ways to incorporate archaic or
  classical art styles in their dress.
  Scarab brooches, old-fashioned
  beards or mustaches and ornate rings
  or necklaces are common among
  older Libitiniarii. Younger Morti-
  cians may sport Latin or Egyptian
  tattoos, elaborate body piercings and
  other physical decorations from their
  mortal lives as archaeology students.
  Some Libitinarii display downright
  archaic fashions even outside of their
  Mortualia ceremonies, such as faux-
  Egyptian 
  eye 
  make-up 
  and
  Roman-style dresses.
  Haven: Many Morticians keep ha-
  vens that suggest nothing of their
  unique blood — they nest very much
  as any other Kindred might. The
  ideal haven for a Libitinarius, however, is as secret and
  secure as a Theban tomb. Underground chambers
  protected by secret doors and modern security systems
  are ideal. Solid stone or metal sarcophagi are used
  by some Morticians, for protection as much as
  style. Most Morticians seek out havens that
  could house them safely through decades of
  torpor, if necessary.
  Some Libitinarii also maintain havens for
  other torpid vampires. Often these are little
  more than storage containers, mausoleums and
  cellars with solid locks and sturdy doors. These
  “torpor tombs” may see any number of
  temporary residents throughout a
  Mortician’s Requiem. The favors and
  allies a Libitinarius gains by protect-
  ing and maintaining such havens can
  be considerable.
  Background: Libitinarii select
  progeny almost exclusively from
  the ranks of academia. Simple
  scholarly types are seldom im-
  pressive enough to warrant a
  Mortician’s Embrace, however
  — only leaders in their fields de-
  serve 
  to 
  experience 
  the
  development of their studies over
  centuries. Historians, archaeologists,
  and anthropologists are typical fa-
  vorites. The Morticians are, after all,
  selecting students and colleagues as
  much as childer when they consider
  potential progeny. Most Morticians are
  driven to sire childer out of a desire to
  put a mortal’s talents to use for the cov-
  enant, the bloodline or themselves. More
  emotional Libitinarii select progeny out
  of a desire to show them eternity, intro-
  duce them to ancient Kindred and freely
  share what they know of the past from
  their own experience.
  As a matter of practice, rather than phi-
  losophy, a large segment of the Libitinarius
  bloodline is made up of subjects to the
  Queen of England. Most Morticians, it
  seems, have an English accent, whether they
  learned the language in Calcutta, Cairo,
  Rome or London.
  Character Creation: Libitinarii tend
  to favor higher Mental Attributes, par-
  ticularly Intelligence and Resolve. The
  rites and ceremonies of the
  Libitinarius bloodline are most im-
  pressively performed by characters with
  high Social Attributes, however. Because the
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  bloodlines and factions
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  158
  Mortualia Discipline requires the creation of certain
  tools and charms, the Crafts Skill is also invaluable to
  a Mortician.
  A Libitinarius who tends to the torpor-haven of an-
  other vampire (or, indeed, any Mortician who discusses
  Mortualia with outsiders) would benefit from dots in
  Subterfuge if he values the secrets he keeps. The Aca-
  demics and Occult Skills are also plainly useful to a
  Libitinarius; most Morticians were the sorts of humans
  who studied those Skills in life.
  A Mortician with City or Covenant Status might have
  a reputation as the go-to guy for Kindred concerned with
  torpor. The Haven Merit is vital to many Morticians, as
  well. Haven Security almost always takes priority over
  Size and Location.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Auspex, Dominate, Mortualia,
  Resilience
  Weakness: Like all Mekhet, Libitinarii suffer the
  pains of fire and sunlight more severely than other
  Kindred. A Libitinarius suffers one additional point of
  aggravated damage from any source of fire or sunlight
  (see p. 172 of Vampire: The Requiem). Furthermore,
  Morticians find it more difficult to resist the dark sleep
  of the Damned than other Kindred. Libitinarius Kin-
  dred suffer a -2 penalty on all Humanity rolls to
  awaken or act during the daytime. This penalty also
  affects the character’s Humanity dots for purposes of
  determining maximum dice pool sizes when awake.
  (See p. 184 of Vampire: The Requiem for informa-
  tion on daytime activity.)
  The most dreadful weakness of the Libitinarius blood-
  line, however, is a secret kept even from many of its
  members: in the 1930s, Dragon Morticians in the
  American Midwest discovered that the change Dr.
  Weeks made to the Blood was not as dramatic as it first
  seemed. The mystic power of the Mortualia Discipline
  is not so far beyond the reach of ordinary Kindred that
  it can be considered truly unique. In practice, any
  Mekhet vampire can learn Mortualia as an out-of-clan
  Discipline provided a Libitinarius is willing to teach
  him. If this secret were to be revealed, the Libitinarii
  bloodline would wither and die as Kindred ceased to
  commit their eternal Blood to the lineage to keep its
  unique power in practice.
  Organization: Libitinarius vampires naturally fall
  into informal hierarchies based on education and
  experience with Mortualia. In general, these Kindred
  interact something like a university professors. Age
  and experience is respected, and often deferred to, by
  younger Morticians, but colleagues of similar ages
  place a greater practical importance on skill than age.
  An ancient, experienced Libitinarius is more likely to
  be loved but a brilliant and clever Libitinarius is more
  likely to be followed.
  Because Morticians love to talk, debate and lecture,
  they also tend to swell their ranks in domains where they
  reside. Thus, in many domains, Libitinarii are seen as a
  social group rather than a lineage. Certainly, some do-
  mains are home to a lone Libitinarius, but eventually
  most seek out contact with other history buffs, antiquar-
  ians or armchair archaeologists to satisfy their minds.
  Concepts: Disturbed surgeon, Egyptologist, funeral home
  director, hospice nurse, occult archaeologist, pagan priest,
  Roman religion revivalist, taxidermist, undertaker.
  libitinarius
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  Moroi
  You didn’t say you needed him alive
  The Moroi bloodline is one of the great
  mysteries of the Ordo Dracul. The leg-
  ends surrounding the bloodline’s forma-
  tion are strange enough, but the (admit-
  tedly murky) history of its association
  with the covenant states that Dracula him-
  self recruited them, binding the Moroi for-
  ever to the Dragons. The bloodline is rare,
  especially outside of Europe, and most
  Dragons who have heard of the Moroi
  know them as fearsome combatants.
  “When the Moroi arrive, seek shelters of
  stone,” goes a maxim common among
  Kogaions. But perhaps the strangest and
  most persistent rumor about the Moroi is that
  the bloodline is descended from not one, but two
  clans. Both Nosferatu and Gangrel, supposedly,
  can become Moroi.
  In Romanian legend, a moroi is a vampire
  rising from the body of a stillborn infant. Elders of the
  Moroi do not recall if the Romanians took their name
  to describe their legend, or if the bloodline took the
  name of the legend as its own. A story handed down
  from sire to childe within the bloodline, however, draws
  a connection.
  The legend states that a female vampire, mad with
  grief for the life she had lost, Embraced her infant child.
  When she beheld the abomination that she had cre-
  ated, she left it in a graveyard and fled west, to meet her
  end as the sun rose over the mountains. The child, by
  sheer luck, rolled into an open grave and was there
  shielded from the same fate. That night, two Kindred,
  one Gangrel and one Nosferatu, heard the child’s cries.
  They retrieved the infant monster from the grave, and
  discussed what to do with it. Letting it live would be
  cruel, they agreed, since even if it could develop the
  mind of an adult, its body would never age. They de-
  cided to destroy it, but instead of simply burning it or
  leaving it for the sun, they instead chose to commit
  diablerie on the infant.
  Two Kindred committing diablerie on the same tar-
  get is impossible, of course, but the legend states that
  this is precisely what these two vampires did. The in-
  fant, condemned to undeath with a soul unblemished
  by sin, gave power to both of them. For that monu-
  mental act of cruelty, however, God cursed them both
  at that moment. They would henceforth
  be hunters and killers and nothing more,
  set apart by mortals by deformity and
  driven to kill by the howls of the Beast.
  Those Kindred became the first Moroi,
  neither Nosferatu nor Gangrel but a hid-
  eous amalgam of both.
  This story, of course, is unverifiable and
  modern Dragons consider it little more
  than superstition. They do agree on
  one point, however: the Moroi are
  monsters and killers first and last.
  Dracula and the Moroi
  A story that the Ordo Dracul is willing to
  give more credence is that of how the Moroi
  bloodline came to join the covenant. Sup-
  posedly, in the years following his transi-
  tion to undeath, Vlad Tepes wandered the
  world, looking for information about his kind. He
  came into conflict with vampires of several covenants
  and (presumably) all clans, but early in these wan-
  derings, he chanced through a village surrounded by
  a dense forest. He saw that the villagers lived in fear,
  and were much more superstitious than even normal
  Wallachian peasants. In particular, there were no cats
  anywhere in the village, and the villagers killed the
  animals if they found them. Domesticated animals
  were blinded when they reached maturity, and the
  villagers crossed themselves whenever birds flew over-
  head. Dracula discovered that they believed that all
  animals were servants of the moroi, and only by blind-
  ing their livestock could they prevent these monsters
  from possessing the animals or turning them against
  their masters.
  At the same time, the villagers only cut wood during
  the day, and refused to leave their homes after dark. They
  would not open their doors to anyone once the sun had
  set, for fear of a moroi in the form of a trusted neighbor
  or friend. Intrigued, Dracula ventured into the woods to
  find these “moroi.” He was not long in looking.
  The vampires he found were ugly and bestial, and yet
  possessed qualities Dracula valued — brutality, hunger
  and even a strange sort of loyalty. He shared his knowl-
  edge with these Kindred, and they spoke for weeks on
  topics of rulership, superstition, hunting mortals and the
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  160
  society of vampires (of which the Moroi knew little more
  than Dracula). Finally, Dracula took his leave, but be-
  fore he did, those few Moroi promised that if Dracula
  needed soldiers, they would come.
  This story is apocryphal at best, and does not address
  the fact that Dracula never mentions the Moroi once in
  the Rites of the Dragon. Indeed, the Moroi were not seen
  or heard from again (as a bloodline of Kindred, at least
  — their legend persisted among mortals) before Dracula
  vanished, and his covenant took organized form.
  When they reappeared, however, their loyalty
  was unquestionable.
  The Spider Killings
  From the time of Dracula’s disappearance in the 16th
  century to the first decades of the 19th, the Ordo Dracul
  might have foundered and vanished at any time. The
  reasons for this instability are discussed in Chapter One.
  The fact that the Ordo Dracul survived at all, much less
  gained the power that it did in the 1800s and remains
  tonight, amazes many Kindred historians.
  Very few Kindred historians know of the Moroi,
  of course.
  The Moroi could do little about the lack of focus
  and infighting that plagued the Ordo Dracul. Those
  problems would have to work themselves out over time.
  What the Hunters could do, however, was mitigate the
  persecution of the Dragons by other Kindred sects. In
  cities where the Ordo Dracul needed a foothold but
  the established Kindred were both powerful and intol-
  erant, the Moroi would creep in, slay a few key indi-
  viduals and leave. They never declared themselves and
  never spoke a word of their loyalty to the Ordo Dracul
  or of their origins in Dracula’s homeland. Further, they
  never (or rarely) committed diablerie upon their tar-
  gets, knowing that this unforgivable crime would in-
  vite more dogged repercussions. In most cases, the Drag-
  ons did not even know about their mysterious bene-
  factors, and arrogantly considered the fact that many
  of their most stringent opponents met Final Death to
  be a sort of divine providence.
  The fact that no one connected these deaths to the
  Ordo Dracul didn’t stop perceptive Kindred from con-
  necting them to each other, of course. The killings hap-
  pened according to a pattern, but lack of easy commu-
  nication and the nature of what that pattern meant
  slowed Kindred investigators considerably.
  The Moroi would first kill off a target’s herd, servants
  and any other important mortals, including surviving
  family. This happened in the space of one or two nights,
  three at most. The Moroi rarely struck singly. Instead,
  an entire coterie of Hunters would hunt down the ap-
  propriate mortals and slay them. Rather than trying to
  cloak their killings as accidents or even mundane mur-
  ders, the Moroi would simply drain these people of blood,
  leaving them as desiccated husks. When this was com-
  plete, the Moroi watched their vampire targets, waiting
  for them to flee, go to ground, enter torpor or otherwise
  protect themselves. At that point, the Moroi struck, at-
  tacking their foe with as much force as they could bring
  to bear. The battle was typically over in moments.
  While the Moroi never gained the infamy of VII (be-
  cause they did not mark their crimes and were never as
  widespread), their tactics did gain some attention. These
  killings came to be known as the work of “the Spiders,”
  after the desiccated husks left behind, and having a vam-
  pire fall to these mysterious assassins was said to be an
  omen of bad luck for the Kindred of a city.
  To this night, no one (except the Ordo Dracul itself)
  has connected the “Spider killings” to the Ordo Dracul.
  This is indeed fortunate for the Dragons, as doubtless
  some Kindred must survive who lost sires, childer or al-
  lies to the Hunters, and would surely want revenge.
  The 19th Century
  Very little is known of the bloodline’s activities from
  roughly 1820 to 1900. The Spider Killings ceased as the
  Ordo Dracul experienced its boom in membership (see
  Chapter One for more details), and the word moroi ex-
  isted only on the lips of those knowledgeable in Roma-
  nian folklore.
  Modern Moroi haven’t provided a reason for this ab-
  sence, but the Dragons assume that the bloodline,
  knowing that the Ordo Dracul was now capable of
  standing on its own, decided that their methods would
  do more harm than good. This is true, but there is more
  to the story than that. The Moroi also saw that the
  world was growing smaller, and as they learned more of
  Kindred society, their views of that society and their
  own origins were challenged. Was it possible for two
  clans to form one bloodline? Could their own legends
  about Dracula be trusted? Were they merely an experi-
  ment performed in the early nights of the Ordo Dracul,
  “programmed,” in a sense, to defend the covenant?
  Where was Dracula, now that the Moroi had risked all
  to defend his followers?
  The Ordo Dracul was blissfully unaware of the tur-
  moil in their vicious guardian bloodline. In the mean-
  time, the bloodline retreated to rural villages, leaving
  behind the cities and dense population centers (and
  thus other vampires). Moroi who survive from that
  period, of course, have only hazy recollections, but all
  report feeling lost or useless, as though their reason for
  existing had been fulfilled. Indeed, an investigative
  coterie in France recently reported finding a disused
  haven, probably (judging from the bones lying about
  and the legendry of the local area), belonging at one
  point to a Moroi. A pile of ash and some charcoal
  smears on the floor provide the only clue as to the
  former occupant’s fate, but more interesting was an
  moroi
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  bloodlines and factions
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  inscription on the wall, written in Latin. It said sim-
  ply:, “Nothing left to kill.”
  The bloodline might well have died out completely
  before the modern age, having silently and ferociously
  shepherded the covenant through its own dark age. But
  the Moroi are creatures of blood and vio-
  lence, and the first half of the 20th
  century would bring both to levels
  that Dracula himself could scarcely
  have imagined.
  The Dragons’ Fangs
  World War I coaxed the Moroi
  in Europe out of hiding.
  The carnage and con-
  fusion in France pro-
  vided opportunities
  for feeding such as
  the bloodline had
  never seen, and, even
  farther east, the new
  weapons being unveiled
  intrigued the Moroi. The Ordo
  Dracul, and Kindred society in
  general, reeled from the slaughter
  of so many of their vessels, but, in
  the midst of that carnage, the
  Moroi presented themselves to
  the most powerful of the Sworn
  and the eldest Kogaions they
  could find. They made no offers,
  but simply stated that they had once
  served the covenant at the behest of
  Dracula himself, and would hold
  to that bargain now, if the Drag-
  ons desired.
  The Ordo Dracul did not
  waste such an opportunity. En-
  tire coteries were formed to
  track down the Moroi. Those
  that agreed to serve the covenant
  were treated well, trained, fed and edu-
  cated in matters of language, mortal customs
  and any other necessary skills. Those that re-
  fused were normally destroyed, but killing a
  Moroi is no easy feat. Even tonight, the
  Ordo Dracul admits that some Moroi es-
  caped and are still at large. Tracking a
  Moroi, in fact, is often a task given to a
  martial coterie when the Ordo Dracul
  feels it has outlasted its usefulness.
  Most of the Hunters, however, were eager
  to join with the covenant. The Ordo Dracul
  began studying the Moroi and determined that,
  somehow, Kindred of both the Gangrel and the
  Nosferatu clans dwelling in isolation in the Romanian
  forests had somehow “merged,” creating a mutual blood-
  line. The theory is that Kindred of each clan had changed
  their Blood into a semblance of the other clan’s Blood.
  The Ordo Dracul has tried to replicate this feat, but has
  not yet succeeded. Of course, given the relatively brief
  time since the “discovery” of the Moroi, it might simply
  require more research and experimentation.
  Aside from the sanguinary questions they
  presented, the Moroi also had more ba-
  sic uses in the Ordo Dracul. The cov-
  enant first attempted to use them
  as guardians for Wyrm’s Nests, but
  with a few notable exceptions,
  this didn’t work out very well. The
  Moroi are killers, not watchdogs.
  If denied their appetite for mur-
  der, they tend to go out looking
  for it, and this kind of aggres-
  sion isn’t advisable when try-
  ing to keep a Wyrm’s Nest
  hidden and its energies un-
  tainted. No, the best use for
  the Moroi was as weapons.
  As the 20th century
  wore on, the Ordo Dracul
  slowly established en-
  claves of Moroi in vari-
  ous places in Europe
  and the Americas.
  These enclaves were
  usually located outside
  of major population
  centers, but close
  enough to humanity to
  provide food. The Ordo
  Dracul also sank a great
  deal of time and energy
  into teaching the Moroi
  to feed without killing,
  and, in some cases, assigned
  a Kindred Confessor to these
  enclaves to temper the Hunt-
  ers’ bloodlust. Suburbs, though
  not desirable for most Kindred,
  more closely resembled the rural
  villages of old than anything else
  in the modern world. Tonight,
  the Ordo Dracul often ar-
  ranges to purchase a
  house in the center of a
  suburb if it needs a cote-
  rie of Moroi near a given
  city. That suburb usually expe-
  riences a sudden spike in deaths and
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  162
  moroi
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  162
  disappearances, but the Moroi eventually calm down and
  temper their hunting habits somewhat.
  Moroi are occasionally included in normal, student
  coteries, given the opportunity to study under a mentor
  and learn the Coils of the Dragon. This is rare, both
  because the Ordo Dracul doesn’t see the Moroi as hav-
  ing the intelligence and wherewithal necessary to learn
  the Coils, and because the Order values the Moroi’s
  martial prowess so highly. More often, a Moroi might be
  included in a diplomatic mission or investigate coterie
  as muscle (and admonished not to do anything to com-
  promise a mission). The most common use for the Moroi,
  however, is assassination.
  TWO CLANS, ONE BLOODLINE
  Readers might well question how it is possible
  for two clans to “merge” into a single bloodline.
  The answer: it isn’t. The Moroi aren’t a single
  bloodline, but two very similar bloodlines that
  “evolved” together. The founders of these
  bloodlines, whoever they truly were, probably did
  not recognize the differences between their clans,
  thinking of themselves as vampires first and
  Nosferatu or Gangrel second, if at all. Isolated
  together (perhaps even sharing Vitae), their blood
  merged and mutated, becoming so similar as to
  be indistinguishable.
  Modern Moroi don’t distinguish themselves
  based on parent clan. Since Hunters “born” of
  both Gangrel and Nosferatu lose their signature
  Disciplines (Protean and Nightmare, respectively)
  and gain the remaining Disciplines common to the
  other clan (Gangrel gain Vigor and Obfuscate,
  Nosferatu gain Animalism and Resilience), they
  seem to have the same capabilities. They also tend
  to share knowledge of any other Disciplines they
  know with their “sisters” in the bloodline,
  meaning any given Moroi might well have some
  knowledge of Protean and/or Nightmare as well
  as her four bloodline Disciplines. These two
  Disciplines are more difficult to learn, granted. Of
  course, characters, not having read the rulebook,
  have no concept of how many “experience points”
  a given Discipline costs to learn.
  Identifying a Moroi’s parent clan by the taste
  of her blood is possible (see p. 163 of Vampire:
  The Requiem), but a Kindred attempting to do
  so must have tasted both Nosferatu and Gangrel
  blood before, and her player receives a –1 modifier
  to the roll. Also, the Masked Blood Devotion (see
  p. 200) is only common within the Moroi
  bloodline, and this also aids in the Hunter being
  viewed as one lineage, even to its members.
  A vampire who makes too great a nuisance of her-
  self, in the Ordo Dracul’s eyes, might receive a visit
  from the Moroi. Sometimes these visits take the form
  of the Locust and Spider killings of old, but more of-
  ten the Moroi simply hunt down and slay the offend-
  ing Kindred. They mask these killings as the work of
  Belial’s Brood, accidents, mortal hunters or the nor-
  mal Byzantine rivalry of Kindred society (though they
  never use VII as a scapegoat — it’s best not to attract
  their attention). The Moroi can only be “activated”
  by a Kogaion or a Sworn Dragon with Covenant Sta-
  tus •••• or more, and indeed, few Kindred of lesser
  status in the covenant even know of their existence
  beyond rumors.
  The Moroi, for their part, bear the condescension
  of their “masters” well. Paranoids in the covenant feel
  that the Hunters are merely biding their time, but the
  Moroi seldom seem angry or resentful of anything the
  Dragons do. Most, especially those whose Embrace
  predates the Second World War, just seem pleased to
  have a place again.
  Parent Clan: Gangrel or Nosferatu
  Nickname: Hunters
  Covenant: The Moroi are a bloodline exclusive to the
  Ordo Dracul and the unaligned. New members are cho-
  sen from within the covenant or Embraced by Dragon
  Moroi. As mentioned above, some Moroi chose not to
  join the Ordo Dracul, but they either met Final Death
  or went into hiding decades ago. While it’s possible that
  a Moroi could join one of the other covenants, claiming
  to be a “normal” Nosferatu (those descended from the
  Gangrel are too repulsive to claim membership in their
  parent clan), their murderous instincts would eventu-
  ally betray them. It is more probable, then, that any non-
  Dragon Moroi are unaligned, existing on the fringes of
  vampiric society.
  Appearance: Moroi of either lineage take on a yel-
  lowish cast to their skin, which lightens to a slightly
  pinkish color for approximately an hour after feeding.
  Their eyes lighten, becoming an unnatural ice-blue or
  jaundiced yellow. Even Nosferatu Moroi who previously
  exhibited no physical deformity develop this visage af-
  ter joining the bloodline. Moroi, therefore, dress to cover
  their inhuman appearance.
  Haven: The Moroi, as a kind of “secret weapon”
  to the Ordo Dracul, are generally given functional,
  secure havens, often in a city’s Barrens or in a nearby
  suburb. Sometimes a young coterie is given the task
  of procuring vessels for a group of Moroi, in order
  that they be kept out of view of both mortals and a
  city’s Kindred until such time as they are needed.
  Moroi with a bit more freedom of movement often
  choose havens near mortal residential areas, so that
  they can prey on people in their homes. This instinct
  seems to have remained with the bloodline since its
  inception in the far-flung past. Indeed, Moroi in less
  industrialized countries seem drawn to rural or farm-
  ing communities.
  
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  163
  moroi
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  Background: As the bloodline encompasses two clans,
  Moroi backgrounds vary. Membership in the Moroi is
  often offered to Nosferatu or Gangrel who are skilled
  combatants but aren’t particularly puissant in learning
  the Coils of the Dragon. Unlike the Sworn of the Axe,
  membership in the Moroi bloodline isn’t necessarily
  something to aspire to, as Moroi tend to become shel-
  tered and hidden. When Moroi Embrace directly, they
  choose soldiers, policemen, gang members and other
  mortals with some combat experience. Criminals, how-
  ever, are also common choices, as Moroi Embraced from
  more conventional stock tend to go mad as the murder-
  ous urges appear and their Humanity plummets.
  When looking for potential Moroi, the Ordo Dracul
  looks not only for combat skill and brutality but obedi-
  ence. The lot of the Moroi is that of a trained killer, let
  loose upon a target at the Ordo’s behest. While cunning
  is prized, the Ordo looks askance at Moroi who seem too
  clever — they’re not prized for their creativity.
  Character Creation: Physical Attributes and Skills
  are primary, almost without exception. Most Moroi have
  some rating in Intimidation, and many have decent Wits
  or Presence ratings, but the bloodline’s main talent is
  killing, and this where they receive their training and
  encouragement. The Ordo Dracul often provides some
  rating in Herd or Haven, and other Merits vary based
  on the background of the character in question. Trad-
  ing Humanity for Experience is very appropriate for
  Moroi characters. Buying a second dot of Blood Potency
  is, of course, required to join any bloodline.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Obfuscate, Resil-
  ience, Vigor
  Weakness: When a Gangrel or Nosferatu becomes a
  Moroi, she gains a specific form of the other clan’s weak-
  ness in addition to that of her parent clan. This only
  contributes to the notion that both clans become the
  same form of Moroi.
  Gangrel Moroi keep the feral urges common to their
  parent clan. Those urges take on a sadistic, bloodthirsty
  streak, however, as the Moroi blood imprints a constant
  desire to hunt and kill (the game mechanics remain the
  same). The moment Gangrel become Hunters, their
  bodies change as well (see Appearance, above). In game
  terms, this deformity is identical to the Nosferatu clan
  weakness. The 10-again rule does not apply to Presence
  or Manipulation dice pools (except for Discipline use),
  and any 1s on such rolls cancel successes.
  Nosferatu Moroi keep their repulsiveness in whatever
  form it took, but usually take the physical characteris-
  tics described above as well. In addition, these Moroi
  grow vicious and bloodthirsty, their higher brain func-
  tions lost in the snarls of their Beasts. In game terms,
  this sadism is identical to the Gangrel clan weakness.
  The 10-again rule does not apply to Intelligence or Wits
  dice pools (except for Discipline use), and any 1s on
  such rolls cancel successes.
  Organization: The bloodline itself has no real organi-
  zation. Coteries of Moroi Kindred are kept separate from
  each other. They are told that this is because they are
  too great an advantage, and thus too tempting a target,
  to be allowed to gather in numbers, and this is true. A
  better reason for not allowing the Hunters to communi-
  cate or gather, however, is that with their skills as mur-
  derers and their bloodlust, they could wreak untold dam-
  age on the covenant if they ever decided to turn against
  the Dragons. The Moroi have never given any indica-
  tion that they are displeased with their treatment, but
  elders of the Ordo Dracul insist that such a rebellion is a
  distinct possibility if the Moroi are left unchecked.
  Whether the elders feel this way out of simple paranoia
  or because of privileged information is a mystery.
  Concepts: Drill instructor for the Sworn of the Axe,
  former assassin, fugitive-hunter, guerilla tactician,
  Kogaion’s bodyguard, prowler of the Barrens, Roma-
  nian lore keeper, serial killer, sleeper agent, unrepen-
  tant monster.
  A COMBATANT’S DREAM
  You’re right, of course. The Moroi are
  designed to be good at combat. They get two
  of the three physical Disciplines, plus most of
  the Moroi have some knowledge of Protean or
  Nightmare and can get easy access to the other.
  What are we thinking?
  Take another look. They’re good at combat —
  and very little else. They suffer from both the
  Gangrel and the Nosferatu clan weaknesses, both
  of which are pretty debilitating if you want to do
  something simple, like have a normal
  conversation. The Ordo Dracul views them as
  attack dogs at best, and relics of the covenant’s
  brutal past at worst.
  This isn’t to say that the Moroi are nonviable
  or “unbalanced” as characters. They provide
  interesting roleplaying challenges, to be sure. A
  character who joins the Moroi bloodline and tries
  to maintain her Humanity has quite a task ahead
  of her, as she is in her element only when hunting
  and killing. The primary instance in which a Moroi
  character “unbalances” a chronicle is if the
  chronicle is focused solely (or at least largely)
  around combat. Chronicles that focus on the
  larger themes of Vampire: The Requiem, or
  even on the themes of the Ordo Dracul in
  general, don’t inordinately favor the Moroi. If
  anything, these Kindred must struggle to keep
  up with the subtle espionage and intriguing
  schemes of their contemporaries.
  
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  164
  Tismanu
  You have the strength to overcome the wild evils
  lurking outside these walls, unless you surrender it to them
  The Tismanu are the hands and voices of the Ordo
  Dracul’s Damned faith, and holy traitors against the
  blessed authority of the papacy. They are agents
  of atonement for the Dragons, bred from the
  righteous philosophy of Wallachia’s Chris-
  tian churches and the bloodthirsty brutal-
  ity of Dracula’s crusaders. Were it not for
  the historical and supernatural ties that
  bind them to the Ordo Dracul, they
  would surely be in league with the Lancea
  Sanctum tonight.
  Whereas the Lancea Sanctum takes
  its lead from Catholic Christian tradi-
  tions, the pious Kindred known as
  “Dragon Monks” follow a variation
  on Eastern Orthodox beliefs. They
  are a niche subculture born from the
  unique intersection of Orthodox Christianity, the spiritu-
  ality of Slavic and Dacian peasants and the faith-shaking
  truth of vampirism. Thus, the Tismanu are considered to
  be, foremost, Kindred of a particular philosophical bent,
  rather than a lineage or familial line — though they are
  that, too, in the manner that vampires measure such things.
  In cities where word of the Dragon Monks has arrived in
  stories and legends of other domains, but no Tismanu vam-
  pires are actually present, the moniker of “Dragon Monk”
  is sometimes misattributed to any priestly Dragon who with-
  draws himself from the politics and societal scheming of
  the larger covenant to maintain an introspective, monkish
  existence. Strictly speaking, however, only those Kindred
  who study in the remote and historic monasteries of Ro-
  mania, Greece and the Czech Republic — or under the
  direct tutelage of a Tismanu Avus — can change their blood
  into that of the true Tismanu.
  Older Than
  the Dragon Himself
  The Tismanu were a bloodline back when Dracula was
  mortal. Kindred of this lineage had already settled into
  sunless, monastic cells in Wallachia when Dracula was
  just a child. Thus, it is said that the loyalty of the Tismanu
  belongs to God, first and the Ordo Dracul, second.
  The earliest Tismanu were pious contemplatives
  struggling to civilize and soothe the Kindred of the sur-
  rounding lands — especially themselves. They had little
  organization in those nights, and existed
  mostly as pairs of elder and younger vam-
  pires on the lookout for troubled Kindred to
  house, heal and enlighten. In the long
  absences between vampiric visits, the
  Tismanu quietly fed from mortal
  monks — some of whom even knew
  the true nature of the Tismanu, but
  kept their secrets to honor the pi-
  ous efforts of hopeful monsters,
  like monastic blood dolls. Some
  Tismanu still maintain similar re-
  lationships with such mortal monks;
  it is a violation of the Masquerade,
  to be sure, but one that has been go-
  ing on for centuries in one the most iso-
  lated corners of Europe without disaster.
  In the decades before Dracula’s damnation, the Tismanu
  were hardly known to most Kindred. They had little or no
  contact with mainstream Kindred society in those nights;
  the Prince of Bucharest at the time is said to have denied
  their existence as “a legend of peasants, undead or not.”
  That small number of vampires who spent nights in the
  care of the Tismanu — often hiding from the threats and
  intrigue of the city — did little to publicize the efforts of
  their reclusive allies. The Tismanu didn’t want their ref-
  uges to be spoiled by careless vampires, and the Tismanu’s
  refugees wanted to keep their allies to themselves.
  Origin and History of the Tismanu
  The name “Tismanu” almost certainly comes from the
  name of a monastery in western Wallachia, called
  Tismana. Little physical evidence exists, however, to
  suggest that the monastery is actually a site of historical
  importance to the Tismanu. Although the oral history
  of the Tismanu suggests that the first vampire to change
  his Blood into that of the modern Tismanu first mani-
  fested the bloodline’s unique supernatural powers in a
  remote monastery of eastern Europe, the eldest existing
  Tismanu uphold that the monastery was located in
  Transylvania, not Wallachia.
  Even the name “Tismanu” is a fairly recent develop-
  ment. For decades, the so-called vampire monks of
  Carpathia had no name for themselves. For a time, it
  seemed that Kindred historians had neither recognized
  them as a bloodline nor even as a common philosophy.
  tismanu
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  165
  bloodlines and factions
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  Though one Tismanu taught another, who taught another
  and so on, the line of tutelage was never well-recorded or
  remembered, it seems. The blood of the Tismanu spread
  throughout Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia with-
  out much fanfare or historical impact. Those who know
  the Tismanu hardly find this surprising — they do not
  think of themselves in the same way they think of others.
  While the first of the undead monks that would become
  the Tismanu were helping to record the history of Dracula
  and his land, their own story was going unwritten.
  While in Dracula’s time it seems that the Tismanu had
  no name for themselves, later centuries would find them
  with a surplus. For a time in the 19th century, when the
  history of the Dragon Monks was gaining popularity with
  the Ordo Dracul as a tale of dedication in the dark years
  before the formation of the covenant, the Tismanu were
  known as Snagovians, after the monastery of Snagov, near
  Bucharest, where mortal history records that Dracula was
  buried. This name stuck for a few years among the Ordo
  Dracul due almost solely to Dracula’s celebrity and
  Snagov’s historic reputation. At least one Tismanu lurked
  in the tiny monastery of Snagov well into the 1900s, but
  the Tismanu have no other connection to that place.
  By the 1920s, the Snagovian name had also fallen out
  of favor among the Dragons. Those who used it were
  considered to have fallen for a kind of popular miscon-
  ception by learned and elitist Dragon academics. Dur-
  ing this time, however, the Kindred who would become
  the Tismanu were spoken of much more often than they
  were encountered. Dragons throughout Europe talked
  about “Dracula’s monks,” but they had little real impor-
  tance in the covenant. In truth, most Dragons consid-
  ered them to be some sort of nobly backward, religious
  bumpkins — they were trivia, spoken about around the
  local chapter house as a means of seeming important.
  Late in the 1930s, however, a few of the Tismanu were
  persuaded by a Parisian Dragon to transplant themselves
  to cities in western Europe and America. The spiritual
  aid and timeless insight of the Dragon Monks, it was
  thought, could bring special comfort to new Kindred of
  the Order who found themselves unable to appreciate
  the history and mysticism of the covenant in the face of
  the modern age. Within a few decades, the Tismanu had
  developed new ways of doing things. Quaint new mon-
  asteries, paid for by wealthy Dragons, were built in
  Canada, the United States, Scotland and Germany to
  house Tismanu coteries. The number of Kindred prac-
  ticing the bloodline’s unique Discipline is estimated to
  have doubled from 1940 to 1975 — an astonishing
  growth for the undead.
  Yet the Tismanu are by no means commonplace. A
  census-taker working on behalf of the Prince of Prague
  concluded that six Tismanu vampires resided in his city,
  giving it the largest population of Tismanu vampires in
  the world, by the covenant’s reckoning. In most cities
  where the Dragon Monks reside at all, one Tismanu
  mentor and one Tismanu pupil is more likely. The
  Tismanu desire privacy, refuge and a withdrawn loca-
  tion suitable for contemplation. Few cities can offer lo-
  cations that meet the Tismanu standards for remoteness.
  Dracula’s Favorites
  One legend told by the Tismanu — and quite popular
  among the Kindred of the Ordo Dracul — claims that
  Dracula himself consulted with a Tismanu vampire in
  the Impaler’s mortal years. If the supposition that Dracula
  struggled with his Beast even before his damnation is to
  be believed, the Tismanu legend does not seem so un-
  likely. Perhaps the Impaler took comfort in knowing that
  even cursed monsters such as the Kindred could find
  solace and wisdom despite their bloody ways.
  It is far more likely, however, that the Tismanu who
  supposedly conversed with Dracula “over 10 nights, years
  apart” never revealed his true nature to the Wallachian
  ruler. The exact era of these meetings is uncertain, but
  some Tismanu believe the meetings must have occurred
  prior to the construction of the monastery at Tirgsor,
  which was a gift from Dracula to the monks he so cher-
  ished. In its night, Tirgsor was supposedly haven to four
  Tismanu, who slept in underground cells dug specifically
  to house creatures of their kind.
  Again, the rumors are extremely suspect. In Rites of
  the Dragon, Dracula makes it clear that he did not con-
  sider vampires to be real until he was cursed to join their
  ranks. Therefore, it is doubtful that he knowingly be-
  stowed gifts on vampires when he was mortal.
  What is commonly accepted, however, is that Dracula
  respected the efforts and enlightenment of the Tismanu
  during his nights as a vampire in Romania. It seems that
  the Impaler’s appreciation of the clergy did not die with
  him. Two of the eldest Tismanu in modern Romania claim
  to have met Dracula, and one supposedly still keeps a let-
  ter written by him. These tales, coupled with Dracula’s
  recorded historical appreciation for monks and their ilk,
  makes the Tismanu prized members of the Ordo Dracul.
  Philosophy
  Tismanu philosophy reflects the beliefs of the Ortho-
  dox priests who ministered to the peasants of
  Transylvania, Wallachia and Moldavia during the
  Middle Ages. Although many folk remedies exist to com-
  bat the spells, hexes and curses of witches and mages
  across the land, only the holy efforts of the Church are
  to be trusted. It is the priest’s duty to exorcize demons,
  break enchantments and protect common people from
  supernatural threats.
  The Tismanu perform essentially the same services for
  common Kindred. In addition, they strive to create safe
  refuges where vampires can recover from the wounds
  inflicted by a harsh world and better resist the strenuous
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  pull of the Beast. Dragon Monks believe it is their eter-
  nal duty to make the Requiems of other Kindred easier,
  to guide other vampires toward an existence free of tur-
  moil and spiritual strife. In the harsh and unwelcoming
  night of the World of Darkness, this goal seems unob-
  tainable, and the Tismanu see that. Unable to save
  the world or their own souls, they work to save
  individual nights from descending into chaos
  and avoidable evil.
  If a Tismanu can bring serenity to another
  vampire, he is succeeding in his philosophy.
  When a Tismanu has helped another Kin-
  dred attain the personal awareness and in-
  sight necessary to change himself —
  such as by learning the Coils of the
  Dragon — the Tismanu betters him-
  self as well.
  The evil of the world cannot be
  stopped, but it can be kept at bay.
  The evil acts that define Kindred
  existence cannot be ignored, but
  they can be minimized. The evil
  in a monster’s heart cannot be de-
  nied, but it can be put to good use.
  Monasteries
  of the Tismanu
  The Tismanu maintain a num-
  ber of monasteries across the
  World of Darkness. Some are
  open only to Kindred of the
  Ordo Dracul, others are open to
  all Kindred. The locations of
  Tismanu monasteries are not
  common knowledge, however,
  and are not meant to be. The
  Tismanu insist that every Kin-
  dred who knows a monastery’s
  location is permitted to tell just
  one other vampire — ever.
  Surely, in time, the locations
  of these monasteries will be
  common knowledge, but the
  Dragon Monks want that
  knowledge to spread through
  genuine need and generosity.
  Kindred on the run are welcome
  at these monasteries, but the
  Tismanu do not grant true
  sanctuary. If Hounds come
  looking for a refugee, the
  Tismanu do not stand in
  the way.
  The following monasteries are only some examples of
  those kept by the Tismanu.
  Carpathian Ruins
  This ruined, stone retreat lays piled in a crack in the
  green mountainside like forgotten scree. From the out-
  side, it’s hardly possible to recognize that these stacks
  of stone blocks were once a building. Behind the
  rubble and weeds, however, a series of rooms stretch
  deep into the black depths of mountain, and it is
  there that the Tismanu sleep and store their reli-
  gious texts. Very few visitors come to a monastery
  of this sort — a mere handful every 10 or 15 years.
  The Tismanu keep it primarily for themselves, to
  study with mentors or lay in torpor to calm their
  blood. Inside, the monastery is adorned with
  a few simple candles (evidence of their for-
  midable calm) and a great, gold cross.
  Hidden Prague
  In the heart of a nondescript brick
  building near the riverbank in Prague,
  there is a windowless, stone bunker.
  The building is owned by the ghoul
  of a Dragon Architect, but the
  chamber within belongs to a
  Tismanu. Only a few of the local
  Kindred in the Ordo Dracul know
  of its existence, and non-Dragons
  are forbidden to go there. It is a
  refuge for Dragons in trouble and
  a meeting place for secret cov-
  enant ceremonies. Though, ar-
  chitecturally, it is little more
  than a concrete cube, the space
  inside this modern monastery
  has been dressed like an Ortho-
  dox church. The massive iron
  door that blocks the sole en-
  trance to the retreat is feature-
  less from the outside — only
  the Dragon Monk inside can
  open it.
  Philadelphian
  Refuge
  Tucked between two ware-
  houses on the edge of down-
  town Philadelphia is a shabby
  house-turned-church. By day,
  it is a functioning
  Greek Orthodox
  church, staffed with
  volunteers 
  who
  know nothing about
  
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  tismanu
  chapter four
  its secret cellar. By day, a Tismanu sleeps below. At night,
  when the warehouses are empty and the volunteers have
  gone, the church opens to Kindred of all clans and all
  covenants. It serves as a kind of Elysium, but the resi-
  dent Dragon Monk also maintains three private medi-
  tation cells (each granting a +2 equipment bonus to
  meditation dice pools) and a communal haven in the
  basement, where Kindred are welcome to sleep but for-
  bidden to speak. For those Dragons versed in the third
  Coil of the Beast, these rooms can also be locked tight
  and used to Exhaust the Beast.
  Parent Clan: Mekhet
  Nickname: Traditionally, Monks, but in territories
  where the Lancea Sanctum holds power, or the nick-
  name is already in use, they are sometimes called
  Dracula’s Abbots or Dragon Monks.
  Covenant: All Tismanu are born of vampires loyal
  to the Ordo Dracul, so far as such a generalization
  can be made. As much as any bloodline can be de-
  voted to any covenant, the Monks are loyal to the
  Ordo Dracul. Centuries of tradition have led to the
  common assumption that no Tismanu in the world
  belongs to any covenant but the Ordo Dracul. The
  assumption might even be true.
  Despite the strength of their link to the Order,
  Tismanu may fraternize with Sanctified without suf-
  fering suspicion from either covenant — they are am-
  bassadors of sorts to the Lancea Sanctum. The Sanc-
  tified seem to stereotype Dragon Monks as simple, old-
  fashioned and remote religious folk whose beliefs have
  been molded by Eastern Orthodox theology and ar-
  chaic, peasant culture into a harmless oddity. More
  to the point, modern Catholic Sanctified are more
  likely to regard Tismanu as backwards than heretical.
  Customarily, contact between Tismanu and Sancti-
  fied vampires is kept philosophical rather than po-
  litical, concerned with theological debate rather than
  matters of state.
  By contrast, such meetings of minds don’t often oc-
  cur between the “favorite monks” of the Ordo Dracul
  and the pagans of the Circle of the Crone. The popu-
  lar worldview of the Tismanu counts Acolytes among
  the masses of foreign heathens to be converted or
  avoided — the time Dracula spent among the Aco-
  lytes is seen by the Order’s Monks as an understand-
  able but shameful exploration of heathenism. In the
  eyes of the Tismanu, Acolytes are unenlightened, like
  the pagan peasants of old. It’s the business of the
  Lancea Sanctum to confront them, however; Dracula’s
  Monks tend only to the souls and safety of Dragons
  and their allies.
  This relationship with the Lancea Sanctum (and the
  Circle of the Crone) sometimes helps make contact be-
  tween the Tismanu and the Invictus somewhat cordial.
  Political types among the Ordo Dracul sometimes try to
  stretch the hospitality offered to the Tismanu to cover
  Dragons as a whole. Carthians and the Unaligned are
  not regarded as a whole by the Tismanu, but measured
  one at a time according to their sins and their piety.
  Appearance: The eldest Tismanu were medieval
  Slavic and Greek mortals who took on the chasuble of
  the Orthodox church either in life or in undeath. Most
  lived long lives before being Embraced. To this night,
  the majority of Tismanu are elderly, white men with
  full beards and uncut hair. Most keep formal, Ortho-
  dox religious garb for covenant functions (or even for
  every-night wear) and favor old-fashioned clothing,
  from colorful, peasant sweaters to simple, black slacks
  and suspenders.
  Haven: Dracula’s Monks sleep in places rich in cov-
  enant history, places cramped with Christian iconogra-
  phy, and places steeped in the memorabilia of violent
  piety — sites with medieval battle memorials or tombs
  from antiquity, for example. They favor private holy sites
  (like historic monasteries “owned” by wealthy Dragons
  or protected by trusts set up by the Order), dark and
  remote ruins (like forgotten catacombs and collapsed
  abbeys), and specially constructed, modern havens built
  as gifts for the eldest Monks by reverent Dragons. (One
  Tismanu resides in a windowless penthouse retreat in
  Prague, where he serves as an advisor and counselor for
  Kogaions of central Europe.) Tismanu frequently, and
  sometimes foolishly, give the religious and historical sig-
  nificance of a site more weight than its security. Some
  of the eldest Tismanu, meanwhile, sleep in the soil be-
  neath decrepit and abandoned chapels in the backwoods
  of eastern Europe.
  Background: Though the Mekhet who become
  Tismanu come from all walks of mortal life, a rarer Re-
  quiem leads them to the bloodline. For centuries, all
  Tismanu were male vampires of the Mekhet clan born
  as mortals in eastern Europe and cursed to undeath by
  local vampires. Until the 19th century, only a handful
  of the few Tismanu in existence had ever dwelled far-
  ther from the Carpathians than Prague or Athens. Late
  in the 1930s, when leaders within the Ordo Dracul con-
  vinced a few Tismanu to transplant themselves to Paris,
  London and New York so that their ways could be in-
  troduced to new generations of Dragons, the ranks of
  the Tismanu began to change.
  Tonight, a few female vampires and a scant assort-
  ment of non-Europeans have become Tismanu. Most
  of these exceptional Dragon Monks dwell in North
  America, but female Tismanu have become more
  common in Europe, as well (insofar as a subset of a
  small, niche tradition can be considered common).
  These modern Tismanu still study beneath the wis-
  dom of elder Dragon Monks, however. For now, the
  Tismanu still observe the centuries-old tradition that
  only Dragon Monks who have themselves slept and
  
  bloodlines and factions
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  168
  studied in the line’s historic monasteries may fulfill
  the duties of an Avus.
  Despite the expanding ethnic and gender character-
  istics of the bloodline, the philosophical make-up of
  the Tismanu population has gone largely unchanged
  for hundreds of years. Dragon Monks seek to find peace
  in their own madness, to steel themselves against the
  ferocity of the Beast and protect other vampires from
  the perils of their own damnation. Tismanu Kindred
  are calmly compassionate and traditionally minded,
  almost without exception; these Dragon Monks seek
  to foster relief and create refuges of peace in a world of
  violence and fear. Those Tismanu who do not feel this
  way tonight have likely changed from the supportive
  and settled creatures they once were.
  Character Creation: Although they have a reputa-
  tion as reclusive philosophers and holy men, the
  Tismanu often favor Social attributes rather than
  Mental. They are a gregarious, helpful people and,
  though they are no sort of missionary or evangelist,
  the most important benefits they offer to other Kin-
  dred are delivered with emotional insight, a generous
  ear or firmly encouraging words. Social Skills are also
  most favored by the Dragon Monks, who rely on Per-
  suasion and Empathy when providing emotional (and
  supernatural) aid.
  The remote, protected monasteries that have tradi-
  tionally housed the Tismanu might be represented
  with the Haven Merit, but most monasteries that
  house Tismanu are not truly the property of the vam-
  pires themselves. Rather, Tismanu tend to maintains
  havens within a larger monastery or on its grounds —
  whether local mortal monks know he is a strigoi or
  not. Tismanu do not customarily take vows of pov-
  erty (though individual Tismanu might), yet they
  place very little value on their own wealth. Likewise,
  the Dragon Monks remain as neutral as possible, po-
  litically. Merits such as Resources, Retainer and City
  Status are uncommon among these Kindred. Allies,
  Contacts and Covenant Status are actually fairly com-
  mon, however — the Ordo Dracul respects and pro-
  tects these historic vampires.
  The Tismanu practice a unique Discipline called Eu-
  praxia. Knowledge of its mystic blessings and spiritual
  power is considered the real mark of a true Tismanu. A
  Kindred who studies with Dracula’s Abbots but cannot
  muster the powers of Eupraxia is just another monk.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Auspex, Celerity, Eupraxia,
  Majesty.
  Weakness: Like all Kindred of Mekhet blood,
  Tismanu suffer the pains of light and fire more severely
  than other vampires. Whenever Tismanu suffer dam-
  age from sunlight or fire, they take an additional point
  of aggravated damage from that source (see p. 172 of
  Vampire: The Requiem).
  Tismanu vampires must not only retreat from fire and
  the sun, but from the outside world altogether. Tismanu
  must seclude themselves from other creatures to medi-
  tate upon their own selves and maintain their own re-
  solve. A Tismanu vampire must keep a haven of his own
  specifically for this purpose. In game terms, a Tismanu
  must have a number of dots in the Haven Merit equal to
  or greater than his Blood Potency. These dots cannot be
  part of a communal haven, though they may be spread
  across Haven Size, Location or Security in any combi-
  nation, so long as the necessary number of dots applies
  to a private haven of the Tismanu’s.
  If a Tismanu sleeps anywhere but his own haven, or
  his haven has an insufficient number of dots in the
  Haven Merit, he becomes unsettled, nervous, anxious
  and skittish. Each day a Tismanu spends away from
  his private haven imposes a -2 penalty to the dice
  pools of all non-reflexive actions the character at-
  tempts (to a maximum penalty of -5). Once the
  Tismanu has spent at least one day asleep in his own
  haven, these penalties disappear.
  Organization: Strictly speaking, the hierarchy of the
  Dragon Monks is virtually nonexistent. Tismanu de-
  mand their peers respect and obey the bloodline’s tra-
  ditional tenets, but this expectation has resulted in
  only a skeletal framework of internal authority. In
  place of their own unique hierarchy, the Tismanu
  operate within the social structures of the Ordo Dracul
  and traditional Orthodox monastic law. Because the
  Dragon Monks so rarely operate their own monaster-
  ies, they often hide within the societies of mortal
  monasteries, existing as strange nocturnal hermits or
  seemingly mad recluses. Within the covenant, on the
  other hand, the Tismanu observe rules of conduct, but
  never become Sworn. The mentor-student relation-
  ship is taken very seriously by Dragon Monks, how-
  ever. A Tismanu without a student is considered to
  be wasting time.
  The traditional rules the Tismanu apply to themselves
  are meant to interlock with those applied by the cov-
  enant and the Church. Tismanu respect the elders of
  the line; a Tismanu never challenges or interrupts an
  elder in front of non-Tismanu. Tismanu do not reveal
  the secrets told to them by other Kindred, except to
  their immediate and current mentor. Tismanu never
  Embrace without the approval of an elder. Only a
  Tismanu who has resided for at least 10 years and one
  night in one of the Orthodox monasteries historically
  claimed by the Tismanu may induct other Kindred into
  the bloodline.
  Concepts: Ambassador to heathens, covenant coun-
  selor, exorcist, lore master, medieval historian,
  preacher to peasants, protector of refugees, repentant
  sinner, spiritual advisor, spy among the Sanctified,
  treasure-keeper.
  tismanu
  chapter four
  168
  
  169
  bloodlines and factions
  chapter four
  Not all of the secrets of vampirism kept by the Order of
  the Dragon lurk in their dusty stacks of books and hid-
  den scholarly lairs. Some, like the Vedma, dwell at the
  edge of civilized society, in the weeds and woods of the
  world, where they have been hidden for centuries.
  The Vedma are the witches, wise women
  and grandfathers of the Ordo Dracul. Indeed,
  the Vedma claim to carry noble, ancient
  blood older than the clans themselves.
  Theirs is a mysterious, primordial line
  of blood stained on Europe since the
  nights of the ancient world or, some
  say, trickling down from the hidden
  mountain of the Dacians, called
  Kogaion. They have watched the world
  change over centuries with a kind of patient wis-
  dom the Dragons praise and strive for. But at the same
  time they resist change with the kind of stubborn arro-
  gance the Dragons seek to overcome. So it is that the
  Ordo Dracul and the Vedma have much to teach and learn.
  The formidable and strange magic of the Vedma is the
  stuff of legends in Slavic lands, both then and now. These
  are the witches and warlocks of the woods who prayed on
  the common folk of Transylvania, Wallachia and Russia
  when the world was lit only by fire. These are the hex-
  workers and deal-makers who traded magic potions in
  exchange for first-born children. These are the monsters
  who turned the forest birds against townspeople and flew
  screaming over the mountains in the dark.
  The Vedma believe the power of their blood is an an-
  cient remnant of tonight’s more “pedestrian” powers. Their
  wicked art, called Zagovny, is said to have been sipped from
  the earth and drunk from the fears of sleeping children.
  The Vedma believe their Damnation and their power seeps
  from the land itself. It was the Kindred of this line who
  kept the secrets of Spoiling — an mystic art of the Blood
  — when the vampires of old forgot its power. Tonight,
  Vedma remain the keepers of ancient secrets and fugitives
  from the modern world. With time and finesse, however,
  these witches may become stepmothers to Dragons.
  Parent Clan: Gangrel. The eldest Vedma, however, main-
  tain a legend that has been passed down through the War-
  locks for centuries, which claims the Gangrel are an off-shoot
  of the Vedma, rather than the other way around. The Vedma
  claim they come from an earlier era of more potent and for-
  midable vampires, before the spread of Kindred blood di-
  luted the oldest lineages into the clans recognized tonight.
  Vedma
  Bring me a white fawn,  alive and whole, and I’ll perform the hex you wanted.
  Fail, and in seven nights you’ll have the hex on yourself.
  Gangrel who become Vedma are therefore restoring their
  ancient and inherent power rather than refining their
  blood, at least in the eyes of the Vedma.
  Nickname: Warlocks. In domains where other Kin-
  dred may be labeled “Warlocks,” the Vedma are
  sometimes called “Dracula’s Witches” or even
  “Yagas,” in reference to Baba Yaga. Though
  the majority of Vedma are women, the
  masculine nickname somehow caught
  on during the 14th or 15th century and
  has been used since.
  Covenant: The Vedma line is
  strongly associated with the Ordo
  Dracul by those Kindred who have
  heard of it. In truth, however, the majority
  of Vedma are unbound to any covenant. These un-
  aligned Vedma are loners, nomads or unusual rural
  predators, almost without exception. No headcount
  of these wilder Vedma has ever been seriously at-
  tempted and would likely be prohibitively difficult
  — Vedma rarely interact with one another, and few
  Kindred outside the line have much interest in plunging into
  dark mountain woodlands in search of these Warlocks.
  The most visible Vedma, therefore, are those who do par-
  ticipate in the urban affairs of covenants and coteries. Of
  these, the Vedma of the Order are the de facto stereotype:
  old, riddling witches spying and whispering of the old nights.
  Dragon Vedma are the speakers for the past in some Euro-
  pean chapters and traditional wise women in others. Though
  the supernatural powers of the Vedma are certainly respected
  and cherished in those Academies that house them, Vedma
  of the Order seldom learn the Coils of the Dragon. As a
  result, Warlocks exist on the verge of the covenant much as
  they once dwelled on the edges of medieval villages.
  Vedma involved with the Circle of the Crone tend to
  play more central roles — as wise women, high priests and
  hexers — but most Vedma don’t enjoy the idea of being so
  prominent. Vedma value their protection too highly to be
  to be easily found when sought and, for a Warlock, protec-
  tion requires distance from curious eyes. Even a Vedma who
  stands to gain no renown or prestige in an Acolyte cult
  might shy away from the covenant’s own visibility.
  Like so many of the oldest vampiric traditions, the
  Vedma are often considered by Sanctified vampires to
  be antiquated heathens too far out of touch with mod-
  ern philosophy to be meaningful in the modern night.
  Sanctified Priests may disregard or oppose a Warlock,
  169
  vedma
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  bloodlines and factions
  chapter four
  170
  but few are likely to entertain notions of conversion. The
  very blood of the Vedma is wild, pagan and heretical — with
  their bloody trickery, how could any parish leader confidently
  believe a Warlock in his domain had converted in her heart?
  Secular covenants may find uses for the powers of the
  blood of Vedma in their various schemes, but most Vedma
  have little use for political organizations. A few Vedma,
  to be sure, have secured their relationships with the
  Invictus or the Carthians of Europe and America in ex-
  change for safer feeding grounds or the promise of pri-
  vacy, but such agreements hardly constitute membership
  and seldom lead to anything more formal or binding.
  Appearance: In ages past, Vedma dressed in the trap-
  pings of witches of other presumed sorcerers. Their garb
  often reflected the local peasant traditions of weaving
  and color schemes (and was typically stolen from peas-
  ant victims or accessible cottages) but was worn nearly
  to rags from nights of unclean work and travel through
  mud and woods. Most Vedma carried a large number of
  their possessions, and so looked like vagrants or travel-
  ers, thick with bags and dangling trinkets.
  Tonight, the relative appearance of the Vedma is the
  same, but the styles are often new. Modern Vedma typi-
  cally look homeless and crazy, with layers of salvaged
  clothing and huge, wild eyes behind a face of filth and
  grime. Some lug huge duffel bags or push shopping carts,
  while others have rows of plastic shopping bags tied
  around their belts, each full of stolen and rescued junk.
  Unlike other vampires, Vedma do not revert to their mor-
  tal appearances when they rest. Instead, all Vedma weather
  and grow worn out like an old woman’s untended house. Their
  hair grows wild and tangled, their flesh becomes rough and
  sometimes hairy and their eyes take on unnatural or sickly
  appearances — some become strong and yellow like a bird of
  prey’s while others turn a jaundiced yellow. Vedma teeth in-
  evitably become a black and yellow mess of jagged edges.
  Haven: Vedma sleep apart from mortal and vampire
  society. How far apart varies, but something in their
  nature demands privacy and personal secrecy. Caves,
  cracks in the earth, and burrows beneath tangled roofs
  of roots are as good as abandoned bunkers, ancient bar-
  rows, and derelict automobiles. One rare American
  Vedma sleeps in the rusty hollow of a rural water tower.
  Most Vedma teach their childer or students to sleep within
  the earth through the powers of Protean; this is one of the few
  lessons a Vedma is likely to pass on before leaving a childe to
  fend for itself. Vedma havens, therefore, are often little more
  than landmarks or shells protecting a patch of accessible earth,
  where the Vedma can nest like a snake beneath a rock.
  Background: The majority of Vedma are European
  women. Though no arcane factor limits the Vedma blood-
  line to any gender or ethnicity, the traditionalism and old-
  world sensibilities of many Vedma lead them to Embrace
  as they were Embraced. For a long while, it was customary
  for Vedma to accept students and progeny only from the
  very old and experienced — even tonight many, if not most,
  Warlocks are vampires who were Embraced with gray hair
  and bony, trembling fingers. Damnation preserves their
  wisdom and experience, gives teeth to their antiquated bi-
  ases and stagnant stubbornness and exchanges rattling bones
  and shaking hands with the fortitude of the Blood.
  In North America, Vedma are drawn largely from im-
  migrant populations for whom English is a second lan-
  guage. Though the earliest Vedma were Slavs, modern
  Vedma of the New World (and even Europe, to a lesser
  extent) are as likely to be Polish, German, Croatian or
  Russian. Gender has become less of a factor for these
  American and Canadian vampires, however.
  Vedma avoid cities that lay like concrete slabs on the
  landscape, like stones over crypts, in favor of sprawling
  cities with pockets of wild, weedy growth.
  Character Creation: The Vedma as a lineage are some-
  what diverse, but individual Vedma are seldom broad of in-
  terests or training. Most Vedma focus on a single, particular
  category of Attributes and Skills — if Social Attributes are
  the character’s primary category, Social Skills are likely to be
  primary as well. Different Vedma prioritize different catego-
  ries, but often focus on a small number of highly rated traits.
  Most Vedma are old-fashioned, or even out of touch.
  Skills like Drive and Computer are seldom found among
  their kind. Despite the bloodline’s typical role as an odd
  outsider, many Vedma are stronger in Social Skills than
  the typical Gangrel. Vedma lure mortals (and other vam-
  pires) into tricks, traps and bargains. They negotiate deals
  for hunting grounds and barter for unwanted children. A
  Vedma may project an image of muscular ferocity or wild-
  eyed insight, but often that’s all it is: a projected image.
  Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Protean, Resil-
  ience, Zagovny
  Weakness: The Vedma share in the blood of the
  Gangrel, and so share in their particular curse as well. A
  Vedma does not enjoy the benefits of the 10-again rule
  on dice pools based on Intelligence or Wits, and any 1’s
  that come up on a roll with such dice pools subtract
  from the successes achieved. (The latter part of this
  weakness does not affect dramatic failure rules.) This
  weakness does not apply to dice pools involving percep-
  tion or reaction to surprise, or to the Resolve Attribute.
  Like Gangrel, Vedma seem more bestial over time, as
  the Man gives way to the Beast. Unlike other Gangrel, a
  Vedma’s appearance changes with her blood, as well. Vedma
  blood gnarls and weathers the body, so Vedma typically
  appear unkempt, unclean and bordering on wild. Creatures
  who knew a Vedma before she became a part of the blood-
  line must make a Wits + Empathy roll to recognize her. A
  Vedma suffers a –2 penalty to all Social actions with crea-
  tures who knew her before she became a Warlock.
  Warlocks are never comfortable when surrounded by the
  trappings of modern mortal existence and civilization, though
  neither are they comfortable alone in the wild. What a Vedma
  vedma
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  170
  
  171
  bloodlines and factions
  chapter four
  doesn’t like to feel is caged. A Vedma can never purchase
  more than two dots in Status or Resources. If a third dot of
  Covenant Status, for example, were to be awarded to a Vedma
  character for free, she would be unlikely to fulfill the responsi-
  bilities of the position. A Vedma’s total dots in any Status
  Merits serve as a penalty to interactions with other Warlocks.
  Finally, the Vedma suffer from a peculiar deficiency
  in their blood. A Vedma’s own Vitae cannot retain
  the mystic qualities necessary to harness the
  bloodline’s power of Zagovny. On any night when
  a Vedma wishes to use the Zagovny Discipline,
  she must first consume an amount of animal Vi-
  tae equal to her dots in Zagovny, in one “sitting.”
  (In this case, a “sitting” consists of a single hunt-
  ing roll or the total amount of Vitae consumed
  within a five- or six-minute span.)  This is not an
  extended action; a subsequent feeding for the pur-
  pose of activating Zagovny replaces the previous
  attempt rather than adding to it. The character
  gains no actual Vitae from this consumption; in-
  stead, it is instantly used by the Vedma’s body to
  activate the latent powers of Zagovny. If the
  Vedma consumes less animal Vitae than she has
  dots in Zagovny, she can only use Zagovny pow-
  ers rated with dots equal to or less than the ani-
  mal Vitae consumed. The Vedma’s animal Vitae
  “charge” is expended when the character next
  spends Vitae to awaken. (Thus, Vedma who study
  the Coils of the Dragon can go longer between doses
  of animal Vitae.)
  Example: Siwa, a Vedma Dragon, is soon to
  set out on a hunt for human blood. She expects
  that she’ll want to use her Zagovny Disci-
  pline during the night, so first she attempts
  a Wits + Survival roll to hunt for suffi-
  cient animal Vitae to activate her
  three dots of Zagovny. The roll
  nets two successes, so the
  Storyteller determines
  that Siwa gets two
  animal Vitae on
  her hunt. There-
  fore, she can use
  only her first- and second-level Zagovny powers. If she
  had gotten three animal Vitae — or tried again and got
  three animal on her second attempt — she’d be able to
  use all three of her dots in Zagovny.
  Organization: Whether the Vedma are
  recognized as the potent roots of the
  Gangrel tree or a branch of it, it cannot
  be argued that, culturally, the Vedma
  are an exaggeration of Gangrel ways.
  Vedma have virtually no organization
  to speak of — most seek to distance
  themselves from the majority of Kindred so-
  ciety, including those of their own line. What little
  hierarchy can be found among the Vedma might be seen as
  a hint of the mentor-student relationships of the Order
  Dracul, perhaps arising out of some shared cultural founda-
  tion common to the Slavic lands where both the Vedma
  and Dracula originate. To spread their tales and their mystic
  secrets, Vedma take on students (sometimes called “pets”)
  and instruct them in the ways of earthly survival and bloody
  power. A Vedma is likely to take on her own
  childer as a student, but there are no guarantees
  — some Vedma progeny are abandoned.
  Likewise, a vampire who seeks out an
  Avus among the Warlocks
  should expect to serve and
  study before being inducted
  into the bloodline.
  In the last century or so,
  a handful of Vedma in Eu-
  rope and North America
  have come into contact
  through the social
  mechanisms of the
  Ordo Dracul. These
  Vedma have extended
  the Vedma tutorial tra-
  dition to the Order as a
  whole, teaching indi-
  vidual Dragons for per-
  haps a year at a time and
  sharing the legends and
  tales of the Vedma with
  the archivists and
  Kogaions of the Ordo
  Dracul. More than a few
  unaligned Vedma have
  come forth to take ad-
  vantage 
  of 
  the
  covenant’s generosity,
  but just as many have
  threatened their fel-
  low Vedma to break
  away from the cov-
  enant and honor the
  old ways.
  Concepts: Baba
  Yaga wannabe, bag
  lady, crazy unclean
  artiste, hex mas-
  ter, 
  Kindred
  boogeyman, no-
  madic serial killer,
  peasant-hunt-
  ing woodland
  terror, 
  sa-
  tanic pagan,
  wise woman of
  the woods.
  171
  vedma
  chapter four
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/World of Darkness (WoD) [multi]/CofD/Vampire - The Requiem/NWoD - White Wolf - Vampire the Requiem - Bloodlines Compendium.pdf