The Amaranthans

Worshipers of the ancient Toreador named Amarantha, the purported first victim of
diablerie, the Amaranthans have existed for millennia as hunters of vampire cannibals,
operating without sectarian authority in their pursuit of diablerists. Established by
Amarantha’s lovers among Clans Brujah, Nosferatu, and the Banu Haqim, the cult still
largely consists of Kindred from those clans, few of whom remain in one domain for
longer than it takes to kill their target and acquire a new one. The process of joining the
Amaranthans isn’t one usually undertaken by choice, with mortals Embraced by
members of the cult immediately indoctrinated into an existence of hunting vampire
sinners. In that regard, there are few murder cults quite so driven as the Amaranthans.

In past centuries, the cult’s coteries would gravitate toward rumors of diablerie,
investigate, and then execute the guilty without trial. In these nights they follow similar
practices, though many among them find satisfaction in a secondary role as bearers of
their victims’ final messages, harbingers of their last wills (providing they don’t run
counter to the cult’s objectives), and have even granted mercy on a handful of occasions.

Current Goals

The Amaranthans have been tolerated among the dominant sects for centuries due to
Kindred society’s widely attested distaste for diablerie. As long as these Amaranthans
commit their murders quietly and move on, they’re creating spaces in the hierarchy
previously occupied by murderers, so most Kindred take the view that they’re a kind of
religious pest control. This view is gradually changing, however, since whereas the
Amaranthans used to primarily target Sabbat vampires, with that sect out of the picture
and the cult having no desire to follow them on their Gehenna Crusade, they’ve since
taken out a few high-profile Camarilla targets, including an Archon and two Princes.

The Amaranthans are dedicated to their goal even though they know it’s one without end.
If their practice was a disincentive to commit diablerie, it surely would have stopped
diablerists by now. The current objective of the already small cult is to survive renewed
Camarilla and Anarch scrutiny while furthering their more esoteric aims, which if
rumors are to believed, involve the diablerie of some of their most dangerous targets.
Supposedly, the Amaranthans believe they can free or merge with Amarantha if they can
finally consume her murderer, but that would entail consuming that vampire’s
descendants, all of whom show a similar dedication to cannibalism.

The Ashfinders
“We are one click away from becoming the next step in Cainite evolution. One share from
enlightenment. One algorithm away from becoming gods. This is our path, to share and
understand that which has come before us.”
 — Amber Freeman, Duskborn Influencer and Yogini of the Cinder Institute

The Ashfinders are a new philosophical movement within the tangled web of Kindred
religious observances. These Yogis are born from the literal ashes of the ongoing Gehenna
War, the cult built around the understanding that there may be ways other than diablerie
to evolve a Duskborn’s powers. The Ashfinders and their wider conglomerate — the
Cinder Institute — possess a multi-faceted dogma, but it boils down to one part ecstatic
bacchanalian cult, one part data-mining firm, and a healthy scorn for vampire society.
Seen as the “other” by mainstream Kindred, Ashfinders have come to terms with this
separation by reveling in life’s greatest pleasures and showing off with the use of social
media. While this bravado is tacky to some, by enjoying existence, or some semblance of
it, Ashfinders remind themselves of what they lose if they give themselves to the Beast. It
is also a way to tell the Camarilla to “fuck off, the Duskborn are here to stay.”

Dust to Dust

The Ashfinder movement is reactionary, built from a quest for survival and a
disillusionment with political factions such as the genocidal Camarilla, who have made
no secret of their hunt for thin-bloods. While there are those Kindred who sympathize
with the plight of the thin-bloods, this cult is now seen as an open threat to vampiric
society. The cult counts few true Kindred among its membership, though the majority of
the “full-blooded” Kindred who support them have Anarch tendencies. One of the
Kindred who mentored the early members of this cult was the Tremere Dr. Mortius, who
has been instrumental in providing information and thaumaturgical ability to the
Duskborn in exchange for small portions of Ashe — a drug created from vampire remains
— for his own personal experiments.

Donning the mask of millennial high society, the cultists portray themselves as ambitious
revelers enjoying the peak of the nightlife scene while searching for enlightenment. The
hustle of life and unlife blend together into a perfectly edited Instagram photo. This hides
the underlying fractious after-effects of Ashe use and the “fake it ‘til you make it”
mentality which drives the religion forward. Donning loose forms of organization, the
Ashfinders are a conglomeration of influencer culture, New Age philosophy, and the
quest for Golconda through the deliberate and systematic annihilation of as many
Kindred elders as possible.

While diablerie is a sure-fire way of becoming notorious among the Damned, these thin-
bloods have discovered a way to synthesize necromantic power, thin-blood alchemy,
Thaumaturgy, and the ashes of dead Kindred to ingest the shattered elements of the
Beast. This drug — known on the street as Ashe — is consumed any way the Duskborn
prefers, whether eaten, injected, snorted, or rubbed into an area rich in blood vessels.
Doing so creates a bond with the memories and powers of the dead. This way, thin-bloods
continue to possess the benefits of walking between the two worlds without having to
completely compromise their morality.
The Ashfinders’ agenda is an incredible threat to the Camarilla and cults who venerate
the ancestors. The knowledge and pervasive nature of this new party drug alarms many
within Kindred society, especially as it’s apparent Ashe has no effect on non-Duskborn. It
is highly addictive and has horrifying consequences if taken in excess. The Ashfinders are
flooding the party scene in Chicago, Ibiza, Bangkok, and supposedly elsewhere with their
new drug, and offering the recipe to anyone bold enough to ask. The drugs they pass
around may not even be Ashe, but merely marketed under that name to drum up
excitement and enticement. The real drug is the physical embodiment of a culture of
sharing as it blossoms into a perfect death spiral. Ashe is sharing the memories, abilities,
and Disciplines of dead Kindred, all blended into a psychedelic euphoria seldom seen
among vampires. There are even rumors certain special batches cause the Hunger to slip
away for brief moments of time. The ritual to create the substance itself is incredibly
dangerous and can cause lasting consequences for both the creator and the partygoer who
eventually imbibes the drug.

The use of Ashe has generated some unintended side effects in its users. Some Ashfinders
find their withdrawals completely consuming them, and the after-effects drive many to
kill vampires so they can obtain their next fix.

Are Millennials Killing Kindred Elders?

On its surface, the Ashfinder movement provides a communal and welcoming space for
any thin-blood who chafes under the pressure of vampire politics. Its membership
cultivates a deliberate marketing and social media campaign to propose and propagate
centering activities such as meditation, yoga, esoteric classes, and other forms of New-Age
prosperity practice among Duskborn. These sessions are also offered to the public, using
the kine as a sort of barrier against any bands of hunters looking to harm the thin-bloods.
Through the fashioning of these carefully crafted communities, the Cinder Institute was
built. On the backs of donations and delicate social engineering, the cult built a new
corporate center within the Hive of the Chicago financial district. Hiding in plain sight,
the Institute provides a multitude of philanthropic and spiritual services for the Kindred
and kine of Chicago. This hub has satellite studios all over the greater Chicagoland area
and has recently branched out to build a consulting service wherein “meditative gurus”
can use video conferencing platforms to give sessions to those willing to foot the cost.

The Cinder Institute is a fantastic front, forged in the fires of social media presence and
club scene culture, and one the Camarilla would balk at. While these Kindred and kine
find store-front enlightenment from the teachings of New Age spirituality, they routinely
proceed to throw afterparties in nightclubs and lofts. The locations of their budding
“guru” network are very specific, with connections to the cities of Bangkok and the island
of Ibiza, both known for their vibrant nightlife. The cult’s public face lures in
disenfranchised thin-bloods, who sample the drugs, and then join the cult. They then go
on to advertise their experiences in clubs, retreats, and times spent meditating — not
referencing the drug, naturally — to lure further adherents to the cult. The cycle goes on
and on, using social media marketing as a highly efficient cult-building tool.
The endless party lifestyle this perpetuates does nothing but bolster the fledgling
Golconda cult. People want to feel good about themselves, and what better way than to
pair wellness of body and soul with a decadent social gathering.

With the boom of Ashe and the demand for the substance growing, the cult’s Tremere
sponsor, Dr. Mortius, considers how best to farm Kindred “humanely” for the drug’s
creation. While the potency of the substance is dependent upon the age of the vampire
from whom it was synthesized, Mortius has discovered the memories of the vampire can
still be transferred over to the drug user and provide the same sense of fleeting joy, no
matter the age of the drug’s Kindred of origin. With the Gehenna War ongoing, the
amount of raw materials coming in from battlefields has not diminished, as the thin-
bloods and Mortius use agents on the front lines to discreetly harvest remains for
shipping back to more lucrative market sites. With social media’s tools at hand, the ability
to hound a vampire into fleeing their haven is also an option the younger members of the
cult have grown to enjoy.

What Exactly is an Influencer?

Influencers are social media personalities who wield enormous social clout over their
followers on whatever platform they prefer. Some of these people choose to put their lives
on display for whoever wishes to watch, promoting whatever they wish, and go on to
create a cult of personality around themselves. They may also offer “advice” on subjects,
often amounting to nothing more than product pitches. This strange voyeurism, in turn,
provides intense political, social, and economic force when an influencer’s followers are
told to consume, destroy, or act in a certain capacity. This form of marketing presents a
face to potential consumers and builds a “relationship” much as we see in traditional
sales. Products and beliefs an influencer may recommend, events they may attend, even
things they wear may become overnight successes or failures at the whim of these mini-
celebrities. This exchange humanizes the consumerism involved, creating deep devotion
within their own small cults of personality.

Within the context of the World of Darkness, these influencers function identically. If the
influencer is a vampire, then the vampire might use their following to take part in the
Jyhad and turn followers against or in favor of Kindred in their domain. Such activity
should warrant a Blood Hunt in Camarilla domains, but many Princes and Sheriffs are too
long in the tooth to even understand the influencer phenomenon. One set of groups who
do keep a close eye on this online behavior are Second Inquisition bodies such as
FIRSTLIGHT. For thin-bloods, influencer culture is a way to garner influence under the
radar of the Camarilla’s watchful eyes. For the Inquisition, it’s a fine way to identify a
city’s Kindred as the online vampires talk about their friends and rivals. For now, the
Cinder Institute seems to be a legitimate front for New Age businesses and party lifestyles.
The Inquisition has yet to realize vampires are behind it.

Data Mining
At the core of the philosophy, the use of Ashe is a sacrament toward the goal of
enlightenment. By “sharing” the memories of the dead, Ashfinders might discover truths
about their existence, their curse, and their possible powers. These mental walkabouts
are often taken in meditative places of relaxation, with stronger doses of the drug. Trip-
sitters are present to record the vampires’ meditations and report them more widely
within the Cinder Institute. These memories never leave the Kindred, causing occasional
dysphoria within many of the Ashfinders, making them question or lose who they really
are after extended use. Yet cult members continue to use the substance, as the memories
gained are of insurmountable worth. To be able to find and use lost resources or contacts,
or to locate lost fortunes or acquire knowledge built over centuries, is a short-cut for
which these thinbloods willingly make the sacrifice.

Mortius sits at the head of the Cinder Institute, monitoring the results gleaned from Ashe
use. He finds that the cultivation of Ashe becomes simpler with time, and the data
synthesized from the experiment compounds upon itself. Mortius is in the fortunate
position of geting to study thin-blood activity as much as he wishes, being seen as a
benevolent godfather by many of the thinbloods, while acting as the puppetmaster
behind an entire cult. As for Golconda, his theories weave back and forth. The amassing
of knowledge at such a scale is any Tremere’s dream, and his allegiance to House
Ipsissimus wavers as he finds more power at his fingertips via the Ashfinders than the
New-Age House could ever provide. Practically at will, he can witness the range of human
and Kindred existence, though he can’t experience it himself. What he questions now,
however, is why his test subjects keep seeing shadows move out of the corners of their
eyes, and why there are areas in his lab that fill him with seething dread. It seems the
ghosts of the dead blame him directly for the desecration of their remains.

Ashfinder Convictions

The Ashfinders are a new cult, with some Convictions handed down from the mind of
Mortius in the Cinder Institute, others passed on by yogis and gurus within the ranks of
Ashe-takers. Some of these common Convictions include:

Always sample new experiences on offer: The Ashfinders are libertines and new
experiences are a part of the package that comes with taking Ashe.

Never withhold Ashe from others who wish to sample it: Experience and sensation
are to be shared. Solitary euphoria is a hollow high.

Never allow someone to silence you: The Cinder Institute requires the spread of its
word to draw new adherents and new experiences. Silence is a method of the
Camarilla.
Always listen to those of greater experience: Wisdom can be gained from those of
greater age and experience. One doesn’t have to believe or emulate every word and
action, but listening is mandatory.

Always know where your next fix is coming from: Ashe isn’t to be sampled once and
forgotten: it’s a way of life. Only a fool takes the drug and fails to take account of their
forthcoming supply.
 Never allow the kine to realize your undead nature: Though the Cinder Institute
advocates the spread of their word, they are very specific that Ashfinders must keep
their vampiric states a secret from mortal followers. As far as the kine are concerned,
Ashe is just a new lab-grown drug that doesn’t give them a buzz like it does to you.

Cinder Institute: Ibiza

One of the centers of power for the Ashfinders exists on the island of Ibiza, where several
coteries of vampires dedicated to this cult sample the blood of the thousands of tourists
who pass through the clubs, beaches, and bars every year. In a strangely seasonal cycle,
the Ashfinders are active in the domain between the months of May and October, but sink
into torpor or fly to Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, or Morocco for the other months of the
year. Ibiza’s tourist trade drops with the weather, therefore the vampires move in and out
too.

The cult has no formal hierarchy, hasn’t appointed a Prince or Baron over the island, and
has yet to organize hunting territories or Elysia. They’re fiercely territorial over the
island’s south coast, where in places like Platja d’en Bossa they receive shipments of Ashe
from domains on either side of the Mediterranean and mix them up with the blood of
intoxicated kine to create exciting cocktails.

Despite the length of time Ibiza has been a party venue, few vampires took advantage of
its throng of drunk, often doped-up mortals until the Cinder Institute set up on the
island. Now that they’re there, it’s proving difficult to make room for the Ashfinders
during their feeding seasons, which has led to consternation and conflict between them
and the Kindred who do make Ibiza a permanent residence. Many suspect a war might be
brewing. It’s likely the Ashfinders will seize the island in its entirety in the coming
months, acting as an invitation for fledglings wanting to embrace an unlife of thrills and
no consequences, and for mercenary Kindred looking to profit from serving Ibiza’s non-
Ashfinder vampires in driving the cult off the island.

Perspectives

Anarchs: Our closest allies of the “full-blooded” variety exist in this sect, but they’ll never
understand what it is to go through existence half-formed, impotent in the middle of a
measuring contest. They might be sympathetic, but they’ve no idea what to do with us. I
think if we fell completely on their mercy, they’d make a nice padded room for us to bounce
around in and feel like they’ve done a good job.

Camarilla: For a whole bunch of reasons, some of them valid, they’d see the Cinder
Institute wiped off the face of the Earth. The good news is they’re so behind the times they
don’t even know what the Ashfinders are, what we do, and why they should be bothered.

Church of Caine: When we kill, it’s for enlightenment and the betterment of Duskborn
society. When they kill, it’s because they think they’re angels of murder, or some shit. They
revere the act of bloodshed itself. At least for us it’s a means to an end.
 Cult of Shalim: Is there such a thing as pursuing enlightenment in the wrong direction? If
so, this cult has it down pat.
Mithraic Mysteries: Some people call us a cult. This is a cult. They embrace the whole
robes, ceremonial masks, chanting, and ranks nonsense. They know their god is dead too,
so what’s the point? Does it provide them comfort?

The Bahari
“The Dark Mother suffered in the wastes. When we follow in her blood-stained footsteps, we are
the children she lost, born anew to make her enemies pay for what they’ve done.”

—Sophie Maïga, Priestess of the Garden of Storms, La Balize

Who was Lilith? Few ask the question, mortal or not. Some say she was the haughty first
wife of the first man, who took off to consort with demons because of a conflict rooted in
a gendered and sexual inequality. Or, she was the victimized first wife of the first man,
who ran to the darkness beyond Eden for safety.

In the medieval period, new versions of her story leapt into being, with one among others
capturing the imaginations of many. Created by the debates of holy men and a satirist, it
would prove to be the one that dug deepest. Lilith was the first wife, and Eve was the
second. Lilith and Adam quarreled from the day they met, and Lilith grew tired of it. She
used a secret name of their Creator to whisk herself away to safety. When mothers put
amulets on their babies to ward off Lilith, they were warding off a woman whose rage was
eternal, who would take all children in the night, and leave them dead. To kill the
children of Adam and Eve was to strike back at their shared Creator, to unmake parts of a
world that had been set in motion long, long ago. Despite the powers ascribed to her,
there was almost something human to her pain and hate. In other tales Lilith is
confronted by angels and stakes her claim on the lives of newborns. She becomes a
consort of the Angel of Death, and evolves into a figure of powerful evil, one connected to
a violent, roiling world beyond that of the average mortal; one that was terrifying, but
perhaps necessary for existence to have the meaning that it does. Perhaps, if Lilith sits
upon her throne, she will not come down into the night, and take more than just newborn
babies. In each myth, intermixed, the smallest seeds of the truth can be found by the
determined reader. There is something almost human to her pain, and hate, but also to
her love, and her grief. She does not simply access a world beyond the mundane human
reality, she is part of it. For a time, she was the lover of an angel. In all her grief, she has
had only herself to rely on.

Lilith is loyal to herself. She is self-assured, she is above human morality, and she
possesses a power and sexuality utterly alien to many, even some of the Bahari. She is self-
sustaining and resists heaven, Caine, and humankind, century after century. She is
power, and knowledge. And she is a scapegoat, for humans and Cainites alike, for their
fears and their desires. Her story has been passed back and forth between the children of
Adam and Eve, and her own children. It is not pure, nor is it untouched by the hands of
men, uninfluenced by those who do not know her revelations. Those who follow her
know that without question, they will die. They will know fear and be forced past it, their
bodies sent past the breaking point. They will suffer greatly for understanding and to
protect each other. They are dedicated to bringing about the goals of the Dark Mother,
and these are their reasons for living.

What is Lilith, is the most important question. She is the voice heard in the dark
apartment, when no one else is present. The fragment of a song that obsesses but seems to
come from nowhere. Dreams of blood-filled trees or the full to bursting belly gorged on
food and blood, before the bed is ripped apart. The mother wailing and rocking the bodies
of her dead children. A woman whose garden has been burned to the ground. All of the
Bahari must know loss in their time. Physical and psychic pain. The role of a feast in the
night. The role of being the feast in the night. To worship her is to be a fragment of her, to
feel pain and crave vengeance.

The many Gardens of the Bahari have their own feelings about what parts of the
scriptures or satires or scholarly treatises of mortals have captured an inkling of the Dark
Mother. Each Garden has as many opinions of the Revelations and rituals as a
pomegranate has seeds.

Stories about the Dark Mother are like holding a fistful of writhing snakes. The observer
may see the storm, air, flight, angels, night, light, lovers, loss, desert, birth, sea, thorns,
violation, magic unimaginable — and by that point they will be bitten and die.

Out of the Desert

From Canaan, Babylon, and Israel, the myths of Lilith traveled from people to people,
carrying with them both error and truth about her and the Bahari alike. Even then, the
cult carried within it a mix of Lhaka, humans, and mages. When the Babylonians said the
night-demons of the air were women and men, once human, angry at the living, they
were unaware of how much truth was in their belief. In this period of human and Cainite
history, the recruitment of new Cainites was rare compared to later periods, and the
Lhaka of the time were frequently of lineages that, while not old enough to have come
from the Garden over which Lilith wept when it was destroyed, were still old. Those
among the Bahari of antiquity who may have sprung closer to Lilith’s blood kept their
own counsel, and no oral or written documentation of their number has been found.
While Jewish folklore was early to adopt discussion of Lilith, this pursuit of
understanding her nature and binding her power made its way to Christianity. Where
lilins once skated under the notice of Greco-Roman mystery cults and the Cainites
haunting the halls of Greek and Roman power, the rise of the Christian Church brought a
new threat to their nights. Where the children of Caine represented both danger and
secret enmity, the Christian empire brought with it fervent prosecution of witchcraft, and
a weaponized fight against demons.
Lilith the Baby-Snatcher

The personality and actions of Lilith herself are less important than those of her
followers, or those who follow the legends surrounding her. Among the most deplorable
of her purported activities was the stealing of infants from unworthy parents, or as
sacrifice to ensure the fertility of others. The majority of Kindred harbor severe
misgivings about replicating this ceremony, and most Bahari cells do not encourage the
kidnap of children. Ethics play a part, of course, but police scrutiny comes into play when
children go missing.

Sadly, this practice is not entirely foreign to the modern Bahari. Some followers of the
Dark Mother believe they have the ordained right to decide who must parent and who
must not, and others at the cult’s hard core believe no blood tastes sweeter than that of
infants. Whether through a combination of bitterness at their cursed state, fanatical
belief in Lilith and an attempt to emulate their Goddess, or simply as an act to terrify local
kine and Kindred alike, fringes of the Bahari have and will continue to terrorize children
and new parents.

Beliefs

The Bahari believe that Lilith, the Dark Mother, would have been the greatest gardener of
Eden, if not for Adam and the human God. She had three Gardens; Elona, the Garden of
Hope, D’hainu, the Garden of Renewal, and Bahara, the Garden of Suffering. Whether the
Gardens were each a physical place or a metaphor is of some debate, but their names and
the events surrounding them are without question part of Bahari belief and what one
could call their liturgy.

In one of the few ways the Bahari have always been united, they are intent on forming
new gardens of paradise (or their interpretation of what paradise is) around the globe.
Historically, the Bahari named the city of Jericho their new Garden of Renewal, where
between the 9th and 14th centuries CE, Kindred could find sanctuary, succor, and time to
pacify their Beasts. The Inquisition of the time routed the domain, but for a time it was
one of the Bahari’s strongholds. Likewise, a powerful Bahari cell declared Oslo their
Garden of Suffering in the 19th and early 20th centuries CE, but that group disappeared
almost overnight prior to the start of the Second World War, leaving other Kindred to
discover the domain had been used for the imprisonment, torture, and diablerie of
countless vampires for over a century. None of the Oslo cell have re-entered society under
the same names since that time.

The superiority of Lilith to Caine is a vital part of their belief structure, and the hate of
Cainites is not something open to interpretation, let alone something to be approached
with passivity or without violence. Cainites, down to the very last one, will either become
Lhaka in the Garden, or die. The religious opinion that all supernatural creatures in the
world are the children of Lilith is widespread, but not required. In the end, beneath any
poetry, sin within the Bahari comprises a spectrum.
Bahari Convictions

Lilins frequently gravitate toward the following Convictions, their belief helping to
justify their actions:

Always correct the false myths of Caine when you hear them: To destroy Caine, one
must destroy his myth. To elevate Lilith as she deserves, one must destroy Caine in
every way.

Never feel remorse for serving Lilith: The Bahari cannot afford to dwell in remorse,
because remorse is the thread by which self-doubt and artificial morals are sewn to
the soul. Remorse creates hesitation.
Always participate in Bahari rituals: The personal feelings of a Ba’ham do not
matter in regard to ritual. Whether they wish to be elsewhere, or believe the Garden
they have entered is not worthy of their presence, worship of the Dark Mother and
her wisdom supersedes personal preferences or politics.
Never allow the destruction of your creations to go unavenged: The Bahari hold
the creation of their gardens and of life within their ghouls and mortal servitors as
paramount, in many cases. One of the surest ways to send a Bahari into a murderous
frenzy is to destroy what they have built.

Never show fear in the face of death: Lilith did not show fear at any point after her
creation, nor should her children.
Only kill in sacrifice to Lilith: Killing is made sacred by being part of worship,
learning, and growth. Sacrifice can be about holy vengeance. Sacrifice can mean
volunteering your body to be the feast, to die in the hands and mouths of other
Bahari. All deaths must have meaning to the Dark Mother.
Never fail to dispense pain and anguish to Lilith’s enemies: Bringing discomfort to
the comfortable is not just a pithy saying, but a necessary component of bringing
someone into the Dark Mother’s embrace as well as destroying her enemies in a
manner she would find pleasing

Organization

Members of the Bahari start somewhere on the outskirts of someone else’s Garden. As
they embrace the lessons of the Dark Mother, they progress in acceptance, and education,
before they can stand in the Garden with their fellow worshipers — or be buried in it,
depending on how far they get in their time as a newly minted Ba’ham. But none should
be afraid of watering the Garden.

A Garden is led by at least one person, frequently two. The number of Bahari in the
Garden’s grasp is limited only by the goals and resources of the group. In cities where
initiates may draw attention to the Garden, their number is tightly controlled, and
replaced only as needed. When an initiate is human, with no supernatural gifts, their
study before their ritual of initiation delivers only basic information about Lilith,
focusing primarily on lessons of pain, the extinction of personal fear, and the necessity of
blood sacrifice. Would-be initiates drawn from the ranks of mages and the psychically
gifted have more openly supernatural discussions during their early studies, while
Cainites receive formidable and painful deprogramming about the mythos of Caine, and
indoctrination into the story of Lilith.

Outside coven-scale organizations, regions of Bahari will from time to time work in
concert on large-scale rituals, or to coordinate the destruction of influential Cainites
standing in the way of Bahari goals. When traveling to new cities, a Ba’ham may find
some or all of the local Bahari customs quite alien on their face, with only the essential
elements of the Dark Mother’s wisdom (blood and creation) recognizable. The oldest
Garden still in existence — the Garden of Hope in Budapest — is a place of holy
pilgrimage, and echoes of their liturgy have been carried piecemeal through centuries of
Bahari immigration to other places, seeded into daughter-Gardens over time. Not every
Garden is modeled on Lilith’s three, but undoubtedly, the Bahari would love to bring
them back to life.

Modern Nights

The need the world has for the Bahari is ever-growing, at least according to the lilins.

For every pain someone suffers, there is the chance at renewed purpose, or deep insight.
There is no fear of death, or final death. In a world that seems increasingly desperate and
chaotic, the bloody hand that tilts up someone’s chin to tell them the suffering are seen is
a powerful one. The lilins spread a truth craved by those paralyzed by grief and pain. In
the beginning, Lilith was there, and Lilith was repeatedly betrayed, and they can attain
vengeance for Lilith. The suffering that lilins spread feels like a substitute for the justice
they will never have. To the new Bahari of the brutal modern world, the worship of Lilith
is not only transgressive, but serves as a shadow faith against all human faith, a shadow
nation against the children of Caine. It is an unholy time, and the Bahari of the world
walk through blood and thorns on their way to the ocean, to hasten the waters’ rise.

They are playing a dangerous game in war zones around the world, operating under the
noses of thrill-seeking members of the Camarilla and their enemies, seeking to both lift
up would-be lilins from the bloodshed and strike down the children of Caine.

Spirals of Vengeance

Some lilins try to act with all humanity and use their gifts to do nothing but help the
victims of abuses, tortures, and harsh lives.

These lilins are, however, in the minority.

Lilins are not “good vampires” and they are not “Kindred angels,” nor are they more
interested in equality, fairness, and justice than they are in blood, righteous mandate, and
punishment. The Bahari are more than happy to cultivate their image as avenging angels,
and some only feed from abusers, target awful men, and persecute the patriarchy
associated with worshiping Caine. However, when the survivor who pointed the lilin at
their abuser thanks the vampire, the vampire is inclined to take that mortal as a retainer,
a blood doll, or just drop them without future aid, now their task is done. When they
target awful men, ripping them to shreds in an alley, they enjoy the pain they mete out,
relishing the bloodshed and tortured cries. When they attack Cainite worship, they
suggest a replacement: Lilith worship. Neither is truly better than the other.

Some Bahari come face-to-face with their hypocrisy and walk away from the cult. Others
embrace it and use it to elevate themselves. Others deny the hypocrisy and genuinely see
themselves as deliverers, righteous in their actions. Very few Bahari ponder the idea that
abuse begets abuse, or how the spiral of vengeance becomes all-consuming until scores of
innocents fall due to their supposed moral crusade. Examining their actions might give
one a crisis of faith, and denying Lilith’s way is a good way to find oneself
excommunicated from the Garden, or lashed to the old Judas tree and burned to ash.

Recruitment

Among mortals, promising future Bahari are often sought out among survivors of abuse,
crime, and events involving substantial fatalities (natural disasters, bus crashes, and the
like). Mortals going through intense periods of grief (someone who may have lost all
immediate family within a brief span of time, survivors of war) and those who take care of
them are of particular interest. The Revelations of the Dark Mother — a text of
importance to the lilin, though its authorship is disputed within the Bahari’s scholarly
circles — have much to say about grief and betrayal, and that’s what they look for; people
still within the gravity well of a grief that threatens to destroy them, down to their soul.
These are the people crying in the waiting room or a parked car, unmoving at home,
putting on a strong face at work. They give their mourning to pets, doctors, volunteers,
other survivors, bar tenders, social workers, their dealer. Even when they give their grief
to the right people, they’re still drowning in it. A Bahari working in any of these roles is
introduced to a sea of faces, constantly moving, and if she, like Lilith, is meant to move
within a sea… she’ll have a mortal in her talons with only a modicum of effort.

Among the children of Caine, Bahari still seek out those with broken hearts and broken
will, but they also seek out those who have been deprived justice, as Lilith was. Mortal
acolytes who have known injustice are plentiful in every era. But among the children of
Caine, the rage and pain of a child taken from them in antiquity, or the husband lost to
the hardships of life in a company town — immortality gives these agonizing abuses of an
unfair system the chance to become a frozen tableau in what Kindred might call their
soul; memories they can’t pry out of their minds, because half a world away — if not
closer — are the people who orchestrated their agony. They might even ask them about it,
from time to time, over the centuries. That painful wrath is Lilith’s wrath, and the Bahari
will court one of the vampires outside the Garden for as long as it takes to bring that anger
to the Dark Mother.

It’s rare to have a chance to recruit a mage, or eat a saint, but these delicacies take effort,
as does killing the last mortal descendants of a self-important beast who knows his
lineage back to Caine. It’s possible that if that death rends his heart and brings about his
sympathy to the ravages of grief, he could be opened to the truth.

Purists — traditionalists among the Bahari, if one can be described as such — say that
initiations and offerings alike don’t have to be made, you simply have to pay attention to
where the Dark Mother directs you. For those who approach things with the swift and
raging sensibility of the modern era, there isn’t enough time left to waste on looking
around. It’s an unpopular sentiment, and in antiquity it smacked of laziness. Those who
believe in this Burke-and-Hare shovel discount on observing the teachings and sacrament
of Lilith will become the bloody rags and picked-over bones that fertilize one of her
beloved Gardens. What the Bahari do with these new recruits is funnel much of their
energy into directed violence toward Cainites. The Bahari have no inner circle of any kind
to direct any Ba’ham as a puppet, and they rely on a cell-structure for their outward-
facing activities, much like those used by terror groups.

The Bahari are an emulation cult, and any individual with a similar tale of woe is a
healthy bud waiting to be nurtured into full bloom.

Bases of Operations

The Bahari are a globe-spanning cult, and have tended Gardens in some places for
hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Generally, the Gardens have been located
somewhere with fertile land and privacy, two things rapidly vanishing in the modern
nights. Climate change has killed a number of Bahari, be they unwilling to move a
Garden, unable to leave their Garden, or perhaps caught unawares by the shift of time and
tide. There has been unease among their number at the increase in groups seeking to
build Gardens beneath the waves, where Lilith is said to have lived among the dragons of
the dark. Those seeking to nurse poisoned wastes into beauty once again have all died,
save but a few known groups whose final fate no one has been able to confirm, including
those who chose to go into the Zone Rouge in France after the Great War. Throughout
their history, some Ba’ham who sought to heal the Earth did so to heal a measure of the
Dark Mother’s unimaginable agony from when Caine sullied her Garden and killed her
children. They are permanently at odds with the Bahari who prefer a technological and
accelerated end to the planet, who will go to their starving, choking deaths with a smile
after they have killed every descendant of Adam and Eve, and all of Caine’s as well.

In any part of the world, as long as a Ba’ham has a pot of earth (or silt, if the sea-seekers
are still alive and well), she is one of the most dangerous things beneath the sun or moon.
It doesn’t take a forest or a private park to make a Garden, it’s simply powerful, and
frequently aesthetically pleasing.

Garden of Hope: Budapest

These nights, the greatest Bahari-led domain is in Budapest. For nearly a millennium the
lilin worked in the background of the cities that led to Budapest’s formation. In the
present era they believe they have finally cultivated the domain into Lilith’s new Garden
of Hope, and only in the last decade have they emerged at the forefront of domain politics.
With the Beckoning calling away so many of Prince László’s allies, the city’s Bahari drove
the Prince underground and seized the city for their own.

For centuries, the cult influenced the city’s Kindred to abide by many of Lilith’s precepts,
manipulating vampire culture so the Kindred of Budapest were unafraid of death and
pursued Golconda without fear, indulged in masochistic activities to prove themselves to
each other, and restricted the murder of Kindred and kine to only great sacrificial
purposes. Though Prince László didn’t know it, the reason he changed domain laws over
the course of the 20th century to suit the ways of the Bahari was because their voices filled
his court. He even encouraged feeding from men above all other vessels, though he
couldn’t explain why.

Steadily, Budapest became the Garden of Hope. Its natural beauty plays a part, the
glorious Danube cutting through it like a life-giving vein. Over the years, more Bahari
traveled to the domain, reinforcing the cult’s rites around other Kindred of the city until
these became as natural as the Camarilla Traditions in any other domain. Whenever a
Bahari needed to rest for an extended period, they would sink to the bottom of the
Danube and bury themselves deep in the riverbed, giving their life to the city and taking
the city’s life in return upon awakening.

Importantly, as a symbol of the city’s role as a domain of hope, the Bahari dedicated much
of their time to giving Kindred reason to exist, reason to rise above the Beast’s primal
needs, and a channel into which they could pour all their anger and self-loathing. For
years, unknown to the Prince, the Bahari pursued the path of avenging angels, visiting
pain and sometimes death on every abuser named in a newspaper or brought to their
attention through anecdote or rumor. The cause became less about justice and more about
catharsis, with some Bahari finding their own hold on Humanity slipping, but the fact a
domain existed where vampires could exorcise their guilt and hatred filled many with
hope that with guidance, eternity needn’t be so cruel.

Now, the domain’s leader is a Nosferatu named Natália Tarr, though she goes by the title
“Anya,” meaning mother. She’s the latest in a line of lilin to have led the cult in Budapest,
but easily the most ambitious, reaching out to the until-recently torpid Vencel Rikard for
assistance in ousting László. Rikard called in some favors to aid the cult in removing his
usurper, but had no ambitions of claiming the domain for himself, content to just damage
László’s pride.

The Budapest of tonight is one where at least 60% of the Kindred present are Bahari, with
more joining the cult each month. In this domain, Natália’s lilin peers have built up a
trove of texts in the library of Wenckheim Palace, forming the most complete record of
Lilith and her most acclaimed followers’ exploits. Natália sends out feelers to Bahari in
other domains, inviting them to the Garden of Hope to contribute their experiences and
lessons.

The Bahari believe Budapest is heavenly, but as with every domain, vampires on the
wrong side of the religious or political divide suffer horribly. The lilin carefully ration
feeding grounds for non-believers, deny them the right to Embrace, and persecute them
mercilessly when they cross the cult. Likewise, the kine have experienced a rise in sudden
deaths via heart attacks, aneurysms, and hemorrhages, knife crime is apparently on the
increase, and blood conditions such as anemia have shot up. These issues seem to affect
men while non-males appear exempt. The city’s Bahari don’t hate all men, but if they’re
to hold to their ideal of avenging abuse, they would argue that male hands commit the
vast majority of assaults and violent crimes. Some newcomers to the domain take a pre-
emptive stance and beat, mentally crush, or just kill men they suspect might one day
engage in harmful behavior, with this practice extending to sires who have abused their
childer.

The Camarilla are interested in observing how long Budapest can remain a Garden of
Hope now that the Bahari are in charge. It could be a case where now that the cult holds
power, they don’t know how to control it. Or, the Bahari may cement their grip, find a
balance between catharsis and purpose, and through Budapest form a paradigm for
future domains. Until then, the Kindred of Budapest follow highly modified variants of
the Camarilla Traditions and form a bulwark against outside attempts to change their
domain structure.

Goals

The Bahari seek to destroy the Kingdom of Caine, make the world Lilith’s, and bring her
pain to the living and the dead. How these things are accomplished varies between
Gardens, countries, Lhaka, mortals, and the supernatural creatures who have been drawn
into the cult. Despite the prohibition against killing, in contrast to sanctified death, there
have been lilins throughout history who felt engineering mass casualty events was
perfectly acceptable when it allowed for the progress of the cult’s goals. New generations
of Bahari who subscribe to the permissibility of violence have embraced the new era’s
methods of death, from car bombs and train derailments to chemical attacks and drone
strikes. Their approach to violence shares much with Bahari who seek to destroy the
world Cainites inhabit, and that the God so many love created, through pollution and
accelerationism. Some target the billionaires seeking to build climate change-proof
bunkers, pledging that their last nights will be spent bringing pain to whoever seeks
shelter in such shrines to the denial of death. Others go after small-fry but no less horrible
abusers, whether society deems them reformed or not.

To the Gnostics of the Church of Caine in particular, the Bahari vow to systematically
destroy their power, comfort, and belief in order to honor the pain of Lilith and achieve
vengeance against those who claim Caine as their forefather. The psychological cataclysm
of such a process has resulted in almost as many conversions as it has deaths.

Due to the Bahari’s size and uncoordinated nature, any given Ba’ham might pursue
personal agendas against solitary targets in emulation of Lilith’s lust for vengeance (or
justice, if you were to ask the lilin), just as easily as one might be on the verge of founding
a doomsday cell entertaining the notion of destroying the local dam and flooding the
town so life can grow again from scratch. These vampires believe they are working in
Lilith’s name to make the world a better place, but if the Bahari have one commonality
among them, it is that their ambitions inevitably lead to violence.

Those Ba’ham who cleave deeply to Lilith’s role as gardener in a literal sense seek to make
the world into one giant Bahari Garden, reversing unsustainable farming and pollution to
restore it to a natural state, terrorizing all humans and Cainites left within it until they
too either become sacrifices or Bahari themselves, giving Lilith a planet to rule and
proving neither the children of Adam nor the Cainites were victors in the end. A minority
splinter group believes the planet must be completely covered in water to bring about
Lilith’s return to the Earth from her throne in darkest night, interpreting the waters’ rise
in the most literal of senses. These Bahari are in the minority, but they exist, and while a
number of them wait for the rest of their cult to catch up with their way of thinking,
others are prepared to launch full-scale disasters to start the wheel turning.

Rites and Rituals

There are all manner of rites and rituals performed by the Bahari, some as frequently as
several times a night, others perhaps only once every millennium. The Bahari are an oral
tradition by pride and preference, written rites being exceedingly rare. Even the most
devoted and murderous lilin looking for surviving written works are lucky to find even
fragments of such past worship. Winter is a cherished time for rites that mourn and
reflect on Lilith’s pain, leaving blood and entrails to steam on the snow before they freeze.
Spring is as vicious as the birth pangs felt by the Dark Mother, but any season and nearly
any sacrifice can be made within, or to start, a Garden of one’s own. At the most basic
level, the rites and rituals of the Bahari should contain or celebrate pain, water, death,
fertility, sex, excess (particularly of food, blood, etc.), fury, and grief. Marking someone or
something for suffering and death would be particularly apt.

Among intrepid lilin who focus their attention on the seas are rituals like the Dark Fall (a
sort of whale fall, albeit conducted with a chained Camarilla elder in torpor rather than a
deceased cetacean, to bring prey to the denizens of the ocean floor), the Memory of Storm
(a dusk-to-dawn vigil in honor of lilin lost in hurricanes), and Deep Songs (a marathon
rite praising the creatures that live in the deep trenches, with continuous singing until
the rite is done; the first three lilins to falter in the song are sacrificed at sea). These
arcane practices have no material benefit, but provide a spiritual calm to the participants,
reassuring them that they’re following the correct path.

Those preserving the land and the followers who dwell on it have the Song of Poison
Gardens (for places poisoned by war or industry, to bleed away the poison and make them
worthy of Lilith), Blood and Roses (sacrifices are killed in ghost forests or copses of trees to
keep the Garden fertile), and Night of Shadow (lilins who were taken into the Bahari due
to exceptional grief are imprisoned in a place of death or sorrow during the Winter
Solstice, either to confront their grief and rise above it to serve Lilith, or be sacrificed to
keep their Garden untainted by their past).

A lilin is not unmoved by life, or the dictates of their heart. Love, hate, grief, joy, sorrow,
all expressions of feeling have their place in the Garden of Lilith. Their depth of feeling
keeps them from falling prey to purposeless sadism, dangerous sorrow, or profane lust
that would take them away from their purpose. As long as Lilith is first in their lives, and
their Gardens second, any and all love, rivalry, or other attachments are treated as natural
parts of existence. Whether one of the Bahari is human or something else, an empty heart
is an invitation for the wrong things to take root within it. The pride, pointless violence,
egotism, abuse, politics, and purposeless lives of the Camarilla and much of humanity are
a threat to the purity of Lilith’s truth. It is the denial of deep roots, and the disrespect for
the fertility of life, that places so many beyond the reach of the Bahari.

Enemies

The Bahari list of enemies extends across the living, the dead, and plenty of entities who
fit neither piece of taxonomy. Nearly all Kindred are potential future Lhaka, but all of
them are enemies first, future coreligionists second, unless circumstances make it clear
that a particular Kindred could do very little to threaten the Bahari. Even then, someone
unassuming could be someone else’s catspaw.

Among Kindred, the Toreador and Nosferatu are still afforded a sentimental regard on the
part of the Bahari. This can be as gracious as leaving them intact after metaphorically or
physically slaughtering everyone around them, to as callous as a lilin saying they will be
fair, and letting their quarry have a head start to run before being killed and eaten. The
Bahari have their own reasons for long preserving the memory of the Toreador and
Nosferatu progenitors’ attenuated complicity in the destruction of Lilith’s Garden and her
children within it. Gnostics of any clan or sect have earned a special place in many
Gardens as the centerpieces of sacrificial rites. There is no reason to try and convert a soul
so thoroughly defiled.

Perspectives

Anarchs: They’re on the way to a certain form of wisdom, but that’s what a lot of
alcoholics say after their fifteenth shot. Yes, sometimes freedom for freedom’s sake is a
cause worth fighting for, and for that they have my respect. Other times, they rail, they
swing, and they punch themselves in the face.
Camarilla: When I observe the Camarilla I see a two-edged blade. Wield it intelligently,
benefit from its structure, and find that it’s the greatest modern creation of Kindred
thought. Rely upon it, forget that it’s there, and you’ll find yourself cut to ribbons by its
politics, backstabbing, and imprisoning hierarchy.

Church of Caine: We have every reason to despise this group of Gnostic bastards. Even in
their own legends, Caine is a murderer, a pig, and a coward. Yet they revere him? It is
typical of patriarchal nonsense that this society of theirs would prefer to defer to a flawed
man than a near-perfect woman.

Church of Set: We share some similar principles, and for that they are our kin. Of course,
they see it differently, but Ministers, Setites, and the rest are easy to fool if you call Lilith
 “Sutekh” or another name that appeals to their sensibility. They want to follow, and we can
lead them. You just need to apply the correct blinkers.
Los Hijos de Si: An interesting development none of our legends mention, yet one that
grips me whenever I delve into their behavior. Watch and learn, and see if they are of the
same or a different Garden as we.

The Bloodless Pilgrims

“Drinking blood is not a curse; it’s a choice. Many of our kind make that choice every night,
because it’s the path of least resistance. Tonight, you can learn to make a different choice.
Taking the bloodless path won’t be easy, but it will rid you of the greatest sin of the Kindred.
Without blood, you will finally be free.”

— Benedict Hutter

A vampire who doesn’t drink blood is impossible, or at least not long for this world.
Whether they subsist on humans or animals, someone needs to bleed for the Kindred to
survive. The Bloodless Pilgrims claim they’ve found another way. They say their founder,
Benedict Hutter, has not consumed blood for over three decades, and when he cuts
himself, a clear, tasteless liquid flows as proof.

Many are skeptical, but the young and the guilty are desperate to believe. Hundreds have
joined Hutter’s pilgrimage around the world, traveling from city to city to share the
revelation of a bloodless path. Strict indoctrination turns members into true believers in
the sin of blood, preparing them for Hutter’s horrific alternative to the traditional way
the Kindred sustain their unlives.

The First Pilgrims

Hutter tells his followers of revelations received in a time of personal failing, of passages
found in the Old Testament and the Torah, and of insights he gleaned from the writings of
ancient Kindred in the nebulous far-off East. The story of the movement’s origins is
entirely fictional, but it was enough to convince his first followers. Clanless and sireless,
Hutter branded himself as a quiet mystic, promising a better life for young vampires
frightened of becoming as monstrous as their elders. He hung the core tenant of his
movement, that drinking blood was the source of a vampire’s monstrosity, on kosher and
halal dietary traditions, recruiting heavily from Kindred who had been members of the
Jewish and Muslim communities in life.

Before teaching anyone his path, Hutter spent years indoctrinating his first apostles. The
group lived in rural villages, poaching farm animals and hunting wild game. When they
returned to civilization, Hutter and a handful of the Kindred whom he’d left with could
perform his bloodless miracle. The remaining pilgrims haven’t been seen since.
The Path to Purity

Kindred interested in joining the Bloodless must drink only animal blood for at least six
months. Those outside the cult tend to view its members through the lens of this initial
requirement, seeing them as feeble farmers on a ridiculous path to nowhere. Called the
Sacrament of Lesser Sin, this period tests would-be Pilgrims’ willpower, ensuring they
can commit to the cause. Vampires undergoing the first sacrament travel with the group
when they move on, and the cult expects them to tend to their material needs if contact
with the kine is necessary. A slip-up during this phase, such as drinking or even touching
the blood of a human or another vampire, necessitates a two-week period as a blood slave
and feeding vessel to a higher-ranking vampire, and restarts the six month probationary
period.

Postulants who complete the Sacrament of Lesser Sin become novitiates. Their strict diet
continues, but they are also made to drink from the vein of one of the fully purified cult
members once a week. This creates a Blood Bond, with the union marking the Sacrament
of Devotion. For at least a year, novitiates drink from their mentor and study the cult’s
scripture, completing daily prayers and meditations on the subject of blood and sin.
Gradually, the text and prayers they are exposed to speak less of how blood is a source of
sin, and more of how blood is the only sin, with all other acts permitted. The cultists
make exceptions to the rule against touching blood to teach novitiates Blood Sorcery,
which is required for their eventual ascension, though they still ban Rituals that require
its consumption. The novitiate stage is known to be the most taxing for members, and
Hutter takes novitiates aside regularly to test them on their progress and discuss their
devotion. Many leave the order immediately after such an aside, rarely stopping to say
goodbye to anyone before disappearing.

When Hutter deems a novitiate worthy, they are initiated into the Sacrament of Clear
Blood. The secret to a bloodless life lies in harnessing death directly, without the need for
blood as an intermediary, and Hutter has invented a means of doing just that. The Blood
Sorcery the Bloodless use is no less destructive to the kine than the traditional method,
but it does leave them free of the red taint they call sin. It also transforms their Vitae into
something else, something vulnerable, and even the highest apostles are unaware of
Hutter’s true purpose in devising and spreading the ritual.

Convictions of the Bloodless Pilgrims

Oblivious to Hutter’s true intentions, members of the Bloodless Pilgrims adopt

Convictions around the scripture of the order, gradually adapting their views of morality
as the cult draws them further in.

Never drink the blood of humans: The founding Conviction for entering the
Bloodless, most potential members already feel this way before they hear about the
order and choose to join to find another way to survive.
 Always commit penance after touching blood: Whether held over from mortal
religious beliefs or learned through indoctrination, members of the Bloodless shun
blood, human and animal, in all its forms. Members who still rely on animal blood to
survive often commit themselves to penance after each feeding, though scripture
forgives them for their failings until they are able to learn to survive without it.
Pray once every night, without fail: Any Kindred without clear Blood is tainted, and
only dedication to ritual and scripture will bring purity. Postulants and novitiates
connect to their beliefs through hours and hours of prayer; the cult sets no
minimum, but encourages members to stay consistent despite any obstacles they
encounter.

Perspectives

Anarchs: They lack the capacity for discipline and rational behavior. There’s little hope for
them.
Camarilla: A perfect cloak with which to conceal our activities, and dare I say it, I imagine
they’d approve in most cases. Otherwise, look meek and harmless and they’ll ignore you.
Clan Tremere: We want what they have, and they want to cut us open and examine our
veins. For the time being, stay hidden from their attentions.

The Kine: It isn’t that they’re pure. Heavens, no. They’re dirt and disgusting, the anus of
all life.

The Butterflies
"Joseph and I have worked out this pretty scheme. Mortals are like caterpillars, full of curiosity
and life, exploring everywhere and hungry for every new experience. We vampires are like dead
chrysalides, unable to feel acutely, barely able to recall those passions we felt in life. By studying
our former larval state, we start a chemical process within our dead bodies by which we attain
to a new and perfected life as imagos or, as the common people call them, butterflies."

— Blanca, from her diaries

To the Butterflies, Golconda is a promise of transformation. Through the emulation of

other creatures and the aspiration to change oneself, one might achieve metamorphosis
into a better, more divine being.

Blanca’s Rapture

A 19th century Diva named Blanca believed that by observing and following the ways of
humankind, she could rid herself of the curse of vampirism. Although she was aware that
others believed the way to Golconda was through good works and saintly behavior, Blanca
disagreed. She noted that few mortals are saintly; even those devoted to good works
expect something, even if it was only admiration, in return.

In emulation of the women Blanca followed, she faithfully adopted their fashions, sitting
up at night with her friends and followers poring over model books and discussing how
best to replicate the dresses, skirts, and accessories they found within. She read all the
popular newspapers and went out, clad in her latest creations, to attend shows in music
halls. She delighted in trashy novels, crying Blood tears over tales of women abandoned.
She adopted large-eyed puppies and kittens and mourned their demise when she proved
incapable of looking after them properly. She wanted to appear more human than human.

Blanca set out upon this course on July 13th, 1854. Together, Blanca and her ghoul Joseph
assembled a family of followers: some Kindred, some mortals, and a handful of ghouls.
They all loved and supported Blanca who was, by all accounts, an exceptionally
charismatic individual. Precisely 60 years from when she started her quest, she found the
Rapture — a state of being the Butterflies call “transcending undeath.”

Joseph reported Blanca’s Rapture to her friends and followers. He gave a detailed account
of her walk into the sunrise. They wept when Joseph explained why, regretfully, Blanca
could no longer visit them. To do so, he said, would risk her losing touch with her new-
found mortality. Joseph conveyed Blanca’s regrets; she was, of course, as devastated as
they were about this separation, though she was also excited by her new life. Horace, one
of Blanca’s closest friends in the coterie immediately volunteered to become Joseph’s
domitor as Blanca, being mortal, could no longer provide him with sustenance. Joseph
claimed to be in close touch with Blanca, reporting back to her coterie on her progress.

Naturally, nobody knows if anything Joseph claimed was true, but the important thing
was that they believed.

The Great War disrupted the work of Blanca’s coterie, though it provided them with
opportunities to observe blessed mortals and the ways in which those beautiful beings
dealt with tragedy. They passed many a sad evening reading the works of the war poets
aloud to one another and relating tales of the loss of beloved sons, lovers, fathers, and
husbands in the horrible trenches on the battlefields. The coterie and friends later
experienced a tragedy of their own when, in 1923, Joseph reported Blanca herself had
passed away, following a short battle with cancer. She hadn’t been seen in some time
anyhow, so nobody investigated the news thoroughly, though an obituary in her name
was reported in the Times newspaper.

Reality TV Shows

In memory of blessed Blanca and her Rapture, Butterflies today strive to act exactly as
they did when mortal. More so, perhaps, as they spend a lot of time studying modern
human behavior. While many on the path to Golconda strive for moral superiority, the
Butterflies strive to be perfectly ordinary. Unnervingly so. They study human society
through art as well as life. While the nightlife of others of their kind revolves around high
art in galleries and theatres or exclusive nightclubs catering to the fringes of society, the
Butterflies take roles behind the scenes on reality shows, beauty contests, and community
plays. These, they believe, show humans as they are: ordinary people, not edgy clubbers
or refined artistes. They model their unlives and relationships on these examples.

The Butterflies hold their ghouls in high regard, not just as useful servants, but as an
important key to understanding the nature of humanity. These beings are a halfway state
between the Kindred and true mortality. Joseph is still among them and enjoys deep
respect as the one closest to Blanca. He continues to be greatly influential and receives
sustenance from the most senior Butterflies, not necessarily the oldest among them or the
lowest in generation, but those closest to the Rapture.

Organization

Butterflies form families consisting of vampires, ghouls, and mortal friends, lovers, blood
dolls, and Touchstones. Different families have different internal hierarchies, but all are
loosely tied together by Joseph and his band of senior ghouls.

The Family Home

The Butterflies live in homes with their chosen families. These shared havens are often of
considerable size. A few family members are fledglings, but their ranks include a
surprising number of elders, mostly those who become jaded with the politics of vampire
society, though some join in the hope of finding a means of avoiding the Beckoning or
dodging Final Death.

Butterflies treat all members of their household with respect. Within the family unit,
these vampires adopt the titles of “mother,” “grandfather,” “uncle,” and so on, to imply
position within the cult. When a visitor encounters the vampires in their family home,
the visible affectation of mortal behavior is swiftly discernible, as mother’s always baking
something, daughter’s arranging a date, and dad’s fixing the car in the garage. They greet
everyone with sweet smiles and the pretense of familial unity.

Joseph and His Senior Ghouls

Liaison between different households is light and carried out by Joseph and his band of
senior ghouls. They enjoy massive respect throughout the Butterfly community and are
welcome in any household they visit. A visit from Joseph himself is a great honor.
Butterflies go to great lengths to ensure he has all he needs and to provide suitable
entertainment. The other senior ghouls are hand-picked by Joseph and thus enjoy almost
as much respect as he does. They liaise closely and any who disobey Joseph disappear,
leaving only their domitor and family members to mourn them.
Beliefs

Butterflies believe the vampiric state is intermediary between the mortal state and the
Rapture. Mortals (never “kine”) are known as caterpillars. Ugly and crude in some ways,
but divinely fitted to their function and containing great potential. The vampiric state is
known as the chrysalis, something apparently dead but undergoing great changes
beneath the surface. Only with the Rapture does the true form, the imago, break free.
Although the chrysalis is closer in time to the Rapture, Butterflies of a philosophical bent
consider it to be a state lacking in that wonderful vitality that the caterpillars and imago
have in common. Ghouls are outside this process and sacrifice their own metamorphosis
to assist the Butterflies in their emergence from the chrysalis state. Having made this
sacrifice, they are worthy of the greatest respect.

Butterfly Convictions

Always strive to change your rigid, crystalline nature: We evolve from caterpillar
to chrysalis, and only when our rigid natures break down internally can we return to
life and achieve the Rapture.

Never feed without consent: If the household cannot provide, the family brings us
willing mortals.
Never allow the Beast to take over: We feed enough to prevent our Beast from taking
us over; no more.
Always submit to whatever forfeit the household sees fit to impose: When we fail
in our tasks, whether great or small, our household imposes forfeits and
punishments upon us commensurate with our failures or our fault. We submit to
these with gratitude as we know our household loves us and wishes only to lead us to
the Rapture.

The Household Within the Domain

A Butterfly household could exist in any domain. As they strive to act like mortals, their
activities do not tend to draw either the attention of the Inquisition or of vampires who
occupy themselves with the politics of their kind. They associate with other vampires as
little as possible, though they obey the rules of whomever oversees the domain. Often,
they send one of their retainers to represent the household at Elysia and other meetings
where failure to attend might have adverse consequences. Overall, outsiders regard them
as harmless eccentrics.

The Butterflies do not recruit, though Joseph and his crew occasionally introduce a likely
candidate to a household. Most Butterflies are Toreador and Malkavians, though
members of any clan can join as long as the existing members agree they would make
compatible housemates and family members. The Butterflies have mixed feelings about
thinbloods. They do not fit nicely into the caterpillar, chrysalis, imago scheme. Some
households have allowed them to join on a similar basis as ghouls, though Joseph has
never admitted any of them to his inner circle. Many have the impression Joseph
considers the Duskborn to be aberrations, unworthy of his attention.

Initiation

If a chrysalis or, for that matter, a mortal, wishes to join a household, they need an
introduction from Joseph or a member of his circle. After this, if the household to which
the senior ghoul introduces them is willing, the candidate lives in the haven as a guest for
a probationary period. This is usually a span of three months, though it can be shorter if
the candidate shows themself to be totally unsuitable. The established household then
holds meeting to decide whether to welcome the candidate as a member of the family. If
they opt to invite the probationary member to the family, the household throws a big
party to celebrate. If the candidate is mortal, this is when they learn the true nature of
their new family.

It is rare for a Butterfly to create a ghoul without Joseph’s request. No being should be
forced to leave the cycle against their will, so ghoul creation goes against their core
beliefs. Sometimes, though, one of the mortals in the family pleads for the granting of
this form of sacrifice and service. If they are sincere in their desire, it may happen. Joseph
is more likely to grant this dispensation in cases when the caterpillar craving this favor is
mortally ill.

Similarly, Butterflies do not often Embrace and, when they do, they chose their childe
from their own household in consultation with Joseph himself, as one worthy to undergo
the next stage in transformation.

Sacraments

Joseph or, in his absence, one of the senior ghouls he recruited to assist him, decides
when a chrysalis is ready to metamorphosize and when a vampire is ready for the
Rapture. The entire household celebrate all night long, saying their joyful and tearful
farewells to the chosen chrysalis. The ghoul then watches the chosen one as he or she
walks into the sunrise.

Mostly, the watcher returns to the household the following evening and, weeping tears of
joy, reports that the Butterfly has flown. This retainer remains the sole channel of
communication between the household and the member taken by the Rapture until the
new imago slips off their mortal coil. But occasionally, tragically, the beloved was not
ready for the Rapture. In this case, the retainer brings their ashes back to the household
for the weeping survivors to mourn or allows them to drift away on the wind.

Enemies
The Butterflies pose little threat to anyone or to the Masquerade, but occasionally, the sire
of a newly initiated vampire or the mortal family members of a newly adopted mortal
child or sibling might mount a mission to rescue their errant offspring from the
brainwashing cult. The greatest risk comes from mortal families who, determined to
retrieve their loved-one, call in the mortal authorities. Joseph is aware of this threat and
takes care only to introduce mortals with no such close familial ties; he rarely gets this
wrong.

Another threat comes from within the cult. Joseph grows increasingly concerned, as
some members of the family have begun exhibiting doubts regarding to the
metamorphosis process. He may need to make some examples to reinforce the cult’s faith.

Perspectives

Camarilla: We prefer to set up our households in domains where the Camarilla hold sway.
The order they impose gives us freedom to pursue our own ends if we keep their simple
rules. Joseph and the other retainers understand how to deal with them. Sadly, they are
rigid. They do not perceive their chrysalid state could lead them to brighter and better
things.

Anarchs: Joseph tells us Anarch domains are chaotic. He finds Barons have less respect for
him than do Princes. Most households seek to move if the Anarchs take over a domain in
which they are resident.

The Ministry: One of this clan discovered us in recent years. They laughed at us and called
us an elaborate blood cult. We staked that swine to the lawn.

The Children of Gorgo

Gorgo’s Nest, the Children of Gorgo, the Daughters of Gorgo, or simply the Gorgons, have
pursued a path of eliminating tyrants, murderers, rapists, and monsters for centuries.
They only have one restriction on whom they target: they are the slayers of men. Gorgo’s
Nest formed around the stories of a Nosferatu methuselah who may have been the
Medusa of Greek legend or the famed Queen of Sparta, who was killed by a mortal hunter
or the Nosferatu Antediluvian when he tried to eradicate his childer in a fit of rage.
Whatever the genesis, Gorgo no longer exists, but her followers, not all of whom are
Nosferatu, believe sincerely in avenging her and using their immortality to prevent men
like Perseus, Absimiliard, and even Caine, from visiting harm on others.

There is no compassion among the vampires of Gorgo’s Nest. They have never attempted
to save, aid, or care for victims of abuse. The vampires of this cult are almost all of a low
Humanity and disconnected from Touchstones, pursuing the kill above all else. Their
crusade continues when they become wights, with Gorgo’s Nest staking members fallen to
the Beast, only to release them when they can be placed in a location rife with male
targets.
Current Goals

Most Kindred believe Gorgo’s Nest possesses a firebrand agenda, which is misplaced,
misguided, and ultimately destructive. This view isn’t exclusive to male vampires, as
Gorgo’s Nest dispatches killers to slay vampires guilty of the Embrace, over-feeding, or
maintaining a retainer for too long, making their standards for elimination highly
subjective.

Vampires in Gorgo’s Nest detest comparisons to the Bahari. They maintain they are not
lilin, and in fact their view of the Bahari is aggressive to the point of frenzy. They hate
sharing a space with the lilin, and commonly war with the cult whenever they share a
domain. These battles have gone on for centuries, and Gorgo’s Nest is the cult that has
taken the most grievous injuries in the contest. These nights, Gorgo’s Nest is a shadow of
its former self.

The reasons behind the conflict between Gorgo’s Nest and the Bahari aren’t widely
known, but consume the Gorgons’ modern agenda. In truth, the cult split off from the
Bahari three centuries ago due to a bloody, personal feud between a Gorgon (one of the
Nest’s high priests) and a matron of the Bahari. The feud spread to their followers, their
companions, and eventually, their wider cults. Since then, all because of a disagreement
over whether a mortal under the Bahari’s protection should be pushed into an arranged
marriage to a powerful nobleman, the cults have been at war.

Gorgo’s Nest have lost sight of their initial, murderous objective, and now persist in
sabotaging Ba’ham Gardens. Vampires join the cult because they’re already rage-filled, so
the cult directs them against the Bahari some nights, and men the rest of the time. When
not delivering death, the sorority of the cult seeks to stabilize members at risk of
succumbing permanently to the Beast, but this is sadly a latter concern these nights. To
compound matters, the resurgent Lamiae also go by the title “the Gorgons” and take
pleasure in sabotaging this cult when they can.

The Children of Salvation

“There’s a Demon inside all of us. Sometimes I speak with mine. She has a terrible sense of
humor.”

— Chioma Etomi, Atron of Lagos

The Children of Salvation believe vampirism is not a curse — at least, not in the Biblical
sense — but a demonic infestation. Through diablerie, they believe, the demon’s essence
can be captured in a single Cainite host and exorcised from the world. The cult is fanatical
in this pursuit — and why shouldn’t they be, when the ability to rid both mankind and the
Cainite host of the infection is within their grasp?
The First Child

In 1212 CE, a Malkavian prophet saw her Hunger in a vision. The prophet’s name is lost to
the ages, but a record of her vision survives. Her vision revealed to her that Caine opened
his soul to this demon when he slew Abel in jealousy, which is merely a hunger for
recognition. When Caine Embraced the first vampire, the Hunger spread its essence to
them too — and then to their childer, and theirs, all the way down to the current
generation of vampires.

Rather than recoil in horror, the prophet sought the demon out through induced visions.
She taunted it, night after night, until finally it let slip the means of its destruction — the
Ritual of Salvation. Elated, the prophet performed the ritual on herself, to no effect.
Twice more she tried, growing faint and delirious with hunger. On the third night, driven
by blood lust, she hunted and drained a family of seven. As their dying gasps reached the
Lord in Heaven, the Malkavian glimpsed the last piece of the puzzle. The ritual didn’t
work because the demon had spread its essence through thousands of hosts. She needed
to consolidate it before the exorcism would work.

The Children

The First Child turned to diablerie to thicken the demonic infestation in her vitae.
Neonates, ancillae, and even elders fell under her fangs — sheer numbers were the only
consideration. As word of her atrocities spread, so too did the number of Princes set
against her and vampires paying heed to her teachings. The Malkavian’s lone quest grew,
unbidden, into a gospel.

The few Cainites who dared approach the First Child for tutelage — and even fewer who
escaped her bloodlust — experimented with diablerie. Age and generation, they
discovered, did matter to some extent. An elder carried more demonic infection than a
neonate, but multiple neonates carried more combined than an elder and were easier to
hunt and consume. The Children of Salvation could continue to target the low-hanging
fruit, or they could raise each other up so they could go after the top of the food chain.

The Children of Salvation organize as a hierarchy intended to boost each other. The First
Child — the sole survivor of the cult’s last iteration — stands at the top of the hierarchy,
with the atrons below them. The atrons, in turn, recruit neonates and ancillae, selecting
targets who show great ambition and promise. They tutor their charges, carefully helping
them to scale the ranks of the vampire society in their city. If prospective acolytes
sometimes need a little persuading before they join — well, the cult isn’t above tearing
someone down to create an opportunity to offer salvation when the night is darkest. This
tutoring can continue for years or even decades, as the cult supports formerly lowly
neonates into a steady increase in power and renown. This is the cult’s dormant stage.

Salvation’s Hunt
When the Children of Salvation possess a sufficient number (anywhere above seven — a
number the Children consider significant) of powerful young members, the First Child
invokes the ritual of Salvation’s Hunt, which targets only cultists of this faith.

This ritual has three stages, and its targets feel each immediately and keenly. Neonates are
the first called to hunt. At this point, the ancillae and elders may only defend themselves
or set passive traps — and many do so from the moment they take an acolyte, as they have
no forewarning when the hunt is afoot. Next, the First Child looses the ancillae’s leash.
No one directs the hunt, though it’s contained within the cult itself. Survival and
pragmatism dictate that the youngest members take out the big targets first. There’s
power in numbers, and a coterie of neonates — later joined by ancillae — has an easier
time confronting an elder than a single neonate. The First Child remains in the shadows,
while atrons clean up as best they can. Meanwhile, the Children tear a bloody swath
through the city, seeking out the eldest among their number. The rise of the Second
Inquisition aided the atrons in this, as most Princes suspect hunters of being behind this
cult’s carnage rather than their vampiric brethren, but no amount of obfuscation can
conceal such rampant killing for long.

Following three or more Final Deaths in the hunt’s course (with bystanders and coterie-
mates unaffiliated with the cult forming a part of this number), the First Child steps out
of the shadows and makes themself a deliberate target — defending themself, their
havens, and their Touchstones, though they never hunt other Children themself.

When the Children have run their course through a city — or are forced out — they turn
on each other in one last night of diablerie, eschewing the preference for hunting
“upward” as ancilla falls on ancilla, and neonate falls on fledgling. The Last Child
standing then performs the Ritual of Salvation. The Children believe that if their vitae is
properly infused with the demon’s essence, the ritual succeeds and the demon is banished
back to hell. Subsequently, all surviving participant vampires should become mortal
again — though the cult isn’t sure whether they do so with a full lifespan remaining, or if
ages of undeath leave them as bones and ash. If the Last Child’s vitae hasn’t achieved full
demonic saturation yet, they instead relocate to another city. Here they assume the title of
First Child and start the great work anew. This practice leaves the cult waning and waxing
over the centuries.

It sometimes has happened that two — and one time even three — Children believed
themselves to be the last one standing. Each then travelled to new cities where they began
anew as the First Child, leading to several iterations of the cult. The Children don’t
exactly keep a low profile, and branches may fall to hunters and Kindred Sheriffs. If two
iterations of the Children do find out about each other, their respective members stop at
nothing to hunt each other down — after all, that’s a lot of demonic energy in single
packages. Currently, Barcelona’s Children of Salvation, led by First Child Joanna Dietrich,
is the largest cult cell, but other Children exist in Lagos and New Orleans, and in smaller
domains dotted around the globe.

The Heresy
In nearly a thousand years, the Children haven’t achieved their Ritual of Salvation. It’s
entirely possible that diablerizing a demon spread over fifteen-and-counting generations
of vampires just takes time. Some of the Children, though, blame a modern heresy. As
mortal society shifted from a communal to an individual focus, so did some of the
acolytes’ attentions. Rather than seek salvation for all kine and Cainites, they pursue
Golconda for themselves. They seek the same path and ultimate goal — but intent is
everything in spiritual workings, and theirs sullies the ritual. One atron, a Toreador
named Emilie Montat, advocates for a pre-hunt selection in which atrons diablerize
unworthy acolytes. Only when that is done, Montat says, should the First Child call
Salvation’s Hunt.

Hierarchy

The cult’s founder disappeared somewhere in the fourteenth century, and most Children
suspect that an acolyte diablerized her in accordance with the Children’s practices. The
current First Child, Joanna Dietrich, is the survivor of Salvation’s Hunt in Dresden. She
traveled Europe before settling down in Barcelona. Dietrich takes the Sagrada Familia as
her haven, finding that its state of perpetual construction resonates well with the
Children’s work. Dietrich has not felt the Beckoning, as her Blood Potency has nothing to
do with her age.

Below Dietrich stand the atrons. These are the potent Kindred the First Child recruited on
her arrival in her new city. Receiving direct tutelage from Dietrich, they are the most
dedicated and knowledgeable of cult members. They’re also the ones who can see the
effects of centuries of diablerie passed down. Dietrich, at twenty years old and a fifth-
generation vampire courtesy of diablerie, is barely coherent on her best nights. Most
nights, she’s a mess of souls, minds, and transcending prophecies. Her Blood is so warped
that none of the atrons can even guess at her clan.

The atrons, in turn, patronize the cult’s ancillae and neonate acolytes. Most often, an
atron first tutors an ancilla and then, with their help, takes on one to three neonates.
These little families of adopted siblings lay the seed for Blood Hunt-driven coteries. It’s
incredibly rare for atrons to ever perform the Embrace, with the cult currently
contemplating whether it should be forbidden entirely. Between the four recruiting
atrons, the Children count a score or so of acolytes (one Embraced by an atron without
permission) and a couple of prospects. The acolytes all know each other and, despite
recognizing that some night they must hunt each other down, they form a tight-knit
group. They’re subtle in public, but acolytes can always count on each other for support at
Cainite gatherings. They quietly repeat each other’s suggestions, whisper other acolytes’
praises, and back power plays against enemies. All know that for the Ritual of Salvation to
work, the Last Child must be the strongest among them. Each acolyte may believe that to
be themself, but also know it’s not a proper test unless the competition is fierce.

Convictions of the Children

 Fast until strictly necessary: The Children view Hunger as a literal demon and their
sworn immortal enemy. They’re meticulous and disciplined about feeding. They
even adhere to meditation-guided fasts.

Obey the call of the Hunt: The best time for an acolyte to kill an atron is right at the
start of the hunt, before the atrons can warn each other that the First Child has called
it. They need to strike quickly and decisively, though. The Children leave no room for
sympathy once the hunt begins.
Nobody must come before the cult’s wellbeing: In the end, only one Child can
remain. The atrons encourage all Children to prepare a “last will” of sorts, in case
they are not the Last Child. This might be an encrypted USB stick holding access
information to a Swiss bank account, or the key to a vault containing rare Cainite
lore. A recent conviction going back to World War I, its purpose is to give the Last
Child all possible resources to start anew as the First Child.
Always strive to banish the Demon: This is the Children’s ultimate purpose. It’s a
glorious, triumphant pinnacle celebrating a near millennium of work — and it hasn’t
happened yet, but every Child believes they will be the one to finally do it.

Perspectives

Anarchs: The natural chaos and violence in Anarch domains serves us well. They barely
communicate with each other, allowing us to visit a whole string of them before one finally
warns the next. Their idealism and sense of communal spirit also makes them fine acolytes
for the path to Salvation.

Camarilla: They’re too focused on the material and secular to suit us. Before the Second
Inquisition, they were also too well-organized. Now though, we find we can save one city at
a time without alerting the lot of them. They are rich in resources, so a Last Child may visit
them if they need to shore up the cult’s material wealth.
Clan Lasombra: Mystics who deal with the home of the demon. Some of our apocrypha
claim the First Child — the original one — was Lasombra rather than Malkavian. Lies, I’m
sure, but we did function well within the Sword of Caine before its fall.
The Shattered Spear: We sometimes seek out the most ancient vampires, whose Blood
runs thick with the demon. We tried with Mithras, but someone got there before us. Orthia
also makes an appealing target, and Lisbon is not far from Barcelona.

The Children of Si
Los Hijos de Si, or “The Children of Si,” is a Kindred cult operating throughout Peru and
Bolivia with a history stretching back nearly 1500 years to its founding by Illari, a Moche
priestess of the moon goddess “Si.” Los Hijos have been active of late, quietly recruiting
new members and expanding their influence. They seldom participate in the Gehenna
War or the meaningless bickering of the Camarilla and Anarchs, their gaze firmly fixed
on the moon above as they await the soothing darkness of salvation.

Los Hijos serve the Machukuna, or “Ancient Ones,” revered entities from a prior age
whose spirits persist into the present. The cult believes the Machukuna inhabit a shadowy
parallel reality and were born of a nocturnal age lit only by moonlight. Their species died
in fire upon the birth of the pr esent age, but many endure, their ageless and desiccated
bones concealed from the sun’s killing light in deep caves and lake bottoms. Only the
Machukuna know their origins with certainty and Los Hijos are not inclined to doubt
them.

The cult believes the Machukuna are avatars of the moon goddess Si, who holds the key to
escaping the Kindred’s endless Jyhad, and perhaps reality itself. They defend the
Machukuna’s ancient bones, bear their sacred word, and satiate their unquenchable
hunger for blood, passion, and offerings. In return, the Machukuna provide wisdom,
access to the potent dust of their bones, and the promise they will lead Los Hijos safely
into an age where Si rules the skies alone, unencumbered by the sun.

Until recently, the childer and descendants of the cult’s founder Illari made up the cult’ s
Kindred contingent. This changed with the induction of new coteries from the recently
vacated Sabbat stronghold of Lima. These Kindred and their mortal counterparts work
vigorously to fortify their Machukuna wards against time itself, always present, but
seldom seen. They perpetuate false legends of the Machukuna, reducing them to folk tales
easily explained away by mortals, defend their bones, and make sure their masters are
well fed, cajoling humans and Kindred to propitiate them in return for Los Hijos’ favor.

The Machukuna are the sacred beyond compare, creatures of darkness from a more
perfect age, representatives of a better road forward than that offered by meaningless
faiths, or seekers of Golconda. They are always watching, always waiting, and always
pushing Los Hijos to greater acts of devotion, for they are the Si-given signposts on the
road to salvation. A road every Hijo intends to walk.

Current Goals

Los Hijos’ goals are a balance of reconstruction and expansion. The cult took significant
losses in the centuries where the Sabbat were dominant in Lima, stretching its ability to
protect the Machukuna. Illari and her childer actively seek to Embrace new Kindred to
restore their numbers in addition to inducting new Kindred from afar.

In addition to replenishing her ranks, Illari places renewed emphasis on security. The
Second Inquisition haunts Peru, thin-bloods walk the streets of Lima, and She Who
Screams in the Forest is active in Brazil. The signs of Gehenna are everywhere and Los
Hijos prepare to weather the storm. Lima’s Nosferatu erase electronic records of Hijo
activity and have fortified the cult’s mines with an astonishing array of defenses,
transforming them into tunnels of death rivaling the Amaganti Warren of Brasília.
As always, the cult seeks to accumulate additional power, food, and security for the
Machukuna. High Priests Don Esteban and Giuliana work vigorously to expand their
influence among the kine, while Illari’s childer walk unnoticed among the sick and poor
mining communities of Peru, trading the vitae necessary to keep them alive in return for
a steady supply of blood when demanded. They also ensure that the miners and villagers
of the hinterlands leave proper sacrifices for the Machukuna and their servants. What the
Machukuna do with cigarettes, liquor, and food is unknown, but these offerings are
stacked neatly before their desiccated skeletons deep underground and vanish before the
Hijos return.

The Children of the Devourer

“Our hunger is nothing to her hunger. Our fangs are nothing to her fangs. The end of the world
is our mother. We are her children. Blood will sustain her, empower her, and awaken her. All
blood to Angrboda, the Great Devourer.”

— Traditional prayer

In the Canadian wilderness, a four-hour drive north from Saskatoon into the middle of
nowhere, there’s a small town called Ironwood. It has the only gas and motel for miles,
and the food they serve at the greasy spoon diner is nearly edible. If the locals are cold and
unfriendly toward outsiders, perhaps they can be forgiven when the unwary learn the
truth: there are monsters in Ironwood, and only the steady flow of transient blood keeps
them at bay.

Beneath Ironwood, the claw-dug caves of the Children of the Devourer dwarf the town
above, home to a horde of ravening Gangrel. What they hunt, they’re a rampaging band
of marauders attacking all local life. At the center of their buried temple is an ancient
wooden casket and the torpid corpse of a methuselah. Her Children bring her strength,
blood dripped directly from the town’s sacrifices into her waiting, open maw. Some night,
she will open that maw wide enough to devour the whole world. If her priesthood is to be
believed, that night is not far off.

Across a Tumultuous Sea

According to her followers, Angrboda was born and embraced in Iceland and went to
sleep before the humans around her had begun to record history. In the 10th century CE,
her youngest three childer were seized by visions, compelled to take her casket from its
resting place in the ice and transport it across the ocean to a vast and untouched forest,
from which they foretold she would one day rise to devour the world.

The details of Angrboda’s life have been lost to time and confused with tales of the
mythological monster the kine remember by her name. Her followers don’t particularly
care; they were never much for bookkeeping anyway. They sustain the torpid corpse at
the heart of their caves because she is their Great Mother, because they are called to feed
her, and because to do so is their nature and purpose.

Ironwood Horror

The kine of Ironwood have lived among monsters for generations. The survivors aren’t
stupid, though they lean toward the paranoid. They know that there’s something living
just outside of town, something murderous, clever, and beyond the natural world. It’s not
all bad for the people of Ironwood; the farming is good, crime is low, and land is cheap.
The big city executive who came in to close the local manufacturing plant was torn apart
by wild dogs. The rules of living with the town’s demons aren’t written down, but
residents understand the gist of them: keep the monsters fed, and they’ll keep the town
safe and prosperous enough to survive. Deny the existence of the monsters to each other
and especially to outsiders, or you’ll be the next one to disappear. Leave if you want, but if
you do, stay quiet and never, ever come back.

For the Children of the Devourer, Ironwood is a convenient herd, easily maintained by a
handful of wellplaced ghouls, but hardly their main concern. Human fears interest them
even less than the irrelevant and impermanent bickering of Kindred politics that means
nothing before the jaws of their devouring mother.

The Priesthood

Ottar, First Among Us is the oldest vampire living among the Children, and the cult’s
longtime leader. He claims to be a direct childe of Angrboda and has destroyed anyone and
anything that could prove otherwise. Over the centuries, he’s even convinced himself.
Tall, wide, blond, and clad in animal furs, Ottar is the model of a Gangrel of Viking
descent. His eyes betray the yellow glare and lean look of a predator who has never been
satiated. Monstrously strong and unhinged, he leads the Children of the Devourer with a
burning zeal derived from complete devotion. That Angrboda’s cult grants him status is a
very pleasing side effect, but Ottar is more dangerous than any self-serving figurehead; he
will sacrifice anything to protect and empower Angrboda, including leading himself and
all his followers directly down her gullet.

Ellifu Unchained was kidnapped by the Children of the Devourer when she was a mere
child herself, raised as part of their underground herd before the founding of Ironwood.
She tried to escape six times, succeeded once, and was brought back in chains to a choice:
the Embrace, or sacrifice to Angrboda. She chose life, by any means necessary. Once,
Ellifu dreamed of rebellion, destroying Angrboda, and returning to life among the Sioux
she was taken from. Those dreams died long ago, eroded by the whispers of a sleeping
methuselah and her draining humanity. Now, Ellifu serves as second-in-command to
Ottar, acting as his voice of reason. She believes in Angrboda’s Ragnarök but is concerned
with what everyone’s going to eat in the meantime. Ellifu is a short woman who moves
like a fox, her youthful face and bloodless skin marred by a deep burn scar across her right
cheek.

Angrboda herself is a desiccated corpse, kept in a wooden coffin deep within the
Childrens’ caves. She wears a thin, long-faded linen dress and a wolf fur cloak and lies
with her eyes closed, her fanged mouth wide open. Her followers believe her to be in a
state of deep torpor, gathering strength from the blood they feed her but refusing to wake
until the time is right for her to devour the world.

The Congregants

The Children of the Devourer keep no holy book and practice no formal worship. Their
religion is in the bloodline. The cult consists of Angrboda’s descendants and accepts no
outsiders. They hunt down any Kindred who leave and feed them back to their mother.
Those few who escape are inevitably drawn back by visions and nightmares.

Mortal population control is a long-term concern among the cult, whose leaders
understand that their success relies upon maintaining the herd. Most members are elders
or ancillae, held back from the Beckoning by their torpid master. New members are
Embraced only when the town grows substantially, or when an existing member is
sacrificed to Angrboda to sustain her in a time of famine. Within the last century, Ellifu
has experimented with deliberately creating higher-generation Kindred, thinning the
Blood to allow more, weaker Children to survive off the same human population. Results
have been mixed: the clan’s neonates are easier to feed, but feel less loyalty towards
Angrboda. To date, the line of Angrboda has never produced a thin-blood.

Members spend their nights communing with Angrboda, building or repairing the cult’s
compound, or sparring, running through the woods around Ironwood, and hunting wild
animals. A few hold human identities and jobs in Ironwood, usually the recently
Embraced or one of a few elders who have suitable skills and patience.

A handful of Ironwood citizens are ghouls under the cult’s control, or mortals who know
just enough about the cult’s needs to serve it. The Children do not consider these people to
be members, but they serve an important role in luring transients to the compound for
sacrifice. All businesses who have frequent contact with outsiders, such as gas stations
and restaurants, employ at least one of the Children’s servants. The cult expects these
servants to determine which travelers won’t be missed and to use any means necessary to
get them to the edge of town after dark.

Obsessions and Convictions

Angrboda subjects all her descendants who bond with her Blood and join Clan Gangrel to
a compulsion to follow her will. Mechanically, this functions like a constant Blood Bond,
ranging from Bond Strength 3 for her closest relatives to Bond Strength 1 for her highest-
generation descendants. This connection doesn’t degrade naturally, even if a descendant
manages to spend significant time away from her. Angrboda does not communicate her
needs directly, but those initiated into the cult and allowed to visit her corpse understand
that she wants to be fed, she wants her descendants to stay close, and she wants them to
work together to serve her. Ottar, the closest to the methuselah, sometimes receives
direct visions from her in his dreams, though these require some interpretation to
understand.

Maintaining a connection to humanity has never been a priority among the Children, and
most of them are more monster than not. The Blood-deep need to serve keeps internal
conflict to a minimum, but the cult’s most effective members cling to Humanity and their
ability to interact with the kine by focusing on Convictions that don’t interfere with
Angrboda’s needs.

Servants and Tools

Roger Miller has been sheriff of Ironwood for 65 years. No one questioned it when the old
sheriff stepped down and moved away and the new sheriff looked identical, just like no
one points out that Sheriff Miller has been a plump man pushing fifty for the last thirty-
odd years. He’s a ghoul bound directly to Ellifu, and undisputedly the most powerful man
in Ironwood. Roger loves being a big fish in a small pond, taking what he wants from local
businesses free of charge and romancing his sixth wife on city time. No one among the
kine can stop him, but Roger knows the town’s beastly bargain better than most: keep the
peace for his masters, or become the next person to disappear overnight.

Arthur Pewty used to work in real estate, until he tried to sell a house in Ironwood; then,
he was taken and Embraced within a week. Pewty believes he’s one of the top movers and
shakers among the Kindred of Ironwood, so important that they send him as their
representative when greater Kindred politics force the local Gangrel to interact with
outsiders. He lives in a large house at the edge of town and has never even heard of
Angrboda, the Children of the Devourer, or their compound, the better to keep the cult’s
secrets. Lately, Arthur has been having nightmares about an ancient, fanged monster, and
a compulsion to find and serve her. Ellifu is keeping an eye on his newfound curiosity and
deciding whether to let him join the Children or to feed him to Angrboda.

Current Activities

Descendants of Angrboda living near her are not affected by the Beckoning, but they have
felt their own compulsions increase since the dawn of the Second Inquisition. Ottar has
announced to the compound that he has received a new vision from their Great Mother,
the first direct contact with her in centuries. Ragnarök is coming within one human
lifetime, and procuring blood is now more important than long-term secrecy.
Furthermore, she demands the Blood of Kindred, especially those not descended from her
own line.

The cult has yet to decide how to fulfill this demand. Ottar has contemplated rounding up
the entire town of Ironwood and bleeding them dry into Angrboda’s mouth. Ellifu wants
to keep the town as cover and focus on hunting Kindred, luring them to Ironwood from
other domains by requesting aid or promising power. Among the youngest cultists, the
demand has caused some secret doubts. Certainly, they all serve Angrboda and her
apocalypse on principle, but a theoretical someday-apocalypse and one that will happen
within a century or less are very different beasts.

Convictions of the Children of the Devourer

Protect Ironwood with your life: Many of the Children grew up in Ironwood, while
others helped it to grow from a tiny settlement into a prosperous town. Protecting
Ironwood from crime and degradation comes naturally to Angrboda’s children and
ensures a healthy and obedient herd.
Always eschew material wealth: Money and possessions mean little to the Children,
who live most of their lives in the cult’s underground caves. Newer members
sometimes take pride in living the life of an ascetic, in devotion to their apocalyptic
god.

Support your family in all things: The Children are a family by the Blood of
Angrboda and often a kinder family than the ones from which new members are
Embraced. Many members share a profound loyalty to one another, aided by their
shared obedience to the methuselah they serve.

Perspectives

Anarchs: They’ve got fight in them again. It’s only taken 500 years.
Camarilla: Cowards.

Clan Gangrel: They best typify what we’re about and define our ancestry. We’re proud of
our lineage.

The Kine: Don’t kill them all. They need to breed to repopulate, so our food sources
continue to grow.

The Church of Caine

“It is time to revel in the truth of our condition. All Cainites must be taught. They must know
their truth. For as they know themselves, you will know the Dark Father.”

— Arch Verger Alexi Farmer, Defender of the Immaculate Church of the Dark Father,
Detroit

The Heresy Falls

For over a thousand years, a vampire subsect of Gnostic Christianity operated within
Cainite society. This group, known to some as the Crimson Curia, to others as the Church
of Caine, and to their enemies as the Cainite Heresy, posited that Caine was God’s divine
angel of murder who had absorbed the soul of Christ, and that all vampires were his
children and just as blessed. It was their divine mission to cull the weak, turn the living
hell of the world into a heaven, dominate the Catholic Church, and usher in the Time of
Caine, or third resurrection of Caine and Jesus, prophesized to arrive in the year 1239 CE.

The Cainite Heresy subverted the faith of mortals and vampires alike, its adherents
believing themselves to be God’s chosen predators. Most importantly for other vampires,
their actions inside and outside the mortal Church drew the attention of the Catholic
Inquisition as well as hunters from the ranks of the Muslims of Iberia. In a rare show of
unity, imams sided with churchmen and put the torch to the Cainite Heresy before their
Time of Caine could arrive. The parent clan of most of these “Gnostics” was the
Lasombra, and along with vampires of the Banu Haqim and Clan Brujah they hunted
down the remaining stragglers.

The Church of Caine reached its end close to the time when mortal Gnosticism was
declared a heresy punishable by death. Just as the Catholic Church had no more patience
for rival faiths within its own sphere, the Lasombra ran out of tolerance for the Church of
Caine’s increasingly aberrant views of Earth as hell, vampires as angels, and mortals as
soulless cattle. Vampires who knew of the cult’s denouement celebrated its fall, and those
who campaigned against it worked hard to scrub the cult’s name from the scant Cainite
history books that recorded it.

The Heresy Rises

The idea of a Demiurge on high, responsible for all the evil in the world, alleviating of
that responsibility the perpetrators of criminal acts, is a reassuring one to some.
Vampires have a tendency to find excuses for their terrible acts, and when one can point
elsewhere and say “He made me that way,” it — at least in the mind of the vampire —
helps absolve them of their sins. Not that the modern Church of Caine are truly looking
for absolution.

The re-emergence of the Gnostics in the modern nights is a subject of great mystery and
conjecture. Few Kindred recall the original Cainite Heresy, most being Beckoned,
succumbing to the sleep of ages, or destroyed in the last eight centuries. While some
believe the rising Gnostic tide must be at the beck and call of methuselahs who wisely
slept instead of facing the torches of the Inquisition 800 years ago, the modern Church of
Caine shows few of the hallmarks of a methuselah-led cult. They don’t have a hierarchy
based on age, they care little for lineage and clan, and their centralized power comes in
the form of the renewed Crimson Curia — a council of priests — rather than a single,
ancient figurehead.

Of course, the other conclusion is that Caine brought the Church back into being, though
there’s no evidence to show he was ever around to see the Church in its original form, let
alone approve of its purpose or methods. The idea that this cult may exist in direct service
to Caine is a thought that undoubtedly troubles many Kindred, however, and leads a
surprising number to join its ranks just to err on the side of caution. If the Dark Father is
real, awake, and leading a sizable cult, better to be on his side.

What is known, is the Church of Caine has leaked out of the darkness again, with its
words, beliefs, and practices becoming visible for the first time in centuries following the
Beckoning’s commencement. The Church claims Caine himself calls his errant childer to
fill his long-empty veins, and only the Church will be saved. Caine is the face, voice, and
mind of the Demiurge in this hell on Earth, and he will not be denied. His angels will
ascend with him once the rest of the world accepts their place as the meek and the fallen.
Until then, his will be done.

Hell on Earth

The Church of Caine has long held the view that the world is divided into many planes of
existence, with the Demiurge above all, and his angels governing the ranks of the
unknowing. At each level of awareness, an individual grows closer to becoming an angel
themselves, but these levels go down as well as up, and the farther down one descends, the
closer they come to being damned forever.

This view may seem incompatible in a modern world, but to vampires of the Church, and
mortals who believe themselves more enlightened — through intellect, influence, money,
or even charm — it’s a rational view. It’s a class society imposed by a supreme power, and
it makes sense to an amoral mindset. The Church of Caine for instance believes that while
the Demiurge is all-seeing and all-knowing, he sends a representative (sometimes more
than one) to Earth to mete out his will. Specifically, the Church posits, this representative
is Caine, though infamous vampires such as Sutekh and Mithras may have been his angels
as well, and Lilith certainly fits the mold of an angel who couldn’t help but abuse her
power and fall. The Antediluvians were likewise angels, but fought Caine’s children and
therefore fell from grace. They still deserve punishment for this. Likewise, humans with
proficiency in angelic arts — whom the Tremere call mages — are of greater importance
and value than the sleeping kine. The Church of Set hotly refutes this notion, as they
believe the Demiurge responsible for creation of all clans not descended from Sutekh, and
responsible for preventing Sutekh’s absolute influence over the world.

Earth is not a median point in this cosmic theory. Earth is hell, and receiving the Embrace
is a step toward escaping that hell. All worlds layer on top of each other, so it is possible to
exist in heaven and hell at the same time, but divine right grants one resilience against
hell’s slings and arrows. At least, that’s the Church of Caine’s theory behind Disciplines
such as Fortitude, and their reasoning for why all their powers are symbolic of the type a
god might use against a mere mortal.

Sublimating Divinity into Society

Gnostics have forged never-before-seen paths into the Ivory Tower and the rekindled
Anarch Movement. Their gospel celebrating the vampiric condition has seldom been
heard within these sects. This message is surprisingly accepted, if not enjoyed, by the
“Kindred,” who wish to come to some deeper sense of understanding of their damnation.
Some Camarilla domains have received word from one Justicar — Juliet Parr of Clan
Malkavian — that they are not to oppose this new missionary work. The running theory
among some Kindred is that Parr belongs to the Heresy, or one of her ancestors did and
now speaks with her through the Blood, but equally likely is that Parr wants no internal
conflict while the Inquisition is watching. The absence of the Sabbat helps the Camarilla
and Anarch Movements greatly, so why start a new war when these priests aren’t striking
out with anything but words?

The Church of Caine’s belief system is unlike most widespread mortal religions of these
nights, so their dogma is one rarely delivered in full to vampires of any sect, at least not
until vampires have shown willingness and acceptance of the Gnostic reality. To start,
most Gnostics introduce their belief that Caine was chosen by God and all vampires are
likewise blessed children, uplifted to the role of divine predators. This is a belief many
vampires can understand, as most know the story of Caine and Abel and most realize they
possess more power than when they were mortal. Tales of layered planes of reality,
vampires as angels of murder, all beings as spirits trapped in a liminal state, and Earth
being equivalent to hell tend to follow much later.

The Gnostics find themselves occupying an unexpected role within Cainite society. While
they themselves rarely use the term “Golconda,” Kindred who know of the legendary state
of being see the way Gnostics believe in ascension and divinity, and the peace with which
they hold their faith, and wonder if this cult is the key to Golconda. For its part, the
Church of Caine makes no promises that a follower will achieve a state where they “lose
their curse,” as its doctrine is adamant vampires aren’t cursed, but blessed. That blessing
may grow as a vampire acquires wisdom and strength, and that may be what others call
Golconda, but to tell a Gnostic they’re cursed by God is a good way to earn an adversary.

Ad Limina

Despite its recent appearance, the Church of Caine draws vampires as old as ancillae, with
at least one elder serving as a member of the modern Crimson Curia. Something of the
cult draws vampires in, whether through talk of Caine, reassurance that their state as
vampires is not unclean or damned, or because of the hope for ascendancy from hell once
the Time of Caine arrives again. According to the Crimson Curia’s prophecies, that time
will come soon, having been forestalled from the previous appointed time in 1239 CE.
They claim Caine arose and found his church absent, and so in great sorrow destroyed the
boundary between worlds and fell into a deep slumber. Kindred scholars wonder at what
boundary this story relates to, whether geographical — as the appointed time was close to
that of the Mongol Invasion into Europe — or spiritual, annihilating a layer between hell
and heaven, or bringing the deepest level of hell closer to the surface. The tale is likely
apocryphal, but vampires in cults make for dedicated theologians.
The Church’s outward confidence aside, many new converts to the faith exist in constant
fear of the Sabbat bringing forth all its fury down upon them. They worry the sect will
return from its crusade stronger, having devoured a flock of angels, and will visit the
same wrath on the Gnostics that the Inquisition and traitor clans did eight centuries ago.
The Church amasses lore to defend itself and reaches out for allies within the Cainite
populace. Their current catechism is of unity, “compassion,” and conversion, reaching
out to those less fortunate and providing what help they can give. This religious
instruction coincides with Gnostic teachings and revealing of the truth, wherein all
vampires are Cainites, those of Caine, and his blessed children.

The Lasombra defection to the Camarilla poses an interesting conundrum for the Church,
as while the Cainite Heresy of old mostly consisted of Lasombra, it was other Lasombra
who directed the faith’s purge. For now, the few vampires who recall these details — most
of whom are Lasombra anyway, or were told the stories of the Cainite Heresy by older
Magisters — prepare for the Night Clan to once again visit destruction or manipulation on
their order. Old habits die hard and they expect many Lasombra will assume the church is
theirs to wield or crush as it once was before. The Church is content to provide guidance
to most Kindred, but treads warily around the Night Clan at this time.

The reconstructed Church of Caine aims to rebuild an official magisterium, a codified

scripture, review and revise their holy sacraments, and write canon law that will be both
easily disseminated and protect the congregations. Then there is the defense of the new
Holy Cainite Empire in Heaven, which may not exist in any meaningful way as yet, but
will soon if the Crimson Curia’s plans come to fruition. With the Second Inquisition’s
control over most forms of travel, the Church struggles to find a way to build all the
answers needed to finish these tasks. The faith’s parishes have been content with building
their own local traditions and denominations, all with a different dogma, creating a
tapestry of faith much more diverse than previously expected.

This is a time of new freedoms, an age of enlightenment constructing a marketplace of

ideas for Cainites to partake in and defend. Some Gnostics appreciate this freedom, others
fear the heresies that will inevitably spring up to challenge the new order. Some churches
have already begun venerating the Second Generation as saints or bodhisattvas of the
higher Cainite pantheon. These parishes are rare though, as above all things, Caine is
mighty and glorious. There are even rumors of parishes who venerate both Caine and
Lilith, though the Bahari are still perceived as vile enemies to most Cainites and burned
out as the heresy they are.

Church Hierarchy

The Church of Caine upholds a hierarchy resembling a blend of the Medieval Catholic
Church, modern Gnostic churches, and even the Eastern Orthodox Church. To the cynical
vampire, the church hierarchy structure is just a means to exert control and has little
bearing on the spiritual significance of the vampire holding the rank of “deacon” or
“bishop,” but curiously, the modern Church of Caine eschews the idea that only the eldest
may hold the most important roles. This vampire religion rewards merit, which may
come to fracture the organization when elders refuse to shift from their long-held roles.

Congregation / The Flock

The bulk of vampires who consider themselves faithful Gnostics, Cainites, or simply
believers, are referred to as “the congregation” or “the flock.” Individual vampires at this
level believe in Caine as the progenitor and uphold the belief that they are divinely
mandated as predators. Despite the latter belief, the congregation are far from
uncontrollable monsters. Their superiors in the Church teach Gnostics how to unleash
their Beast, how to satisfy the urge to frenzy, and how best to retain one’s Humanity while
accepting the nature of an undead blood-drinker. Members of the flock are permitted to
hear the cult’s liturgy but cannot witness the sacraments.

Doorkeepers

The ancient role of doorkeeper was assigned to churches to prevent their persecution by
other faiths, opposing societies and governments, and sabotage from unhappy citizens.
This guard role exists to this night, with those vampires more disposed to violence
(whether doling it out or preventing it) more likely assigned this title than one responsible
for administering the faith. Doorkeepers are more than hired muscle, as they’re expected
to still attend services and participate in the sacraments, but they are also the first
vampires opponents of the Church will see, if threats or delivery of violence is required.

Doorkeepers tend to hold Status: Church of Caine (•).

Acolytes

Acolytes of the Church of Caine are responsible for several duties, including arranging
safe venues for Gnostics to meet, ensuring priests are equipped with the tools and apparel
needed to perform their ministerial duties, and hunting down artifacts important to the
Church. This varied role is commonly the first title a vampire earns upon formally
joining the Church of Caine, with each acolyte having performed at least one firewalk.
Acolytes often act as audiences to encourage or cajole others participating in the
sacraments.

Acolytes tend to hold Status: Church of Caine (•).

Vergers

The verger is a vampire who wanders from domain to domain teaching others of the
liturgy, the Demiurge, and Caine, in the most non-controversial terms. These roving
preachers vary in importance from nominal Gnostic mouthpieces to cult leaders building
larger and larger followings. The most notorious vergers are known as arch vergers. They
hold no influence over the Church of Caine’s formal hierarchy, but in this era when the
Second Inquisition scrutinize cult-like behavior and strange reports of priests
administering blood to their congregations, the merits of being a traveling holy person
sometimes outweigh those of being a leader with a static flock.

Vergers tend to hold Status: Church of Caine (•) and at least one dot of Streetwise.

Lectors

Lectors act as readers during church services. The role is largely honorific, as when not
performing for the flock, they occupy the same standing as acolytes. The major difference
is in the confidence given to a lector, as a priest or deacon speaks with them on matters of
faith and expects the lector to read from the texts important to the Church of Caine with
earnest belief and understanding.

Lectors tend to hold Status: Church of Caine (••) and rarely have fewer than two dots in
Occult, with a Specialty in Gnosticism.

Deacons

Deacons hold administrative power in the Church of Caine. While they might stand in for
a priest to perform services, it’s more likely the deacons busy themselves with upholding
the financial, bureaucratic, and personnel end of the Church. This sounds mundane, but
the power deacons wield over the channeling of wealth in and out of the Church, and the
prestige awarded to members of the flock and the acolytes beneath them, is impressive.
Deacons are effectively the Harpies of the Church of Caine. In terms of reporting, deacons
bypass priests and report to the bishops and Crimson Curia itself. Gnostics cannot
become priests of Caine before they have held the title of deacon.

Deacons generally hold Status: Church of Caine (••) and rarely have fewer than two dots in
Politics or Finance.

Priests / Church Leaders

Responsible for overseeing the sacraments, administering Church doctrine, and keeping
the faithful community whole and growing, there are few roles within the Church of
Caine so visible and so immediately influential as that of the priest. Priests might read
from ancient religious texts verbatim, schooling their flock on the word of Caine, or they
might lead a congregation with their own interpretation of Caine’s will. Priests carry
enough power in their words and actions to form schisms without knowing it, and for
that reason their actions remain closely observed by deacons who report priest behavior
to the bishops, while priests report on flock behavior to those same bishops. Every city
with a contingent from the Church of Caine must have a priest, even if that requires
bringing a priest in from a separate domain. Without a vampire who knows the rites and
dogma, there is no Church.

Priests hold Status: Church of Caine (•••) or higher, and each has at least three dots in
Occult, with a Specialty in Gnosticism, or sometimes, Catholicism. Most have some
proficiency in the Presence Discipline.

Bishops

The Church of Caine’s bishops — of which a select few form the Crimson Curia — are
responsible for keeping the entire order together, furthering the Dark Father’s agenda
(such as they interpret it), creating new sacraments, interpreting ancient texts and myths,
and acting as spiritual centers when domains run the risk of falling due to priestly
absence or failures (though they often delegate this role to powerful deacons). Bishops
possess the ability to order sweeping changes across the faith, though before any major
decisions are made they must form a conclave of at least nine vampires from the Church
of Caine, five or more of whom must be at the bishop or deacon rank.

Bishops tend to hold Status: Church of Caine (••••) and possess at least four dots in Occult
and three in Politics. Most hold proficiency in Auspex, so they can glean deep insights into
the priests and deacons beneath them.

The Metropolitan

There is no metropolitan in the Church of Caine, though if there were one, it would be
Caine or a vampire who could believably channel his will and direction. The Church of
Caine is growing swiftly enough to warrant the appointment of a proxy metropolitan in
the next few years, just due to the benefit of having a strong autocrat in charge of such an
organization, though the Crimson Curia may overrule any such appointment. Most
bishops agree a metropolitan is a necessity for some night in the future, but few are
prepared to nominate an untested vampire. They wish to avoid electing a metropolitan,
only to see them suffer the Beckoning or suddenly become a target for the Second
Inquisition, and so the bishops for now have agreed the Crimson Curia is sufficient, until
a suitable candidate reveals themself.

The theoretical metropolitan of the Church of Caine holds Status: Church of Caine (•••••).

Church Dogma

At its core, the Church of Caine believes it is a vampire’s destiny for the Demiurge to select
them, make them as holy as Caine, and take them to his right side. To achieve this
requires controlling one’s Beast, not to become a pacifist or vegan, but to gain the ability
to let it off the leash in a measured manner. The most successful predators in the world
are not those that mindlessly savage in a whirlwind, but those who stalk, hunt, kill, and
devour, leaving just enough bones to make their presence known.

The Church preaches the words of Caine as recorded by experts and seers of the Crimson
Curia, and their belief in Kindred as blessed. Their faith is one of trial and victory, in
which vampires must prove they’re worthy of the love of the Demiurge and of Caine, and
when the time comes — and it will come soon, the Crimson Curia says — they must be
there to see and assist in the third rising of angels, sometimes called “the resurrection,”
otherwise known as the “Time of Caine.”

The belief that the world is a layered hell with strata of deserving and undeserving
individuals, some of whom are being punished for sins they committed eons ago, before
they came to possess their current forms, is one all the Church priests come to understand
and believe in. As soon as a Gnostic accepts this reality, it makes feeding and killing a lot
easier. The moral damage can be severe, but the detachment from the basic human
perception of Earth brings one to a new state of enlightenment.

To ascend toward heaven, the cult maintains a vampire must be capable of overcoming
their fear of hell’s weapons. The Church of Caine do not believe the Demiurge made
vampires vulnerable to fire, but rather, this burden is a holdover from their time among
hell’s denizens. After all, are mortals not harmed by fire too? They reason Caine must be
immune to this element by now, so they must attempt to be the same way, and so the
Church preaches that Gnostics must defeat the fire by staring at it, handling it, and
walking through it. The same will apply to sunlight, when a Gnostic is powerful enough.

Arguably the most controversial of the cult’s beliefs is in diablerie as a necessary

sacrament. If the Crimson Curia deem a vampire unworthy of their layer in the hierarchy
between heaven and hell — usually due to some grievous crime committed against the
Church, in the name of Caine, or because they’re a vocal, influential proponent of
another faith — the Curia advocates for their diablerie. The Gnostics believe all spirits
exist in a cycle and just reform on a lower level when their flesh vessel is destroyed. The
only way to prevent this is through the divine act of devouring the soul. While practiced
rarely, it is not forbidden, nor is it withheld for any reason other than appearances. The
Church of Caine has not yet gained sufficient allies to make diablerie an acceptable ritual
in Camarilla and Anarch domains, but they’re biding their time.

Gnostic Convictions

Gnostics often adopt the following Convictions to help them maintain their sense of self
while pursuing their faithful existence:

Never unwillingly allow the Beast to take over: Exercising restraint by never
succumbing to the extremes of behavior is vital to becoming a renowned vampire in
the Church of Caine. Wild, uncontrollable animals find the entire jungle working
against them, whereas cool, calculating predators find their stomachs full and their
presence unnoticed.
 Never succumb to fear: Willpower is all-important to these vampires, who believe
that in order to emulate (or even surpass) Caine, one must harden one’s mind against
hell’s weaponry. Gnostics are expected to sample a snatch of sunlight, walk through
fire, and adorn themselves with holy symbols, just to show their defiance and power.

Let nobody prevent you from growing closer to Caine: This Conviction can be
interpreted in multiple ways, but generally refers to the cult’s desire to build its
knowledge of Caine and of the Church’s predecessors from the first millennium.
Other Gnostics with this Conviction believe any attempt to interfere with cult
sacraments is to be punished, and frenzy if someone tries to stop their actions.
Feed only from hell’s denizens: All Gnostics agree some mortals are more worthy
than others, and depending on the domain, may have selected some strata of mortal
society to exempt from hunting. They believe all others are beings in hell, and there
to sate the hungers and whims of angels above them. Some Gnostics might use this as
justification to commit diablerie, if a vampire has fallen far enough from Caine’s
grace.

Do not consort with the lowest beings of hell: The Church of Caine believes
strongly that all vampires are angels or blessed, and spending time in the company of
devils is a fine way to make oneself fall. Many Gnostics cut away unnecessary mortal
ties that might inhibit them from progression within the Church.

Never brook an insult to Caine’s divinity: This Conviction leads to more conflicts
than probably any other, but is fundamental to the Church of Caine’s beliefs: Caine is
divine, he is the Dark Father of all vampires, and he is to be revered. Any who doubt
that should receive correction and education. Any who insult that should receive
punishment. Caine is the angel of murder and hunting, and the Church will not hear
him be referred to as some common murderer.

Sacraments

While it is true the parish structure of the cult allows for disparities in the way liturgy is
delivered and how Caine’s role in the world is described, there are certain defined
sacraments universal to all members. While many of these are being revised and blended
together currently, these sacraments are propagated as universal gifts of the Dark Father.

Those Cainites who hold the titles of priest or verger generally teach these rites to the
flock. These vampires are protectors and defenders of the gospel of the Dark Father. Part
preacher and part templar, these vampires act as a communiqué between the parishes,
delivering letters and artifacts between church leaders, and helping to develop
sacraments and canon law.

The Sacrament of Valediction

When initiated into the Church of Caine, a Cainite focuses upon leaving one’s previous
life and accepting the state of being of a vampire. In modern nights, the Church of Caine
performs this rite as a symbolic act, but one filled with terror nonetheless.
A dedicant of the Church must openly name and describe one fear they held within their
mortal lives or recent vampire existence and explain how they plan to go about ridding
themselves of it. Only by witnessing their lack of fear can they be fully initiated into the
Church by sacrament, usually with a drop of blood or vitae upon the new member’s
forehead. Every member of a parish must take part in this rite, and even older members
routinely rededicate themselves to Caine by participating in this sacrament, to show to
the congregation their deeper ecclesiastical understanding of the Gnostic mysteries.

System: The vampire must name one of their fears and allow other members of the cult to
expose them to it. The vampire makes a terror frenzy test at Difficulty 3, and if the fear is
withstood, they reduce the Difficulty of their next terror frenzy test by 1. Whether the
vampire frenzies or not, they heal a point of Aggravated Willpower damage. Vampires
may attempt to lie about their fear to complete the sacrament, but doing so conveys no
benefit and requires a successful Manipulation + Subterfuge roll against the church
leader’s Wits + Insight.

The Sacrament of Exculpation

Once referred to as a “Sermon of Caine,” this rite sees members of the congregation
invoking the flaws of their bloodline while quoting stories or passages from the Book of
Nod. The participants need to present how their quotations can help Cainites in their
present situation. The sacrament invites vigorous discourse and the possibility of social
conflicts and resolutions, as the practicing theologians debate the modern merits of the
Book of Nod. The debates are often used to show the folly of vampires closer to hell or to
highlight wisdom found in angelic Caine’s words.

Demonstrating a clan bane differs from vampire to vampire, but for a Nosferatu it might
mean participating in sacrament rite with no disguise in place, or for a Hecata they would
need to feed from a vessel in front of the other practitioners, despite the anguish caused.
Some vampires find their banes harder to invoke than others, but for those who have
truly situational curses, they are free to just discuss the problems and fears they possess
surrounding their weaknesses, and how these weaknesses keep them locked in hell.

Enlightenment gleaned from this sacrament comes through self-awareness, as when the
participants discuss and demonstrate their respective clan banes and Caine’s verses, they
accept themselves for what they are and find hope in their ancestor’s words. Vampires
who participate openly in this sacrament always feel refreshed and reinvigorated upon its
conclusion.

System: When demonstrating a clan bane or confessing to a way in which the bane has
severely impeded them, the vampire’s player makes a Resolve + Composure roll (Difficulty
2 + Bane Severity). A win reduces their Bane Severity to 0 for the purposes of their clan
bane, until the end of the session. During that time their Bane Severity counts as 1 higher
for all other purposes, unless their sacrament roll was a critical win. A total failure results
in 2 Aggravated Willpower damage. While their bane is reduced, certain curses don’t
disappear completely: Nosferatu remain repulsive, Tremere unable to bond vampires, etc.
The Sacrament of Firewalking

One of the most emblematic sacrament of the Church of Caine sees them walking through
fires of varying size and ferocity to demonstrate how they have risen above the
weaknesses of hell’s creatures. Different branches of the Church argue the ultimate
purpose of such a potentially destructive sacrament, and whether it’s in fact an insult to
Caine and the Demiurge to test one’s curses in such a way, but as a measure of a vampire’s
will few sacraments compete.

The Church of Caine typically makes its newest adherents walk down a narrow corridor
of lit candles or lamps, surrounding them with several minor sources of fire. The fires
increase with the prestige of the vampire. When attempting to achieve title in the
Church, or following another great act for which the vampire desires acclaim, a firewalk
takes place as a way of punctuating the vampire’s worthiness. The fires in such tests are
often long pathways of burning coals or recently broken up burning bonfires or haybales.
To become a verger or other church leader a vampire must successfully pass through a
roaring fire without succumbing to fear, maybe in the form of walking through a
standing bonfire, or perhaps having to traverse an obstacle course of burning tires and
rooms — the sacraments depend as much on the sadism of the priest in charge as they do
the beliefs of the congregation.

In all cases, physical injury is expected. Vampires with Fortitude resist harm more easily
than other participants, but the physical scars are less important than the vampire’s
ability to withstand the fear. If they are able to pass through the fire without hesitating or
frenzying, the vampire feels completely in control of their Beast.

System: Any trial of flame inevitably ends in horrific burns; walking down a hallway of
hot coals may inflict 2 Aggravated Health damage, whereas standing in a roaring bonfire
might inflict 5 or more. The vampire tests against terror frenzy with the damage suffered
as their Difficulty. Completing a firewalk without frenzying heals all Superficial
Willpower damage, and Aggravated Willpower damage equal to the fire’s initial damage.
The vampire may roll a Composure + Survival test against the fire’s initial damage as a
Difficulty, with each success reducing the damage they suffer (to a minimum of 1). A
critical win awards the vampire with an additional dot of Status: Church of Caine, which
disappears at the end of the story if not purchased with experience.

Cainite Dominion: St. Louis

St. Louis has always been a contentious domain, swinging from one sect to the next as
wars raged between Kindred interests. These nights, the battlefield has changed. Street
crime is down, reports of supernatural activity have dried up — at least as far as
FIRSTLIGHT are concerned — and the Sabbat have, as with most American cities, moved
on. The war for St. Louis now is for its soul, and the souls of the vampires within it.
Presently, the warring cults are evenly contested, but rumor holds that influential
vampires from within the Camarilla support the Church of Caine in the Gateway to the
West.

The Gnostics in St. Louis have adopted a stance of aggressive Caine reverence, leaning
into the evangelical. They display the results of their faith in secret ceremonies and
displays for other Kindred, manipulating flame and showing no fear of fire like carnival
freaks looking to impress a crowd. They show reverence for the city’s elders, its
remaining Primogen, and the fallen Prince, just due to these vampires’ age. They claim
that proximity to Caine brings a vampire closer to heaven and thus, farther from the hell
fledglings inhabit, making the Gnostics ready servants of the Camarilla’s hierarchy. The
cult routinely meets with notable Camarilla vampires in Busch Stadium or Six Flags St.
Louis, in the belief that ostentatious displays of mortal hubris and wealth at once humble
the undead while simultaneously reminding them of the arrogant hell in which they
reside.

Crucially, St. Louis’ Gnostics turned the tide of Kindred opinion in favor of the
controversially brutal Chief Inspector (the Lou’s version of a Sheriff, who has weathered
the sectarian storms) further to his diablerie of three Masquerade-breakers. Though
Chief Inspector Oubier’s punishment of these three vampires was unorthodox and
inhumane, tantamount to cannibalism in most domains, the Gnostics acted as
bodyguards to the vicious Malkavian and extolled his actions as the will of Caine and in
the best interests of the domain. They successfully persuaded the city’s Anarchs that
without Oubier’s brutality, the city would have been the next target on the Second
Inquisition’s list, thereby slumping even farther into hell. What the Church of Caine
actually wants with a deranged killer like Oubier is unknown outside the cult. The
Gnostics know, however, that he is of significant blood potency and generation, and will
make for an adequate figure of worship, before becoming a martyr, a saint, and an icon
for the Church and city. The cult is adept at spinning horrifying acts into gripping
parables, and intends to do the same with the “passions” of Oubier.

St. Louis’ Church of Caine are far from unassailable. The city contains plentiful rival
cultists from among the Bahari, Mithraists, and even a couple of Nephilim. Each wants a
chance to steer the city through its period of conflict and come out as the primary power
player. Where the Gnostics differ, is in their lack of desire to rule. The cult genuinely
wants to pull the city from hell and into heaven, even if that requires the sacrifice of every
vampire who opposes their view of Caine and codified laws for hunting and herding the
kine, to remind them of their place at the bottom of the food chain. They’re not going to
appoint a Prince to rule the domain, nor are they going to try running a theocracy, instead
believing that spiritual dominion over St. Louis is more than sufficient.

The Gnostics in the Gateway City have adopted a formal structure around Bishop
Jehoshebah, who makes her haven in the abandoned Eastern State Penitentiary with
several of her Gnostic kin. A Lasombra who claims to be a member of the original Church
of Caine, Jehoshebah says she voluntarily adopted a torpid state in the 13th century CE.
Though few know if her words are true, she carries a body of impressive, believable tales,
and regularly demonstrates her command over the Blood to cow Gnostics and unbelievers
alike. She claims the Beckoning has no effect on her because she communes directly with
Caine. Supposedly, he intervenes in the summons while she has work to do in the
Americas. In truth, her Cainite generation is far from what one might expect of a near-900
year old vampire, but she speaks with enough conviction to convince others of her power.

Around Bishop Jehoshebah and the upcoming martyr Oubier, the cult commands six
vampires — a mixture of priests and deacons — to handle different aspects of the city,
each acting as a go-between for the Church and the Camarilla, Anarchs, kine, and other
cults, respectively. Some take a militant stance and employ coteries of doorkeepers to
protect them as they spread the Gnostic word, while others tread softly, such as with the
city’s Camarilla Kindred, offering spiritual advice and “evidence” of their progress on the
journey to Golconda, all to win converts and turn the Gateway to the West into a heavenly
domain, at least by Gnostic standards.

Perspectives

Anarchs: A surprising fertile ground to till for worship, though the Ministry have their
hooks in with talk of spiritual liberty. I believe we could do wonders with this sect,
however, if we could convince prominent Barons to accept their roles as Caine’s appointed
descendants and leaders of Cainites.

Bahari: At least they don’t have the temerity to refer to Lilith as an angel. She was, but no
longer. She fell just like the Antediluvians fell, and just like all of hell’s creatures fell. They
are misguided, and I feel they should be the last cult we attempt to save. They need to learn
to suffer.

Camarilla: Just two decades ago I would have balked at the idea of working within the
Camarilla, but just as Christianity, Judaism, and Islam (among countless other religions)
have undergone spates of persecution (some longer than others), we are in a period of quiet
worship and the Camarilla is the best-placed sect for such. We offer them our support and
influence within mortal religious bodies, they offer us their protection.

Church of Set: Are they a clan or a religious order? How can one be Embraced into a belief
system? While I understand the idea of baptism and indoctrination from birth (or the
Embrace, in our case), their entire structure seems more based on brainwashing than
actual faith. That, and so many other reasons, puts us at odds with this cult.

Servitors of Irad: We would know more of this fellowship. Few cults rise to worship Caine’s
first childer, so it begs the question whether they know more of the Demiurge’s chosen than
most other, non-Gnostic Kindred…

The Church of Set

“If it seems sickly, infect it. If it looks flammable, light the match. Everything that remains is a
thing that can’t be plagued, can’t be burned, won’t be defiled. And such things belong to Him.”

— Nonus Dis, Priest of the Cave of Apples in his Eighth Hour

The Chaos Cult

A vampire can follow Kindred society’s laws, uphold the Camarilla’s Traditions, cling
onto their pillars of Humanity, and struggle nightly with the growling Beast in their
heart. Or, a vampire can make their own laws, drive their heel into the Camarilla, divest
themselves of their mortal shackles, and make their Beast a weapon.

The Church of Set favor the latter option. It is what they preach. It is what they believe.
Possibly the oldest of all Kindred religions, stretching back in time across millennia, the
Church of Set have always been present to “liberate” vampires from society’s strictures
and encourage them to find their true calling.

Yes, many fall, become wights, and are used as valuable teaching lessons. But for those
who survive? They become stronger, and praise be to Set for helping those vampires
become everything they are meant to be.

Due to their attitudes toward liberation from rules, theoretically, many Kindred should
oppose the Church’s very existence. They are servants of chaos, advocating that unlife
only possesses meaning if vampires free themselves from the edicts of ancient masters
such as Princes and Justicars. Yet, vampires see in the Church of Set wisdom that comes
through age and experience, freedom through anarchy, and a chance to rebel against all
the external tyrants and internal guilt trips that hold them down. Whenever a domain
holds a temple of Set, the Kindred know there’s a place they can visit for a form of
enlightenment, counsel, and hard, bitter truth. They also know that by attending this
temple, they can find purpose in the meaningless nature of eternity.

The Church of Set is strong because it appeals to a Kindred’s base nature, while promising
to eradicate the worst of those desires. It is chaos, storm, and promise of change. When
the alternative seems like stagnation, it’s no wonder neonates of tonight increasingly
flock to the temple doors.

Despite their message of freedom, however, the Church of Set is not some utopic faith to
which all fledglings must cling. Even the Ministry — the clan most commonly associated
with the Church, through their Blood, founder, and religious practices — urges caution to
those seeking to follow Set’s path.

Church and State

In the nights following Gehenna, a curious — though not unprecedented — schism

occurred within the flocks of Set, so the Serpents claim. Just as Set’s sarcophagus at
Ombos was said to shatter many centuries ago, so too in these nights did the body of Set’s
faith fracture into dangerous shards.

One such splinter group, shedding ties to its venerable history and even abandoning the
name of the Red God himself, refers to itself as the Ministry. The Church of Set refers to
them as heretics, and yet, it is the Ministry who dominate the clan tonight. To understand
the Church of Set, one must first understand the Ministry.
The Ministry are the Clan of Faith, but they are not a single religion. The Ministry holds
the keys to salvation and uses them to deface every surface around them. They are known
to steal, reproduce, and even forge texts of orthodox doctrine, disseminating them among
unbelievers, unworthies, and the otherwise unready. Doctrine is often twisted to fit their
own needs, especially when it comes to the holy search for the mysteries of Set. Ministers
have shown themselves eager to enshrine Set within or attribute to him anything that
benefits their autocratic philosophies or actions, syncretizing him with tyrannical kings,
chosen Antediluvians, or, among the radical fringe, Set’s inimical brother Osiris. The
Ministry is content to use Allah, Catholic saints, Vishnu, or any other being of reverence
as a mask for Set. They attract followers because the clan is made up from followers of
every religion, every culture, and every background. The Ministry are a clan of chaos, but
they are the body, the bureaucracy, and the society that ostensibly governs the realm of
faith among Kindred.

The Ministry perverts doctrine of all religions to bring its members closer to Set. They are
wreckers and despoilers to some, but liberators and counselors to others. Ministers might
spread terrible lies about supposed abuses of power committed by the Church of Set, just
as the Church of Set finds itself taking in Ministry survivors who have been subject to
those same abuses. It is not unheard of for a temple of Set to offer shelter to kine or
Kindred misused by the Ministry. To many, it appears the Ministry and Church are at war.
To others, it is clear a cycle of abuse and manipulation in the form of nurture propels
vampires between them.

The Ministry is devoted to the cause of individual Anarchs rather than the spirit of
independence and freedom as a whole — that is, Ministers seem eager to rule Anarchs
rather than convert them, in contradiction to the edicts laid down by the Red God. This is
where the clan and the Church most widely differ. As infiltrators and warmongers, the
Ministry makes itself a frequent target of the Camarilla, but while the Ministry take the
flak and earn support from their downtrodden Anarch brethren, the Church maintains a
distance. The Church does not involve itself in the sectarian wars. So committed is the
Church to decrying these pretenders that they will justify a Contending — a trial more
akin to a kangaroo court than a place to express one’s defense — against any adherent who
abets a Minister outside the Church, to be called off only if the wayward child returns to
the flock and sufficiently atones. Anyone shown the true path who still allows the silvery
voices of the worldly to lead them astray has become useless in the eyes of the Red
Pharaoh.

To the rest of the world, the Church and Ministry appear to occupy a shared history, but
distinct spheres in these modern nights. They share some members, they share some
ideals, but the two are opposed at a structural and philosophical level. The Church of Set’s
leadership outwardly regards the Ministry as insignificant, incorrigible children at best.
Ministers are not in the business of being ignored, and seem to delight in overt, ill-
advised stunts that threaten scrutiny by the Second Inquisition. Such theatrics are to be
smothered or undermined with any resources a temple, priest, or lay member has at
hand. The Church even says honest cooperation with the Camarilla to suppress known
Ministers is preferable to the Ministry operating unchecked.
The Clan of Lies

Of course, that’s what the Church of Set wants other Kindred to think. The damage from
this so-called schism is difficult for any outsider to ascertain. The Church of Set
maintains the fractures between Church and Ministry are dire heresies. Some Ministers,
however, believe the front-facing aspect of the clan is just that: a carefully erected façade
that allows the Church to continue its own practices and aims, deflecting all out-of-clan
attentions toward the new kids on the block making such a noise within the Anarch
Movement.

If this is true, the Church of Set is successfully playing the Anarch Movement and many of
their own clanmates. The Serpents have, after all, served Set for millennia. An overnight
reformation is unlikely. The danger to the clan from all this scheming, is the possibility of
their new face growing in power and relevance over the ancient traditions and beliefs of
the orthodoxy. If the Church of Set deliberately cultivated the Ministry, they may have lit
the fuse for a bomb destined to collapse their foundations.

Divine Origins

Was Set really a god? That is a question many Kindred aware of the Church are obliged to
ask.

The Church of Set claims that millennia before two brothers squabbled over their
offerings, a mighty family reigned over the Earth, and among them dwelt the forebear of
what some crudely refer to as the Followers. Set, of violent storms, of the cruel red desert,
of the incomprehensible outsiders beyond the civilized world. Set the warrior, Set the
triumphant. Set, who would be king.

In the faith of ancient Egypt, and through the ages to tonight, metaphor is more valuable
than linear narrative. The myths remain in fragments. The interpretations mature with
each new era.

In one translation, Set is a betrayer to his kin. His father, Ra, retires the throne and grants
it to Set’s brother, Osiris. In a cold rage, Set slays Osiris — some say by drowning, some by
dismemberment. In another version, Set is betrayed. Osiris at turns visits upon him a
great violence, or tricks him into an unwinnable conflict, or steals Set’s consort for
himself. Osiris takes advantage of his own brother’s weakened state to seize rule of the
world from him. Or, perhaps, Set never wanted to reign — an Anarch, even then, striving
against the tyranny and corruption of Ra’s bloated, degenerate court.

Regardless of interpretation: there is a great sin against truth, and Set the Pharaoh never
sits upon the throne. Setites of tonight abide by this message even now: members of the
Ministry may claim cities for their own, but if you are a member of the orthodox Church
of Set, you must never take rulership.

According to legend, when Ra discovers what Set’s done to his brother, he levels a curse
similar to that from Noddist theology, and banishes Set to the shadows. When Osiris
tricks him and the terrible serpent Apep sinks its fangs into Set’s mighty heart, it is the
monster’s venom that corrupts his physical form to resemble an eternal corpse. When Set
must hide himself from his despotic siblings in the stygian waters of Duat, it is through
starvation that he resorts to drinking naught but blood. Or so the myths go.

Curse, liberation, radical conversion. All of the stories together make the shape of truth,
but in the telling they become lies. The Church preaches that Set made his curse a gift and
delivered it to his congregation, the gift of flesh that never rots and blood that flows more
potent than the rivers of the underworld. The corruption of Apep burned through that
which was fallible in him and left only perfect, atom-fine edges of obsidian. Duat’s
unliving waters could not have converted the god, changing him from one purpose to
another, so much as everted him, stirring the exalted appetites within.

The question remains: Was Set a god? The question is incomprehensible to those of the
faith. He is a god, and, in the curious para-temporal way gods have about them, will
always be a god, and has always been a god. He sleeps in the temple at Ombos. He winnows
unrefined souls with his childer. He makes his living church among them.

And when the tragic heroes of the Book of Nod walked the Earth, Set’s “followers” were
already ancient.

A History in Whispers

Regardless of how one feels about his eminent divinity and the mythical origins of his
church, scholars of the Hecata, Malkavians, and Ministry record Set’s last appearance on
Earth as 33 BCE. He sundered the ground with earthquakes, shook the palaces of
Memphis with wild storms, and delivered his final mysteries to the faithful. When a cabal
of Hierophants and witches came to his resting place, they found the obsidian
sarcophagus empty and shattered, razor black shards embedded in the sandstone walls.

The ancient Hierophants of the clan ruled in his absence. The faithful tended to Egypt
through the reign of each pharaoh and invading king, guiding from the shadows and
pruning the crop as they had already done for millennia. Their ideology and history had
already prepared them in unique ways for the many and varied changes in leadership,
from Macedonian to Ptolemaic. Enemies of the word of Set were deeply polluted — by
necessity of their rejection of him — and it was the role of the faithful to encourage that
pollution to destroy their enemies from the inside out, and make those who survived
worthy of Set’s favor.

None of the fearsome conquerors of Egypt showed any interest in rooting out the priests
of Set and plundering their flocks. While a few elder leaders groused at the supposed
dilution of his kingdom by endless waves of barbarians, the orthodoxy held — Set is also
the god of foreigners, in his role as the Lord of All Outside Egypt, and there was more to
gain in bearing an invader’s indignities than in burning him out.

The faith’s greatest test, however, came during their first Inquisition. Not the Christian-
led burnings Western Kindred refer to — for the Church of Set, their Inquisition came a
full century earlier, at the hands of the Sultan Baybars. His commitment to the
eradication of infidels did not stop at his decisive campaigns against European crusaders.
Baybars’ Mamelukes destroyed ancient temples, burning and burying their relics. They
hunted two Eternals of Sothis, methuselahs of the Church, and brought them to their
final death. They pillaged the Founding Temple Ombos, most holy among the Church’s
body, and desecrated its contents.

The Purge of Baybars drove the Church of Set out of Egypt and into exile, taking with
them any artifact they could carry. They lived in diaspora for decades until Baybars’
assassination. Many of the old treasures smuggled out during the Proclamation of Red
Tears still have not been returned, though modern movements arise to repatriate those
that have found their way into the collections of unwary museums or wealthy erudites.

Forty years of exile in foreign lands brought the followers of the Church new wisdom
through pain. They found that while the European Kindred despised them for their faith
or their subtleties or their skin, they craved what the Church could provide them. The
Church of Set fed these cravings gladly.

It began with simple trade goods — silk, spices, rare animals. The Church’s coffers
swelled, and so did the hungers of wealthy Europeans. Setite merchants began to trade in
opiates, hashish, specialized servants. Then, goods more abstract and cunning. A perfect
forgery of a grant of arms, for an ambitious commoner. An ignorant child with particular
physical traits, to pass off as a rival’s bastard. A sorcerous elixir of potency, for a knight
afraid to meet his death in foreign lands. The Church grew as a network of fixers and
informants, collaborating in secret, passing goods from follower to follower. Each branch
and temple began to keep records of their resources, as well as members’ skills and
connections.

Set’s treasuries grew, and so did his flocks. Setites learned they could lean ever harder on
those who had grown dependent on them for favors of their own, deeds they couldn’t risk
doing themselves. Entrenched as they were, the faithful of Set could avoid the worst of
another Inquisition, purchasing the silence of infidel priests and redirecting hunters to
worthier targets. Meanwhile, Western clients who could withstand their poisonous
addictions were invited into the Mysteries of the faith. And those who fell were, naturally,
doomed from the start.

The Burning of Baybars

A special yearly ceremony is held in orthodox temples of Egypt, the Mediterranean, and
the Middle East. Some particularly radical branches in the West may participate, though
the ritual trappings are singularly difficult to come by. On the anniversary of Baybars’
death in 1277, the faithful gather around a ceremonial brazier, tended by the acting
Hierophant or High Priest. He reveals a knife of obsidian, and a bone preserved from
Baybars’ corpse.

Leading the flock in the Execration Litany, the priest shaves a sliver from the bone and
holds it over the fire, releasing it at the climax of the ritual chant. When the wraith of the
old Sultan appears in the flames, the followers shout it down, spit on it, and otherwise
relish the eternal torture so delivered on their ancient enemy.

More Modern Deceits

With the Renaissance, and the resulting Age of Reason, the West saw a resurgence of
classical thought and gnostic cabals. Philosophers of science needed ever more taboo
materials for their research. Alchemists, sorcerers, and their secret societies became
inexplicably fashionable. There were seductive new ideas to spread, and who better to
help their dissemination than the world’s first cult of mystery?

The thought-experiments of the Enlightenment led to wars of revolution and renewed

conquest. The nascent New World promised liberty and happiness, as entire peoples from
half a world away paid for it with their bodies. The Church was there, too, everywhere, a
contact in every port and palace; sometimes, they were first.

The presence of the faithful in all corners of the conscious world, and their history of
playing both sides, leads many outsiders to think the Church had some part in every
atrocity of the last three centuries. According to the Church, these claims are flimsy lies.
The Church of Set has and always will stand in opposition to all forms of tyranny, whether
from one man over few or one man over a nation — or one false god over a universe. The
Master of Duat did not allow himself to be denied the throne of heaven only for his childer
to love other kings and despots.

As such, it must come as no surprise that many of the faithful in these modern nights have
taken up with the Anarchs, though members of the Church rarely cling to the Movement
as fiercely as they do to the faith. Leave that for lay-Ministers. Church members are
encouraged to enjoy the disdain of all sects, in their own understated ways. Outsider
Kindred have long disdained the Setites as up-jumped pimps, troublemakers and fixers.
Being underestimated serves the Church just fine... especially now.

After the Red Star appeared in the sky at the turn of the millennium, the high scholars
and new witches reached an exceptional consensus: the Red God sleeps no longer. He is
here. The modern world groans under the distended corpse of capitalism. Whole nations
are bought and sold on the trade of weapons and narcotics. The Second Inquisition burns
Princes in their manors. Those with Blood of a thinness previously thought impossible
walk the land — walk in the light! The Earth itself simmers and boils with the injustices
visited on its body.

The world is ready for Set. And if they are to be believed, it is the faithful of his Church
that will begin the threshing.

Snakes in Their Hidden Nests

Because of the Church of Set’s reputation, both unearned and carefully cultivated,
leadership must construct and disclose their houses of worship with a prudence
bordering on paranoia. There are many branch cults with no physical structure to speak
of, all the better to go to ground if the Camarilla or the Second Inquisition decide to drive
out the snakes.

Mortal-facing fronts are small, mobile institutions, meeting regularly and in-person,
usually with Greco-Roman influences. In the ‘70s, these were bland New Religious
Movement centers. The ‘80s and ‘90s saw a switch to substance-abuse support groups.
These nights, pop-up mindfulness practitioners are coming into fashion. The format does
not matter — the Church favors any organization that preaches detachment from what
binds you. Even at this level, the doctrine of the Church of Set can be introduced in subtle,
bowdlerized formats. Leaders are encouraged to downplay use of serpents and Egyptian
gods in their organization names and heraldry, in favor of the more palatable imagery of
Mars, Bacchus, or Pluto — all three, if possible, as they are identified with Set as Typhon
Trismegistus.

Pierce this mundane shroud of counselors and life coaches to find the true face of the
Church — the temple. The architectural requirements for a temple of Set are few but
unusual: there must be an inner room from which all outside light can be blocked, and
there must be space within this room for a larger-than-life statue of the Red God. Movie
theaters are the obvious choice, and darkrooms are equally valuable though rarer in this
age of digital photography.

The Church is nothing if not resourceful. Lacking the space or resources to construct a
new temple, and in absence of the perfect preexisting architecture, many smaller temples
are assembled in abandoned garages, cellars, or large storage units, with the inner
sanctum separated from the outer by blackout curtains.

The temple’s outer sanctum prepares the celebrant to face their god. Priests help them
strip to their skin, cleanse themselves in a consecrated mixture of ashes and urine, and
finally dress in shendyt, or Egyptian waistcloths, in deep red and green. Past the light-
blocking barrier, the inner sanctum is stark and somber, empty save for the black statue
of the Master of Storms and the dim red lights that illuminate its alien edges. Individual
prayers and offerings occur here, as well as the smaller or quieter rituals.

Temples with size and secrecy enough can stockpile donations within their walls, serving
as a storehouse within the greater decentralized treasury of the Church. Still older
temples feature libraries of Setite ritual and magical texts. These texts are precious in
themselves and never loaned out under any circumstances.

The most ancient artifacts and cornerstones of the Church’s doctrine can be found in
aptly named Founding Temples. Such temples include Red Hook in the Brooklyn borough
of New York City, founded in 1893 as the oldest temple of Set in the Western hemisphere.
Scholars of Typhon Trismegistus make regular pilgrimages to the Cave of Apples temple
in Naples, when they can manage the trip, though this seat of Church operations in
Europe has been steadily emptying in the nights since the Beckoning began. Of course,
most famous is the legendary temple Ombos at Naqada, Egypt, once the resting place of
the Red God himself. Some say Ombos still lies in ruin, and some claim it is rebuilt. The
few modern pilgrims have not returned or even sent back word.
Sectarian Matters

If the Ministry so despises the idea of authority, why did it beseech the Camarilla for
membership? While desperation and fear are as likely causes as any with the Gehenna
Crusade arriving at their doorstep, the clan’s true aim was to change the world’s most
powerful Kindred sect from the inside while benefiting from its walls. For all their talk of
freedom from hierarchy, the clan still possesses Hierophants and church leaders who
instruct and guide their less enlightened fellows, so installing their religious structure
within the Ivory Tower would not be so anathematic to the Ministers as many might
believe.

The clan’s greatest philosophical division in these modern nights comes between the
Ministry and the Church. The clan’s “rebrand” or schism — depending on who one asks —
that led to the Ministry’s creation came before the attempted entry into the Camarilla,
but following the failure of that coalition, many Serpents loudly eschewed the sects
entirely, declaring themselves Orthodox Setites, Snakes, or the Church of Set. The
vampires who cling to the Ministry epithet are more inclined to associate and politic with
Kindred from other clans and join the Camarilla, Anarchs, and Ashirra, while the Church
of Set takes the view of “once bitten, twice shy” and despairs for their liberal-minded
clanmates, who they feel are destined to face bloody betrayal yet again.

Rituals of Liberation

The experiences of the faith are intimate and individual to each member. Church
leadership encourages its flock to pursue personal relationships with the Master of Duat.
However, study of the canon set down by priests, meditations on the revelations of
wisdom, and performance of the Mysteries must be conducted or shared in fellowship
with a member of higher rank available as a guide (the better for leadership to root out
any heresy in its infancy).

Kindred are encouraged to maintain a shrine to Set within their haven, provided it does
not detract from attending Church rituals and ceremonies. The shrine belongs in the
darkest part of the darkest room, cordoned off by black curtains. The altar can be as
elaborate as the worshiper feels necessary, though the Red Pharaoh is not known to be
impressed by extravagance. The only required accoutrements are a small icon or statuette
of Set, wrought in black and red; a bowl for offerings; and an incense burner with kyphi,
if the worshiper can find it, though juniper or cedar incense are also known to please the
Ruler of the Desert. The worshiper may wish to keep implements of pain or torture at
hand to enhance their prayers.

With access to a shrine, a Kindred of the Church is expected to perform the nightly
offering ceremony. It begins with burning incense until its smoke hazes the air. Then the
celebrant parts the curtain to the shrine, bowing before the image of the Red God while
offering a favored hymn or a simple “Eternal homage to you, Set the Liberator.” They cut
their palm to allow some vitae to flow into the offering bowl, mixing it with beer. The
icon of Set is dressed in green and red cords, smeared with the still-bleeding palm. The
celebrant may linger in meditation, inserting needles under their fingernails one by one
or flaying a digit to allow pain to clear their thoughts. When the offering is complete, they
extinguish the incense and withdraw from the shrine, scuffing their footprints as they go.

The Lesser Mystery of Set

Of less intimate but far higher meaning are the two Mysteries of Set, the Lesser and the
Greater. The Lesser Mystery is observed once a month during a full moon, with special
significance given to mysteries that occur during a lunar eclipse. Any Kindred who know
of the performance — though not necessarily who is sponsoring it — are welcome to
attend and liberate themselves. Many recruiters consider this a necessary community
outreach event.

In the Lesser Mystery, the facilitating priest places emphasis on revelations — in this case,
making dramatic shows of magic, supposed artifacts, and other entertaining displays.
The most common sight at these ceremonies is a large python serving the priest as a
ghoul, passed among the spectators.

Following his revelations, the priest conducts sacrifices, though these will be called by
another name. Sometimes the attendees are asked to paint a source of anger onto a red
clay vessel, and then dash it against the wall. Sometimes they are bidden to pour their
wine over specific stones in the floor. Sometimes the audience comes looking for the Set
they hear of in Camarilla whispers and are disappointed to find anything less than ritual
slaughter.

This Mystery is a lesser eversion, a small liberation from the assaults of the soul. But for
every attendee who feels the rebellion rise within them, and every member the priest
deems worthy, there is a second event to come immediately after: a revelation of one of
the Gates.

The Nine Gates

The Mysteries of the Nine Gates of Wisdom are cornerstones of the religious experience of
the Church. It is impossible to progress in the hierarchy of secrets without receiving their
transformative lessons. The Gates are as follows: Ecstasy, Terror, Wrath, Desire, Satiety,
Despair, Ignorance, Chaos, and Blood. Passage through each requires a guide well-versed
in their execution, though an initiate’s awareness of the Gate ritual itself is not essential.
Indeed, the Church encourages initiation without any anticipation or prior agreement on
behalf of the initiate, for the most effective, visceral experience.

As the Gates reveal discrete truths or experiences meant to strip the initiate of corrosion,
each calls for a wholly different approach and atmosphere. Scholars recommend the Gate
of Ecstasy as an initiate’s first, as it is the most palatable and most expected Church
experience. The initiate of Ecstasy is subjected to intense sensory experiences meant to
awaken her body and smother her ego. The second Gate is usually of Terror: the guide
encourages the initiate’s starving id to express itself via her basest, most primal fear, then
directs her need for relief to the waiting arms of Set and his Church.

From here, the path is individualized to each initiate and her necessities, though many
sponsors move on to Wrath, doing whatever is required to goad the initiate’s rage into a
single livid explosion, incinerating the last of her false self. The Gate of Desire draws from
the initiate her most abhorred, subjugated needs, and encourages reflection as she
indulges them — why are they so hated? Must she suppress them, after all? The Gate of
Satiety gathers the seas of the initiate’s hunger and drowns her in them, until the very
thought of indulging a past pleasure is revolting to her. Under the Gate of Despair she
loses everything she once thought vital to her self — her temporal joys, her wealth and
possessions, her playmates and false loves — in order to learn that nothing outside the
truth in her soul can possibly define her. At the Gate of Ignorance, she experiences life-
changing doubt brought on by a shattering revelation, that something “true” upon which
she built the foundations of her being is not true at all. And in the Gate of Chaos, she is
shown with unerring soundness that the world itself is a lie, devoid of any reason or
sense, and any belief she once placed in the material is guided to its proper home — belief
in Set and his unbreaking Church.

At any of these Gates, a vampire may suffer frenzy, gain Stains, or devolve completely into
a wight. The Church of Set covers this truth up, assuring its newest members that they
will be supported through these trials, with the priest pointing to the handful of ranking
Setites in attendance as evidence of how the Church looks after its own. This sense of
brotherhood is a lie. Until a vampire has passed through every Gate, the initiate is on
their own. If they fall, they must pick themself up. If they cannot, the priest should
experience no regrets over that vampire succumbing to the Beast in perpetuity, as clearly
they were unworthy. Domains where the Church of Set holds sway may have a stable core
where the Church is at its strongest, but in the domain fringes, more wights prowl than
perhaps in any other cities.

On the Gate of Blood

Of the Nine, the Gate of Blood is considered most sacred, and absolutely vital to full
participation in the Church of Set. To be initiated in the mysteries of the Gate of Blood,
the celebrant must make herself a life sacrifice to the Red God. Her guide, acting in their
authority as a divine agent of Set, consumes every drop of her blood before replacing it
with some of the guide’s own. The initiate wakes from their glimpse of Duat, reborn in
the love of Set the Triumphant. The Gate of Blood is a time for somber reflection on the
part of the guide, and ecstatic revelry on the part of the celebrant.

Kindred laity recognize this as an Embracing, done up in the trappings of Egyptian

esotericism. Though the Church considers Kindred adoptees of the faith already inducted
in the Gate of Blood in their own way, priests of Set are eager to perform a facsimile of the
ceremony for them, that they may be Embraced again.
The Greater Mystery of Set

Of the Greater Mystery, little is written or discussed. Its very nature compels secrecy — to
discuss the Greater Mystery outside the confines of its performance is considered heresy.
There are, however, aspects of it that all members of the Church understand:

The Greater Mystery of Set is a ritual performed over the course of several nights, once a
year, during a new moon in the darkest month. Those of the Fourth Hour or later, who
have already experienced a Lesser Mystery, are obligated to attend. In the first night,
sacred objects are brought to the temple — an obsidian shard of an ancient sarcophagus, a
winnowing-fan, red clay vessels of unknown contents. A mortal man of a certain age must
be brought into the temple, dressed finely and treated in all ways as a king, his every
desire attended to. From the temple’s outer sanctum, the leading priest declares the start
of the rites, and there is an all-night feast, though not necessarily of food.

The second night, all initiates must be cleansed in dark water, which they are allowed to
procure from different sources, and can wear only green or red as they go about their
nightly business. At least once in the night they must visit the temple to leave offerings for
the ritual pharaoh.

In the third night, the fasting begins — Kindred initiates may only drink the blood of
those who are under the influence of entheogens. Kine initiates likewise must begin
imbibing hallucinogenic drugs. The doors to the temple close to all who are not allowed
participation in the Greater Mystery, save the ritual pharaoh, who has lived three days
now as a god on Earth.

Of what happens in the fourth night, only those present know. But in the fifth night, all
emerge from the temple in states of injury or exhaustion, and the sacred objects are
carried out — an obsidian shard sticky with fluid, a filthy winnowing-fan, red clay vessels
now empty, and several crude cedar boxes that smell like a butchery. The ritual pharaoh is
gone, though one member of his body remains with the priest.

In this final night there is an hours-long feast held somewhere secluded outside the
temple, featuring all manner of catharsis—specially-brewed beer, hashish and narcotics;
carefully monitored frenzies and fights; orgies selective or all-inclusive; and other more
exotic manners of release.

Any who discuss what they performed or witnessed while in the temple, either then or
later, are silenced at all costs and made subject to a Contending. Rarely has such a thing
been an issue — it seems the Greater Mystery is far too intimate and personal for anyone
to want to share its wonder openly.

Beginning the Journey of the Faithful

All souls, living and unliving, knowing and unknowing, shadow the journey of the dead
through Duat, an underworld of black water and pale flame. The existence of this
journey, and each person’s unwitting recreation of it, may not be made obvious to the
believer until they are well along their own journey. Leaders of the Church take care to
note each member’s progress, so no one is forced to bear the scouring of a revelation
before they are ready.

The First Hour of the Journey by Night represents Ra’s descent into Duat, and Church
doctrine likens it to struggling to make out shapes in the darkness. The Church designates
potential converts and curious individuals “just trying it out” as unbelievers in their First
Hour. Recruiters make themselves constantly available to the First Hour initiate,
anticipating his needs and meeting these to the best of their ability, all while watching
carefully for signs that the initiate is ready to be guided through his first mystery.

For many, their first mystery is a surprise. They receive an invitation, formal or informal,
to a celebration, the details of which are vague and mundane: a secular party, a small
benefit concert, a get-together over vitae and wine. The celebration turns out to be a thin
front for a performance of the Lesser Mystery of Set — but the recruiter-turned-guide is
careful to conceal the fangs of doctrine under the shadows of a pleasing garden.

Many performances of the Lesser Mystery end in the revelations of the Gate of Ecstasy, for
precisely the reasons anyone would expect. The guide crafts their initiate’s sensory deluge
to fit her particular tastes. This can be head-pounding music and half-moons of molly,
ending in a blur of flesh and heat. It can also be a flight of delicate mortals with carefully
curated Resonance and choice Dyscrasia, in a garden heavy with night-blooming jasmine.
One’s unknowing passage into the Second Hour is unforgettably pleasing, leaving the
initiate with an enthusiasm that will serve them well in the trials to come.

There are moments when the pain and chaos of the material world align to provide Set’s
guide with the circumstances necessary to initiate her charge in the revelations of their
next two Gates. When the Second Inquisition flashes its muzzles, or the Camarilla levies
incomprehensible rulings, or petty grievances sour the bonds of a coterie, the guide is
there, offering shelter to her initiate and leading them to the shadow of Set.

The guide does not rely on these moments to occur naturally. When necessary, she creates
them herself, using her access to the Church’s considerable network of contacts and
resources to set the stage for the wisdom of the Gates to make itself manifest. The
unknowing initiate may soon find themself beset on all sides by sudden, unimaginable
hardship with no discernable source or reason — lovers turned unfaithful, Touchstones
in mortal danger, evidence mounting for crimes never committed.

Does the guide feel remorse? Yes, at times her heart aches for the state of this world, that
it could construct a soul-cage only torture can break. But the initiate draws closer to
salvation in Set’s arms with every new torment. More often, the guide feels joy... and envy.

In the Fifth Hour of the Journey by Night, Ra and the host of the dead finally reach the
august tomb of Osiris, enthroned in black wings, suspended over a lake of fire. In the
initiate’s Fifth Hour, they have been broken upon four Gates in total. They have seen the
world for what it is: twisted and restrictive, a place where the true self cannot find
happiness. They have known the love of Set and his Church, the only place where they
can be truly free. Their sponsor can now reveal herself and her mission, confident that
the initiate is ready for the truth. They are ready for a joyous welcome into the Church of
Set, openly and officially.
The initiate is central to the confirmation ceremony, flensed of everything but their Gate
wisdom and newfound love of the Church. The night begins with somber rituals meant to
reenact their Embrace into the shadow of Set, and ends with familial love. These re-
Embraced fledglings appear drunk on renewed devotion to their Church, but are
undeniably spirited and courageous, making them essential to the recruitment of new
members. At this level, they are permitted further revelations denied to others: namely,
study of Church doctrine, and membership in performance of the Greater Mystery once a
year. Members in their Fifth Hour only now realize there were even Hours to begin with,
and often look back on their journey so far with a fearful wonder.

The Later Hours of Night

At the Sixth Hour, a Kindred must have mastered a total of six Gates of Wisdom. A
member of this level now shoulders the heavy responsibility of guiding others through
Gates they themselves have mastered — including the Gate of Blood, if Church leadership
blesses them with permission to Embrace a childe. A Kindred in the Sixth Hour of her
Journey by Night is a fulltime member of the Church of Set, a spiritual employee. She
may entertain other hobbies, projects, or titles, but only if these enhance her usefulness to
the Church and to the Red God. If she fails to bring Set his due of souls — either in new
fellowship or destruction-by-vice — she must also take care to guard herself against a
Contending on the basis of infidelity.

In the Seventh Hour, one of the Paths that an initiate may follow comes to a premature
end. This is the Hour of Set in his aspect as Triumphant Warrior and Consumer of Apep.
Those who follow the Path of Wepwawet forever delay their spiritual development to
serve under the Triumphant’s command. These warriors are fearsome ascetics,
mortifiers of the flesh, and protect the Church as swords of Set. Those lucky enough to
study with the paragon Faruq Abd al-Qadir in his training hall at Abu Simbel will find
themselves traded like currency from temple to grateful temple. For all the adoration
they receive, however, one of the Gates will always be out of their reach. They are figures
demanding both pity and great respect.

For those on other Paths, the Seventh Hour begins after the mastery of eight Gates. This
Hour confers the authority to open and manage local temples as a priest of Set, one small
node in a network of tithes, favors, treasures and hirelings. For many, this is the Hour of
their spoiling. Once, they only had access to pleasures the Church gifted in its wisdom, a
leash perhaps too short to choke on. However, not even a follower of Set is immune to
corruption through power — and just as well, because that which can be liberated, must
be. Such a weak leader is allowed to take his fill, as the Gate of Satiety allows, but his
elders will step in if it seems he has more followers consumed than converted.

Mastery of all Nine Gates of Wisdom is required to reach the Eighth Hour, the time in
which Ra throws open the doors to Osiris’s tomb and makes ready the way for the host of
the dead. Upper management of the Church can be found at this level — High Priests of
older temples (such as Khaled al-Fakhani in the Court of Humility), acclaimed Bahari
witches and the greatest of blood-sorcerers.
Members of the highest circle of the Church of Set dwell in their Ninth Hours, a level
reached only by the aged, the accomplished, or the gifted. This is the Hour of the
Antipode Labyrinth, when Ra reverses his course through the sandy maze of Sokar. High
Priests of Founding Temples guide the Church’s ambitions from here — or, they did,
before the Beckoning left their offices empty. The Church has many millennia of practice
at operating independent of centralized authority, though concerns rise through the
ranks regarding non-clan Kindred stepping into the vacuum left by Beckoned elders.

Demigods travel in the Tenth Hour of the Journey By Night: the Djet Sopdet, Eternals of
Sothis, methuselahs who were Embraced 1,460 years ago at the beginning of a Sothic
Turn. While nominally the heads of the Church, few continue active management at this
level. It is understood they have their own pious undertakings to attend to, but no one of
the Tenth Hour has been seen or spoken to since the Beckoning began.

Of the Eleventh Hour, there is only One. Lord Set, the Red God, remains in this
penultimate state, delaying his passage beyond Duat to guide followers in the shadow of
his Church. And beyond this lies the Final Hour: passage into the primordial Nun, where
the flensed and faithful will find a new world, or create another. Or so the orthodoxy
claims. No single entity, living or otherwise, has experienced crossing beyond.

The Journey for Mortals

For kine, the Journey by Night is conducted with rather more caution and patience. They
are recruited through one of the Church’s front organizations, invited to Lesser Mysteries
scrubbed of most overt vampirism, and guided through the more “palatable” Gates first.
While boons and favors are still dispensed with reassurances and warm smiles, the
Church presses back on mortals much sooner than Kindred. Members will find
themselves volunteered for small tasks or donations — certainly nothing that comes close
to what they have so far enjoyed on the Church’s dime.

As the mortal initiate passes into their Fourth Hour, the demands of the Church loom
large. Tithes increase in frequency, flooding the mortal with debt. Church leadership now
screens and approves relationships with outsiders, so that they won’t in their ignorance
interfere with an initiate’s fragile enlightenment. Errands for the Church are now
arduous undertakings — the mortal only has time for their Church membership. Kindred
of higher levels may be granted permission to Blood Bond or ghoul mortals in their
Fourth Hour, making the prospect of leaving the Church even more difficult. Indeed,
most of the Church’s labor force comes from mortals in their Fourth Hour, known
interchangeably as the Hour of Trials or the Hour of the Final Labyrinth. Still, kine are
promised the greatest revelation to come if they remain — and having seen the results of a
Contending, they know all too well the consequences of leaving.

On the Church of Set

As attributed to Khalid al-Fakhani, priest within the Church of Set in the Las Vegas domain
Before the Red Star appeared, the Church of Set were referred to as the Followers of Set.
This is an extremely literal translation of the phrase Walid al-Set, and does not convey the
full extent and power of the faith. To call the Church “followers” is like referring to the
Roman Catholic Church as “followers of the Trinity.” It is technically correct, of course,
but it leaves out so many of the nuances that it might as well be useless.

Many atrocities have been laid at the feet of the Church of Set over the years. I will not
waste time trying to correct them all. Some are even completely true. I venture to guess
that most of them have a grain of truth at the core, but like any resource shared by
immortals, time and distance devour the truth alive.

Is the truth important here? I will politely say no. Mythology is built by the people who
subscribe to it, and is a reflection of the flock rather than of the god.

Liberation is our guiding light. We, the members of the Church of Set, seek to ruin, that
we may find those resistant to the ruination. We do not seek to destroy Osiris; that would
be foolish. Rather we bring those who cannot handle the truth of the Outside, that which
Osiris and Horus sought, farther into the darkness. We bring them to Set, so that Set may
protect the rest of us from the searing light of what waits beyond the doors of the world.

An interesting note on the Church of Set is how we define “we.” There are those of the
Ministry, of course, but to think that our membership is defined by bloodline or even Path
is small-minded. The Church of Set welcomes members from across sects, and numbers
among her body the paths of Lilith, Typhon, the Warrior, and others. Morality is
personal. Doctrine is essential. In order to be a member of the Church of Set, you must be
inducted by a priest, and follow the guiding principles of the Dead God. Judge those in
your city. Protect your flock.

The Church of Set has existed for thousands of years, ever since Set passed into Duat. We
are in every city. You cannot cross a domain border without running into an adherent.
Even if you do not see us, we are here. Ideally, a Setite presence (and yes, the word Setite is
acceptable, like Muslim for Islam) should contain at least one priest and one warrior. The
priest guides the flock, and the warrior keeps it safe. More are, of course, encouraged, but
be careful to balance out your fury with your place of succor. Priests report to bishops,
and so on, up to the head of the Church in Cairo. Titles of priests who handle lesser priests
in several domains may vary by location.

While liberation may entail torture and death, be careful to keep your flock at a
manageable level. Killing off all of your flock in a suicide pact is just not our style. If your
faithful are dead, they cannot continue to spread liberty, and they cannot be further
liberated themselves.

Should you have Bahari in the domain, convert them. Give them a safe space to practice
their arts and explorations. The followers of Lilith are useful to us, and they understand
the exploration of the dark in a way some of us do not. Many of them crave structure, as
much as they struggle against it. Give them a place in the hierarchy, and duties to fulfill. If
you know anyone in the Order of Taweret, make introductions. We used to have witches
in the Church, long ago, but their ways were lost to us. In many ways, the Bahari fill that
role. Let them do so.
Should there be young, eager warriors not affiliated with the Church of Set in your
domain, pay them. Give them work. Let them see you as a source of problems to handle,
and you will have devoted Setite warriors in under a year. Feed their need for violence,
and they will commit violence on your behalf.

Should there be eager neonates, feeling isolated by their sires, and craving a slice of what
the city has to offer, give them a taste. Allow them to assist in managing the mortals who
run errands for you, or plant a word in the mayor’s ear. Make it clear that you are the giver
of these gifts, and they will come to you, friends in tow. Recruiting elders who already
look at the Church of Set askance is a difficult task, and they will always be using you for
their own aims. Do not allow this. Instead, go to their children, and raise them in the
ways of Sutekh. It is through the children that societal norms change and we become
more powerful by the night.

I suppose that could be the single simplest principle in the Church of Set. Feed someone’s
vices, and they will commit more vices on your behalf. The Church itself might not be
simple — we span borders and cults and belief systems — but this is the simplest act we
can commit to further the glory of Set. Those who indulge and fall are failures and tools.
Those who overcome are worthy of passing through the Gates of our faith.

The Ministry represent us, but we represent their heart.

Dua Sutekh.

Setite Convictions

While ultimately, doctrine is less important to the Church of Set than ritual and
experience, neither of those will be of much use to an initiate who has no idea why she is
doing what a priest commanded her to do. That said, the Church follows closely the idea
of secret knowledge: that certain authorities possess divine dispensation to withhold
truths from followers who are unready to receive them. An initiate is meant to receive the
lessons on her body and soul first, as guided by someone well-versed in the mysteries,
before she is permitted to study the texts of a temple library.

The Church of Set finds the idea of commandments distasteful, but for those who require
an easily-memorized litany of convictions, the doctrine of the orthodox Church
commonly manifests as the following Convictions:

Always strive to liberate others of their vices: Vice is a tool, not a recreation. The
faithful initiate can best serve Set by winnowing the souls of the world — that is,
separating the wheat from the chaff — by determining who is prone to degradation
and who is strong enough to resist. What can be liberated, will be liberated, and what
remains will be a legion of refined souls in service to Set, freed from their bondage to
literally anyone and anything else. You are the thresher, not the threshed.

Never refuse aid to another member of the Church: The Church of Set claims that
when they rule this world, or move on to the next, they will do so as a brotherhood of
many. There are no kings here, save the Red Pharaoh himself.
 Always respect the commands of those in later Hours: The priests, and also the
warriors and faithful witches who plumb the depths of Duat ahead of you, have made
ready the path you yourself travel. You are free, but they are more free. Their wisdom
and guidance must be observed.

Always do what is necessary to test another’s resistance to liberation: What an

individual might think of as “compassion” is, to the Setite mind, nothing less than
violence. In refusing to test another soul’s limit for freedom, you are dooming it to
slavery and denying Set his due. Do not wait for permission when their liberty could
begin now.

Always seek the mysteries of Set, hidden throughout the world: The more
Mysteries a Setite understands, and the more secrets they wield, the better they will
serve the Red God and his Church.

Always do what is necessary to test the flaws in a social order: Beware the
individual who desires authority. Organizations both mortal and Kindred are
inherently degenerate by virtue of their disconnection from the true god. If they are
really as inviolate as they claim to be, then they must be brought into service of Set’s
living Church, or otherwise dismantled and allowed to rot.

On the Subject of Paris

The mystery behind the perpetrators of the Paris bombings that led to the Ministry’s
rejection of the Camarilla (or the Camarilla’s rejection of the Ministry) and subsequent
joining with the Anarchs is ongoing, though the clan isn’t openly making strides to
discover the perpetrators.

The prevailing rumor of the time was that the Banu Haqim sabotaged Ministry and
Camarilla relations to better insure their own admission into the Ivory Tower. Several
prominent Serpents refute this theory, however, based on the risk the Banu Haqim faced
if their attack on Camarilla Justicars and Setite Hierophants was discovered. Though,
those same Serpents state, the Banu Haqim certainly make for perfect scapegoats. The
two clans have fostered a rivalry for centuries.

Investigators into the Paris bombings wonder whether the Camarilla set up the attack to
remove troublesome Justicars, deal a blow to the Snakes, and impress the Banu Haqim.
Others wonder if it wasn’t just another Second Inquisition attack with a hell of a lot of
collateral damage. With the Lasombra’s recent entry into the Camarilla, further thoughts
go to the Magisters taking early steps to remove a potential rival, though the fear such an
attack could cause might have jeopardized their attempt.

The clan’s conspiracy theorists quietly discuss whether the attack was orchestrated by the
Church of Set to sabotage the clan’s liberal arm before it made a terrible decision, while
others theorize the Ministry might have planned this all along to make them more
sympathetic to the Anarch Movement (and remove some powerful Hierophants at the
same time).

The truth may never be known.

Setite Temple: Kharkiv

Kharkiv exists as an unusual domain, having recently experienced an almost-citywide

conversion from the Camarilla to the Anarch Movement. The Prince stepped down, a new
Baron stepped up, Primogen joined a wider council of elders, and the Sheriff — who
attempted to cling on to her position — vanished one night, to the mourning of nobody.

Kharkiv likewise exists as an example of what the Church of Set can do to a Camarilla
domain if they get inside the heads of power players and convince them of the promise of
Setite liberation. For years, the Setites have worked on the city’s influential Kindred, one
by one, pushing them to the brink of falling to the Beast before snatching them back as
saviors every time. They show the possibilities of freedom without binding mortal ties
and undead regret, and cut those fetters if they feel their converts are ready. Some resist
or realize the manipulation, only to find their peers among the governing Kindred are
already members of the Church or worse, to return to their havens and find Setites
already there, ready to “vanish” the vampire who opposes their plans.

Despite their success in working on the city’s Kindred, the Church of Set couldn’t care less
whether the Camarilla or Anarchs govern Kharkiv. Set prohibits them from ruling a city,
and they’ve no real desire to become political advisors. Their objective is to test every
vampire and indoctrinate those left standing into the cult. They observe the domain of
Indianapolis in the United States, where the Ministry rule with a laissez-faire, any-faith-
goes attitude, and believe Kharkiv needs to correct the mistakes made Stateside. Priests
Vyacheslav and Akhtem feel it’s integral to the strength of the Church to convert every
meaningful vampire, and eradicate the opposition as the sandstorm scours skin from a
cadaver. If only the worthy remain, they can then move onto another city instead of
arrogantly trying to rule this one. They take the view that the liberated should rule
themselves.

The Church of Set in Kharkiv operates a single, unobtrusive temple in the city, into which
only confirmed members of the cult may enter. A single-story grey building in the thick of
an industrial estate in the Kyivskyi District, the temple is the Church’s statement that
appearances matter far less than content. Within the temple, Setites may indulge in any
pleasure they can pick up from Kharkiv’s streets or ferry in from elsewhere, as long as
they leave the temple the following night with no desire to ever revisit the experience.
Sometimes, that requires murdering a vessel to whom the vampire has become attached.
Sometimes, it means experiencing heroin in bloodstream, procuring a blood doll of rare
Resonance, or even taking Ashe, with the guarantee they’ll never do so again. The grey
temple is a testament to the Setite ability to risk temptation and overcome, if they’re
worthy of doing so.

The cult’s public face comes through their operations in the Karazin University, where a
handful of its members claim territory, and a storefront in the Ave Plaza shopping mall,
where they meet Kindred of other cults in what is advertised as a Scientology testing
office. Unlike most domains, many meetings between Kindred occur to discuss faith,
experiences, and tests of one’s self-control. To an outsider, it initially seems evangelical
Christianity has taken hold among the city Kindred, as the name “Set” is rarely
mentioned outside the converted, though Priest Akhtem consecrated the museums along
Sumska Street as a place to use Church terms freely, after the M. F. Sumtsov Historical
Museum hosted an Ancient Egyptian exhibition there in 2019, containing the most intact
enameled sculpture of Set dated from at least 3,500 years ago.

Kharkiv’s Church of Set possesses a loose hierarchy, with the priests on top — three of
them Ministry, two of them from other clans — and everyone else a warrior, who defends
the faith, or a believer. Kharkiv’s Kindred have quickly adopted the term “believer” to
point to those who the Church of Set has saved, “non-believer” to those still to be
targeted, and “the lost” for those in need of pity, ostracism, or elimination.

Perspectives

Anarchs: Of all the Kindred sects, this one is the most tolerable. They’re aimless but do
have a propensity for enjoying unlife in a way in which so many other Kindred fail. The
Ministry can guide their energies to something of worth while we hide in their shadow.

Ashirra: We occupy a necessary place in this sect, acting as advisors and counselors
without ever truly entering their political and religious hierarchy. Sometimes an outside
opinion is required. The Banu Haqim would have the entire Ashirra turn on us, but
thankfully, there are more clans to that sect than a group of rabid assassins. Of note, the
Ministry have no presence among the Ashirra. It is a sect where we represent ourselves.

Banu Haqim: Where they admire and cling to law and autocratic rule with an almost
feverish enthusiasm, we believe in freedom to explore one’s existence, and that the only
way to truly find oneself is to do so without strictures. It is no surprise we have been at
odds for centuries.

Camarilla: They were right to reject the Ministry. We work best without the Aeons pulling
our strings.

Hecata: Our relationship with the Clan of Death is deep and important. Remember the
parable of Nakhthorheb and Lazarus, and how both of our clans understand the lands of
the dead better than any other.

The Ministry: A body cannot stand without a spine and a brain. One might say they are
the spine and we are the brain. Or perhaps we are the heart and they are the flesh
surrounding. Either way, some of us are of the Ministry, others are not, but we cannot
expect an entire clan to fall into lockstep in service to the greatest of faiths. No, they
protect us, we guide them, and they can remain the cosmopolitan front to our beliefs.

The Cleopatrans
Nosferatu tell tales of the wise, beautiful childe of their progenitor, named Yima, who was
Embraced before Absimiliard — the clan founder — was cursed. She rode out God’s great
storm and Caine’s ire through charm, love, and honesty.
Other Nosferatu tales tell of Yima being the one Nosferatu who stood between Caine and
the Antediluvian, bearing the full brunt of the clan’s monstrous bane as Absimiliard only
took a fraction of the blow. Her love for her sire was such that she would die or be forever
mutilated on his behalf.

Rather than receiving her sire’s affection and care, Absimiliard abandoned her to her
monstrosity. Or, her beauty so awesome in his sight, Absimiliard could no longer bear to
look upon her. The tales are contradictory, but what is known, is Yima became the clan’s
holy grail as a figure of sympathy or aspiration.

The cult known as the Cleopatrans of Yima, or just the Cleopatrans, formed at the height
of Caesar Augustus’ Rome, with rumors of Yima spreading widely in the wake of
Cleopatra. This pharaoh, more powerful than any man, beautiful and deadly, bewitched
the Roman Nosferatu imagination, and parallels were drawn between her and ancient
Yima.

The Nosferatu started adorning their hideous faces and bodies with paint, baubles,
masks, and elaborate outfits, to accentuate beauty and prove their purpose as more than
horrors and lepers. The Cleopatrans selected only the canniest wits to make their cult of
advisors and leaders, creating a bubble in time between the 1st and 4th centuries CE where
Nosferatu occupied rare places of prominence throughout Europe and North Africa.
Every third domain held a Cleopatran in a place of importance. It was a rich time for the
clan.

The Cleopatrans were only powerful for that duration, however. With the fall of the
Western Roman Empire, the cult dissolved, and tales of Yima and Cleopatra disappeared
with them.

Current Goals

In the early 20th century Kindred society observed a convulsion in Clan Nosferatu, as
once again the Sewer Rats started adorning themselves as lords and ladies, perfumed,
well-dressed, and far above the station the Camarilla had assigned them for the first four
centuries of its existence. This trend hasn’t disappeared, with “Cleopatras” appearing in
random domains, sometimes among the ranks of resident Nosferatu, other times as
outsiders freshly visiting a staid city. As they did almost two millennia before, these
Cleopatras (dropping the “n” as the majority don’t recognize their cult as one of worship
or lineage) attempt to seize roles above traditional Nosferatu standing. For many, their
mix of self-belief, delusion, and confidence is enough to put them in positions of Herald,
Primogen, or Sheriff. While no Cleopatras have become Princes yet, many believe it’s just
a matter of time.

Kindred scholars debate whether simply dressing up and taking on a sound-alike epithet
is enough to constitute a revived cult, or a cult at all, but what none outside the most
successful Cleopatras know is they’ve been receiving communal dreams, including
images possibly sent to them telepathically, of a great, gorgeous nude woman who
caresses the Nosferatu, mending their disfigurements with her palm, before ordering
them to take command of all Kindred. These vampires receive subsequent visions guiding
them on how to exploit the weaknesses of local rulers, with most guidance proving
successful. It seems the Cleopatras have a patron, though it’s too soon to tell if it’s Yima, a
poisoning of their Blood sent down from Absimiliard himself, or some Toreador messing
with each of their heads for one big elaborate joke.

The Cult of Isis

The Cult of Isis has undergone several transformations in the years since its founding,
revering Isis as Lilith, Isis as Hathor, Isis as Mary, Isis as Aquarius, and Isis as countless
other deities or deific female figures. All celebrate fertility, life, and ceremonies of
joining, making them an ostensibly strange cult for Kindred involvement, and indeed, for
centuries they’ve operated with minimal vampiric intervention. Only now, with the open
resurgence of Kindred faith, have vampires once again flocked to a religion that preaches
veneration for health, magic, and marriage.

From its early days to tonight, the Cult of Isis is a religion of empowerment. The cultists
don’t recognize Isis as an individual so much as a concept, with many mortals focusing on
Isis as nature and femininity, and vampires identifying Isis as the meaningful,
compassionate Embrace, and guardianship over sacred and magical places. In the latter
respect, the Cult is fiercely militant, protecting with homicidal ferocity those areas where
mages can more efficaciously practice their arts, where the Shroud thins, and where the
supernatural struggles to exist. They disdain areas of religious importance, however,
reviling holy land and artifacts as much as any vampire.

Current Goals

While the Cult of Isis’ cells have a shared name and agenda, little communication exists
between the religion’s various groups. There is no central authority, and hierarchy
changes from cell to cell, though some branches emulate the Bahari scale of seed, maiden,
mother, and matron. Though some cells restrict membership based on gender, others
find this attitude radical or outdated, leading to one of the only divides in the cult that
causes inter-cell conflict.

The Cult of Isis’ goal has broadly extended to the protection of abandoned fledglings,
leading to a surge in Caitiff members. Unintentionally, its reverence of youth (in mortal
and immortal terms) and the potency of Blood has created a swell in membership for this
cult, and the elder members aren’t sure how to utilize this new army of angry youths, who
all seem ready to fight someone or something. The cult has been based around protection
and reaction to attacks on sacred places and people for so long, that the idea of
dispatching a militia to take a site or eliminate an enemy is new to them.

These nights portend interesting times for the Cult of Isis, as they could prove to become
kingmakers or domain breakers, depending on how they use their swathe of new recruits.
 The Cult of Shalim
“Do you dream? Do you dare to dream? In this place, our dreams may take form, but the
ravages of time and endless march of reality render them to nothing. I can show you a way to
end the suffering of hope. The pain of dreams.”

— Apolleon the Traveler, founder of the Cult of Shalim

The hopes and dreams of all Kindred hang by a silver thread. Their very belief structures
have been fundamentally shaken by their changing. To the scientist, it seems that every
angle they discounted in their studies as sorcery and magic has been shown to exist, and
all they have worked for has been for naught. To the religious, they are now agents of evil,
immortal and outside of God’s plan. Kindred survive by hanging on to their core values
and hopes, the dreams that make them who they are and convince them to drive on to the
next night without falling into despair and, eventually, the death-like sleep of torpor.

The Cult of Shalim preys on this fact in the most unusual way. Its agents pride themselves
on uncovering the great loves of a person’s life, the small joys and bonds that make their
reality bearable. They then call those things into question, expose their temporary nature
and sever them, leaving the target of their predations left with no choice but to accept the
central doctrine of their faith: that reality is suffering. In some ways, the Cult of Shalim
resembles the Ministry in their methods. The difference is the Ministers and their Church
of Set wish to replace the void with faith, where the Cult of Shalim cares only for the void.

The adherents of this faith do not seek a blissful, endless orgy of experience where all of
the bad is eliminated. Their creed is far less utopian and difficult to swallow for all but the
most foolish. Shalim’s followers believe that elimination of the suffering of existence can
only come at the cost of its joys. It is a fact of existence that happiness will turn to sadness,
pleasure to pain, and any utopia will crumble with corruption and heresy. This black
priesthood preaches how a perfect world cannot exist while the world itself exists.

This madness is what comes from staring too long into the Abyss, as many Lasombra
mystics have done over the centuries, looking for truths in the emptiness that seems to
consume their very souls. Many of those who have studied the secrets of Oblivion have
spoken of a presence in the emptiness. A formless consciousness that seems to observe
them and whisper back. When a methuselah proposes that this is the very creator, not
just of the clan but of the universe itself, it is difficult for the egotistic and morbid minds
of the watchers of the Abyss to refuse its seemingly simple truth.

The first priests of Shalim have been recruited and their numbers are slowly swelling in
cities around the world. As the tendrils of their faith grow, they reach out to other clans,
targeting the disenfranchised and the desperate, those who appear to have lost
everything in life or unlife. They call to them and speak of the succor of emptiness and
the bliss of the end. Binding them with a baptism ceremony, they ask the questions the
cult’s founder first asked of them:
“Abrenuntias re? Et omnibus operibus eius? Et omnibus pompis eius?”

With their every tie to reality broken and their mind shattered from loss upon loss, what
can they do but answer, “Abrenuntio.”

Out of Nothing

The Beckoning provides great opportunities for Kindred who would previously have been
perpetually held down by their immortal overlords. However, the opportunities come at a
cost: something has summoned all those elders away and, whatever it is, it has Kindred
guessing all over the world and asking questions of their long-held beliefs. Like any good
conspiracy theory, the provision of plausible answers to those questions can turn into
certainty in the minds of those most hungry to understand.

Kindred scholars have long spoken of the great and powerful founders of the clans, the
Antediluvians. In the modern nights, it seems logical for Kindred to believe these ancient
masters have summoned their closest childer to their sides much in the way some of their
own sires may call to them through the Blood. Most who claim to be messengers of these
entities are quickly struck down by the local authorities as threats to the Masquerade or as
agents of the apocalypse. Only the quick-witted and sufficiently powerful remain elusive.
One such Kindred is the ancient Lasombra known as Apolleon the Traveler.

The cult says Apolleon travels the world in the form of a great black mass, sliding along
the floor of the seabed, constantly communing with what he believes is his sire, the voice
in the dark. This semi-torpid state guides him around the Earth as he reaches out into the
minds of Kindred of his bloodline he feels nearby, seeking those with the predisposition
he needs: those who have suffered great loss and who are asking the existential questions
of what it all means.

Nothing. Nothing is the answer he provides; there is no meaning save that which you
assign to the act itself. He comforts them with the knowledge that all Lasombra have,
deep inside themselves: that they are part of a great destiny, and that destiny lies in
Oblivion. Not only will they end their own suffering, but that of the entire world.

This lofty goal can only be achieved through Shalim, of course. Apolleon preaches that
Shalim is the first Kindred and the master of the emptiness that existed before the
universe itself existed. He speaks of primordial deities, such as Erebus, from ancient
cultures, and links them back to Shalim, their “true” identity. Shalim is the Kindred from
whom the first Lasombra arose, the progenitor of all bloodlines and guardian of the
purest of those, who retain his link to the primordial dark. Once Shalim wakes and hears
the calling of his children, he will destroy the cancer perverting his perfect blackness and
return the world to the state of nothingness. In a stroke, war, suffering, disease,
unhappiness of all kinds will be expunged and all consciousness will become one with
Shalim, all will return to God, all will be God.

Several Lasombra have now knelt before him in one of his guises, pledging the remainder
of their time in existence to ensuring its eradication, promising to be the scalpel that will
cut reality away and reveal the peace of emptiness to a grateful world.

The Flowering of the Abyss

As a relatively new cult, the Shalimites maintain a somewhat covert presence in many
cities throughout the world. Apolleon’s priests have been mainly recruited from around
coastal Mediterranean cities, where his trek takes him, but they have subsequently
branched out to various areas of the world. The most well-known of his followers is
Michalis Basaras, a Lasombra in the city of Chicago. However, cells of Shalimites can be
found in the United Kingdom, Brazil, South Africa, and even Egypt where they silently
exploit the schism within the Ministry and seek to twist their zeal to Shalim’s purposes.

Servants of the Abyss

The rank of priest is the highest a cultist can aspire to; however, rank is generally not a
concern of those joining this cult. Once one has embraced the purity and perfection of
emptiness, such trappings are mere words in your mind, though the priests are those who
speak directly with Apolleon and, through him, to Shalim itself. The cultists consider
themselves equal, since they are all part of the same problem. They often meet in what
appear to be nothing more than self-help groups or religious discussion classes,
discussing their problems and their hopes for the future. This is a guise they use to lure
those seeking help to their side, and to gain their trust.

Priests of Shalim are always Lasombra who have been touched by Apolleon. His
predations vary from subject to subject: some kneel having only heard the word and
accepted it, such as Rabbi Basaras; others must be more directly “convinced,” such as
Gamal Hajjar of Cairo whose every happy memory was annihilated by the methuselah
over a period of several months. Each one of them is only released by Apolleon when he
considers their faith in the coming end to be incorruptible.

Shalimite Rites

Very little of this young faith has been formally codified; indeed, their practices and
approaches seem to vary from cell to cell. Only through their correspondence do the
priests share their stories of success and failure, refining their methods. It is clear by their
practices and terminologies that the Shalimites have adopted various Jewish cultural
signifiers with brazen disregard to appropriation.

Gematria

They write using a coded cipher that involves translating their writings into numbers
using the system of gematria. For that reason, all the coded letters are written in Hebrew
and priests are required to learn it by rote to ensure their messages can be understood.
These letters are often disguised as missives being sent to their distant sires or friends and
it is not entirely strange for such correspondence to be encrypted, to preserve not only any
secrets inside but also the Masquerade should the letters be intercepted.

Abyssal Consecration

“Do you feel it? Do you hear it? Is it not like God?”

— Rabbi Michalis Basaras, Priest of the Cult of Shalim

New cultists, once stripped of their hope, are brought into the service of Shalim through a
ritual akin to a baptism. The priest coats the supplicant in shadow, placing their hands on
the shoulders of the new member to comfort them and hold them steady in the endless,
unfeeling darkness. They ask the convert if they renounce reality itself, and all its various
trappings. By the time this rite is performed, the supplicant’s mind is usually broken,
however even those with slight doubts as to the presence of Shalim are faced with the
dark truth as they feel his presence in that cloud. Some emerge claiming to have heard an
indistinct voice, or even to have received visions and instructions from the master of the
cult.

Dark Purpose

The end goal of the cult is clear, though the method of achieving it has not been made
clear at all. Different priests preach different ideas on how to bring about the coming end,
others say the cult need only be ready to embrace it and focus on eradicating those who
would prevent it.

In general terms, the cult targets anyone who seeks to gain knowledge of their activities
with a view to shutting them down. Usually, they seek to utterly discredit them instead of
killing them at the first instant. Of course, the cult thinks nothing of killing if necessary;
the reality of a person is simply another part of what must be ultimately destroyed.
Kindred in their service find themselves twisting their Humanity and replacing it with a
horrific version of the cult’s credo.

Fundamentally, though the methods vary, the goal remains united. The cult seeks to
awaken Shalim from his dreaming and bring about the end of reality, uniting everyone in
their great heaven and bringing them back into Oblivion from whence they came.

Enemies

The cult has no known apostates, or at least any who may have tried to leave the cult
haven’t been willing or able to speak of their experience. But it does have many critics:
failed conversions would be the first among them, since nothing embitters a person more
than finding out the people who purported to be helping you were sabotaging your every
attempt at happiness. Investigators and Kindred who tend toward cynicism are also
opposed to the view of this cult and tend to treat its members or those who spend too
much time around them with suspicion.

Some Princes are aware of the cult’s presence but see them as little more than an esoteric
distraction for the Kindred of their city. If the cult seems benign and gives no sign of their
intention to annihilate the Prince’s domain, those who are aware are willing to tolerate
their activities. The first defense of the cult is its secrecy, however, and they tend not to
formally announce themselves and avoid associating outside of their joint activities in
places where they know they can speak freely.

Malkavians often feel nervous in the presence of Shalimites; they recognize madness
when they see it, regardless of the veneer of civility it is hidden behind.

Artifacts and Symbology

The cult’s symbol is of a hollow person, often portrayed as a simple human figure with a
hole cut out from the center. While this may seem a quite morbid symbol, evincing a great
depression, the cultist would tell you that it is the hollow they revere above all. Take away
the human shape around it and the sadness of the symbol is gone. There is nothing
depressing about emptiness unless you obsess yourself with the never-ending task of
filling it.

It is rare for cultists to identify themselves by such outward signs. Instead, they speak the
phrase “Shin-lamed-mem” to identify themselves to each other. This simple greeting is
unusual enough for cultists to recognize it without being suspicious to outsiders, since it
is the root of the traditional Hebrew greeting, “shalom,” and of their cult’s eternal master.

Cult priests carry with them small books, normally bound in black leather, containing
lists of dates, places and names. These indicate sightings of Apolleon by their
brotherhood and list the names of targets of his predations for induction into the
priesthood. Through their network, they also suggest promising members of their own
cults who the methuselah may be interested in converting or who may be ripe for the
embrace, being raised as Kindred in the emptiness of Shalim’s truth.

Mortal Servants

No creature is considered anathema to the cult if it truly seeks to supplicate itself before
the Master of the Abyss. While many of their members are Kindred, there are a good
number of mortals within each cell, often chosen for their positions in the local society or
the access they can afford the cultists to materials or information they require to conduct
their activities. The religious community are often among the most widely targeted by
cult historians and archaeologists, particularly those with interest in Mesopotamian and
ancient Greek culture.

The cult in Palermo, Sicily is determined to gain ownership of the site of Castel d’Ombro
and reconsecrate it as the first altar of Shalim. Through various organizations, both
religious and criminal, they seek to achieve this aim. However, the cult fears crossover
with the Hecata in this area as they share much of the cult’s knowledge of Oblivion.

Shalimite Convictions

The Cult of Shalim practices a regular dance with self-destruction. Nihilistic cults are, as
the word implies, prone to implosion. Such behavior leaves a mark on one’s soul,
especially if a Shalimite is drawn to destroy others in an effort to prove the pointlessness
of existence. The following Convictions are common, if just to stave off the inevitability
of Oblivion for long enough to spread their word:

Never allow yourself to celebrate life: Life’s purpose is to end, and you can help
hasten it. What you must never, ever do, is make the mistake of seeking joy through
life’s existence.

Never lose your temper with failure: Whether faced with your own failure or that of
a new convert, anger is a wasteful emotion and failure is best addressed through
passivity or correction.

Always work to impede those who would control chaos: You are not a Setite, so
allow misrule to unravel naturally or remove its obstructions without attempting to
channel it.

Only allow Embraces that further the destruction of society: There is no gain to be
had from Embracing someone as a reward or permitting others to do so. The
Embrace is Oblivion channeled into an unliving vessel.

Do not succumb to the allure of prosperity: The less you own, the closer you are to
nothingness. Absence is utter freedom and material objects tie you to life.

Never maintain or protect more than a single mortal of importance: While the
need to cling on to the kine is recognized as an anchor in a tempestuous ocean, more
than one is an extravagance.

Shalimite Operations: Fukuoka

On one hand the Cult of Shalim is one of the least expansionist cults, rarely seeking
converts with any passion. On the other, the Shalimites are among the most pernicious,
corrosive cults in Kindred society, even when they’re not trying to be so. It’s difficult to
convince a vampire to give up all hope and material purpose, which is why the Shalimites
usually target those already on the edge of losing everything, or vampires who have
already experienced exile, a loss of Touchstones, or the death of their last remaining
mortal family member. The cult has experienced dramatic success in finding targets and
converts in the domain of Fukuoka, which spells ill tidings for the other Kindred in the
Japanese city.

A conservative domain with a rigid hierarchy, Fukuoka has a defined way of rewarding
the elders, the Mawlas, and the powerbrokers, while keeping the fledglings and Anarchs
under heel. Most move on to other domains when they realize raging against the machine
in this city is fruitless, but some remain, because Fukuoka is what they know, because the
underground Anarch scene embraces everything insane about Fukuoka’s nightlife and
myriad of subcultures, and because it feels like abandoning Fukuoka is abandoning a city
with a pulse.

This is where the Cult of Shalim come in. The Shalimites in Fukuoka appeared
organically, with their first member — a clanless vampire named Ryoko — having been
the victim of the domain punishment named “oyogu” or “the swim,” where a vampire
Embraced without permission has their hands, feet, and tongue removed and their body
cast into the Chikugo River. The trial takes place before dawn and few vampires survive
the ordeal. Ryoko herself disappeared for three months before returning with her body
healed and her mind committed to the worship of void, which she only recently gave the
name “Shalim.” Ryoko spoke with her fellow mistreated fledglings and told them of the
wisdom she experienced in the dark waters, and while few listened, a couple tried to
replicate her experience. They likewise returned three months later, changed and
possessed of a desire to erode the fabricated society that for so long has kept Kindred from
wisdom.

The Cult of Shalim appeals to the young vampires of Fukuoka in a few ways. For those
with a genuine esoteric interest, the idea of finding wisdom buried in the city’s waterways
holds appeal, as their elders never pass down such knowledge. The vampires of Anarch
leaning see the water burial — which many have since attempted, with more casualties
than returns — as a proof of commitment to the Movement, and the Cult of Shalim as the
vanguard against the establishment. Many other fledglings just feel a worship of
nothingness is cool, that destruction is enjoyable, and joining a group where wearing
black is “in” and influence and wealth mean less than action is a more rewarding way to
spend an unlife than playing gopher for their sires.

Perspectives

Anarchs: They seem to want to exterminate us wherever they find us. They believe we
serve powerful elders who seek to crush their freedoms. They are blind. We serve the
absence of all things.
Camarilla: While it’s not ideal, this is just another way of getting our childer through the
long nights. The Camarilla preaches blissful ignorance in all things, and one cannot find
fault in that, if it redirects those with curiosity to our ranks.
Clan Lasombra: The clan from which we draw our greatest number and inspiration, yet
many of them look upon us with horror, as if worshiping the tools we use is some kind of
sin.
Clan Malkavian: I believe sensory deprivation is the key to soothing even the wildest of
minds. Find a Malkavian and introduce them to our cause. They will eat it up.

Hecata: Interesting idea, narrow vision. I’m sure it’s comforting to them to think that
everything is about flesh and spirit, but for us, it goes much deeper. The Hecata who
worship what we worship are known as Nagaraja, but they are so few.
 The Ministry: The snake may shed its skin and pretend to be something it is not, but we
know. Their Church of Set is a half-measure. They exist only to satisfy their own desires.

The Eremites
“Tall and wraith-like in her slenderness, she strode toward the Prince’s feeding area with
supreme confidence. Her manner shouted that she was at peace with herself. She fascinated
me, and I felt compelled to follow her.”

— Casper Secada, acolyte

Vampires are, by necessity, social creatures. Therefore, the Kindred known as the
Eremites, who extol the virtues of isolation and starvation, are one of the strangest, most
troubling Golconda cults in existence. It’s a rare Eremite who isolates themselves, but
bringing isolation, and therefore enlightenment, to others? That’s where these Golconda
seekers specialize.

The Saint on the Pillar

Adherents of this religion consider themselves beyond such trivialities as names and
labels, but when they must use identifiers, they refer to each other as Eremites. The few
vampires who know of them call the cultists stylites, and they rarely find this epithet
offensive. The original stylites were mortal ascetics who ascended tall pillars and lived on
top of them until their deaths. The famous ones in the first century CE were Christians,
but evidence suggests pagan holy people also practiced this form of isolation.

Few Eremites reside on columns, pillars, or poles. It’s not practical for a vampire to do so
in most cases, due to their inevitable exposure to the sun, and frankly painful solitude.
Yakushev Tomas Nikitovich of Clan Toreador had a column erected in an underground
cave and, according to his acolytes, remained upon it for 325 years, after which he climbed
down, having supposedly rid himself of the curse of vampirism. The Tzimisce Lisette
Lundgren climbed her column every night at sunset, returning to a small chamber built
beneath it for her daysleep. She also claimed to have achieved Golconda. How the two
went about feeding during these periods of meditative isolation is unknown unless they
placed themselves into torpor once atop their perches and found ways of extracting
themselves from that state when necessary.

Poles aside, most Eremites believe in the merits of total isolation, whether in a cave, on a
mountain, or deep in the desert. Isolation, they teach, focuses the mind, body, and spirit
on the task of overcoming the Beast. But they’re not interested in doing this to
themselves. Most of them have already experienced this state, apparently gleaned
something from it, and now visit it on others.
When the cult deems someone ready to become an acolyte, they convince, lure, or kidnap
their victim away from the safety of their haven and community trappings, isolating
them in some remote area. There, it’s up to the new acolyte to practice the art of physical
perfection, bringing herself to a peak of fitness and beauty while feeding as little as
possible. Combined with the fear of isolation and distance from home comforts, it’s a
difficult balance.

Some acolytes (willing or not) ally themselves with locals (if there are any) from whom
they can feed in exchange for protection from whatever dangers might exist in the area,
whether this be other humans, wild beasts, or something else. Others sustain themselves
from domesticated animals. Occasionally, an older vampire who wishes to follow this
path or is taken and forced to follow the cult’s course (typically through being physically
restrained at the bottom of a cave, sewer, or well, or atop one of the cult’s popular elevated
platforms), enters torpor with the intention of re-awakening with the ability to satisfy
their thirst from beasts alone. It rarely works as, often, the vampire will have forgotten
their intent upon awakening and can prove very resentful of any who try to remind them.

Isolation can only stretch so far. Eventually, the Beast roars and the Hunger grows
uncontrollable. There comes a moment of readiness in which the Eremites observing the
acolyte agree to allow their new cultist to descend upon a community as far from her site
of isolation as possible, drink what’s necessary, and drag mortals back for extended
consumption as the isolation begins anew.

The main cult body, in this case, appears to be one of kidnappers and gurus who don’t
practice but do preach. Therefore, the questions some Kindred ask are “what’s learned
from holding captive Kindred in extended periods of solitude and torment?” and “does it
truly help a vampire to volunteer for such a practice?” The Eremites claim the benefits are
uninhibited study of the Kindred condition and the lengths to which focus and
constitution can be extended. The jury is, however, out on whether these so-called
benefits extend beyond words.

I Wish I'd Brought a Book…

Eremites who follow the cult credo and isolate themselves or others for years at a time are
unlikely to be player characters unless the Storyteller runs a solo player game. However,
these isolated stylites make for excellent SPCs possessing forgotten lore who must be
sought out in a dangerous area, or antagonists controlling a group of mortals interfering
with the player characters’ objectives. Other “acolytes” are unwilling, having been
snatched away and thrust up a pole somewhere in the back of beyond, and need saving.
Likewise, a player character might play a failed Eremite, or a vampire who discovers this
path and explores it between stories.

Don’t let the idea of characters outside the normal templates deter you from their use.
Every cult and cultist can find effective incorporation in somebody’s story.
Organization

The Eremites do not have any formal organization between converts or captives, as it
would go against their ethos of isolation and rugged individualism. However, many
Eremites who travel are aware of each other based on what they hear from city-dwelling
Kindred rumor mills. Eremite gurus communicate their findings with each other and
pass this knowledge on to retainers, sometimes ghouls, who are expected to make
abstract, coded recordings of the degeneration or enlightenment of isolated vampires.
There’s anywhere between a half dozen or twenty of these written accounts floating
between Eremite gurus, and the issue with their encrypted nature is not all gurus can
understand them.

Many of this faith are of Clan Gangrel, as their combination of Disciplines assists greatly
in the cult’s way of unlife. No clan, however, is precluded from joining. A stylite Mawla
might tutor acolytes in the Disciplines needed for survival, or arrange to another to act as
mentor if she cannot do so herself. Since most Brujah abandoned the Camarilla, several
have entered states of solitude, and more than a few Nosferatu followed suit, leading the
Eremites to target such Kindred for conversion, whether they want it or not.

Stages of Enlightenment

Although the Eremites lack a formal hierarchy, most recognize stages of enlightenment
through which the vampire will pass on their path to Golconda, which they maintain can
only be found at the end of a pole… or at least, reached through sufficient isolation to
provoke an awakening.

Supporters

Any creature may lend aid to an Eremite. Supporters comprise animals, mortals, and even
other vampires who help the Eremite in their nightly existence, with kidnappings,
procurement of food, or the furnishing of a “retreat” for Kindred in need of isolation.
Supporters may express an interest in the beliefs of the stylites, but not be sufficiently
convinced to become an acolyte. An Eremite sometimes finds a Touchstone among their
mortal supporters.

Acolytes

Acolytes possess sufficient conviction to gain acceptance and follow the cult path, or are
selected for conversion by an Eremite who’s already been through the process. All
acolytes gain a Mawla in the cult. Acolytes are full members of the faith — even if they
resist — and have the respect of all Eremites, as it is they who will go on to ensure the faith
is properly represented in vampiric society. A non-believing vampire is most likely to
encounter acolytes accidentally, by stumbling upon their isolation spots, or with the
intent of saving them and bringing them back to Kindred society.
Apart from enduring weeks, months, or potentially years of relative solitude from
populated domains, acolytes study under a Mawla who visits them when they see fit.
During their apprenticeship, the acolyte learns the philosophy and ways of the stylites
and any Disciplines to help them survive. The acolyte must divest herself of all worldly
goods, power, and status. This isn’t voluntary, with gurus arranging the destruction of
acolyte havens while they’re away on their spiritual journey. When an acolyte goes forth
into the wilderness, she must be as naked and free of encumbrance as she was on the day
she first drew breath as a mortal.

In return for her Mawla’s teaching, the acolyte is expected to report every experience,
every vision, and every struggle to the guru. Eremites reason there’s no point to aiming
for Golconda, if the pathway isn’t recorded.

Gurus

When the acolyte is ready, she returns from the wilderness. Readiness is subjective,
however, with some Mawlas declaring their acolytes not nearly exposed enough to
hardship, or not enlightened sufficiently, while others take a lighter touch. In any case,
when the acolyte returns to a populated domain they have a choice: serve as an aspiring
guru and recruit new Eremites, or flee the cult. A surprising number remain with the
Eremites despite, or because of, their experiences.

Acolytes who become gurus are vampires who genuinely believe they’ve glimpsed the
state of Golconda, and who feel they can now pass this teaching on to others. They cite
infamous Kindred such as Saulot, who wandered for centuries, and how they’re on the
same path as he. Gurus surround themselves with devoted mortals and lost Kindred in
need of mentors and reassurance, providing dribbles of wisdom in exchange for service.

The cult’s gurus are its retainers of Golconda’s mysteries. While a cynical Kindred may
look at them as archetypal cult leaders, what cannot be denied is how some Eremite gurus
seem to go months without feeding. They must be doing something right.

Beliefs

Converted Eremites share a belief concerning the nature of vampirism. When a sufficient
number of Eremites have denied themselves ready access to blood, the corruptive
influence of fellow vampires, and have exercised Disciplines only to survive, and not to
self-aggrandize or profit, they believe the entire puzzle of Golconda will snap together.
The gurus think they’re close to the end of their path.

When a being becomes a vampire, they enter a relationship with their Beast. Every
vampire, whether they know it or not, is in a constant, mortal battle with their Beast. The
Beast wants to take them over and drive them to wassail. It’s the Beast who suffers the
Hunger. It’s the Beast who drives vampires to the Eternal Struggle. It’s the Beast who
drives their will to power. The stylites are not so naive as to deny that mortals can also be
driven by wicked urges, but mortals have no Beast to punish them if they resist
temptation. Or if, as some argue, they do have some kind of beast, it’s a much weaker, less
visceral monstrosity than the Beast of a vampire.

By starving the Beast, they weaken it. Eremites believe they can achieve Golconda by
finally killing it. There are two schools of thought among them about what Golconda
means. The majority believe it means a return to mortal life at the age of one’s original
Embrace, and most realize this carries its own problems. Others believe it means a return
to one’s mortal life at their current age. Which, in most cases, means it coincides with
Final Death. Final Death upon achieving Golconda, however, means a possible ascent to
heaven, attainment of nirvana, or whatever post-mortem fate the individual Eremite
believes in.

Starving the Beast means keeping a delicate balance. An Eremite who denies the Hunger
too harshly sometimes loses control and enters a Hunger frenzy, often damaging one or
more of their supporters and any acolytes who happen to be in range. Following such a
lapse, the Eremite enters a period of shame, contrition, and profound meditation. This
may lead to her returning to existence as an acolyte, and to self-flagellation or other forms
of self-punishment.

Every stylite insists on a very real difference between beasts and the Beast. Many stylites,
particularly Gangrel, feel strong ties to the natural world. Many gain sustenance from
beasts of the field and forest, and some have animal companions.

Eremite Convictions

The Eremites are independent souls and, as such, do not form a common consensus on
many matters. They do, however, agree on three main points which are sufficient for
them to consider themselves a religion, even if they are not highly organized.

Never feed more than is necessary: Many Eremites describe this as “becoming
lighter.” They train themselves to manage on less and less vitae, believing this
enables them to control the Hunger.

Never succumb to the allure of wealth: Stylites believe the presence of worldly
delights and material goods feed the desires of the Beast. If a being remains in contact
with anything that provokes desire, their desires persist and keep them from
Golconda.

Always deny the Beast’s desires: Starved of all its desires, the Beast becomes
quiescent. The vampire becomes free of its tyranny and thus reaches Golconda.

Recruitment

“Recruitment” is one word for what the Eremites do. While some vampires come to
Eremite gurus seeking wisdom or sanctuary, more are plucked from existing coteries or
city courts and forced into the Eremite existence.
Many acolytes perish before they’re ready to follow the Eremite way. Stylites do not agree
on why this might be. Some say those fit to become Eremites are chosen, perhaps by some
deity. More believe it’s a matter of survival of the fittest: not every vampire is strong
enough, or sufficiently spiritually advanced to undertake the harsh methods of the
Eremite. Some of the necessary spiritual ability is the result of hard work and self-
discipline, and many believe the majority of the undead do not have what it takes to
follow the Eremite way.

Eremites do not create childer. Some find it hard to understand why anyone would wish
to expose another to the ravages of the Beast. Many believe it’s the Beast itself that drives
vampires to embrace or to bring another into its service. However, should an Eremite
overestimate her ability to starve herself and frenzy upon one of her supporters or herd,
she may be overcome with contrition and — forgetting her higher ethics — curse the
unfortunate victim with her Beast. The Eremite, in such cases, immediately demotes
herself to acolyte and returns to relative isolation, taking her childe with her so both can
“enjoy” the suffering of enlightenment.

Of note, Eremites who attempt to flee the cult or “climb down from their pole” before
they’re deemed ready receive harsh punishments. The guru mentality is “if isolation
wasn’t punishment enough, you must receive harsher treatment,” which often involves
some form of impalement or constriction. There’s no wisdom to be gained from staking a
vampire and leaving them in an abandoned, distant house, or for that matter, out to greet
the dawn. Such impalement is generally vertical and designed to avoid the heart, leaving
the vampire halfway down a length of wood with all the time in the world — or at least
until their Mawla stops visiting — to contemplate their position.

The Acolyte in the Domain

Occasionally, an Eremite needs to travel to mingle with other Kindred for one reason or
another. At such times, they take great care to comply with all proper forms and
courtesies, often setting supporters to the task of performing research ahead of time to
find out who’s in power and what they require of visitors to their domain. The stylites cut
impressive figures in town, moving with unnatural grace and peacefulness. They freely
practice their Disciplines as means of accentuating their perfection and carry themselves
with confidence and dignity. This poise breaks down when they’re confronted by other
Kindred, as they exist better outside of social settings, or among their own. The domain’s
Kindred often gossip about them for several nights, until something else catches their
attention. From time to time, the Eremites pick up new acolytes this way.

Stylite gurus reside in both Camarilla and Anarch domains. They prefer stability, as it’s
difficult to practice asceticism in an uncertain political climate. They can be relied upon
to come to the domain’s defense when it’s under attack by outside forces. As they train
themselves to a peak of physical perfection, they often possess high levels of Fortitude and
are recognized as competent fighters.

When two Kindred contend for power within a domain and one is clearly far more deeply
held captive in the claws of his Beast than the other, Eremites occasionally weigh in on the
side of the contender with higher Humanity or contrive to kidnap the bestial contender,
attempting to force him to a better way. Eremites believe it’s good to have a Prince or a
Baron who runs the domain in a more ethical way. To a stylite, this means running the
city on reasonable grounds that everyone clearly understands so competition doesn’t
constantly drive the Beasts of their fellows into action.

While acolytes are rarely part of coteries (except where they’ve been snatched from
existing ones, or are isolated as a group), supporters and gurus have no such restrictions
and assist other Kindred while studying their behaviors. Some Eremites form
communities which, to outsiders, might look like blood cults. In domains where enough
acolytes and supporters exist, flagellant coteries arise.

Perspectives

Anarchs: Some of our gurus make havens in Anarch domains and, where these are well
regulated, they encounter few difficulties. However, we recommend scouring truly
anarchic domains for potential acolytes, as having to worry about one’s night-to-night
survival makes for troubled Kindred and zealous converts.

Camarilla: Our gurus feel secure in Camarilla cities, and for their part, the Ivory Tower
has little clue as to our beliefs. The forms and courtesies are easy enough to learn, though
many are the Beast’s traps.

Nephilim: Like us, they work on their own personal perfection. Unlike us, however, they
make no effort to divorce themselves from worldly desires.

The Eyes of Malakai

An ancient cult of bizarre, destructive belief rarely seen in the modern nights, the Eyes of
Malakai are often stamped out as soon as they appear, usually by Malkavians driven to
oppose the cult without knowing their reasons for fighting against it.

The Eyes first emerged millennia ago, supposedly as worshipers of Malkav’s twin sister —
a vampire, god, or demon named Malakai. In legend, Lilith Embraced Malakai, and
according to Cainite theory, she would be of similar potency and age to her brother, were
the two active and stable enough to pursue singular courses. Nobody is alive to know the
truth of the Malakai tales, however. If she exists, she’s so old or torpid as to be
unreachable in any meaningful way.

The Eyes do exist, however, and to a single vampire, they’re terrible, vicious predators
with what appear to be few coherent motivations.

Current Goals
Regardless of Malakai’s status or whereabouts, the vampires who become Eyes have
appeared every few decades each century. These cultists were usually presentable,
functioning members of Kindred society. Then, they undergo an awakening. Some
Kindred theologians believe Malakai visits these vampires — often Malkavians — and
provokes their existing conditions to a state of permanent mania. Others guess the Eyes’
Blood revolts in their bodies due to their Antediluvian’s sins. It’s all guesswork, however,
as the Eyes of Malakai don’t know why they do what they do.

The awakening rapidly changes the Eyes. It would be incorrect to consider their change a
devolution — some Eyes are wights, most are not — but they suddenly lose their sense of
attachment to Touchstones and fellow Kindred, and become entirely predatory. Some
start spying on and stalking former companions, others hunt solitary vampires and
diablerize them as soon as they gain the opportunity. Some Eyes make copious notes on
local Kindred society before burning the notes in a ritual fire, and then throwing
themselves into the flames. These are all recorded behaviors of the Eyes, but none of their
actions explain their objectives.

When vampires question the Eyes as to the meaning behind their new behaviors, they
either lash out or passively respond they’re “the Eyes of Malakai,” apparently lacking the
capacity to conceal their condition. Some vampires call them “incarnate madness” or
“infected vitae.” The word “Eyes” makes other vampires assume these vampires are spies
for someone, presumably Malakai, but the Eyes often enough just try to make other
vampires’ existences miserable, or conspire to sabotage the Camarilla in a domain,
making their ambitions something grander than just observing for a third party.

The Eyes of Malakai appear infrequently enough to become vampire folklore, but when
rumor enters a domain of Eyes emerging to spread ruin, it’s enough to mobilize Kindred
into forming a hunting party.

The Hunters of the Golden Cicada

“It is only by stepping outside of yourself that one has the fortitude to look in. We can make
peace with our warring nature by elevating and cultivating that peace in the kine. Clear their
paths and see the lessons of Golconda etch themselves into their Blood. Let that Blood show you
the way.”

— Qin-Fen, Ventrue Clan Chancellor of Chongqing

The story of Golconda spread among the downtrodden neonates of Chongqing half a
century ago. They say that, decades or centuries ago, someone found the way to this
mythical state and has had the audacity to teach it to others ever since — provided that
you can attract their attention by following their teachings.
Where the Yangtze and Jialing Meet, Peace Can Be Found

The Chongqing Kindred who claim to have the answers call themselves the Hunters of the
Golden Cicada. They follow the maxim, “Use the Blood to uplift the kine and the kine will
uplift the Blood.” Wherever the poor, the desperate, and the distressed of Chongqing are
found, so too will one find a Hunter of the Golden Cicada. They are there to help the kine
so the kine can lead them to Golconda, whether the kine like it or not.

Lessons of the Past Carry Forth the Future

The Hunters of the Golden Cicada seek to aid the kine on whom vampires feed. They
pursue their goal by fostering the kine, aiding them along the paths of their lives and
using the power of the Blood to, sometimes forcefully, remove impediments holding their
mortals back from success, love, enlightenment, or discovering the best versions of
themselves. The order believes this enriches the blood within the mortal, and that by
cultivating a better life for the mortal, the blood within, when drained, reveals secrets on
the path to peace and power.

The cult is indiscriminate in the kinds of assistance its members lend to the kine, but
most members make their havens near impoverished neighborhoods in a domain for
easier access to those who need assistance and who aren’t well-connected to community
or governmental support. Some Hunters of the Golden Cicada engage in vigilantism,
charitable works, manipulating local government to funnel assistance to a neighborhood,
or even simple trash collection to pursue enlightenment. Some choose to focus on the
whole of society, attempting to uplift and aid many kine at once, while others hyper-focus
on one mortal at a time, to the point of obsession. One industrious member even feeds
stray dogs, so they are less likely to attack residents or become too feral. All so long as
their charitable works aid their prey in some way.

One should not misunderstand the intentions of the Hunters of the Golden Cicada; their
goal is Golconda. They aim to aid others, but only insofar as it assists their progression.
They believe this to be the balancing of the Beast and the human spirit within them. They
believe it is a special form of enlightenment only Kindred have the chance to achieve.

Hunters of the Golden Cicada have taken lessons from stories and legends to find
Golconda. Even the name comes from one such tale. While the cult doesn’t have a
formalized name, some of the members started titling themselves Hunters of the Golden
Cicada, and the name stuck for the group. In the 1960s, when a local Ventrue captured one
of the less-careful adherents to the philosophy, that is how they identified themself. The
name is a tongue-in-check reference to The Journey to the West, the 16th century novel
by Wu Cheng’en. In it, the reincarnated golden cicada, now Buddhist monk Tang
Sanzang, is sent on a journey to India to retrieve Buddhist scriptures. Tang Sanzang is
beset by demons and monsters who attempt to eat the enlightened being to achieve
immortality and enlightenment themselves.

Some Hunters believe that they not only have the power to uplift mortals, but also that
the Blood gives them the right to do so. These individuals go about their goals in terrible
or painful ways, like using the Blood to help someone overcome an addiction by forcing
them to deny their craving for that thing. Some replace that mortal’s addiction to one of
vitae if they don’t have other means of enforcing growth. The murder of an abuser, arson,
the ruining of a hated rival’s crops; more extreme members of the Hunters of the Golden
Cicada have undertaken all these and more.

Their methods have caused the cult to become a thorn in the side of the Chongqing
Ventrue, the most powerful and prominent clan in the domain. These Kindred look dimly
on the cult’s activities, which routinely interfere with the city’s Blue Bloods running their
exploitative businesses. Ventrue Magistrate Murong Guozhi has a particular axe to grind
against the Hunters, as the cult continues to upset the traditional power structure.
Hunters of the Golden Cicada in turn can only stand by and watch as their fellows risk
further attention from Chongqing’s Clan of Kings, as their philosophy prevents inference
in another member’s pursuit of Golconda.

The Great Teacher

A figure called the Great Teacher put forth the concept of the cycle of selection,
cultivation, and enlightenment. The Great Teacher is a mysterious figure who scant few
of the Hunters claim to have ever met, at once model, myth, and absentee parent. Each
member who has met the Great Teacher holds a fervent belief that Golconda is real and
achievable, because they have seen the results. This is the path the Great Teacher
followed and now encourages others to follow, too.

None of these members can describe any physical aspects of the enigmatic figure, only the
impression they made upon them. All they can recall is a feeling of peace, of age, of still
and solid power, and of being held in their gaze, safe and warm. If pressed, all of them
vaguely recall being very, very hungry afterward.

The Great Teacher imparts the philosophy of the cult to those favored to gain an
audience. To carry forth their knowledge to a Kindred world in need of answers and
enlightenment. To speak with the certainty that Golconda is real and achievable.

It is the responsibility of these followers to educate others and to do their best to guide
junior members. Hunters of the Golden Cicada uphold this responsibility to the others,
aiding them when possible, but never interfere with the methods they have chosen. The
Great Teacher instructs them that the paths to Golconda are as varied as the members of
the order themselves.

The Hunters of the Golden Cicada are a young cult, but many of its members believe that
versions of it can be found throughout the region’s history. They lend credence to this
theory through pieces of text and ancient oral tradition. Leading members of the Hunters
of the Golden Cicada believe that the mysterious Great Teacher, leader of the order, and
the first to achieve Golconda is preposterously old.

Any further information on the Great Teacher is very difficult to come by. It is a
particular obsession among some of Chongqing’s Ventrue to find this figure, as they
represent a subversive threat to the they structure that allows them to remain in control.
However, curiously, when the Ventrue have occasionally been able to identify and
interrogate prominent Hunters of the Golden Cicada who claim to be close to achieving
Golconda, they are never able to identify or find them again should they slip through the
Kings’ grasp. When they question other, lesser, members of the Golden Cicada about this,
they simply explain, “The Teacher called them for the final lesson.”

Convictions of the Hunters of the Golden Cicada

Seek your path; don’t interfere with another’s: You are seeking Golconda using the
lessons passed onto us from the Great Teacher, but your path is personal. Cultivate
the vessels of Golconda using the lessons as a guide. Do not interfere with the ways of
others on their own paths.
Do not allow cruel treatment of the living: The kine represent a unique chance to
achieve the glorious state of Golconda. By purifying their spirits, you purify their
blood. By purifying their blood, you elevate them. By taking their blood, you elevate
yourself.
Never fail to offer others your teachings: It is your responsibility to light the spark
of Golconda in others, should they listen. The lessons of the Great Teacher are easy to
grasp, yet difficult to master. Therefore, we have been given eternity. Find others
who might set themselves on this path. Select carefully, for few can complete the
journey.

Always follow the Great Teacher’s instruction: The Great Teacher watches us all as
we imbibe the blood of the vessels and grow closer to Golconda. The Great Teacher
will call you for the final lesson when you are prepared to learn. Heed that call, for it
is the last you shall ever need to answer.

Chongqing

Chongqing, China is a megacity seated at and around where the Yangtze and Jialing rivers
meet in southwestern China. It’s host to impressive landmarks, works of man, and
natural features such as the Three Gorges Dam, the area around it, the Three Natural
Bridges themselves, and Fengdu Ghost City, to name a few. Estimates put the current
population of the municipality, including the countryside and rural farmland that
supports the city, at over 30 million. However, the Kindred of Chongqing are concerned
more with the herd of over 8 million souls who call the city of Chongqing their home.

Given the size and resources of the city, one might think that Chongqing could host a
sizable Kindred population, but the ruling body of Camarilla Ventrue keep the population
as regulated as possible. Magistrate Murong Guozhi ascended to power in March of 1997,
using the upheaval of Chongqing establishing itself as its own municipality to gain
control. Since then, he’s held a tight grip on the city through his strict interpretation of
the Traditions and with the help of his clan’s resources and influence. The irony of the
recent population explosion and economic growth of Chongqing and China in general is
that even as his clan’s riches grow, his control wanes.

To make matters worse for the Ventrue, rebellion foments among the Kindred of
Chongqing’s rural areas after years of their being the victims of the mysterious creatures
that stalk the countryside and having their pleas to the city fall on disinterested ears.
Along with this, a growing number of Inquisitor cells in the Ministry of State Security are
rooting out Ventrue holdings in the city.

Of particular concern to the beleaguered Magistrate is his recent discovery of the

existence of a group called the Hunters of the Golden Cicada in his domain. Their quiet
espousal of their creed, that Golconda is a true and attainable thing, undermines the fear
he uses to control and cow Kindred. The vigilantism and criminal activities of some of the
Golden Cicada’s more zealous members draw unwanted eyes to the Kindred and threaten
the delicate balance he’s constructed.

In pursuit of Guozhi’s desire to regain control, he spends an increasing portion of his time
attempting to root out the Golden Cicada instead of focusing on measures to keep up with
the city itself. His advisors and clan chancellor council have taken note. Were he to learn
that the Ventrue clan chancellor herself, his own Blood sister Murong Ling, was a
member of that faith, the revelation could overturn the Camarilla’s hold on one of its
most prized and profitable domains.

Perspectives

Camarilla: We threaten the control that justifies the Ivory Tower’s existence. When we we
balance our Beasts, what need will we have for them to protect us?
Anarchs: If they focused as much energy inward as they do outward, they might see a path
forward to Golconda for themselves. Until then, many of them will need to be cleared out of
our vessels’ ways. Their anger takes up too much space.
The Orphans of Enoch: Yes, we know of them. There are a few in most large domains,
Chongqing included. Our Great Teacher has spoken of them, and to them, though we know
not what was said. They seem to watch us with interest, though we know not why.
The Ventrue: The undisputed masters of the night. Those that know of us in our hovels,
slums, and hideaways hate us with the passion of the powerful. Little do they know that
their very clan chancellor in Chongqing met with the Great Teacher… and listened well.

The Meneleans
A confused cult with no leadership in these modern nights, the Meneleans were once
dedicated to rebuilding Carthage anew, revering the wisdom of the Brujah methuselah
who unknowingly founded their order, and fighting the servants of the Toreador
methuselah Helena. In their recorded history, the Meneleans read stories of the frequent
clashes between the vampire known as Menele or Menelaus, and his rival Helena. The
two fought using thousands of mortal and undead proxies for millennia before finally
reaching the United States, where the two reached an ostensible stalemate and the war
went underground.

In part dedicated to freeing vampires from elder subjugation and manipulation, while
advocating closer bonds with the kine to help ground the cultists, the Menelean faith is
one that’s not outwardly destructive like that of many cults. Aside from Helena’s cultists,
the Meneleans had no natural enemies. They furthered a cause of freedom without the
vice of worshiping Set, spoke in favor of domains drenched not in bloodshed but in
understanding, and strongly believed the pathway to Golconda was through perfect
assimilation into mortal life. The only price was drinking a dose of Menele’s vitae every
decade.

Then Menele disappeared, probably Beckoned, and a hundred bonds snapped.

Current Goals

The great fraud of the Meneleans was that Menele enforced his will through his vitae. The
cult operated so successfully, and appeared so uniformly altruistic, because Menele
wished it so. Whenever a cultist tried to pursue their personal interests, he or one of his
childer intervened to correct the course through the Blood or destroy the bug in the
system. Undoubtedly, the cult’s followers achieved many great things in Anarch and
Camarilla domains alike, encouraging vampires on the cusp of becoming wights to fold
into mortal society, softening a Prince’s tyranny, and influencing the building of new
cities such as Milton Keynes in the United Kingdom and Songdo in South Korea
specifically to cater to Kindred needs. However, this was only sometimes the will of the
vampires involved. Most of these schemes filtered down from on high.

The question many free Meneleans now ask is whether they would have pursued the same
goals were Menele not involved. They also want to know how much control Menele had
over their pursuits, as for all they know they could have been receiving subtle pushes
from Menele’s dreams, or dictates from a tyrant methuselah. The cult is in disarray, with
their ancient grudge against Helena’s followers even put to the side as Meneleans come
together and discuss how they’re going to act without their master’s vitae.

The Mithraic Mysteries

“All hail our lord and savior, Mithras, who journeyed through the Underworld and now returns
to us!”

— Rose Abawi, Toreador Pater of the Soho Mithraeum

The cult of Mithras lies in disarray. Forged in secrets and persecution, the cult long
preferred erecting a new temple over expanding an existing one. Likewise, it founded
new cells instead of forming a singular sprawling cult. This worked well with Mithras at
the helm, but his rumored destruction at the claws of Lupines and subsequent
disappearance left the disparate cult rudderless. Unscrupulous Patres started giving their
own orders, while the most loyal Patres — paralyzed with grief and a lack of guidance —
saw their cells fall apart. Yet now these loyal few sense a stirring in their blood, a whisper
on the air: prepare, for He returns. The cells communicate with each other, the network
reforms, and the Mithraists stand to rank among the most active power players in
Kindred society.

From Persia to Rome

The Mithraic Mysteries is a cult of personality as much as a mystery cult. For Cainites,
there is no separating the cult from the methuselah at its center. Yet what Kindred know
of Mithras is scarce and conflicting. To his followers, he is the Indo-Iranian god Mithra
first mentioned in a collection of Vedic Sanskrit hymns transcribed around 1380 BCE, or
depicted even earlier on the royal seal of King Saussatar of Mitanni around 1450 BCE.
They know Mithra was a member of the solar pantheon, and his divine purview centered
upon honesty, camaraderie, and bargains.

When Mithra was said to have walked the Earth in corporeal form, as gods in ages past
were wont to do, the Ventrue claim he was Embraced by an ancient vampire named
Veddartha. Mithra remained active for centuries afterward, until the clash between his
divine blood and the curse of Caine forced him in and out of torpor. Still, his followers
remained loyal and Mithra’s teachings, passed down orally, may even have inspired tales
of the Buddhist Maitreya. The cult learned to survive without their god’s direct presence,
dutifully awaiting his return — a trait that served them well to the modern nights.

Mithra became Mithras in Rome, and his religion took on the trappings of a mystery cult.
His followers congregated in caves and underground cisterns, coaxed by Mithras’
lieutenants to ensure the god-turned-Cainite could visit them. Whenever the Mithraists
gained sufficient funds, they erected a new temple rather than expand an existing one.
His cult spread rapidly and far, operating in cells rather than as one collective, even
reaching Britain at the furthest reaches of the Roman Empire. Building on Mithra’s
purview as divine judge of truth, companionship, and trade, worship of Mithras was
popular with soldiers, merchants, bureaucrats and custom officials, freedmen, and
slaves. For a while, Mithraism rivaled the nascent religion of Christianity. In the end,
however, the Church of Peter triumphed and Mithraism became a relic in mortal history.

A London Renaissance

Though outdone on the mortal stage, Mithras remained powerful in Cainite politics. He
moved to the domain of Londinium in 71 CE, where Roman soldiers did fierce battle with
Britain’s people. By the time Rome accepted Christianity in 313 CE, Mithras was so
entrenched in Britain he could safely bring his most dedicated followers to London, both
as reward for their service and to continue his worship. With the London cell now the
most important within the Mithraic Mysteries, they began work on the London
Mithraeum. Britain’s rebellion against Rome spilled over into Cainite unrest though,
leading the local Kindred to rebel against the foreign Mithras. Mithras emerged
victorious, but again slipped into torpor. The cult continued without him — split into
independent cells, certain in their faith, and awaiting his return as always.

While the Mithraic Mysteries never regained the global power it had in the era of Persia
and Rome, the cult spread throughout England, Wales, Scotland, and even to the coasts of
France. When Mithras awoke again in 1066 CE, he found his cult diminished in numbers
and power, but with all its trappings in place and waiting for him. Mithras brazenly
reopened the London Mithraeum, only to see it burned to the ground by Ventrue lords
acting through the clergy. The cult retreated back into the shadows, playing to its
strengths and attracting new followers among young nobles and soldiers. Meanwhile
Mithras’ Cainite agents sowed discord among the local Ventrue. With the Ventrue focused
on each other, Mithras’ popularity spread from young kine to young Kindred, patiently
waiting while his detractors turned against each other and replacing them with his
loyalists. Come 1154 CE, Mithras openly claimed the Baronies of Avalon, England’s most
powerful domain, as his own.

With Mithras as Prince of London, the cult continued to spread and thrive. The cells
remained separate and hidden though, each working toward their god’s greater purpose.
One might worship Mithras as bull-slayer and soldier, while another celebrated him as
god of bargains and merchants. Each cell made its own rules in accordance with the Seven
Steps to the Sun.

Mithras himself traveled the world, meeting with a variety of famous and infamous
Kindred in pursuit of knowledge and power, with his cult remaining ever faithful. His
followers survived Christian persecution, bouts of madness in their god during the
Victorian era, and potential coups against their Prince — only to await his return, and
resume their service every time.

The London Blitz

Mithras designed his cult to survive without him. The Mithraic Mysteries propagated into
independent and separate cells, remained hidden, and fostered relations with the middle
and lower classes rather than the elite. This let Mithras pursue his myriad passions, yet
always return to find at least one cell still serving as base of operations.

The last six decades were different though. A Lupine pack drove Mithras into torpor
during the London Blitz in World War II, after which a Banu Haqim neonate named
Montgomery Coven stole and diablerized his body. While no one knew of Mithras’
diablerie, his followers could no longer sense his presence and rumors of his final death
swelled. Finally, Queen Anne came forward and quietly confirmed his death. Certainly,
she would lie to advance her own cause, but she also remained loyal to Mithras — if
motivated largely by opportunism and fear — throughout long bouts of torpor,
depression, and madness. Queen Anne breaking ranks now was a clear sign she believed
Mithras either dead or never returning — and she would be in a position to know.
Mithras’ acolytes desperately searched for their god’s guidance — his voice in their heads,
his blood in their veins — and found nothing. For the first time since Mithras’ rise three
thousand years ago, his followers’ faith wavered.

Faces of the Bull God

Without Mithras to guide the cult, separate cells survived or fell on their Pater’s strength
— and many of them fell. Mithras’ Cainite enemies, sensing blood in the water, came
down on any cells that revealed themselves in their search for guidance. The cells that did
remain were forced wholly underground, with no way to contact each other. The London
Mysteries were disparate, weak, and defenseless with Mithras seemingly gone forever.
The cult of Mithras stood poised to fall.

Then, in recent nights, a niggling sensation. Not as powerful a presence in his followers’
minds and veins as before, but rather an echo of Mithras, a voice that was both his and not
his. The cells that survived, and the Patres that still believed, painstakingly pulled
themselves back together. In London a new Mithraeum arose under guidance of Rose
Abawi, a Toreador claiming to be the Voice of Mithras. Throughout the long nights
without their god, several beliefs and practices yet remained.

Mithraist Ambition

The Cult of Mithras follows a many-headed religion, but above all, they are a cult of law.
At the cult’s height its rituals were formal, its structure rigid, its mysteries impenetrable
to outsiders. Since Mithras’ destruction the cult broke up, and with it the religion lost
much of its power. Mithraism is strongest when centralized around an unliving god with
firm edicts. Since his apparent return, the cells returning to the fold have found great
purpose in returning to the old ways. They believe in a world where secrets are kept
secret, where the truly powerful seize power and hold on to it until someone more potent
can topple the leader, and where training should start young, so age and experience might
convey wisdom.

Mithras is the model the cult strives to emulate. As a god, he is multi-faceted, symbolizing
spheres from conflict to fertility, and justice to business. This appeals to the cult’s varied
followers, as while the Ventrue adherent might find attraction to the cult’s wealth, a
Brujah might find appeal in its dedication to war. Through this range of influence,
Mithras belongs to his followers, but they all belong to him in turn.

Once a follower digs deeply into the Mithraic Mysteries, concepts such as diablerie
become less and less of a taboo. As Mithras gave himself up to his diablerist in the 20th
century — at least, that’s how the Mithraists describe it going down — some of the cult’s
elders may give themselves over to promising up-and-comers. They may even try to create
gestalt personalities, giving themselves up to create something close to divine. This
horrifying ritual rarely works, but such self-sacrifice is a point of great pride to Mithras’
cultists.

Unlike the Setites, who believe in unshackling oneself from mortal fetters, and the
Bahari, who believe in exalting in vampiric power to serve their goddess, the Mithraists
believe in enlightenment by way of control. Mithraists reinforce each other’s Convictions,
Touchstones, and therefore Humanity, not due to ethical concerns, but because doing so
makes the cult stronger and brings a vampire closer to mastering their urges.

When not pursuing their vein of enlightenment, the Mithraists run a successful
protection racket in multiple domains, utilizing their tight structure to extort and
bodyguard those who pay into the temple. The temple itself acts both as a clubhouse —
often along the lines of an exclusive gentlemen’s club with old fashions and practices,
such as telling stories, singing as a pianist or harpist plays, or even playing war games —
as well as a site for cult rituals, inductions, and burial of torpid peers. The few Tremere
who gain admittance to the cult (Mithras always despised the clan) draw parallels
between their practices and those of Hermetics, Freemasons, and Rosicrucians, while the
Mithraists boldly declare that if anyone set the mold the others followed, it was them.

Law and Chaos

If there are two diametrically opposed cults in this book, one might suspect the Church of
Caine and Bahari make for the most contentious, but it’s the Cult of Mithras and Church
of Set most inclined to go to war. One could argue Mithras and Set are among the most
“successful” of vampires, to have successfully masqueraded their identities behind the
names of gods and cultivated religions in their wake. However, the two have never been
comfortable sharing success, this world, or potential followers. The two faiths have two
completely opposed views of the world, which in extreme terms amounts to Mithras
wanting a vampire world governed with tight laws, with power funneling up to him,
while Set wants a vampire world with no laws, and power raging unbridled. The
Mithraists may be the best fit for the Camarilla, with the cult’s preference for hierarchy,
Blood Bonds, and secrets, while the Setites veer toward the Anarchs with their love of
unrestricted knowledge and influence.

Of course, neither vampire is open to speaking their views, which leads to this law vs.
chaos divide being one perpetuated among their followers. It’s not known if Mithras and
Set ever encountered each other or discussed their opposing philosophies, but there’s
enough vehemence between their followers to make any city with a temple of Mithras and
a temple of Set within its borders liable to assassination attempts, bombings, and other
assorted strife.

Divine Mithras

The Mysteries teach that Mithras is a god, Embraced by Veddartha when he walked the
world in corporeal form. While in the past the cult linked Mithras to the eponymous
Roman God, advancing historical insight links Mithras to the Persian Mithra. Devout
followers accept this without hesitation — Mithras and Mithra are one, even if the details
of his worship changed from one ancient empire to the other. The cells silence any
infidels who believe Mithras an ancient Persian impostor at best, or a much younger poser
who handily connected the dots between the Persian and Roman deities in an effort to
appear older than he is.

Mithras is a god of war, feasts, and fertility, and these attributes reflect in ceremonies
dedicated to him. His followers engage in war on Mithras’ enemies, the feasts hosted in
his name are extravagant and lavish, and loyal followers are permitted to Embrace — the
only act of fertility available to Kindred — as a reward for their service. These acts further
the cult’s secular goals, but above all they channel the divine. Proper worship prepares a
Kindred’s body, and the blackened remnants of their soul, to receive the true secret of
Mithras — for he was once a companion of Sol Invictus, and still keeps the Sun’s secrets.

Patres tell stories of Mithras acting during the day without any of the usual sluggishness,
and even walking in sunlight. While these gifts are Mithras’ by divine right, he lost them
at the hands of Veddartha and spent long centuries regaining them. They say Mithras
achieved Golconda, a state which allows him to reclaim his place at Sol Invictus’ hand,
and this is the final secret he will teach his acolytes. If so far none have actually attained
this, it is surely a failing on their part — they were born mere mortals — rather than a
refutation of the Patres’ claims.

Religious texts dating back to ancient Persia further claim Mithra will save the world.
While the Mysteries largely ignored this in favor of focusing on Mithras’ fortitude and
prowess, the story received traction in the midst of the Beckoning and the Second
Inquisition. Neonates believe Mithras is a messiah who can save them from new
calamities. Duskborn note their own resistance to sunlight, and believe Mithras can teach
them to fully harness this power — though they don’t know if this would make them a
vampire god like Mithras himself, or let them return to a mortal state. The rumors of
Mithras as savior even find purchase with ancillae who find themselves out of their depth
with the upper echelons of vampires depleted. Had the cult better leadership, it could
easily grow to rival any methuselah cult or even the Church of Caine.

An Underground Religion

The Mithraic Mysteries suffered persecution at the hands of Christianity, both as genuine
religious warfare and as a way for Mithras’ enemies to undermine him. The cells learned
to hide early on, and do so well. Mithraea are underground, physically hidden from public
sight. Ironically the oldest and most prominent Mithraeum in London has since been
discovered by mortals and turned into a museum, but many more remain hidden. Their
access points lie in elite clubs founded by merchants, illegal fighting clubs, occult shops,
and even pubs.

The cult is not just physically hidden though. Recruitment and initiation are similarly
obfuscated, with a cell’s Pater and Heliodromi selecting new recruits and then sending the
Corax — the lowest ranking members — to assume the risk of actually inviting them.
Acolytes are taught a variety of secret codes, depending as always on the individual cell.
Rich merchants might identify themselves by wearing a specific lapel flower, or a secret
handshake. An anarchistic cell sends out instructions through the deep web or street
graffiti. The Mysteries use some symbols near universally, such as the sun or bull, but
only Mithras knew every code.

The London Uncertainty

Even as Mithras’ fate languishes in uncertainty, with rumors claiming his soul was
diablerized, his old vassals conspire to resurrect their god. Their work is shrouded in
mystery, gears moving within gears, but one key component may be missing: faithfulness.

Gwenllian Arwyn long served as Pater in London’s largest Mithraic cell, after the former
leader — Roger de Camden — was believed destroyed. Her loyalty now turns from the
ancient. Once an enemy of Rome, Arwyn was brought to heel by Mithras, and in his
disappearance she sees a renewed chance for freedom and independence. If she takes the
leap and betrays Mithras, the largest of the old cells finally falls. Arwyn might even scuttle
the resurrection plot completely. The ancient has contingencies in place for that
eventuality though, and he’s already grooming a new Pater from Soho to replace her.

Celebrating the Bull God

Each cell has its own approach to worship, but some aspects are near universal.

Bull Running

Initiates wear down their enemies in a ritual called bull running, which can conclude in a
single night or take years to complete. Sometimes, if acolytes seek appeasement in a
symbolic ritual, this enemy is an actual bull. More often though, the Pater names a
mortal, ghoul, or Kindred as the bull. Mithras himself chose the targets when he was
active, but now faithful Patres make their own judgment as to which enemy of the cult
must be removed, while disloyal Patres send acolytes after their personal enemies.

While the Pater chooses the target, the initiates themselves decide if an enemy must be
killed, or can be defeated through other means such as social disgrace or financial ruin.
Bull running is a favorite practice among Soho’s mortal acolytes, who delight in bringing
down the powers that be. Rose isn’t fully focused in selecting targets, and often strays
from bull running that serves Mithras in favor of protecting her community. So far,
Mithras has allowed this in the name of good practice, but he intends to correct her upon
his return.

Fertility Feasts
The traditional fertility feasts seemed poised for obsoletion, as few modern mortals are
willing to conceive a child as part of a cult initiation. The feasts made a comeback as
mortals became increasingly sexually liberated though, and “fertility feast” was
reinterpreted as “sex acts.” Some cells see a couple performing an act predictably named
“mounting the bull.” Other cells engage in grand orgies where participants of all genders
are welcome. Likewise, one cell might sate the room with a thick opium smoke, while
another forbids drugs entirely as it believes all sensations are to be experienced without
barriers. The purpose of all feasts, however, is to channel the divine fertility of Mithras.

If a Kindred acolyte is granted the right to Embrace, they do so during a fertility feast.
Kindred fertility feasts rarely host any vampire-on-vampire sex, as the chances of
someone biting and becoming Blood Bound to another acolyte instead of Mithras are too
great. Instead the Kindred joins the mortals’ fertility feast, in whichever form it takes,
and quietly steals their intended childe away for the Embrace during the feast’s climax.

The Blood Equinox

Mithraists fast in late Spring, then hold a grand feast on the summer solstice. While for
mortals this might mean no alcohol, cigarettes, or other drugs, for Kindred it entails a
literal fasting — feeding just enough to keep the Beast at bay. The purpose of the summer
feast, for Kindred, is to inspire a divine frenzy which channels the warrior spirit of
Mithras. Frenzying during the fasting period indicates a lack of self-control, while not
frenzying during the Summer feast means the acolyte didn’t push themself far enough in
spring — both disgrace the acolyte and, in higher ranks, might lead to a demotion.

The meal during the feast can be anything from an animal — bulls are popular for obvious
reasons — to mortals or even other vampires. Only Mithras may assign the right to
Amaranth however, so the latter fell out of practice with his disappearance. The Soho
cell, however, plans to hunt down one of Mithras’ Kindred enemies as their sacrifice.

The Blooding

The Blooding sees select Kindred bathed in the blood of their Pater and Mithras, denoting
them as elite soldiers in Mithras’ army. Back in the old nights, Patres carefully guarded a
chalice of Mithras’ vitae for this ritual. Now, however, most chalices are long empty or the
Pater is too terrified of Mithras’ enemies to remove the holy vessel from its hiding place.
Until Mithras’ return, this ritual remains in disuse.

Ascension Through Loyalty, Duty and Servitude

Compared to the Church of Set’s doctrine of elevation via freedom, the Mithraist view of
obeying one’s elders, taking the Blood Bond to grow closer to Mithras, and sacrificing
oneself to form a gestalt divine entity seems murderous, arcane, and a hell of a lot less
glamorous. Despite this, many vampires are drawn to structure, codified goals and
measurements of success, and the number of stories told by Patres of vampires reaching
glorious levels of power through loyal servitude is addicting. Unlike the Setites, who
abandon or conceal their failures, the Mithraists hate the stain of failure to the degree
they’ll do whatever they can to rub it out and make it clean, including attaching a Mawla
to a failed initiate until they make it. Giving up is not an option in the Cult of Mithras.

The cult’s loyalty, especially within respective cult cells, is almost fanatical. Mithraists
have a genuine solidarity through shared rituals, secrets, and faith in Mithras as a figure
to aspire to emulate. The Blood Bond also helps enforce this feeling, of course.

Mithraic Convictions

The Mithraic Mysteries’ adherents firmly believe in the benefit of order and aspire to
control. Mithras is one of the grandest examples of a vampire who was able to straddle the
line between god, vampire, and emperor, and with his dominion over Britain for a
millennium, he exercised influence on a scale rarely paralleled within Cainite society.
Many Mithraists, in emulation of their god, attempt to uphold the same Convictions as
Mithras:

Always have a say in the governing of your domain: The Mithraists may operate
openly or in secret within Kindred society, but they are compelled to influence the
domain government in some meaningful way.
Never abandon your allies: Brotherhood and sisterhood within the cult is
important. You are never alone when you are a member of the cult.
Accept no disparagement of Mithras’ name: Mithras is your god, and through his
will you fall under his protection and prosper from his benevolence. If you hear of
anyone insulting Mithras, you must draw their blood.
Always put the weak in their place: Weakness does not deserve a place in Mithras’
church. If you find a cultist to be weak, beat them, hector them, and ridicule them
until they improve. If you find a weakling outside the cult, make sure they’re aware
of their lowly state so they might better themselves.
Protect the pregnant / newborns / fresh Embraces: Mithras is a fertility god, and
his cult advocates the protection of the young and pregnant. This is not through
altruism; Mithraists should protect and cultivate the herd.
Immediately punish chaos and misrule among your servants: The cult can only
function if the hierarchy remains in place. Accept no rebellion among your servants.
Punish it severely.

Seven Steps to the Sun

All Mithraic Mysteries follow the Seven Steps to the Sun, which sees the initiate rise
closer to Mithras and by extension his solar patron. Most cells welcome mortals into the
lower steps, then force them into becoming ghouls, or Embrace them as they prove their
worth. On the flipside of this belief that vitae is a reward for worthy mortals, all Kindred
initiates automatically started as Miles in the olden nights. The modern era saw a rush of
Kindred joining the cult for secular reasons though, most seeking to be close to Mithras as
Prince of London, rather than out of sincere religious belief. To combat this, many
modern cells “ease” a Kindred into the cult by starting them as Corax. The Soho cell
specifically did this with its Duskborn, not as a mark against them but rather to hail their
potential as a rare Kindred who could walk all seven steps. Hyde, and Rose’s lover and
ghoul Noelle, both act as Soho’s Heliodromi, while Rose serves as the cell’s Pater.

Kindred initiates take an oath not to Embrace, lest they dilute their devotion to Mithras,
or spend their time teaching when they should be learning. The cult does not begrudge
them existing childer, and encourages the initiate sire to recruit these too.

The First Step: Corax, the Raven

The raven serves as messenger in the Roman legend of Mithras. The Corax initiate is both
the recipient of a message — the invitation to join the cult — and bearer of a message
when they’re sent to invite someone else.

The Raven associates with the element of air, as does the Pater to bring the Seven Steps
full circle. Air is the element of mental clarity, and of cutting bonds as the initiate foregoes
old baggage upon entering the cult. This is both liberating, as a Corax might finally flee
their abusive family, and, as cults are wont to do, isolating.

A Kindred joining the cult in any rank must bow to the divinity of Mithras’ blood. In
practical terms this means obeying Mithras, descendants of his bloodline, and the Patres
who carry his vitae.

The Corax wears a raven mask during ceremonies.

The Second Step: Nymphus, the Bride

The bride(groom) has proven their worth and enters a spiritual bond with Mithras in a
binding ceremony. The Pater leads this ceremony, and a relic takes the place of the absent
Mithras. The Nymphus’ task is to learn all they can about Mithras’ enemies, and they
often serve as spies.

The Nymphus’ element is water, symbolizing a coming together as the initiate becomes a
drop in Mithras’ ocean. Nymphi pledge their voices to Mithras by singing or rapping
during their initiation, and swear to tell no secrets of the cult.

The Nymphus wears a veil, which covers both their head and body, during ceremonies.

The Third Step: Miles, the Soldier

Mithras is a war god, and his chosen are soldiers. Where once the methuselah scorned
anyone who did not partake in actual physical combat, passing centuries have led the
broken cult to reconsider — there is value in fighting investment bankers, politicians, and
socialites who get in Mithras’ way. With Mithras seemingly returned, however, even
Kindred armed with briefcases may be expected to pick up the sword or javelin.

Once a Kindred achieves initiation as Miles, they must preserve their purity by making
every kill a tribute to Mithras — this absolves them of the moral implications of the kill,
and bestows Mithras’ blessing on them. However, they must not kill if the target would
make an unworthy sacrifice.

For mortal initiates this stage is represented by the element of fire, and they are branded
with the mark of Mithras. While this used to be an actual fire brand, modern cells opt for
a tattoo bearing Mithras’ symbol. For Kindred, however, earth represents the soldier’s
element and they are reburied before emerging as a Miles.

The Miles wears a wreath, which represents both Mithras’ blessing and dominion over
them.

The Fourth Step: Leo, The Lion

The Leo represents purity. They must never act out of individual interest and, in
recognition of how confusing the world can be, have most of their actions dictated by a
Pater. Leones serve largely the same task as Milites — to combat Mithras’ enemies — but
are sent after larger and more dangerous targets. They also serve as messengers to
Mithras’ Kindred allies, often traveling from London to other domains with all the
dangers this entails.

A Kindred reaching Leo initiation must pray to the sun nightly, though they may choose
whether to pray at sunrise or sunset. They must also recognize fire as purity. These
initiates build resolve by fire leaping and, in extreme cases, branding rituals. Their self-
control and mental acumen becomes just as important as their physical prowess, and a
Leo’s calm and clarity gives them a trustworthy air.

The Leo wears a lion mask during ceremonies to show their strength and ferocity.

The Fifth Step: Perses, the Persian

The Perses serves Mithras in his aspect as fertility god. They are the keepers of Mithras’
fruits, often represented symbolically by honey, bull semen, or the treated vitae of cult
elders. Mortal initiates are tasked with growing Mithras’ influence in the city, whether
that means starting a new cell, financing a movie hailing the deeds of Mithra, or
doctoring a new drug that uses Mithras’ vitae to Blood Bond mortals en masse.

The Persae see a division between Kindred initiates. Some are chosen for the Blooding
ritual, which marks them as elite soldiers for Mithras. These are given an item ostensibly
belonging to Mithras to keep. The item is usually symbolic and false, but Persae who
prove themselves dedicated and resourceful find their fake relic replaced by one of actual
value.

Kindred not chosen for the Blooding are finally granted permission to Embrace, so long as
they immediately bring their new childe into the cult. No one but Mithras, and any Patres
he wishes to tell, knows what criteria determine the difference between the two classes of
Persae.

When Mithras still ruled London, Persae killed by his command. The cult provided them
with anything they needed to leave the murder site unscathed, from alibis to secret
identities. If that failed, Mithras would still pardon them — though he preferred to
maintain plausible deniability.

The Perses carries a sickle during ceremonies to signal their task of growing Mithras’
crops.

The Sixth Step: Heliodromus, the Courier of the Sun

The Heliodromus relays Mithras’ commands — often as given by the Pater — to the rest of
the cult. They suggest new initiates, determine who is worthy to rise in the Seven Steps,
and help the Pater select enemies for bull running. As the Patres are all Kindred, the few
mortal — though usually ghouled — Heliodromi also serve as the daytime face of a cell.

The Heliodromus is also responsible for preparing the summer feast, whether they’re a
mortal bringing fruits and the occasional sacrificial bull, or a Kindred bringing mortals
and the occasional sacrificial Kindred. All Heliodromi, Kindred and mortal alike, are
Blood Bonded to Mithras, and what little of the methuselah’s vitae the Pater still has goes
to bonding new Heliodromi.

The Heliodromus carries a whip during ceremonies, as they are an extension of Mithras’
commands.

The Seventh Step: Pater, the Father/Mother

The Pater (occasionally Patre) oversees a Mystery cell as deputy of Mithras. All Patres are
Cainite, and worthy mortal Heliodromi are Embraced upon their elevation to Pater. The
Pater seeks out Mithras’ enemies, mortal and Kindred alike, and sets the rest of the cult
upon them. They also choose areas ripe for the Mysteries to expand, whether kine slowly
return to ancient pagan religions, or the Beckoning leaves Kindred searching for spiritual
guidance.

They also guard the vitae of Mithras, given to them in a vessel to use in Blooding rituals.
With Mithras absent so long now, unscrupulous Patres filled the vessel with their own
vitae to Blood Bond acolytes. Meanwhile loyal Patres fiercely guard the last droplets they
have. Many Patres willingly met the sun when they could no longer feel Mithras’ presence
following his diablerie.
Some Patres take charge of entire nations, while others claim only cities. Some lead cults
directly, and others stand alone following the religion’s fractures. Mithras expects Patres
to become Princes if the standing Prince does not abide by Mithraic worship.

The Pater bears a ring and a staff to represent their authority over the cell and fealty to
Mithras.

Mithraeum: Edinburgh

An old faith in an old city, the Cult of Mithras is nevertheless new to the domain of
Edinburgh. Long under the control of Brujah and Toreador interests, nominally
independent from the reach of Mithras’ London even when he was declared Prince of the
British Isles, Edinburgh has finally fallen to the Mithraists following the cult’s core
migrating north from London. Shortly before the Second Inquisitions systematic assault
on London’s Kindred, Mithras found a way to communicate with his Seneschal and cult
Pater, Roger de Camden, and commanded him to take the cult’s elite with him to
Edinburgh and set up a new regime in the Scottish capital. Never one to refuse his god, de
Camden did just that. Kindred the world over are hearing the tale of how London’s
Kindred fell to the Second Inquisition, but none are speaking about how Edinburgh’s
Kindred fell to the Mithraists.

The invasion of Edinburgh was swift and bloody. De Camden and his cohort didn’t take
the time to negotiate their presence or opt to exist in exile. The cult had long kept
Edinburgh — and a couple of other potential domains — as possible cities for retreat. They
observed every Edinburgh vampire, keeping mental notes on practices, habits, and
havens, so when it came time to take the city they could do so with minimal resistance.
While some of Edinburgh’s Kindred survived the onslaught, no vampires of title escaped
with their unlives.

Edinburgh is a display of what the Cult of Mithras can do when challenged. The cult is an
army waiting for orders, and whenever they receive them, they strike with little
reservation. Now, the Cult shows what a traditional Mithraic domain is all about:
competence, reverence, war, and fertility. Under de Camden’s command, the Mithraists
Embrace fledglings into their ranks, showing them that true power lies in the hands of
vampires willing to fight for their existences. De Camden declared the city Camarilla —
though the Justicars suspect this was to prevent the sect’s reprisals — and himself Prince,
as there was no obvious replacement for the fallen one. The city has swiftly changed from
one where old vampires pursue petty aspirations toward wealth and influence, into one
where Mithras’ might deserves regular worship and sacrifice, so you too might benefit
from his hierarchy and spread your reach to other domains. In many ways, it’s shaping up
to be the perfect Camarilla city, as the fingers of vampires who callously manipulated
mortal interests were severed and replaced with the grip of those trained, practiced, and
capable of doing so with the same discretion Mithras used for a millennium across an
entire country.

For now, the Cult cements its rule over Edinburgh. De Camden isn’t interested in
murdering every non-Mithraic vampire in the city, as every court needs peasants,
yeomen, and traders. He and the rest of the former London core, numbering around a
dozen vampires with firm influence over different mortal sectors, including police,
telecommunications, and city transit and drainage, want to show other Kindred how
service to Mithras can enrich existence through duty and purpose. They want others to
see how being warriors in a surviving, millennia-old army is glorious. The Mithraeum de
Camden’s cult have constructed beneath Greyfriars Kirk — a church in the city center — is
open to all who would partake of the cult’s vitae in search of enlightenment, with the
promise than as the cult rejuvenates and spreads, these new converts will find positions of
power in other domains.

Perspectives

Queen Anne Bowesley: Usurper. Cannibal. Coward. She got what she deserved. The
Unconquered Sun’s throne must remain empty until his return.
Hecata: In one hand I hold a coin, in the other a blade that stabs into my flesh. The Hecata
have served this cult so loyally in times past, but just as soon bite the hand that feeds them.
I know we will not admit any Kindred with the name “Giovanni” in these nights.
Clan Tremere: Mithras has long hated the Tremere, almost as much as he despised the
Church of Set. We believe they are intent on destroying our cult once and for all, to rid
themselves of a potential enemy. Maybe what we need to unify us is a good, active enemy.
Clan Ventrue: Are they truly the Clan of Kings? Certainly, they seem to spawn more
leaders than any other clan. And yet, these modern nights have seen them fall into a
horrible trend of white-collar rulership. Long gone are the nights where a Ventrue deserved
the title of “god,” excepting Mithras, of course.
The Church of Set: Our greatest enemies. Fire to our water, chaos to our order. Do not
suffer a temple to this god to exist in a city where you hold dominion.

The Nephilim
“Our world was once perfected and it can be again. Cast aside your petty concerns, sleep and
dream the dream of Michael the Archangel, become one with the perfect beauty of his great
vision.”

— “Annatoliya,” Bloodline of Michael, Clan Toreador

The Dream of Constantinople is well known among Kindred scholars as an ideal for a
perfect Kindred society. It was a goal pursued by the three rulers of Constantinople,
known as the Trinity. When they each fell from the pages of history, their followers
scattered and the great hope of a generation of Kindred was lost. Lost for all save the
Nephilim.
Known to those who have encountered them or to the few who actively seek them as the
Children of the Angel, the Nephilim are a society that wishes to embody perfect beauty in
all things. From art and architecture, to the honing of the body, to refining and
improving in whatever task they pursue. The Nephilim seek to be angelic and divine in
every outward respect. Many shun them and curse them as he donists and degenerates,
some see them as a Toreador plot to subvert the iron grip of the Ventrue on the Camarilla,
and others still as little more than a distraction for immortals seeking a night of pleasure.
For each Kindred who turns away from their promise of perfection and pleasure, there is
always one who turns back, curious and allured by the orgies and the lavish lifestyles the
members of the cult pursue.

The Children of the Angel are certainly one of the most open and popular of the Kindred
religions, and it is easy to see the attraction. However, the draw goes far deeper for some
and the rewards can be far more life changing.

The Nephilim don’t just offer perfection; those who have served the cult the longest
embody it without exception. Kindred whisper of cultists whose appearances alter as they
make more and more trips to their local temple. Their skin becomes clear, soft and
radiant. The color of their eyes sharpens and brightens. Their hair becomes strong and
lustrous. Moreover, they become confident and self-assured within the love of the cult
and its revelers. Abandoning worldly pursuits, they turn to more aesthetic, artistic, and
spiritual endeavors, often turning over their businesses and properties to the use of the
society and to fund the spectacular parties their new siblings host to celebrate their great
becoming.

A large, hedonistic, sex-crazed cult full of beautiful people requires very little selling to
most. However, when one gets past the sheen of glory, the practices of the Nephilim are
found to be far from altruistic.

The Unending Dream

The Nephilim originated in Constantinople as a hedonistic society of Toreador directly

descended from Michael, the self-proclaimed Archangel. They spent their time seeking to
perfect the outer beauty of the world. In the old city, they commissioned glorious
monuments, renovated old buildings and laid ugly slums to waste to replace them with
far more pleasing aesthetics. Their quest for perfection led to great purges of the
unwashed and the unworthy from the streets of the city as they might offend the sight of
the Angel.

Their philosophy of personal improvement did not entirely revolve around the pursuit of
physical beauty. The childer of Michael competed among themselves to be the most
pleasing to their great ancestor, to prove they were worthy of the blood of heaven. Within
this selfish game, many mortals and Kindred alike were ensnared, moved as pieces on a
board to enhance the image of their Toreador masters in the sight of Michael. They were
forbidden to fight among themselves, though discord was invited from outside their
ranks to test the strength of the Dream against alternative ideals and improve it
accordingly.
However civil they were to each other in the open, their jealousy of one another was
beyond compare. Many believe it was partly their hidden war that finally brought about
the collapse of the great society itself. Others say the influence of malefactors from
jealous clans outside of the benevolent guidance of the Trinity caused the fall. Whatever
the case, the Dream was dashed to nothing and the childer of Michael fled the city in
despair.

It was not until centuries later that they began, as though guided by some hidden hand, to
seek each other out once more. As the modern nights cast a new darkness over the world
and consigned the old to history, the Beckoning summoned still more of them together.
United as one for the first time since the fall, the childer of Michael looked upon each
other and knew they were the last scions and the last hope for the survival of his great
plan.

All of the world would come to recognize him for the divinity he was. All would bow their
heads gratefully in the sight of endless cathedrals and brazen statues of gold bearing his
image. All would be reshaped in his likeness. They began to summon to themselves the
first of their followers.

The Power of Michael's Blood

Drinking the vitae of a Fifth, Sixth, or Seventh Generation Nephilim conveys the
Beautiful Merit, or if the vampire already possesses it, the Stunning Merit. If the vampire
already possesses the Stunning Merit, they gain an additional die to all uses of the
Presence Discipline. Nephilim vitae waives the effect of the Ugly Flaw. These Merits are
temporary, with the benefits fading after a chapter of the story.

Nephilim vitae has an unusual effect on the Repulsive Flaw or any Nosferatu. It does not
make the vampire appear more attractive, but does convey an additional die to all
Obfuscate, Subterfuge, and Performance rolls used when attempting to look like someone
else. Again, this benefit fades after a chapter, after which time more Nephilim vitae is
required.

The Seeds of the Garden

“Take unto your lips the chalice. Feel the blood of the Angel coursing through the paltry clay of
your imperfect form. Let it guide you, let it change you.”

— Andreu La Torre, Bloodline of Michael, Clan Toreador

The Children of the Angel started as an almost exclusively Toreador affair and enjoyed a
relatively steady pace of growth, given their pleasurable practices. When word began to
spread of how these Nephilim could alter and beautify the normally static and
unchanging Kindred, many interests were piqued, particularly some of the more
desperate members of Clan Nosferatu. Rumors persist that many members of that clan
who fully embraced the love of the Nephilim have reverted to a more human appearance,
albeit still ugly in comparison to vampires of other clans and the divinely beautiful
Nephilim themselves.

The seeds of this rite lie in the Blood Bond to a true Nephilim, a descendant of Michael.
Imbibing the vitae of a Kindred separated from the Angel by no more than three
Embraces will beautify the drinker, subtly altering their physical appearance to an angelic
form. Their skin softens and takes on a glow, their eyes glisten and imperfections and
blemishes fade. Their teeth become the purest white and gleam in the light, and their
bodies become toned and lean. While this is a poetic way of saying that, essentially, “it
makes you look nicer,” the fact that it can even make the usually monstrous Nosferatu
appear more like they did as mortals is a great attraction, and the clan does its best to
stifle such rumors.

Due to the price of each drink, the Nephilim and their servants keep the secret power of
their vitae hidden from outsiders. Those who submit themselves willingly to the
Nephilim are certain to become little more than adoring slaves in their great plan. It is not
just their faces and bodies that change; they lose all thought of their own personal
pursuits and become almost mindlessly obsessed with pursuing the goals and desires of
their Nephilim overlords. Unlike other Blood Bonds, it seems to be a servitude that
cannot be broken by the mere passage of time and many who have been forcibly separated
from their masters for even years at a time continue to cry out in the night and beg to be
returned to their side, often calling out the name of Michael or Mary.

The thought of their entire clan falling prey to this predation disgusts and terrifies any
Nosferatu who becomes aware of it, though Clan Toreador remain, perhaps not so
strangely, aloof on the matter.

With word of these glorious miracles spreading, the Nephilim have gone from a petty
underground orgy society to a well-established religion in their own right.

The Basilica of the Archangel

The Children of the Angel, despite their chaotic appearance, exist in a strict social
hierarchy that feeds down from Embrace to Embrace. They refer to this as the Basilica,
represented by a segmented drawing of a cathedral’s facade. Occupying the apex of the
Basilica are the true Nephilim themselves, direct descendants of the Archangel separated
from him by no more than three Embraces. Below them are the frescoes and artwork
adorning the Basilica’s frontage, their own childer. Not true Nephilim as they do not carry
the blessing of Michael within their very vitae, nonetheless they still bear his legacy into
the modern nights and the knowledge of the modern world back to the true Nephilim.
Below this stratum stand the pillars of the Basilica, the adherents brought in from outside
of the Blood of Michael. They feature both Toreador converts and those of other clans,
save for the Nosferatu. The lowest members, columns, are the ghouls and mortal servants
of Nephilim. Nosferatu adherents are the foundations of the Basilica, represented by the
steps leading up to it. Their Blood prevents them from ever attaining the true beauty
demanded by the Nephilim. However, they have at least chosen to walk the path of
penance for their great sins against the beauty of the world. They are the foot soldiers,
spies and some of the most firebrand preachers of the Nephilim to outsiders, but within
the cult itself they remain second class members and are often treated no better than
servants or beasts of burden. Only the mortal adherents who attend a temple but have not
been inducted fully into the faith are beneath them; such kine have not yet earned a place
within the Basilica.

All of those mentioned are in a far loftier position than that in which those outside the
grasp of the Nephilim are viewed. While they treat others with a form of kindness and
attempt to attract them into the Temple, those who have taken the blood of the Nephilim
into their unbeating hearts see those who have not as little more than ugly, unworthy
stains on the perfection of the world. If they show no interest in improving themselves,
then they are not even worth sneering at.

Lex Sanctorum Decis Angelorum

Known usually in short form as the Lex Angelorum, the Law of the Angels is the only code
that matters to the Nephilim. It is learned by rote by all members and they can recite its
seven tenets at a whim. They are as follows:

Thou shalt obey the Children of the Angel in all things

Thou shalt not sow discord among thyselves

Thou shalt tolerate not the ugly nor the wicked in the sight of the Nephilim

Thou shalt seek to bring all into the light of the Angel
Thou shalt not compromise the perfection of a Tabernacle or Temple
Thy Angel is thy savior, revere above all the one who brought you into the light

Thou shalt not expose the nature of Angels to the mortal world, lest thee be purged
by the fires of day
Many of the followers of the cult revere these laws even above the Traditions, though
their overseers in the faith do well to keep such talk within their own temples and
domains and out of Elysia.

Places of Worship

The Nephilim, when operating in any city, immediately begin by purchasing a suitable
property which, once they have occupied it, they initially dedicate their time and
resources to converting into a veritable Garden of Eden, fit for the nightly revels of the
Nephilim. They call these locations tabernacles. Once the cult becomes more established,
other properties, often including popular night spots, fall into their hands and take their
places as temples of the faith in turn.

The tabernacle within any city is always the seat of a true Nephilim and always receives
far more attention and spending than any other dwelling the cult operates.
The first and most sacred tabernacle is the one established in Istanbul — still referred to
as Constantinople by most vampires, who hold the old city name sacred due to its
association with the Trinity. The Constantinople tabernacle is said to hold a vial of earth
that soaked up the blood of the Archangel himself. Only Michael’s direct childer are
permitted within, and none are known to be active these nights.

Temples and tabernacles are always renovated and constantly kept clean to an obsessive
degree. When the nightly debauch is concluded, foundation members immediately set to
work preparing the premises for the following night. Column ghouls continue this work
by day and ensure the place remains in pristine condition inside and out. To fail the
inspection of a temple’s curator or the Nephilim inside of a tabernacle could result in a
swift end for the people responsible.

Rites of Pleasure and Perfection

The most outward-facing levels of the Nephilim are designed to draw wary outsiders in to
progressively deeper degrees. On the surface, the cult seems like it wants to help Kindred
to improve themselves. Once a Kindred is deep enough to know better, it is often too late.
Their relationships with others have been severed and replaced with attachments to other
cultists. They fear to lose what progress they have made into the Temple of the Archangel
and are soon addicted to the aloof and distant leaders of the cult via the heady draught of
their ancient vitae.

In the most carnal and secretive circles of the Nephilim organization, where only the
most trusted go, it is said the oldest among the Children of the Angel feed on the blood of
their own followers rather than the ready supply of mortals at their command.

While the Nephilim are legendary among young Kindred for their rites of carnal lust,
many of their temples are also places where instruction in the arts both martial and
aesthetic can take place. Gymnasiums and studios are common properties for cult
members to hold or havens for them to inhabit.

Limited Scope?

The goal of the Nephilim is to enfold all the world in their arms and guide it toward a
shining and glorious future, following the vision of Michael. Some Kindred fear they can
make this happen as more and more young vampires, seeking respite from the crushing
weight of their condition, find solace amid the writhing seas of bodies that often cover the
floors of the cult’s temples. Many others point out that with only so many childer of
Michael to go around, the chances of their members bringing all Kindred into blood
servitude are exceptionally small. Most see them as little more than a slightly troubling
distraction for the young or for desperate Nosferatu seeking to escape some of the terror
invoked each night by their own ravaged faces.
Enemies

The Nephilim have not yet cultivated any true enemies; however, senior members of Clan
Nosferatu are already eyeing the Children of the Angel with great suspicion. Others
whisper in the dark of what they might be able to do if they could get their clawed hands
on some of the Nephilim’s legendary vitae.

Artifacts and Symbology

The symbols of the Nephilim vary wildly. Most feature images of angels or divine beings.
Stained glass windows, statuary and paintings have all been commissioned by the cult’s
members to try to embody the majesty of the Dream, but only the genuine conversion of
the world into that image could satisfy the true Nephilim as a symbol of Michael’s radiant
glory.

The only true image that could be seen to represent the cult is the Basilica, and it is drawn
differently depending on the artist. Many renditions of it exist.

Some of the cult’s members carry a set of small, polished silver knives, which they use to
draw blood from vessels or simply to cleanly cut their clothes off. They believe biting a
victim to feed reveals their snarling, bestial nature, and should be avoided at all costs.

Mortal Adherents

The Nephilim do not welcome mortals into their number; however, they do welcome
them into the outer circles of the cult if only to convert them to their ways before the
Embrace. The idea of living forever as a beautiful and perfect being is appealing to some.

Without fail, mortals targeted by the Children of the Angel for membership are physically
beautiful in the eyes of whichever member identifies them. They are often people
working toward some aspect of physical or artistic perfection. The cult is also extremely
attractive to people who are vain, conceited or consumed with vices of lust and lechery.

This heady cocktail makes for an interesting ride to anyone in the outer circles of the cult.
While some of the adherents seem to have the rara attitude of summer camp counselors
or fitness instructors, others are narcissistic hedonists or even sadists who want nothing
more than to be surrounded by beautiful people.

Nephilim Convictions

Michael’s children focus predominantly on self-elevation and experience, maintaining a

veneer of civility and class despite many of them being egomaniacs or lust-driven
degenerates. Maintaining their Humanity would be a challenge, without Convictions
allowing them to justify some of their behaviors to themselves:
 Always obey Michael’s direct descendants: Michael’s vitae is divine. Never deny the
will of his children; they are your saints.
Do not consort with the hideous: Ugliness has no place in the cult or your existence.
Avoid disfigurements, disease, and ugly behavior. Hideousness is more than skin
deep. There is no beauty in monstrous actions.
Never tolerate the desecration of a thing of beauty: Artifacts, temples, artistic
creations, and so much more require preservation and development. You serve
Michael by protecting these things.
Always cultivate your own beauty: Your appearance and behavior are important as a
standard for the cult and in emulation of the divine founder. You must always strive
to look and appear your best. Let nobody witness any inner ugliness.
Reinvent yourself for every audience: So few vampires exhibit the ability to change
with the times, but you will be the exception. Attending Elysium in the same outfit,
always speaking with the same people, always drinking from the same blood doll, are
all bad behaviors.
Delve into every sensation to expand your awareness: Pleasing or painful,
experiences enlighten us and improve our understanding of the world. Both are
important for empathy.

Nephilim Dreams: Johannesburg

A city of culture and street battles, of integration on one street and apartheid on the next,
of opulent mansions in one quarter and gang-invaded tower blocks in another:
Johannesburg is more than an Anarch domain — it’s a permanent warzone between
Kindred, kine, and other, stranger creatures, and the Second Inquisition have yet to even
touch the surface. In the thick of it, the Nephilim have dreams of making this city a new
bastion of their faith, but it’s an uphill struggle. They view Jo’burg much as they once did
Constantinople: as a place where hundreds of viewpoints can come together in peace and
every philosopher can reach a new state of enlightenment under the beneficent rule of
Michael, or one of his descendants. Their cause is in vain, however, and their efforts may
destroy the cult.

Under the leadership of the Toreador named Pakourianis, sometimes titled “the Dove,”
the city’s Nephilim guide the “cooperation zone” (what constitutes an Elysium in this
domain) to different spots in the domain each fortnight. Under his governance, the
cooperation zone exists to highlight the city’s beauty, and that of the vampires within it,
when forced to inhabit parts of a domain and interact with individuals they’d barely ever
stop to observe otherwise. On one night the Nephilim might set up a cooperation zone on
Constitution Hill, and on the next occupy the Mandela Museum or the shanties in Soweto.
To entice other vampires, the cult makes it clear everything in the cooperation zone is to
be sampled freely, whether in the form of art or sustenance. The half-dozen Nephilim in
Johannesburg keep the peace at these gatherings, pushing the vampire attendees to
appreciate the world around them and the company they’re keeping.
Pakourianis wants to shepherd the city’s Kindred, watch them, learn from them, and
from their assorted views and disagreements form a philosophy that will make
Johannesburg a domain of mixed but harmonious viewpoints. When blended together,
with some edges shaved off and a little bit of Michael’s Dream added to the mix, he and the
rest of the cult believe they can create a new utopia for Kindred in South Africa, and a
possible template for further domains. The view is a grand one, despite the Dove’s
prejudices against all who are, to his eyes, ugly in personality or features, and his
consideration that they are some of the “edges” in need of shaving.

Just as Setites and infernalists helped bring down Michael’s Constantinople, Pakourianis’
Johannesburg has saboteurs chipping away at his grand plan. Due to Pakourianis’ status
as a direct childe of Michael, if he fails, the entire faith may fall with him. That is of no
concern to the Church of Caine, however, as the Gnostics in Jo’burg consider
Pakourianis’ cult a foul heresy. They take exception to the view of Michael as keeper of
the Trinity, savior, or guiding light for Kindred. There should only be one angel in their
view, and that angel is Caine. Led by a priest named Jabulani, the Gnostics aim to poison
other Kindred against Pakourianis, citing his sire’s infamous fall, the Dove’s own
predilections for feeding from other Kindred, and stoking the existing fires of conflict
that Pakourianis just keeps below the surface. The Gnostics aren’t above enlisting mortals
to disrupt cooperation zones so the Nephilim lose all trust.

Perspectives

Anarchs: Villains. Michael believed all Kindred must be welcome in a domain for true
enlightenment to ever exist, but I make exception for these saboteurs. They know only how
to destroy.

Camarilla: They have a strong sense of what can be achieved with application and
dedication to a cause. I just wish they had a sense of what it is to actually experience the
world.

Clan Nosferatu: Our gifts could lessen their disastrous curse, if they would but listen to
Michael’s words. Malachite was of their clan, do not forget, so the Nosferatu may make
firm disciples yet.

Clan Toreador: If there truly is a clan not cursed but blessed, it is the Toreador. To share
the vitae of Michael and become ever-more enthralled by the beauty that exists and might
yet exist in the world is a true blessing.

Hecata: Their morbid fascinations blind them to the beauty that exists in every waking
step we take through the night. Why focus on the end when the present can be so much like
heaven?

The One True Way

A pamphlet occasionally appears in haven letterboxes, trampled on the street outside
Elysium, or folded between two books in a Tremere chantry. This pamphlet, printed like a
flyer for a Christian group meeting that invites its readers to “join and share over drinks
and honesty to discuss Golconda,” is titled “The One True Way,” and has been banned in
domains far and wide for what Princes perceive as a Masquerade risk, and others consider
an obvious trap designed to lure vampires into a cult. In this respect, the word “cult” is
used with all negative connotations.

Perhaps due to its negative reputation, vampires seek it out. If it’s caused such a stir, there
must be some validity to its words, right? Kindred track down the community centers,
scout huts, and church halls advertised in the pamphlets and find themselves in the
company of other interested vampires, creating a sense of camaraderie. After a brief wait,
a speaker emerges and talks at length about the one true way to Golconda, the steps one
must take to reach the enlightened state, and after the speech — sometimes accompanied
by PowerPoint presentations and team building activities — attendees are invited to
share, without judgment, activities they’ve pursued that cause them shame or horror.
The speaker then gives guidance from the certified one true way, which promises to help
them in the future. The group disperses and most Kindred never return. Some, however,
do. They buy in. They take the first step on the one true way to Golconda.

Current Goals

The One True Way is a Golconda cult established by a mysterious vampire going by the
title “Master of Ravens,” not that many of the cult’s adherents ever encounter him. He
might show up to impart wisdom directly if a powerful cult member experiences second
thoughts, or to rally followers against an enemy that wishes to destroy the cult, but for
the most part he works in the background.

The vampires who give themselves fully to this cult eventually find the group meetings
are just the first step on a program. They then lead their own sessions, gathering secrets
from confessing, troubled Kindred, and use them to pursue the cult’s ends. The Master of
Ravens expects the cult leaders to use these disclosures to elevate their own status too,
however, as he uses the cult’s accumulated knowledge against his own ancient enemies,
including at least one Antediluvian.

Meanwhile, the One True Way’s veracity is debatable. Longterm cultists exhibit a changed
persona, but this could be learned behavior as easily as it might be a radical change based
on Golconda. These upper level cultists, commonly titled “Ones,” appear to gain
impressive control over their Beasts, extending to their direct communion with the
internal, hungry voice, but some Kindred report the cultists allow their Beasts to take
over in unmatched displays of violence and sadism. The Ones explain the Beast cannot be
snuffed, only silenced for a time, and that they have learned how to release it at
opportune moments. It so happens these opportune times always occur around the cult’s
most vehement enemies.
 The Orphans of Enoch
“We come from the First City to build the First City.”

— The Gardener, First Among the Lost

Gehenna is here. The Orphans of Enoch will do everything they can to see it burn away
this world so another can stand in its place. They have seen and heard of the gardens that
came and went. They ardently believe that only the worthy deserve to enter the world to
come. And who is more worthy than those who have seen the signs? They have wandered
lands beyond the veil of death, weathered storms of howling glass, and survived
persecution from those they once considered fellows. The Orphans of Enoch wish
nothing more than to see the end of the world because they are confident that a better one
lays just beyond it. A garden they will see grow once more. A city they will see rebuilt
anew. The last step is to ensure that the world adheres to its right and proper path.

The Lost Wander No More

Those aware of the Orphans of Enoch’s existence aren’t quite sure where in the world they
came from or how they originated. Most agree they formed when the Red Star shone in
the night sky to those that could see it, during the events that more superstitious Kindred
call the Week of Nightmares. They appeared in visions of Gehenna, all over the world,
each on a personal pilgrimage, engaging no one and disturbing nothing. In the chaos that
reigned after the turn of the millennium, the Orphans were able to slip silently and easily
in and out of domains, pulled toward a destination, guided by the gravity of the crimson
star called Wormwood.

If some Kindred was aware of and tracking such things, they would note that when the
Red Star faded from the sky, every Orphan ceased their travels and made their haven
wherever they found themselves. If you asked an Orphan about the event, they would tell
you that this is where they would find a sign of the Final Nights, one that must be
protected. That this is where the city would begin. For obvious reasons, some Orphans
cling to this belief more strongly than others (especially when multiple Orphans come
into conflict of belief), but it’s rarely a cause they drop entirely.

Once entrenched in their domain, these Kindred, known as the Orphans Lost, or Lost,
began to take root. Under the cover of the chaos of the time, they wended their way into
the fabric of the areas in which they found themselves. Slowly, methodically, they used
their considerable powers of the Blood to solve problems for the local Kindred, if there
were any, racking up a web of boons. Should it be a more remote area with no Cainite
population, then each began to select the finest mortals available to serve as ghouls to act
on their behalf. Entrenching themselves, hiding behind a web of favors and proxies, they
burrowed deeper. The Lost always hide, always plan. They have no need for fame or
status. Knowledge is what they crave. They know the end is upon all, so what need have
they for more?
Even the Orphans Found, the Kindred disciples of the Lost who come to them out of a
desperate need for belonging, insight, or through a hatred of the world around them,
have a hard time gaining an audience and usually communicate through frighteningly
loyal ghoul intermediaries after their initiation. What the Found know is that each Lost
claims to be old, and each one carries the dry, musty scent of a tomb. They are frightening
and awesome, in the old sense of the word: as daunting as they are amazing.

The Lost discourage the Found from asking about where the Lost originated. The Lost
usually tell them that “we come from the First City to build the First City” if they ask.
Those bold enough to press have returned to their fellows with horrific tales of
experiencing panicked outbursts, blinding rage, or a total emotional shut down. Some
Found have claimed Lost have screamed of fire and light and a horrible, howling wind.
Found familiar with such things liken it to C-PTSD and lasting trauma. This information
comes from Found who have been fortunate enough to return from asking such questions
at all.

Protect the End

The Orphans are a secretive order obsessed with the signs and portents of Gehenna. They
are voracious readers of every scrap of lore they can get their hands on, gluttons for any
story or prophecy that speaks about the End of Days, and lovers of doomsayers. Most
Orphans, and certainly the Lost, possess copies or parts of the Book of Nod, the
Revelations of the Dark Mother, the Erciyes Fragments, and other heretical and forbidden
texts. They preserve anything that details how things might end so that they can protect
and defend that knowledge.

Orphans believe that everything happens in cycles, that nothing ever truly dies, and that
everything passes from one state to the next: plants, animals, souls, cities, ages. To hear a
Lost speak of it in the rare meeting with a Found cell, it sounds like they know it. It
sounds like they’ve seen it.

Most Found are deep believers that Gehenna is happening now. Gehenna is a process, a
cycle. It does not happen in an instant. For the Orphans, they are living in a holy time.

Orphans see themselves as protectors of the end whose task is to subtly and slowly stretch
out their influence to make sure that the end comes to pass. As the caretakers of Gehenna,
they will be blessed to stand tall when the next cycle begins. The Lost purport the First
City has been and will come again. It’s up to them and to the Found to ensure its arrival.

Orphans Lost and Orphans Found

The Orphans of Enoch live in cities all over the world. The Lost, whose numbers are few,
are widely dispersed. Not all of them survived when the force that drove them called
them to stop. Some were in transit between domains. Some could not handle what befell
them before and died by suicide. Others are still out there in torpor, waiting for someone
to dig them up. There is even rumor of one that lies in the hold of a shipping barge,
having ended up there when the Red Star faded.

The Lost are careful with whom they approach. They are likely to call upon the more
mythically inclined members of Anarch and Camarilla communities to become Orphans
Found. Many cells count young Tremere and Malkavians as members, though almost
anyone with an interest in or understanding of prophecy and portent is welcome — save,
strangely, any clan in possession of necromantic arts. The Lost avoid Lasombra and
Hecata. “We no longer grow our flowers in grave dirt,” they say. Some rare Found who
have slowly managed to build closer relationship to the Lost swear that the Lost are
nervous or saddened around those touched by Oblivion but couldn’t tell you what
precisely left them with that impression or why that might be the case.

The Lost constantly seek signs of or contributors to Gehenna, which is why they turn to
the Found, who act as the Lost’s agents around the world. Found are sworn to secrecy,
Blood Bound and trusted with the secret of the existence of the Lost. They command the
Found to become part of the fabric of the city to ensure that they are properly positioned
to anticipate how Gehenna will manifest there and that they have every advantage
available to succeed in manifesting the end.

Lost watch potential Found for a very long time, like how a careful sire selects a childe. A
cell of Orphans never numbers more than four, and four is a rare occurrence. Lost do
their research. They are used to interpreting prophecy and bear the weight of caretaking
Gehenna itself. Finding one who shares their predilections for portents and power is
child’s play. The Lost then reach out to those who share their zeal through any means that
suit them best: a letter by the bedside, a clandestine and “chance” meeting in an old,
familiar location, or simply appearing outside of the recruit’s haven.

Recruitment is deeply personal. A Lost, while distant, cares for the Found in their charge.
The Lost do everything they can to aid the Found in their purpose, providing the Found
has earned and deserves the assistance. They never spoil Found, but knowledge earned,
be it a copy of an obscure text or guidance in a Discipline, is never withheld.

Build the City

Found are to go out into the city and become a part of it. They seek the sign the Lost
knows is there. Depending on where the Orphans are located, this could be a woman with
a crescent-shaped birth mark, texts or information detailing catastrophes that have
followed red stars shining in the sky, the resting place of an Antediluvian, or portents
such as an overabundance of thin-bloods in a city. They search for anything that may tie
back to one of several Gehenna prophecies that exist, some of which only the Lost have
knowledge of, brought with them from wherever they hail.

Each order of Orphans sees it as their sacred duty to find one of the signs or causes of
Gehenna and bring it to fruition. This takes careful planning and organization and
analysis of information, especially if one has an overzealous Found in one’s care.
Should a Found hit on an event or mystery of note, the Lost verifies it and takes action to
protect it. If the Lost deems it significant, the Lost will pass the information onto the first
of the Lost, one called the Gardener.

Rumors among the Found is that the Gardener was the one who led the Lost away from
whatever malice the Lost fled. The Gardener is a mythical figure even among the Lost
themselves, who claim to know her from when they walked on cobblestones of memory.
According to cult legend, the Gardener always knows when one of the Orphans has found
something significant, for that’s when she is said to appear and call the Orphans to her.
Any vampire would be hard-pressed to find another who has seen the Gardener in recent
memory, however. This makes her a popular figure in cult stories.

These meetings are rumored to be comfortable, held in green spaces, topiaries, and the
like. Stories describe the Gardener as a small woman with strong, calloused hands and
short, dirty fingernails dressed as a modern gardener in sturdy brown pants, a stained
canvas apron with dusty leather gloves tucked in the front pocket, a practical cotton shirt,
and a wide-brimmed straw hat with a bright ribbon tied around it.

The Orphans say the Gardener listens to all the information the Orphans have gathered,
or that she interviews the subject of interest. Then she decides if what they describe is a
true sign of the end. Finally, she dictates any further action the Orphans need to take.
This could be a range of things, such as protecting or destroying a certain individual,
stealing a book or artifacts from a local museum, educating the local thin-bloods, or
proliferating childer.

Domains that unknowingly harbor an order of Orphans usually see a spike in crime and
strange events as the Orphans carry out their research and obey Gardener’s instructions
without knowing why.

Convictions of the Orphans

Never turn away from a chance at prophecy: Find those who know it is the end and
that Gehenna is real and alive. Those that feel that tension in their heart are worthy
to stand safe in the First City. Find them, for they are a brick in the road to Enoch.

Never abandon your territory: A Lost must not abandon their place of landing. They
must interpret the signs. Bind the Orphans Found to act as your agents. Bind them in
ritual and Blood. Protect them, for they are your eyes, ears, and hands.

Never consider yourself lesser than other Kindred: All the Orphans, Lost and
Found, have been chosen. Through fire, destruction, and tribulation, we were born
and cast to the winds. Surviving and holding nothing back made us worthy. Should
we prove unworthy, then our bones shall become the mortar of the Enoch to come,
the Enoch that is, and the Enoch that has been.
Always fulfill the prophecies of Gehenna: This world will fall. We come from the
First City to build the First City. We hold in our dead hearts the knowledge of what is
to come. Remove any impediments to Gehenna’s completion. Gehenna will happen.
Gehenna is happening. It is inevitable. Do not seek to hasten it; simply ensure it.
Perspectives

Anarchs: It is easiest to plant a seed in an unattended field. Seek out those who will listen.
Picking through the remains of the Pyramid, for example, is a fine way to gather signs.
Camarilla: Hide well, for they have never been more paranoid than they are these nights,
ever seeking to uproot that which they fear. And they fear most that which they deny most
fervently.
The Cult of Shalim: They hear the whispers of the Abyss. It wants to keep Enoch for its
own. The shadowlings will do all they can to stop us, to prevent Gehenna, to stop the world
to come. They will try to stop us and not even know why.
The Hecata: They have discovered a name long buried and unearthed again, whispered to
them by one who knows us. They are no longer fit to walk the streets of the First City. Avoid
them, Orphans, for they may see us as something we no longer are.
The Kine: Speak to the wise among them. The living have unique perspectives. Each faith
has a version of Gehenna. Glean from them what you are able and save those you can to
meet them again in the age to come.

The Penny Dining Club

“I tell you, it was so smoky, with these incredible umami undertones. It almost tasted… spicy? I
know you don’t really get spicy blood, like with capsaicin, but there was this little jolt at the end
that I really can’t describe any other way. It was the best thing I’ve tasted since my Embrace,
one hundred percent. Look, I know some of the things they do are a bit fucked up, but you have
to come with me to the next dinner. There’s nothing else like it. I’m even thinking of applying for
membership.”

— Harold Horsley-Bridger, budding gourmet

At the dawn of the 20th century, a coterie of aging vampires grew bored. Too young and
unmotivated to hold real power, yet too old and jaded to enjoy human company, they
yearned to make their mark without entering dangerous Camarilla politics. Two
members of the coterie were taking a stint at Oxford, catching up on the latest
developments, and found their way into the Bullingdon Club, a private organization of
rich, well-connected young men who met over expensive, outlandish dinners. It all
seemed like great fun. Inspired, the coterie formed the Penny Dining Club.

A Gourmet Experience
The Penny Dining Club hosts twice-annual dinners for members and their guests. One of
their founding members hosts one event at the group’s clubhouse in Oxford, UK, while
another member hosts the year’s second event abroad. Hosting a dinner is a great honor,
and they are scheduled well in advance to allow the host to secure space, get permission
for the local Prince (if the Prince themself is not hosting), and plan the menu.

Animals serve as appetizers, the more exotic the better. Hosts choose these for spectacle
rather than taste, and few guests will have more than a polite sip. Past dinners have
featured endangered big cats, gorillas, rhinos, bite-sized hummingbirds raised from egg
on a diet of blood and honey, white stags, plump leeches, and a live orca in the
underground swimming pool of the host’s mansion. Finding something interesting to
serve before the main meal has become harder and harder over the decades, and an
inventive idea is part of any successful dinner proposal. A recent trend is to acquire
famous animals featured in movies or popular in local zoos, but the risk this behavior
poses to the Masquerade has left older members frowning.

While the guests appreciate the tone, beauty, and spectacle of dinner’s trappings, the
main course is what determines its success. The official mission of the Penny Dining Club
is to advance vampiric culinary arts through the cultivation, study, and appreciation of
unique blood. The Club expects a host to procure enough vessels with intense
temperaments to feed every attendee, the bare minimum for a Penny Dining soiree. To
impress, hosts feature something rarer. Some club members have experimented with
making blood hold two Resonances at once, training a vessel for months or years until
they can feel anger and sadness, rapture and sloth, in perfect harmony. Stable Dyscrasia
are popular too, found and preserved or carefully cultivated. Club members often keep
contacts among the Circulatory System, enabling the transfer of delicacies from far and
wide. In an effort to surprise and entertain, main courses have featured blood with
unusual physical properties as well: vessels with rare blood types like Rhnull, or unusual
diseases that make their veins run thick and sweet, or thin and bitter.

The club develops and teaches specialized Blood Sorcery rituals to increase the supply of
rare blood, but it’s still impossible to serve everyone from a single unique vessel. Portions
are first given to special guests, like the local Prince or other authorities, and to senior
club members. If the vessel is still alive and well, the host offers additional portions as
prizes for parlor games, door prizes, and other party pastimes, or by lottery. The main
course is never expected to survive the night, making the club dinner the only time their
blood will be available.

The dessert course, so to speak, is the most controversial: club members are encouraged
to sample each other’s Blood. This taboo act is performed with the utmost concern for
safety, with clear-headed chaperones standing by to ensure that no one gets carried away.
Ledgers are kept of who has tasted whom, and when, to avoid unwanted Blood Bonds,
though this precaution is unnecessary if vitae has been outside the vein for longer than a
minute, as it loses Bonding and Embracing properties. The club’s precautions serve to
position the act as an approachable way to experience the taboo without any long-term
side-effects. It also serves to creates social bonds between members, not by the
inescapable seal of the Blood, but by the camaraderie of flirting with danger.
As the night goes on and less-invested members say their goodbyes, mutual feeding grows
more intense. Delicate bites are replaced by cutting, ripping, and tearing. Experienced
members play with whips and blades, even fire, toying with the destruction of their
willing Kindred prey. Chaperons still stand watch, but by the early morning hours, the
decadent dinner party has devolved into a bacchanal of pain, the only hint ever offered to
outsiders about the Penny Dining Club’s true purpose.

The Taste of Pain

All-member dinners haven’t been the club’s true purpose in ages; the founders grew bored
with exotic animals and mixed humors after the first few decades. Dinners keep the club
in the good graces of the Camarilla community, but senior members see them largely as
recruiting events for the real Penny Dining Club, the inner circle.

Senior member events aren’t publicized or run on an annual schedule. In fact, junior
members often don’t realize that senior-member-only events exist beyond the occasional
planning committee luncheon and whatever the founders get up to when they meet up as
a coterie of old friends. There are no appetizers or themes, and the venue is wherever they
can find that is secure and accessible. Only one dish is served, the most exquisite dish of
all: the pain and suffering of other vampires.

Through Blood Sorcery, the Penny Dining Club has discovered a way to tap into the
connection that the Kindred have with selected kine (their Touchstones, though
vampires don’t use the term). They found straining and destroying that bond to be an
exquisite form of psychological torture. Of course, publicizing your fondness for
kidnapping and eating the mortals whom other vampires hold most dear is not a good
way to stay in the community’s good graces; hence the need for absolute secrecy. The
members of the original coterie screen potential inner circle diners, often for decades, for
their devotion to the culinary arts and to the Penny Dining Club above all other loyalties.
To further ensure compliance, the club targets the mortal associates of the Kindred elite
whenever they’re initiating new senior members, and collects evidence of that member’s
involvement in the mortal’s torment or death; nowadays, this takes the form of filming
the murder. The founders keep copies of these snuff films to serve as blackmail, though
it’s seldom necessary to flex that unsavory muscle. The senior members and founders are
a tight-knit group of friends and political allies, and for one of them to leave the club
would mean breaking ties with everyone whom they hold dear.

Of course, there’s a more direct way to consume the Blood and pain of the Kindred. The
founders hold diablerie as the ultimate indulgence, the soul of a vampire a delicacy
without equal. Still, the act is dangerous; it can overwhelm even an experienced
gourmand, and discovery could oust the entire club from polite Kindred society. By club
rules, no member is allowed to commit diablerie more than once a decade, and all three
remaining founders must give their approval before anyone drains a vampire of the 11th
generation or lower, a club member of any standing, or the childe of a senior member or
founder. Recently, there’s been some discussion of allowing the draining of thin-blooded
more often; although they aren’t as toothsome, feeding on them would help to cull the
population, and the Camarilla is less likely to mind if a club member gets caught in the act.

The Founders

Five vampires founded the Penny Dining Club, three of whom remain. One was killed
after running afoul of a Prince while traveling abroad, while the other deceased member
met his end after a disagreement about new club policies.

Herbert Witherite is the current Club President, a role that changes hands between the
founders every few decades. He’s a large, affable man with both feet planted squarely in
the past, largely responsible for keeping women, non-binary people, and “foreign types”
out of the club. He’s the least gourmet-minded of the founders, more interested in power
and camaraderie than advancing Kindred culinary understanding.

Wilfred Corbett is the current Treasurer, and the club’s truest believer. He’s happy to wax
poetic about the nuances of blood, Resonance, and taste to any member who will listen,
and loathes the necessity of keeping senior club activities secret. He’s also the most
modern-minded of the founders, keeping up with current events and social movements
among both Kindred and kine, with an eye to improving club reach and practices.

Werner Milgram hasn’t been seen in public for the better part of a year, due to a recent
act of diablerie. He’s the Warlock behind the club’s specialized Rituals, and loves nothing
better than performing them for his peers. Since the fall of the Pyramid he’s been in some
demand as a mentor, and he keeps his valuable occult library in the Club’s home in Oxford.

The Diners

The club boasts members all around the world, mostly in Great Britain and the
Commonwealth. Official members are predominantly white and exclusively male, though
Kindred who are not men are welcome to attend dinners as guests if they can secure an
invitation. The Penny Dining Club is not officially associated with the Camarilla, but
Anarchs are not welcome as members or guests, and Autarkis are seldom invited. In
practice, dinners are hosted by Princes and Primogen, held in Elysia (if desserts are
approved) or in the cult’s preferred restaurant (if not), and Camarilla politics are always a
popular topic of conversation.

Senior members rarely hold official positions in Camarilla courts, as club activities
require too much time and travel for them to hold onto power in that way. Many are still
respected elders or ancillae who command the attention of their local Prince, thanks to
their social capital and club connections. Masters of soft diplomacy, senior members have
influenced intercity politics for decades, choosing dinner locations and curating guest
lists to suit their own agendas. The Penny Dining Club is far from large enough to have a
senior member in every Camarilla city, but a few cities host two or three, clustered
together as close friends and allies.
Culinary Invention

The founders and senior members have devised a number of specialized thaumaturgical
rituals in pursuit of culinary enrichment. Officially, they are only to be taught to
members, but members have shared Enrich the Blood with outsiders on several occasions,
leading to its occasional use outside of club activities.

Perspectives

Anarchs: They’re not all uncouth simpletons, but I’ll be damned if one of them puts their
elbows on my table..
Camarilla: The Camarilla own the keys to the finest establishments, have access to the
richest vessels, and are on board with keeping our activities hush-hush. I wholeheartedly
approve.
The Nagaraja: I would dearly love to meet one of these gourmands. The tales they might
tell of meals forever denied to us by virtue of our sensitive stomachs! We could each share
so much.

The Praesidium
“Through the mastery of the Blood, we, though dead, have conquered death.”

— from the correspondence of Meerlinda

To those outside the walls of Tremere chantries, the Warlocks seem like an ant colony, all
members busying away collectively, away from the prying eyes of other Kindred. Indeed,
members of the Praesidium would likely support the notion of the House and clan of
Tremere as the image of organizational perfection at its height, but even their own role as
the soldier ants within that structure.

They are the defenders of Tremere’s legacy. They are a cult dedicated to the memory of
Clan Tremere, viewing in their founder and their clan structure the perfect form of
undeath.

Ave Pyramidem

The creation of the Praesidium is a direct retort to the destruction of the Council of Seven
and the attack on the Prime Chantry. Rallying around the notion of “never again,” the
Praepositors are an ultra-reactionary, militant front against those who war with the clan,
including those Tremere they appraise as irredeemable. These magi procure boons and
assets for themselves as mercenaries from needy Camarilla domains. The organization
has even taken upon themselves the responsibility of “re-educating” those who take a
liberal stance on Embracing those whom they deem unworthy.

The Praesidium view the Clan Tremere of the 20th century and prior as an ideal state, and
aspire to emulate the clan prior to its joining the Camarilla, where they could experiment
freely, make temporary pacts to organize defenses for themselves, and spend time
building up their own forces of Blood Sorcery-forged bodyguards and shock troops. Those
Tremere who are aware of them in these nights often refuse to speak on the group, and
that’s how the Praesidium likes it.

These opportunistic Kindred tithe to their local chantries to maintain their standing with
local clan leaders and expect those resources to be used to promote the standing and
station of the Tremere within a domain. They also work to protect the clan, as the pain of
losing their leadership, either by destruction at the hands of the Inquisition or via the
Beckoning, will burn forever in their minds. They boast that no Chantry defended by
their cult has ever fallen, and many of their members ruminate on what might have been
had they been privileged with the defense of the Prime Chantry.

In Camarilla courts, the Praesidium works to present themselves as a superior option to

the Banu Haqim. They accept blood contracts, monetary resources, boons, or other
exchanges for protective work, occult consultation, or general thaumaturgical violence.
Praesidium market themselves as an expert security detail for other Camarilla members
against the scourge of mortal Inquisitors and the Anarch rebellion. These Warlocks
secretly work to undermine the Houses of Ipissimus and Carna, and anyone else who
stands in the way of rebuilding the Pyramid to an image other than that laid out by
Tremere when the House and clan was first founded. Or, at least, their interpretation of
that image.

Highly versed in blood magic, the members of this group use the old grips, signals, and
language that House and clan used before the fall of Prime Chantry. They also have made
changes to their nomenclature as well. They greet each other saying, “Praesidium
Victoria.” They use grip hand signs with one another. While there are most definitely
echoes of fraternal orders in their ritual practices, they are not exclusively male and
accept all candidates whom they deem worthy from within the ranks of the clan.

Cornerstones of the Apex

The Praesidium’s dogma positions its membership as the stones sitting atop the lower
echelons of the Pyramid, propping up the very top of the structure. Without them, the
proud apex would be flat and uninspiring. Certainly, the foundations and base of the
Pyramid do well to support them in their work, but it is they who enable the clan to
achieve greatness.

In keeping with this rigid structure, the cult itself is highly organized in a military style
rank system. They are led by Praesitor Bashar Wellig, one of the grandchilder of the
legendary Tremere Meerlinda. It is Wellig who circulates the pronouncements and
literature among the cells of the cult located in chantries across the globe from their
headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky.

Below the Praesitor sit the Praetorians, headed up by Praetorian Primus Dilyana
Sandelgado. Her role is to command important operations, such as the search for
Meerlinda and other members of the Council of Seven, who the cult believes may be in
hiding, in torpor, or in the hands of the Second Inquisition. If a Praetorian is present in
any area, they are in direct command of the cult’s forces; however, they tend to remain
distant and oversee operations in a wide area rather than micromanage individual cells.

Prefects are those members of the cult placed in control of a local operation. Their leaders
task them with the identification and recruitment of new members and with keeping
those within the cult in line with its structure.

Beneath the Prefects are the rank and file, though even the rawest recruit to the
Praesidium is considered by their peers to be of high standing compared to the
uninitiated.

Ave Ordinem

The Praesidium excels at selling their services to their clanmates, and even vampires
outside the Tremere. If they’re to present themselves as the best and most efficient of Clan
Tremere, they must act like it. The cult encourages recruitment from ex-military, police,
bodyguards, and security teams. As well as those given the Embrace by their membership,
the Praesidium monitors the Chantries they protect for potential recruits from within the
Tremere. Of particular interest to them are Kindred who have held the office of Sheriff,
Hound, Alastor, and Scourge, or assisted another Kindred working in those positions.

The cult is strongest within the American Southern states, Midwest, and Eastern
seaboard. They find a resounding need for their work within former Sabbat territory,
with members of both the Camarilla and Anarch Movement contracting out robust
security details. While they prioritize Camarilla contracts, the cult is not above taking on
bodyguard duty for Anarch rebels if the price is right. This is especially true when the
Praesidium can use their position to undermine Carna or Ipsissimus.

Cedant Classes Sanguini

The cult has sent agents to inspect and catalogue the ruins of the Prime Chantry and
locate any survivors. They hope to find out the fates of the members of the Council of
Seven. Their current theory is that only one council member needed to die to create such
a thaumaturgical backlash within the Warlocks’ blood. If they were able to reconvene the
Council and replace the fallen member, preferably with one of their own, they believe
their clanmates would quickly fall in line and return to the safety of the cup.
The cult is particularly interested in reports of Meerlinda’s whereabouts, as she’s their
preferred choice to lead the clan despite their devotion to the historic clan structure. The
Praesidium has gathered enough information to track the elder to one of three locations.
Meerlinda is resting, or being held, somewhere in Rome, Moscow, or Krakow. With the
elder’s proficiency in Blood Sorcery, the cult suspects she is either toying with her captors
to learn more about their abilities and their understanding of the vampiric condition, or
she has entered torpor of her own volition. The Praesidium has launched preliminary
missions to scout the areas they believe she may be.

The cult also conducts exploratory missions into former Sabbat territory to try to liberate
any lost or stolen occult knowledge from House Goratrix before they flipped to the
Camarilla. They have already made a handful of expeditions into Atlanta and discovered
the abandoned Ponce de Leon Avenue Chantry. Though sacked, the group did find
thaumaturgical materials pertaining to control of weather patterns in the building.
Concerningly, they also found Sabbat propaganda in and around the building. The agents
documented continued references to “Seven Fires,” depictions of three-eyed worms, and
crucified shadow figures and brought them back to Louisville to decipher. The cult plans
to establish a foothold within the Ponce de Leon Avenue Chantry when the materials
needed to do so become accessible.

Praesidium Convictions

The leadership of the cult drills four key tenets into their followers.

Never work against the Pyramid hierarchy: The key to the Praesidium is to bring a
return to the order and perfection of Clan Tremere before the chaos of the modern
nights. Any who stand in the way of that order have forfeited their right to call
themselves magi and should be destroyed.

Always preserve the order of the domain: The strong structure of the Pyramid is at
its best when it reflects outward into the surrounding society. The Praesidium must
remind the Camarilla of the harmony and security that can be brought about by
allowing its members to monitor and secure Camarilla domains. If other sects or
authorities wish to benefit from that order, they too may enjoy it, so long as they
contribute to the rebuilding of the cult and clan.
Always retain the secrets of the clan: In their scramble to ensure their own petty
survival, the faithless members of Houses Carna, Ipsissimus, and Goratrix have
bargained away sacred knowledge from within the vaults of the elders of our clan.
Any such knowledge, artifacts, or secrets must be returned to the ownership of the
Pyramid. Those responsible for their losses must be publicly destroyed, as an
example to all.

Your body is a weapon to be honed: The cult’s power is the strength of its members.
They are not only scholars; they are also soldiers who guard the walls within which
the scholars study. The Praesidium encourages its members to cultivate exercise and
combat regimens, despite their undead state.
Perspectives

Anarchs: They have their freedom, but what do they do with it? Anarchs are wastrels, ill-
suited to study or mastery of worthwhile disciplines like swordsmanship, blood magic, or
meditation. They might enjoy their loose leash, but they only spend their time chasing
their own tails.
Camarilla: Our ancestors helped form this sect. It remains one of the grandest structures
of our kind, outlasting all attempts at eroding its power.

House Carna: They defy expectation, as these novices, witches, and sorcerers (which is
what they are, in my view) appear to thrive without the rigidity of House Tremere. Do they
have a benevolent patron, perhaps?

House Ipsissimus: A shame on the clan. They parody ignorant mortal rituals aped from
some Crowley type or other. Sometimes they create a flash of light, but more often they sit
alone in the dark, trying to remember the light switch’s location.

House Tremere: Our parents, our kin, our companions, our mentors, and our wards. It’s
our responsibility to follow them and protect them. They are more important than any
other Kindred walking or torpid. We must return them to their former glory.

The Servitors of Irad

According to Noddist history, Irad was the most bloodthirsty warmonger of his time, his
prowess on the battlefield and in commanding men earning the respect of the first
murderer, and Caine’s Embrace. Irad joined the ranks of the Second Generation and led
Caine’s armies for an unrecorded number of centuries, always loyal to his sire and kin, as
long as the battlefield could slake his unquenchable thirst.

Something changed in Irad when the Antediluvians rebelled against the Second
Generation, however, with the handful of accounts from vampires who claim to
remember the war agreeing Irad turned his armies to oppose Enoch, Zillah, and a
controversially vague number of other Second Generation vampires. His motives for
doing so are unclear to this night, though some posit he felt the Third Generation could
bring him the blood he so craved in greater quantities than his sire and siblings, while
others believe Caine snubbed him as nothing more than a killer, goading Irad into
showing him what a killer he could be.

Whatever the case, Irad wasn’t exempt from the Third Generation’s attack on the Second,
though some believe he fell last, his denouement coming as a surprise after everything
he’d sacrificed for them.

The cult that emerged in the millennia that followed openly claims to serve the will of
Antediluvians, which strikes Cainite scholars as odd, given their epithet as “Servitors of
Irad.” The cultists respond that Irad is emblematic of all blood shed in glorious battle,
crimes of passion, and subtle assassinations. The individual matters less than their
service to the true warmongers — the Antediluvians — and just as Irad served them to
drench the planet in blood, the Servitors shall do the same.

Current Goals

The Servitors of Irad have ever waxed and waned in power and popularity, drawing
Kindred who see themselves as divine killers or who lack purpose beyond destruction.
During times of great war between the kine, the Servitors emerge to ride the tide of battle
and drive increasing numbers of mortals into the jaws of death. During times of peace,
they attempt to provoke war or needle vampires into territorial disputes, sectarian
conflicts, or religious crusades. They are ever on the lookout for the grandest buffet,
which inevitably follows chaos and battle.

The Gehenna Crusade has revitalized the Servitors of Irad, who join the fight from every
conceivable position, whether as manipulators pushing political buttons or as warriors in
the field. The more philosophical branch of the cult wishes to consume a host of
methuselahs while summoning their Antediluvian masters. The more politically
motivated Servitors want to deal a grievous blow to the Sabbat, who they feel are still
rank amateurs at war when compared to the clan founders.

For obvious reasons, Servitors of Irad rarely declare their presence or openly recruit in
peaceful domains, though with the Sabbat’s absence in many of its former domains, they
look to propel the Camarilla and Anarchs into a fresh conflict absent for so many
centuries.

The Shepherds of Ur-Shulgi

"Ur-Shulgi teaches us to feel no fear. If we surrender ourselves to him, he will cleanse us and
bring us at last to his mountain."

— Amal Nassif, Herald to Ur-Shulgi

Ur-Shulgi is a fourth-generation methuselah of immense power, who, according to some,

is the greatest sorcerer who ever existed. At the time of the destruction of the Second City,
he followed Haqim, his sire, to Alamut. At some point at least 1800 years ago, he entered
torpor. He slumbered through the rise of the Tremere and the Hecata. He slumbered
while the Prophet Mohammed was born and the Archangel Gabriel dictated the Quran.
He slumbered before Christianity became a major force in the world. The Jews, of course,
existed, but to Ur-Shulgi, their faith was as nothing beside the Laws of Haqim.

Ur-Shulgi awoke toward the end of the 20th century. He spent time updating himself on
events in the mortal and Kindred worlds, and what he learned displeased him. Not only
had several new clans not blessed by the ages arisen and come to power, but vampires,
even those of the Banu Haqim, had fallen to the religions of the kine. The methuselah
determined that he would purge vampires of this weakness and reinstate the Laws of
Haqim. As the eldest of the Blood, Ur-Shulgi regards himself as the one who holds the
power of unlife or Final Death over all vampires, those of the Blood as well as the children
of Khayyin. Only a mind ravaged by the ages, torpor, and the Beast could understand his
reasoning, or his acts.

By adopting a religion favored by the kine, those of the Blood render themselves apostate
in the eyes of Ur-Shulgi, who proceeded to eliminate the apostates in Alamut. His
leadership demonstrated to his followers that taking the heart’s blood of an apostate, even
one of the Blood, was commendable. Most Banu Haqim, valuing their own faiths or
maybe just their own unlives, fled Alamut and dispersed into the world, even managing to
join the Camarilla. The faithful followers of Ur-Shulgi were few and, in the beginning,
mostly confined to the Mountain. Observing this, Ur-Shulgi appointed twelve of the
faithful as his heralds to go out into the world and spread the faith of Haqim.

Hierarchy

Ur-Shulgi himself disappeared in the last decade, claiming to be on a pilgrimage from

which he intends to return with powers beyond that which he possessed before. Before
his departure, he personally appointed his heralds and decreed no one had the right to
remove them from their roles. The rest of his cult hierarchy resulted from the dispersal of
the faith across the globe. While members of the cult use the same titles everywhere, the
functions of the positions vary considerably in accordance with conditions on the ground.

Heralds

The twelve heralds have a broad remit: to bring primarily the Banu Haqim and se
condarily other vampires back to the laws of Haqim. Those Ur-Shulgi chose were ancilla
of considerable age. In the beginning, they tried traditional methods of conversion by the
sword, which they swiftly found to be risky and ineffective. The twelve did not remain in
close communication with one another and, as a matter of course, developed different
methods of conversion and different takes on the laws. While sticking to their principles,
they have adapted to local conditions.

Garnering little success in converting devotees of other religions, most heralds have taken
to seeking out doubters and apostates, particularly those who crave a source of certainty.
They find an enthusiastic audience among the thin-bloods. More than once, a herald has
aided a thin-blood in diablerizing one of the Ashirra and attaining the 13th generation.

Twelve heralds were insufficient to manage the cult on their own, especially as most of
them were peripatetic, moving from city to city. Furthermore, persecution and blood
hunts in both Camarilla and Anarch domains thinned their numbers. Since the
acceptance of the Ashirra into the Camarilla, the unlife of Ur-Shulgi’s followers has
become even more precarious in domains where the sect has influence. Most heralds
settled upon the idea of leaving one of the faithful behind to lead in their stead. These
local leaders are known as pashas.

The heralds never needed to be informed of the dangers of using electronic

communication or the internet. They had no familiarity with either and see no need to
learn. This means communication remains patchy between them and their followers, and
no one is entirely certain how many heralds remain. At least five are known to be
accessible to the faithful in domains across Europe and North America, including Siduri
the Name-Thief and Lugalme of the White Tongue. Others, such as Naram-Sin and Elulu,
have returned to the Mountain for eternity. Their names are honored by the faithful.

Pashas

After the herald has moved on, their pasha takes over recruitment and care of the
converts, often imposing their own interpretation of the laws upon their flock. The pasha
is inevitably Banu Haqim and always makes overtures to include thin-blooded believers,
who are empowered within the cult.

Some pashas maintain communication with one another, but this is difficult and risky in
nights in which the Inquisition monitors so much of what takes place on the internet and
mobile phone apps. Most act independently to increase the number of adherents to their
faith. While heralds only assist in thin-blood diablerie of Ashirra and apostate Banu
Haqim, many pashas condone the diablerie of any unbeliever. These nights, of course,
most vampires in both Camarilla and Anarch domains are unbelievers.

Selective amaranth, whether committed by a thinblood, a shepherd, or the pasha

themself, if carefully done, is a viable way to bolster one’s personal power. It is also a way
to achieve one’s own Final Death. Many pashas have fallen afoul of those vampires who
discover evidence of the truth of their practices.

Shepherds

Shepherds — the bulk of the cultists — follow the teachings and instructions of their
pasha and are often reluctant to act on their own initiative. Rarely, they decide their local
pasha has wandered too far from the path and attempt to contact a herald to complain.
Even more rarely, this action succeeds, and the herald commands them to punish the
errant pasha. A shepherd who successfully diablerizes a pasha usually takes their place.

Fanatics

Mainly self-recruited from the newly Embraced thin-bloods, these fledglings assassinate
and diablerize apostates, preferring those of the Ashirra. These, in the eyes of fanatics,
although given the gift of a true Embrace into the Banu Haqim, have lost the privilege of
their Blood. The hashishin — as they’re otherwise known — are devout drinkers of souls
who believe that by thus empowering themselves, they grow closer to Ur-Shulgi.
They also believe Ur-Shulgi himself is responsible for the Beckoning and that the closer
they draw to him in generation, the greater their chances of hearing his call and receiving
his summons to the Mountain. They chant sada emedu (Sumerian for “reach the
Mountain”) as one of their number drinks the soul of an unbeliever.

No herald has ever endorsed these beliefs, although some pashas adhere to them. Even
among the shepherds, most regard the self-styled hashishin as heretics.

Organization

A cult with a penchant for amaranth is a threat to all members of the Camarilla and all
Anarchs, so it is unsurprising that the Shepherds of Ur-Shulgi are often hunted down by
Kindred fearful for their own souls. Few domains hold more than a small cell of
shepherds. These cells always have a line of communication to the local pasha, who
occupies themself with ensuring the secrecy and safety of their members as well as their
doctrinal purity.

While Ur-Shulgi chose his heralds from a group of older and more powerful Banu Haqim,
pashas are often neonates or even fledglings, no match for a powerful Prince or Baron.
The shepherds survive best in unstable domains and those which face some greater
external threat. They may also form nomadic or fugitive coteries which enter a domain,
strike, and leave before they can be brought to task for their crimes.

Beliefs

Ur-Shulgi commands his followers to uphold the Laws of Haqim:

The Law of Leadership: Honor Ur-Shulgi as He is the eldest among you. The Heralds of
Ur-Shulgi carry His word and command your respect.

The Law of Protection: Deal honorably with mortals and protect them where possible.

The Law of Destruction: Do not destroy those of the Blood.

This law is one subject to interpretation, but common agreement among pashas is that “of
the Blood” means “of the Shepherds of Ur-Shulgi.”

The Law of the Word: Deal truthfully with each other, for the word of Haqim is founded
upon truth.

The Law of Judgement: Judge those not of the Blood and punish those who follow the
faiths of the kine.

In practice, interpretation varies widely between individual cells, though all agree those
Banu Haqim who follow a mortal religion are apostate and apostates forfeit the rights and
privileges of the Blood. There is a great deal of dissent about whether false vampire
religions render a vampire apostate. Much depends on the specific religion under
discussion and local conditions.

Modus Operandi

The practices of the shepherds revolve around bringing the apostates of the Blood and
other unworthy vampires to Final Death. This a risky business, particularly in areas
where the Camarilla or Anarchs hold power. Fanatics they may be, but members of the
cult of Ur-Shulgi have as much investment as any vampire in avoiding the eyes of the
Inquisition. Most shepherds are cautious, planning their attacks carefully and working to
decrease the apostate’s power and influence before making their move. A favored tactic is
to undermine, bribe, blackmail, or otherwise subvert a trusted retainer to allow a thin-
blood access to her master’s haven during daylight hours.

Only the hashishin go for direct action. Whole coteries of them work together to isolate
an intended victim. These fledglings also employ thin-blooded acquaintances to enter the
victim’s haven during daylight hours and incapacitate them. The reward for this is
sometimes diablerie, though the hashishin are prone to losing themselves in the heat of
the moment and chance alone decides who gets to drink the unfortunate apostate’s
essence. The hashishin are young and often careless, setting little value on their own
unlives and believing Final Death in the service of Ur-Shulgi wins them a place on the
Mountain.

Shepherd Convictions

Always keep faith with those sworn to the service of Ur-Shulgi: There is
remarkably little squabbling, let alone serious rivalry, among the followers of Ur-
Shulgi. If a pasha or a sibling falls away from the teachings, their peers dispose of
them quietly and, if of higher generation, diablerize. A shepherd always goes to the
aid of a sibling who calls for assistance.

Show no mercy to followers of false religions: Followers of the religions of the kine
are unworthy of the Blood. This applies to all clans, not just the Ashirra. The
religions of the kine are for the kine. Nevertheless, it is permissible to use them to
protect the kine from the grim reality that they live and die within.

Never kill without profit: When you kill a vampire, make every effort to drink their
soul. If their soul is beneath you, find a sibling who can benefit and gift them the
power. This way, the Shepherds of Ur-Shulgi prosper and grow strong.

Perspectives

Anarchs: Their rebellion against the outdated strictures of the Camarilla is laudable. They
lack direction, though. We have had some localized success in mobilizing them against the
 Ashirra or the Camarilla. Similarly, in some areas, particularly in Southern Europe, we
have had some success with recruitment.
Ashirra: Vile apostates. Traitors to the Blood and a danger to us all. We, devoted to the
source, must reclaim their Blood.
Camarilla: A new-fangled attempt to regulate society. Well, new-fangled in some ways but
deeply rooted in the times in which it formed. So, neither authentic nor up-to-date. We
would tolerate them if it were not for the fact that they admitted the accursed Ashirra.
Their organization and authoritarian power structure mean we must take care when
operating in domains they dominate.
Thin-Bloods: We do not understand the thin-bloods, although we find their alchemy
fascinating. Some amongst them wish to become true predators, and we have assisted
them in reclaiming the Blood of the apostate Ashirra.

The Shattered Spear

“We are Her spear, raw iron forged in the Blood of Artemis Orthia. We do not fear the Final
Death, nor do we balk when carrying out Her will. Be a beacon against the dark, my childe, and
you will know your purpose.”

— Polemarch Elena Andreas, Voice of Artemis Orthia, Lisbon

The Shattered Spear has existed far longer than the Camarilla, or so their adherents
claim. They bear the Blood of Artemis Orthia, first and most beloved of Ventrue’s childer
and Goddess of ancient Sparta, who led the vanguard against the Brujah of Carthage and
fell battling the darkness that seized that city in its vile grip. The Spear operates in secret,
each warrior standing firm against the tide of Gehenna and the diabolical forces that lurk
outside of civilized Kindred society — for who better than to fight the savage demon-
worshipers and blooddrunk diablerists than the Clan of Kings?

Blood of Sparta

From the moment of their Embrace, most Ventrue are taught the importance of lineage
and are expected to learn every step of their line by rote. After all, their Blood proves their
right to rule and places them above the other Kindred clans. The children of Orthia can
trace their line directly to the Goddess, laying claim to a legacy of fierce warrior kings and
mighty generals. Orthia herself was said to be unrelenting in combat, as disciplined and
powerful as the Spartans who worshiped her. This worship carried over to her childer,
whom she chose from among the most skilled warriors of her people, and their
veneration never ceased even after her fall in battle against the forces of Carthage. Some
even refuse to acknowledge her Final Death, dedicating themselves to finding and
recovering their progenitor’s body and safeguarding it until such time as she awakens
once more. Those who took up this charge named themselves the Shattered Spear, with
Orthia’s broken weapon as their namesake and symbol.

With the rise of the Camarilla and its denial of any veneration of their forebears, the
Spear began to operate in secret. The march of time saw their numbers dwindle and their
influence weaken until all but a few cells were stamped out. Yet they clung to their
purpose. It wasn’t until the Beckoning began to draw elders away and the rising Second
Inquisition struck against any Kindred that it could find that the Spear could grasp for
relevance again. The changing times have seen a boom in its membership as the
remaining few have drawn in others of their lineage, speaking to the fire in their Blood
that calls to battle and to their shared desire for direction and purpose. With their
numbers bolstered with new converts, the cult redoubled its efforts to seek out their
progenitor, while also dedicating itself to fighting against the threats posed by the Second
Inquisition and more dangerous, heretical cults among their own kind as Artemis Orthia
did when she led the charge against the diabolists of Carthage.

The Spark of War

A single Kindred, a Greek ancilla of Orthia’s line who emerged shortly after the first
salvos of the new Inquisition sparked the Shattered Spear’s renewed vigor. She claimed
the name of Elena Andreas, though many elder Ventrue consider her exact provenance
suspect. The sire she named was long gone, and none could corroborate her story. She
was easily dismissed, but those who took the time to listen to her words found that she
bore witness to a persuasive idea: that Artemis Orthia had survived her fall at Carthage
and has lain in slumber ever since. As proof, Elena produced the fragments of the fallen
progenitor’s spear, leaving little doubt that at least she might know something about what
she was saying.

Word of her appearance reached the Shattered Spear quickly. The remaining leadership
of the cult approached her in secret to test her and the relic she carried for themselves.
Elena satisfied the cult’s ruling council, called Orthia’s Hand, such that they followed her
to what she claimed was Orthia’s current resting place — the city of Lisbon, Portugal.
They descended beneath the city and emerged changed by what they found there, going
so far as to name bold Andreas the “Voice of Orthia” and to relocate the center of the cult
to Lisbon.

In the short time since, Elena has cemented her control over the cult, delivering the
orders of their progenitor to Orthia’s Hand, who then deliver her words to the ranks
below. Their purpose is clear: war has come to the Kindred, and they mean to be the
soldiers on the front lines. While the cult had never been complacent, the presence of the
Voice and the knowledge that they now safeguard the slumbering form of their god-like
creator have sparked a fire its members that they use to fuel their battle against the
enemies of the Kindred — specifically, the Camarilla’s enemies — while paying at least
nominal lip service to the idea of secrecy for their cult.
Liturgy of the Spear

The cult’s leaders carefully regiment and administer the rites and rituals of the Shattered
Spear, reflecting the organization of the cult itself. Its members hold worship of Artemis
Orthia as a god as well as the progenitor of their lineage above all else. Many of the cult’s
rituals include solemn retellings of her greatest victories against the darkness. Since their
relocation, which allowed them to secure Orthia’s resting place, members have begun to
tell tales of her Voice in the same manner; how Elena Andreas was called to Orthia’s tomb
and gifted with her purpose before the weary methuselah sank back into torpor, and her
quest to recover the lost fragments of Orthia’s spear in particular.

Their temples are few, and those that exist favor modest, unpretentious adornment over
vulgar displays of wealth and luxury. Simple stonework marked with the symbol of a
splintered spear or the Spartan lambda symbol and plain altars are sufficient, and
members of the Spear consider anything more excessive and distasteful. Statuary is the
rare exception, depicting Artemis Orthia bearing shield and spear.

Outside of their hidden temples, members of the Spear bear little in the way of identifying
marks and few risk creating a personal shrine. Instead, it has become popular among the
cult to bear a symbol of a spear broken in two in the shape of a chevron, typically on a
piece of jewelry. Some who were groomed as mortal servants to their sires prior to their
Embrace even get the symbol tattooed somewhere on their body. Personal prayers are
common among Orthia’s faithful. They memorize short incantations and recite them in
hushed tones before battle to bolster the warrior’s conviction and bring the methuselah’s
favor.

The Soldier’s Code

The Cult of the Shattered Spear holds itself to an ideal of courage and valor modeled after
the code of the ancient Spartans, who first held up Artemis Orthia as a god in the Classical
age. Though some tangentially aware of the cult might write the w arriors off as reckless
fools at best, and a danger to the rest of Kindred society at worst, the soldiers of Orthia are
not prone to acts of reckless abandon, nor do they falter in the face of danger.

Convictions of the Spear

The convictions held by the members of the cult draw from the laconic ideals of spartan
warriors, espousing valor in combat and adherence to the faith in Artemis Orthia.

Never falter in the face of battle: The cult’s warriors enter battle willingly. Displays
of cowardice are anathema to believers. They lead from the front, refusing to allow
others to enter danger on their behalf.

Always seek to live, not to die: While seemingly contradictory to their boldness in
entering combat, the Spear see this tenet as a simple matter. Even in combat, fight to
live, for then you will fight with a greater ferocity than those that do not care if they
 fall. All warriors may fall, but only those who sought life after the blood and pain of
battle may know they fought with valor.
Never deny the word of the Voice: The Voice speaks the words of Artemis Orthia.
When she speaks, those words are to be followed. To deny her words is to dishonor
yourself in the eyes of the cult and its god.
Do not drink of the heart’s blood: The Voice has decreed that diablerie is the greatest
of sins among civilized Kindred. Those who drink of the heart’s blood and consume
the soul of another are enemies of the Spear to be destroyed.
Never suffer the denizens of hell, nor those who consort with them: As Orthia fell
in combat against the followers of Hell, so should the Spear fight them with her
ferocity. Diabolists and demon-worshipers are the greatest of the Spear’s enemies,
and to consort with them or their masters is to betray the purpose of one’s Blood.

Temple of the Spear: Lisbon

The Spear holds the city of Lisbon tightly in its grip. The Second Inquisition weakened
the domain enough that the cult had little trouble in placing one of their own as Prince.
They moved into the old aqueducts below the city, secured much of the subterranean
network beneath the city, and reinforced the claimed resting-place of Orthia. Despite
this, their efforts to excise the city’s Nosferatu from the tunnels have been met with
repeated frustration.

The increasingly insular nature of the Camarilla has worked in their favor, and while the
cult exists as something of an open secret among the Kindred of Lisbon, few outside the
domain know how deeply they’ve sunk their claws into the city. Only Ventrue of Orthia’s
line are allowed within the heart of the cult’s power, an ancient cistern converted into a
temple of their God, and even those do not know where She truly rests — only Orthia’s
Hand and Voice hold that knowledge. Those few Ventrue outside of the direct lineage who
have drifted into the cult’s circle of influence may dedicate themselves to its cause, but
they will never be more than foot soldiers and pawns used to further the purposes of the
Spear.

The city of Lisbon, however, is not completely secure. As the Beckoning draws elders away
and thin-bloods grow in number, outsiders continually test the purpose of the Spear
within the city and without, as coteries of various sects and cults attempt to seize the
domain for their own. The ongoing struggle has made the cult’s efforts to spread outside
of Lisbon difficult, as they are forced to focus on the seat of their power and the
protection of their sacred charge.

It is from Lisbon that the Voice, Elena Andreas, issues the orders communicated to her by
the slumbering Orthia. She remains within the temple, seen only rarely by those not
among the five members of Orthia’s Hand. Beneath them, a cadre of warrior-priests and
priestesses administer to the cult’s rank and file. They send these members, often young
Ventrue and fresh recruits themselves, to new cities where the Blood of Orthia runs
strong to seek the members of her sacred bloodline; and if necessary, to recruit foot
soldiers from among neonates of the Clan. Their insistence on limiting full membership
to the cult to Orthia’s lineage has limited the cult’s growth, but their adherence to the
purity of their line remains steadfast.

The temple itself has changed little from its origins as a cistern. Banners bearing the cult’s
sigil hang from the stone walls and a statue of Orthia herself stands at the center of the
great chamber. Winding tunnels snake away from the temple’s heart. Cultists clean
hideaways formerly held by the city’s Nosferatu and turn them into simple, spartan
facilities. Very few of the cult’s members reside within the temple, however, save for its
selected guardians — warriors chosen from among the local adherents of all ranks,
rotating regularly to prevent their public facade from falling to disarray. The cult has
sealed and reinforced areas where the tunnels give way to the warrens of the filth that
reside outside of the cult’s control, and guardians from among those chosen are stationed
at each point to prevent incursions.

Perspectives

Anarchs: Rabble rousers playing with fire. Their permissive nature and lack of discipline
will mean the end of them. I pray that it comes at the end of our spears.

Camarilla: They hold many of the same beliefs that we do, but they are too complacent.
One day, they will fall as Athens of old, but the Spear will endure. Perhaps then, we will
rebuild something stronger from their ashes.

Bahari: Even in the most charitable interpretations, Lilith’s demonic nature cannot be
denied. They may not bear the powers of true Diabolists, but they are not to be trusted. Nor
should they be suffered to exist within our domains.

Church of Set: Unrepentant hedonists that worship a false god. They are a cancer on any
civilized society they touch and must be torn out by the root.

Diablerie Cults: They’re all the same: usurpers who sully their souls by consuming the
essence of another. We care little for why they do it, for it changes nothing about our
response. Death is the only acceptable outcome for them.

The Soldiers of the Adversary

“The Beast is the Adversary, and we belong to him. The Oppressor opposes the Adversary and
will see all who follow him damned and destroyed. A Heaven on Earth means an eternal Hell for
Kindred. Only one can thrive in this apocalypse: Kindred, or the kine. Us, or them. Whose side
will you choose?”

— Prophet Molinero

Some Kindred believe the apocalypse is nigh, but the Soldiers of the Adversary believe it’s
already here. The world ended years ago — exactly when hardly matters. The biblical end
times are unfolding now, before the blind eyes of humanity. Over the next few years,
decades at most, the battle between good and evil will be decided once and for all. The
Kindred, fallen creatures that they are, must pray the Adversary and his forces win and
work towards that victory at any cost. If they lose, their punishment will be eternal, and
the searing pain of mortal flame will be nothing in comparison to the burn of hellfire.

In the Beginning

The Soldiers started in San Antonio, Texas, with a King James Bible and a bad acid trip. In
an abandoned church, surrounded by passed-out addicts and full on their blood, a young
vampire named Santiago Molinero believed that he had a vision of the end times. Angels
and demons fought for the souls of humanity, killing and converting to tip the scales. The
Bible told only half the story: the oceans would indeed run red, and there would be
suffering, but Heaven had no guarantee of victory. The Adversary and his demons could
win and be crowned kings of the world, or lose and be cast into hellfire for all eternity.
The end times had already begun, the Seven Seals of the Book of Revelation already
undone by recent and historical events.

Santiago woke the next night with a splitting headache and an absolute certainty in his
newfound faith. He had a mission: to pull the Kindred away from their petty struggle and
unite them under the banner of Satan. He also had the sense not to charge out and
immediately start preaching to the local elders. The Adversary’s prophet needed to
mirror his master’s subtlety, recruiting carefully despite the urgency of the situation. The
Kindred would come around, or they would all burn.

A Time of Revelations

The Soldiers are a new movement currently focused on recruitment and on cementing
their orthodoxy. Prophet Molinero targets the young and morally confused, licks still
adjusting to an existence that relies on morally repugnant acts. He offers them stability
and guidance in the Baron-less city of San Antonio, and a new family that promises to
accept them, Beast and all. He draws them in in their hour of fear or appeals to their
curiosity or ambition by offering them the chance to get in on the ground floor of
something new. The world is already full of older and more powerful Kindred, and
Santiago promises his army that early converts will outrank their elders once the
movement spreads.

Prophet Molinero encourages all his disciples to read the King James Bible, calling it the
Book of the Oppressor, and pushes them to comb it for kernels of truth to add to their
understanding of the end of days. He has final say on whether member suggestions are
true or not and spends a great deal of time writing and revising his own Unholy Book. One
orthodoxy he’s quite certain of is the existence of Angels, despite having no evidence to
prove it; if the Oppressor didn’t have His own servants, he reasons, the Adversary would
have won by now. Like the Kindred, these divine beings live in the shadows of the world,
unseen by the kine. They have their own organizational structure, which the Soldiers
must discover and infiltrate. The Angels can disguise themselves as demons, and Santiago
has a long list of suspected spies: vampires who preach compassion, who stir up dissent
among the Kindred, or who speak out against the Soldiers of the Adversary.

At their Sunday meetings in the same church where Prophet Molinero had his
revelations, cult rituals are beginning to cement themselves. The prophet begins with a
short sermon on the tenets of the church and invites select members to testify on how
they have served the Adversary that week. The congregation applauds the moral
corruption of mortals, while killing the virtuous is slightly less impressive but still good
news. Soldiers then bring in sacrifice or two for all to drink from, and Prophet Molinero
encourages his congregants to listen to their Beasts and go feral for the feeding. Once
they’re fed, usually inebriated or high from the meal, Molinero shares new revelations
and the cult’s immediate plans, growing more impassioned in his rhetoric. Here he
emphasizes the glory that will be theirs in victory, and the eternal hellfire to fear if they
should suffer defeat. Some weeks, Molinero will order a member who has disappointed
the Soldiers to be brought out, chained in case of frenzy, and burned before the crowd,
their agony a visceral warning against failure. Senior members display their burn scars
proudly: facing the fire proves they have accepted the truth of Molinero’s revelations and
will work tirelessly to save all Kindred from burning.

The Priesthood

The Soldiers of the Adversary don’t have enough members to distinguish much between
them. There is no official hierarchy beyond who joined when. A few stand out by virtue of
their ferocity, their contributions, or unique abilities they bring to the group, and the
movement’s future leaders are beginning to distinguish themselves.

Andrea Mazzara is the first ghoul to be initiated to the Soldiers. A reasonably successful
paralegal, she was entranced by Molinero after meeting him over a land dispute and soon
fell under his sway. Beyond the Blood Bond that keeps her in line, she’s terrified of the
idea of eternal torture (which she believes will also apply to her, as a vitae addict), and
willing to do whatever she has to in the name of a better afterlife. Molinero has promised
to turn her into a vampire eventually, but right now she’s too useful at handling the
group’s daytime affairs.

Gertrude “Richie” Mayall is a Caitiff and a disappointment to his sire. A dedicated

Anarch, he loves the Soldiers for their subversion of traditional Kindred power structures
and loves the juvenile thrill of being a real-life Satanist. He admires Molinero and likes
the recognition he gets for contributing to doctrine, but deep down he thinks of the cult as
a passing hardcore fad, not a lifelong religious belief.

Amanita Piper is at least three hundred years old, and Molinero still isn’t sure why she’s
following him. She was revived from torpor only recently and dedicated herself to the
Soldiers after hearing only one sermon. According to her, she has believed in the inherent
demonic nature of vampires for ages and is glad to see someone doing something about it.
Though she has displayed powers beyond those of any other members of the nascent
group, she seems content to sit back and let others lead, chiming in only occasionally to
nudge new scripture in the right direction. Despite what they hear from the pulpit about
recruitment order determining hierarchy, not age or potency, when she talks, people
listen.

Convictions of the Soldiers of the Adversary

The Soldiers of the Adversary are somewhat vexed when it comes to controlling their
Beast, which Molinero teaches is the voice of the Adversary himself within them. Obeying
the Beast is central to their entire system of belief but doing so carelessly makes a Soldier
ineffective at infiltrating or surviving among the kine. Molinero resolves this
contradiction by teaching that that the Beast, while a powerful master, has gone mad
from eons of a torturous existence in Hell. His Soldiers must balance obedience with
practicality and maintain their connection to an earthly existence with Convictions that
may frustrate the Beast, but which will ultimately serve the Adversary’s interests.

Obey the prophet of the Beast: The Soldiers see Molinero as a filter for the
Adversary’s will, translating his desires into actions for the Soldiers to carry out.
Obeying him serves the Adversary’s plan, even when doing so goes against the Beast’s
instincts.

Do not fight your own kind: Some Soldiers take this to mean all Kindred, while
others confine the tenant to members of the cult. Either way, Molinero preaches
unity: the forces of Hell can only triumph when they stop fighting one another to
work together.

Always offer your life in place of your companions: Losing the apocalyptic war will
mean eternal torment for every vampire, a fate worse than death. If they can win, all
the damned will rise again to rule a Hell on Earth, so being hurt now or even
suffering the Final Death in the name of the cause is well worth the sacrifice.
Never kill when you can corrupt: The kine have their own role to play in the
Apocalypse, their souls empowering either Heaven or Hell as they die, depending on
the life they’ve led. Killing mortals is easy; turning them to vice and encouraging
them to corrupt others is hard. The latter is a more worthy and strategic service to
the Adversary.

Perspectives

Anarchs: Our brothers and sisters are our comrades, too. We need to open their eyes to the
coming Armageddon.
Camarilla: Despicable in their willing servitude to the Lord’s will. I would spit on them and
beat them into ash.
The Church of Caine: I’ve heard that a cell of these Gnostics are in Dallas. How blind they
are to worship at the feet of the wrong fallen angel. Invite them to the fold with empathy,
but prepare yourself for violence. They don’t enjoy the polemics of doomsday discussion,
especially when we draw attention to their flaws.
 The Church of Set: They’re on the right track but muddle their purpose with their spiritual
reincarnation crap. I believe we can work together, but we have to withstand their
mockery, which comes from a lack of understanding.

The Sons and Daughters of Helena

The essence of a methuselah cult dedicated to the accumulation of wealth and influence,
the Sons and Daughters of Helena pay tribute to their legendary icon, the vampire known
variously as Helena, Helen, Helene, or — to those few who know her modern-nights Mask
— Portia, in exchange for her blessings, direction, and supernatural aid. Structured as a
pyramid of worship, adherents are lured in with tales of Helena being the undead Helen
of Troy: a figure of supreme beauty, intellect, and wit. They’re told tales of how she’s
survived for millennia, manipulated armies to further her goals, orchestrated the fall of
Carthage, and is now the most powerful vampire in the USA. How much of this is true is
debatable, but the Sons and Daughters use their Presence to attract recruits, make their
words believable, and foster adoration from fresh initiates.

Helena is indeed the individual prominent in the tales of the Trojan Wars, and she is the
schemer and beauty icon her cult purports her to be. She’s even present in the United
States and influences a small army of followers. However, these followers are not the Sons
and Daughters, over whom she has minimal control and about whom she has little
interest. Elders of Clans Ventrue, Toreador, and Brujah with no attachment to Helena
formed this cult in her name to exploit the myths surrounding her and profit from
fledgling gullibility.

Current Goals

A vampire pyramid scheme, the Sons and Daughters’ elder council sends abstract
messages and puzzles to the lower level adherents, requesting they perform tasks on the
cult’s behalf while intimating that by performing well, they’ll please Helena and earn her
favor. The missions they set usually center on eliminating the cult’ s enemies, obtaining
or laundering money, seizing territory for higher ranking members, or expanding the
cult. The initiates at the bottom are expected to dedicate their time to serving Helena,
send tribute up the chain, and in return — if they please “her” — a nice bauble comes back
down. Usually this takes the form of the elder council recruiting other initiates to
perform a task for the previous group, or more rarely, the elders might send down a vial of
tr eated, potent vitae with the message to “use this only in times of extreme duress.” The
vitae usually comes from the body of another captured vampire from outside the cult.

To the Sons and Daughters, their religion is a mystery cult from which they obtain more
wisdom and enlightenment the more they dedicate themselves. To anyone who delves
deeper into the cult’s inner workings, it’s about as mundane a cult as vampires could
form. Yet, as with many con jobs, as long as the marks don’t realize they’re being milked
for all they’re worth, the sense of belonging, purpose, and belief is enough to keep them
from slipping to the Beast. The cult’s dissolution would lead to many vampires greeting
the dawn in humiliation and despair.

What little Helena knows of this cult amuses her, so she’s content to let it persist at least
until it tarnishes her reputation. If that time comes, she’ll make a grand show of
annihilating the elder council and stepping in to address the Sons and Daughters as their
grateful goddess, picking up the cult’s devoted scraps.

The Third Day

“On the Third Day, there will be silence.”

— The Book of Nod

The Third Day is a prominent Noddist plague cult with its primary coterie based in
Antwerp. While they blend some theory from the Book of Nod’s Chronicle of Secrets,
much like the Church of Caine, they defer their religious veneration for the Beckoning
itself. The true members of the cult worship the Beckoning and believe it’s the work of a
potent methuselah, a lost Antediluvian, or a member of the feared Second Generation.

Empire of Blood

The clandestine primary coterie, consisting of a handful of Hecata and Anarchs, perceive
patterns and connections in the visions of those the Beckoning afflicts, and notice some
similarities to necromantic rituals and visionary Disciplines. They perceive the
Beckoning as a blessing used to induce visions and glimpses of the end times. This
“disease” plaguing Kindred is a thing of perfect design, culling the kine and the Cainites
undeserving of its blessings. The cult also studies the effects the Beckoning has on
humanity, as disease and violence rises and causes human deaths amid the Gehenna War.

The cult supersedes sect among its believers, though the majority of its members are
Camarilla elders. The cult’s attempts to stave off the Beckoning among its own dedicants
and to transcribe their experiences and visions even as they might slip appeal to elders
desperate to hold onto their power. These vampires travel to Antwerp, searching out the
cult for their promised cure.

Reign of One Thousand Years

Vampires who feel the Beckoning’s call experience it in different ways. Some describe it as
torture akin to scorching copper wires drilling their way through a Kindred’s veins.
Others experience a tug on their mind that’s almost physical, pulling their body head-
first, forcing the vampires to watch as their feet move of their own volition. Even more
describe it as a form of sleepwalking, with the summoned vampire utterly unaware of the
Beckoning until it’s dragged them to another domain.

In all cases, whether pained or numbed, the Beckoning represents a terrifying loss of
control over a body a vampire has known for centuries, perhaps millennia, and the tug of
vitae from a hungry, godlike ancestor. It is no wonder vampires seek out a cure or method
of forestalling the inevitable.

Little wonder, then, that elders drift toward the Third Day cult with desperate hope.
They’ve heard the Third Day are a form of doomsday cult, prone to inhuman acts and
beliefs, but that matters far less than the possibility alleviating the Beckoning. Therefore,
the Third Day receives patronage from Kindred all over the world as they invest resources
in its promise of a miraculous salvation.

To some vampires, the Third Day is all that exists between the Camarilla’s survival and
absolute anarchy, because it won’t be long before every mainstay in the Ivory Tower feels
the pull.

Antwerp, Belgium

Antwerp is the diamond capital of the European continent. The city’s Camarilla had ever
lorded their wealth and decadence over their inferiors, clothing themselves in the finest
fashions and most opulent jewelry, with the Prince imposing a blood tax on any Anarchs
who wish to dress and act as well as the Camarilla nobles.

It was this constant humiliation that led the Anarchs to move against the domain,
eventually assaulting the Royal Museum of Fine Arts Elysium. The quick, ruthless rebels
overwhelmed the security guards and the Elysium Keeper. They crushed the skull of the
unhinged Toreador Prince, Delphine Gaël, as he jabbered to himself in a vision-induced
stupor upon his gilded throne. His vitae still stains the floor where the still, blanched eyes
of Ruben’s paintings look on, although docents blame the mark on a clumsy, rushing
student who spilled paint. The rebels picked off the remnants of the court over the
autumn of 2018, using the yellow vest movement and subsequent rioting as a cover for
outright violence against the Camarilla without the destruction of the Masquerade. Their
invasion of the Royal Museum was the final act of defiance that ended the centuries-long
rule of the Camarilla. As Delphine Gaël took the praxis of Antwerp in 1832 from L’Enfant
Perdu, the Anarch Movement seized the city in 2018.

The diamonds his ghouls had sewn into the Prince’s clothing were the only thing salvaged
after the Movement stuffed the torpid Kindred into a barrel, covered Gaël in wood and
trash, doused it in gasoline, and set it ablaze. The Anarchs thought it poetic to place the
barrel next to a barricade blocking protestors from police, joking that the Prince was
finally making himself useful.

Since the protests settled, the Anarch Movement has not consolidated power within the
city limits. Furious political and ecclesiastical debate works as sand in the gears of the
Cainite domain. The newfound backing of the Ministry has provided fresh ecclesiastical
fervor to the Anarch movement, and the Clan is moving to create a list of “approved”
religious organizations within the city limits. At the top of this list beside the Ministry
itself is the Third Day, in appreciation of their solidarity with the Movement and its
revolution. During the autumnal revolution, the Third’s Anarch contingent was quick to
offer the locations of elder Kindred havens they’d been covertly observing, perceiving
them as possible keys to unlocking the secrets of the Beckoning. Doing so ensured their
place within the new city hierarchy.

In the upheaval since the Camarilla’s fall, coteries pop up like mushrooms throughout the
city. The Third Day — or just Thirds, as the Anarch Movement calls them — is one of the
most important in the city. They’re excited to make elders of the Camarilla disappear, and
the local Ministry sees them as a calming salve to the city’s disarray.

While the fledgling-free Flemish city wears the trappings of an old Camarilla domain in
architecture, it is now wholly Anarch and Third Day, from the lowest gutter to the top of
the tallest building.

By the Mark of the Moon

The Third Day is split in two between a primary coterie and its outer adherents. The outer
adherents are often referred to as Seers. These satellite members are predominantly
elders of the Camarilla who reach the Third Day close to or already going through
Beckoning-induced delirium. Cultists offer comfort and care in the form of blood and
sanctuary, including stopping the elders from feeling the pull, in exchange for the
opportunity to record the elder vampires’ visions. If Kindred of note provide information
that the inner court deems essential, they may coerce or even stake those vampires to
delve into their minds later.

The primary coterie is led by a Giovanni named Emilia St. John, who wears a mask of a
broken crow’s skull. A slight woman with dishwater blond hair, she is a terrifying force.
While calculating, soft-spoken, and scholarly, she also is one of the Kindred whom the
Third Day call when their initial efforts to placate and “acclimate” elder Camarilla
members feeling the call fail.

Every Good Gift

The Third Day’s inner court has only a few significant sacraments, the first being the
creation of the Liber Harenae, or the Book of Sand. This physical codex records all the
visions that the Third Day has the privilege to possess, along with others that they have
collected through trading or have come across in their travels. The library is currently
small, yet it grows by the night and is the most comprehensive compilation of the
Beckoning as a phenomenon, including a treatise on the philosophies of what it is, how it
works, and where it comes from through almost every bloodline and lineage the Third
Day have come across.
Missing from this endeavor are those that come from the Hecata bloodlines and the
Caitiff, many of whom appear unaffected by the Beckoning. The Third Day is one of few
groups that knows of some vampires’ immunities to the Beckoning, and they research
this phenomenon fervently.

Members of the Third Day work to ready themselves as vessels for the Antediluvians.
Through ingesting hallucinogenic blood and forcing themselves into a trance through
dance or music, members force themselves into ecstatic fervor to make contact or
“beckon” the Antediluvians themselves and act as agents of their will.

The Third Day also participates in a hunt they call Building the Silence, after many
months of planning and tracking their targets. This sacrament involves sending a war
band out into the suburbs, the countryside, or other locations, and culling all
supernatural creatures dwelling there. This act hastens the Third Day of Gehenna,
wherein no other supernatural creatures exist. Diablerie is also an acceptable byproduct
of hunting for the cult, as the act can sometimes force the Beckoning to subside, though
this is heavily studied when it occurs. Conversely, other Thirds try to enrich their Blood
enough through the act of diablerie to get Beckoned.

Hecata in the primary coterie act as monitors and record the experiences of those
Beckoned, building a codex for surviving Gehenna. Through their pursuit of these
visions, they believe the Third Day will transition through the end times and emerge as
leaders in the new nights, elevated above the rest of Cainite society as the hands of the
Antediluvians.

The cult knows it is on dangerous ground, making promises to elders they’re not always
capable of delivering. Therefore, it has built a militia to protect its works and library. It
has provided sanctuary to those who spread plague through their Kiss and those who lose
themselves and ride the Beast, as they see that as an aspect of the larger Beckoning, and
even shelter those who struggle with feeding on the living. They see these Kindred as
spiritually closer to the progenitors of the clans and as protectors on whom they can
depend.

Third Day Convictions

We must protect our work at all costs: The cult believes the Liber Harenae
Lasarpicifer is their path forward. The Third Day will protect their knowledge of the
Beckoning at all costs.

Endure and rise above the Beckoning: The Beckoning is not something cured but
conquered. This act of defiance proves the Third Day’s worth to the Antediluvians or
those of the Second Generation who created this plague.

Feed from the weak: The Third Day sees no reason to feed on victims who fight,
meaning their palates are rarely exposed to heady dyscrasias.

Never hesitate to kill those lacking the blessing of vitae: While debated, the
prevailing school of thought within the cult is that other creatures are misguided at
best and deniers of Gehenna at worst, and will do nothing but drive Cainites away
 from their true calling. In the end, the genocide of those who are not of kine or
Kindred is required, because the Book of Nod says so.

Perspectives

Anarchs: They believe that through their freedom, they can deny the hand of prophecy.
For this, I enjoy their company. They’re delightfully naïve and a refreshing break from
Gehenna.
Camarilla: Our benefactors, though some of them do not know it. I wonder how the sect
would respond were they to find we’ve ensured their cohesion in these nights.
Caitiff: What curious creatures to not feel the Call. Does this mean they are not proper
Kindred? They defy the Book of Nod, and therefore, defy fate.
Children of Salvation: Congratulations Children, you identified the demon that drives
you. You should stop struggling and start listening to what it has to say.

Servitors of Irad: Our kin, in a sense, though if one were to trace the point where we
stayed the course and they drifted far, far away, one may be able to heal the rift between
our causes.

The Whispers of the Dead

“It’s a shame your sire doesn’t look after you like they should, but don’t worry. The Capuchin
sees you, and for his attention and knowledge, he demands tribute. He may speak to the dead,
but he whispers to you.”

— The Speaker, Voice of the Capuchin, Wearer of the Whisper Mask

Not every Hecata is born to privilege, wealth, and an understanding of their lineage.

The Hecata is both a new and a very old clan. It is at once monolithic and dysfunctional,
just like any powerful family. It is among the new Blood of the Hecata that the Whispers
of the Dead spread. They are a secret face of the Hecata’s triple mask born of fire, loyalty,
and a knowledge that they belong. The Whispers know the rumored Capuchin is real and
can perform wonders. They’ve heard his voice. They’ve seen the Capuchin work through
his herald, performing necromantic miracles they believed impossible. They’ve been told
they are special, secret, and chosen. And how could they not be when the Blood itself
agrees? All of the Whispers are Hecata, no matter what bloodline their sire was.

The Whispers of the Dead know things. They know that the head of the Hecata chose
them, found them, and charged them with keeping the family safe from all threats,
especially itself. The Whispers of the Dead are the true Hecata, the generation the Blood
chose from so many bloodlines. The ones changed or Embraced directly into the clan
proper. These fledglings and neonates of the Clan of Death believe deeply, truly, and
passionately.

And it’s all a lie.

The Susurrus

The Whispers of the Dead carry with them the knowledge that they aren’t like other
Hecata. They are the best among them. The new generation of the Clan of the Dead. The
renewal so many Necromancers preach.

All of them believe in what the Hecata is and stands for: family. They are passionate
members trying to find their place in the world, but through circumstance, misfortune,
or lax upbringing, they found themselves on the outskirts of the family. But, as the
Speaker says, one must be alone to hear and join the Susurrus.

The Whispers of the Dead see themselves as the true Hecata, the inner circle of the
Capuchin himself, with a direct line to him through the Wearer of the Whisper Mask.
Through the Speaker they give to the cause, because the Speaker told them the truth. The
Capuchin, that mystical and legendary rumor, is real and sees them. The Capuchin needs
them. The Capuchin, having listened to the council of the dead, charged the Speaker with
finding the fledglings, those who believe in and are true to the family, but whom the
family might have failed.

The Wearer of the Whisper Mask shows these lost souls the miracles of death and the
dead, miracles that only those chosen by the Capuchin could hope to perform. He bids the
children to stay silent, even to others in the Hecata, for they would not understand. He
instructs the children to prepare, for the renewal isn’t yet complete. He aids the young
with blood, money, necromantic instruction, and guidance, all as they require.

The Speaker bids the fledglings that in return for these gifts, these teachings, this pride,
and sanctity of knowledge, that they freely give anything the Speaker asks.

The Capuchin, of course, has no need of these things, but the other Whispers do. Give to
them, so they may be ready when the Capuchin calls.

Behind the Speaker’s Mask

Leonardo Boella, the Speaker, is a Harbinger with a chip on his shoulder and the soul of a
con artist.

When his fellow Harbingers broached the subject of a Family Reunion with him following
the various torments he’d endured as part of a cannibalizing sect and a war with the
Giovanni, Boella paid little attention. The Hecata was the name whispered on the lips of
those who commanded death, and so many of Leonardo’s bloodline heeded the call. Even
the name of the mythic Capuchin was banded about, rumored to have had some hand in
this new formation.
Leonardo Boella really couldn’t give a shit.

Leonardo bristled at the thought of a new generation of Harbingers who did not share in
his curse and his hate. He missed his face, having been handsome once. The Harbingers of
Skulls had turned him after a grift gone wrong as a punishment, using his skills to attack
the mortal holdings of their enemies. It turned out Leonardo was even something of a
necromantic prodigy. He made the best of his situation, gathering more resources and
experiencing every pleasure his sect promised, always taking a little off the top.

Leonardo declined to attend the Family Reunion. He did, however, listen to others of his
lineage through ghostly messengers, which passed on words of cooperation and a new
direction. Leonardo overheard them speak passionately about councils and Capuchins.
Exasperated and disgusted, Leonardo nevertheless recognized that he wasn’t sure how to
proceed in the modern nights without pledging his fealty to this new, nauseating
endeavor.

Eureka: the switch flipped when one of his broodmates introduced him to her new childe,
face hale and whole, eyes bright, having only recently been welcomed into this dark
family. Leonardo hated them instantly, since the childe had to endure none of the
debilitating outward bane that afflicted his bloodline.

If the members of his bloodline with whom he had fought and bled wanted to march to
the tune of this new clan, then fine. He’d march to the beat of his own drum. At least then
he could warm himself at the fire of young passion, and perhaps bring a few to ruin along
the way. Many of them were so new, so naïve, they would believe almost anything, and
they were impressed by nearly any display of necromantic power.

It was time for a new grift.

The Word of the Speaker

How the Speaker approaches a potential recruit varies from Whisper to Whisper. Some
say he steps from a puddle in an hour of need. Some receive a message passed on when
they write on a mirror after their evening shower. Some simply receive an email with a
location, date, and time. But when the Speaker appears, he is always robed like a monk,
adorned in a smooth, featureless black mask, and radiating confidence.

After identifying a potential Whisper, the Speaker often prepares for their first encounter
by monitoring them with ghostly spies. Then, when they meet, the Speaker can use what
they observed or cold read them to reveal to the prospect something very personal about
themself, something no one else could know. He confers to the prospect how much he
understands not knowing your place in the night and welcomes the prospect with glad
tidings. He assures them: the Capuchin sees you. The Capuchin knows you. The Capuchin
needs you. And the Speaker will come again.

Many prospects are left wondering who the Capuchin is. Some who still have access to
their sires ask. They are usually dismissed out of turn, but those whose sires do impart a
story or two are the more impressed for it. But should the prospect reveal any detail about
the Speaker to another, then he never appears to them again.

Those that keep the Speaker’s confidence receive a second invitation to meet. The
Speaker again dramatically reveals personal details about his subject, then leads them on
a deep line of questions. Question upon question steer the prospect further and further
down the path of self-reflection and perhaps even to a point of doubt in the clan as a
whole. The Speaker vanishes once again, leaving the prospect to consider the questions
he asked and the answers they gave.

At this point, any prospect who attempts to divulge details of meeting the Speaker usually
meets some tragic and abrupt end. If that does not occur, the Speaker proposes a third
meeting in a manner that would take impressive necromantic power to achieve, at least to
a fledgling. Perhaps a letter floats across a room, or a message appears scrawled by pen
before the prospect’s very eyes. The prospect may even dream of the encounter without it
ever physically occurring. At this point, the contact is never mundane.

It is then the Speaker knows he has them.

What Do the Whispers Do?

Leonardo soon realized that the fledglings’ enthusiasm that caused him to target them
was getting out of hand. To direct some of that energy, Leonardo hastily fabricated some
edicts, fearing what the Whispers would do without direction.

The Whispers believe that the Speaker has commanded them to prepare, so that the
Susurrus will be ready when it comes time to speak. As membership in the cult grows
within a domain, crime tends to increase. These are usually incidents of burglary and
petty theft, as those Whispers without income or digital means try to contribute to the
Speaker financially.

Some Whispers form coteries to grab or steal artifacts or tomes to lay at the Speaker’s feet,
in the hopes of proving that they can be of use to the Capuchin. Sadly, many of these
fledglings don’t know an artifact from a regular museum piece. As a result, the Speaker
has found himself in possession of quite a collection of valuable junk.

Those outside the Hecata are welcome to join in the Susurrus, or so the outsiders are told.
The Speaker has instructed his Whispers to string along those outside of the Hecata with
an interest in necromancy along to form ties with them or to drain these prospects of
their resources. Get them to believe, and they will do anything.

Hierarchy

In the short time since the cult’s founding, the Speaker has had to do very little to lead the
cult. In fact, the Whispers’ zeal has grown the cult faster than Leonardo anticipated.
While the Speaker gathered the initial few to him with theatrics, displays of necromantic
power, and promises of a future of belonging, his followers took his words and ran with
them. The first three members of the Whispers, all from Madrid, sought others who
might benefit from such wisdom. No one with proper ties to the family, but nevertheless
those were unfortunate or cast aside.

Heading online and using many of the same channels the younger members of the Hecata
did during its founding, the Whispers started to spread slowly and carefully, without the
knowledge of the Speaker. It was only when these tech savvy believers proudly brought
their work to the Speaker having set up bank accounts, Venmo accounts, and encrypted
forums did the Speaker realize what was happening, and how quickly it could get out of
hand. It’s all he can do to try to contain the monster he’s created before the Hecata proper
realize what he has done. Now, Leonardo’s looking for a way out.

Convictions of the Whispers

Always seek new Whispers: The Whispers always seek those who may have been cast off
or abandoned by the Hecata at large. They also reel in thin-bloods or Caitiff whom they
might take advantage of. Seek new members, or new rubes to support the true Whispers.

Never turn your back on new information, no matter the danger: The Susurrus see it as
their duty to collect information to serve the Speaker, and therefore, the Capuchin.
Knowledge is power. Whispers see it as a sacred duty to provide as much information
about their domains as possible.

Brook no disrespect toward the Capuchin: At the Speaker’s behest, members of the
Susurrus are expected to give blood, financial resources, or anything else asked of them in
return for the place the Capuchin has given them in the coming nights. These tithes are
used to build the Capuchin’s coffers for the glorious day when those chosen will come to
lead the Clan of Death.

Never Speak, Always Whisper: The Susurrus must never come to the attention of anyone
outside of the chosen. The Whispers police junior members and encourage junior
members to police one another. Any breach of trust or secrecy is dealt with swiftly or
reported to the Speaker himself. The Capuchin, through the Speaker, smiles upon and
rewards those who watch out for his inner circle.

Loyalty to the cult comes first: There will come a time when the Susurrus becomes a roil
to wash over the Clan of Death. Be ready to stand and reveal yourself when the decree
arrives. Gain as much power as you can while remaining hidden. When the time comes,
the Capuchin will reach out his hand and expect you to take it.

Perspectives

Anarchs: Commiserate with them and their secrets spill forth. Make them think you’re a
representative of the Hecata who’s considering joining up, and if they can get over being
 spooked, then you’ve got it made while you prepare.
Camarilla: The Ivory Tower is a tough nut to crack, so don’t try. Slip between the cracks
that are already there. Who knows, maybe there are those among them ready to hear the
Whispers.

The Hecata: We’ve got to keep an eye on the rest of the Family. The Capuchin trusts us, his
true followers, with that. The Speaker will tell us who may need to get taken down a peg or
taken out. They don’t even know we exist.

Maladanti: How did you hear that name? They were a heretical movement among the
Hecata, once upon a time, but they met the guillotine.
Thin-Bloods: We know what it’s like to be on the outside, looking in. They’ll listen to just
about anything we tell them if it has even a grain of truth. It’s a good thing we know our
truth.

The Withered Ones

“Do you think our kind hides in the dark for fear of the mortals? They are weak as kittens. No,
they hide from the only beasts vicious and cunning enough to hunt them. The Nictuku will
devour them all, and we shall help them cleanse the children of Caine.”

— Isaac Marsh, adherent of the Withered

Every society tells stories about bogeymen and mythological monsters that stalk the dark,
preying on those that wander too far from the safety of the light. Kindred societies,
despite being made up of those very monsters in the minds of humanity, are no exception.
The myth of the Nictuku has haunted Clan Nosferatu since before recorded history. The
thought that the most secretive and hidden of the clans of Caine is hunted by something
even more secretive amuses many Sewer Rats within the Clan. Most who have even heard
the stories view the Nictuku as just a myth, nothing more. It’s all too easy — and
sometimes fun — to write off stories of sudden disappearances of their kin as the doings
of some shadowy monster, but little evidence exists to prove that these creatures exist.
Sensible Kindred, doubters claim, shouldn’t fear such tales. After all, those who believe
spend their existences huddled in fear in their warrens... save for those known as the
Withered Ones.

Servants of the Monster

Fear is a curious thing. Those who allow it to control them can act irrationally as the
primal terror of death leads them to desperate acts of self-preservation. If something
exists that desires to devour and destroy the Blood of Clan Nosferatu, then perhaps
working to further the goals of these creatures might earn some the right to survive, or at
least to be killed off last. It is this line of thinking that birthed the Withered Ones, a
disorganized cult of maddened Hidden that has dedicated itself to destroying their clan
from the inside. Lacking anything resembling structure, the Withered lurk throughout
the world, plucking their own kin from the shadows and consuming them — or worse,
staking them out as offerings for the Nictuku. In either case, those Nosferatu taken by
them are never seen again.

The Withered Ones draw their membership from the most fearful and desperate
members of Clan Nosferatu. By and large, these wretched creatures emulate the Nictuku
of myth by filling their role, culling the weakest of their own clan to aid the creatures
they dread and worship. If the myth is true, they reason, then the Nictuku operate on the
will of the very Antediluvian that began their terrible line. They have come to see the
Nosferatu as worthy of nothing save destruction, and by furthering the goal of their
hidden masters, they might secure their own unlives, at least until the very end. Whether
anyone ever struck such a deal between the cult and the Nictuku, or whether these are
merely the assumptions of the fear-maddened masses is unknown, even within the cult.
They simply do not care. If they are right, then they will stand alone until the rest of their
Clan finally crumbles to dust. And if they are wrong, they will simply die with the rest. To
not make the attempt to die last or to survive would be akin to giving up now. Better, in
their twisted minds, to walk into the sun and forget the fear than not to take steps to
prolong their existences.

To emulate the objects of their veneration, and to distance themselves from their victims,
the Withered wear grotesque masks modeled after rare descriptions of the ruined faces of
the Nictuku. Even though their own faces are often more twisted than those of the masks
they wear, these ritualistic objects are crafted with a sinister mien and lend their
members a measure of anonymity and uniformity. While it is rare for one of the Withered
to remain among polite Kindred society, some few manage to maintain a tenuous balance,
and become hidden killers, wolves hidden amongst the sheep.

Ancient Tales, Modern Blood

The tales that describe the creatures known as the Nictuku vary in detail. Some paint
Nictuku as a single beast that stalks the darkness, culling those Nosferatu that become
complacent or taking vengeance upon them for some unknown, ancient insult. Others
weave a tale of an entire bloodline of vampires descended from the progenitor of the
Nosferatu and bound to his will. Their goal: the outright destruction of his failed clan. As
long as these stories have existed, so have the Withered in one form or another. The cult
does not have an unbroken tradition stretching back into antiquity. Rather, the Withered
Ones are a modern incarnation of an ancient fear and hatred. Again and again throughout
history, the Withered Ones rise up, the cult’s members grow too brazen with their
killings, and other Nosferatu band together to stamp out the branches of the cult. Still,
like cockroaches they return, perhaps with only a superficial resemblance to their past
trappings but sharing the same desperate goal.

The modern cult has existed in small numbers for centuries. Not even their own members
really know how long, as the Withered are not ones for record-keeping. They replenish
their numbers as they must and share tales of their unseen masters that have warped and
changed through generations of telling. Each coven is led by a single member known as
the Bitter One, who carries the stories and knowledge of the cult passed down from those
that came before them. The masks, they teach, are to make them one, to bind them
together as a coven, and are said to represent the monstrous nature of their souls. The
Bitter One likewise imparts upon the coven’s members the Waymarks, scratched symbols
that impart meaning among the Withered and allow scattered covens to communicate
with each other and mark pathways, traps, and other dangers that exist within the
twisting passages of their holdings. Those who choose to associate with a coven at all,
instead of acting as independent agents, congregate in deep warrens, their fear of the
monsters they serve driving them together to protect themselves and prolong the time
they have to strike against their clanmates. When one of the Withered disappears without
a trace, the cult considers them taken by the Nictuku. Paradoxically, they view such a fate
as a blessing. Some even believe that those taken become Nictuku themselves, chosen to
stalk the darkness forever.

The most common fate for the Withered is the maddened state known as Wassail when
the last shreds of their humanity give way to the hunger of the Beast. Likewise,
destruction at the hands of those they hunt is common. A single member might grow
sloppy, attack a particularly well-defended target, or even try to take a Nosferatu from one
of the more hospitable communal warrens. Even in these instances, the Withered do not
seek vengeance for their fallen comrade. After all, the destruction of their fellow hunter
due to their own folly safeguards those who remain against the fallen’s future rash
behavior. Fate is not kind to those who enter battles they cannot win. Instead, the cult
moves on, slinking back into the shadows to seek targets elsewhere, at least until the
other Nosferatu whom they prey upon forget their presence become complacent once
again.

With the rise of the Second Inquisition, the departure or destruction of so many elder
Kindred, and the loss of much of the Nosferatu information network, the Withered Ones
have recruited an influx of new members. When stability breaks down, fear and
desperation can become overwhelming. Some Nosferatu — driven into deeper fear and
paranoia — seek out the Withered Ones, driven by their sense of purpose and, perhaps, by
the allure of a measure of safety from what lurks in the darkness just beyond their
doorstep. As a result of their growing numbers, attacks by the Withered have also
increased in cities that host cells of the small, scattered cult.

Masks

The masks worn by the Withered Ones hold no special magic, but they are sacred objects
to the cult just the same. Generally crafted of leather — the exact provenance of which is
left to grotesque speculation — these malformed, uncanny facades resemble prevalent
Nosferatu deformities taken to the extreme. The sinister features are designed in such a
way as to allow deep shadows to mask the wearer’s eyes and give the face a more menacing
countenance should victims see the mask in any sort of light. Deep wrinkles and folds line
the features to accomplish this. Usually, the mask merely frames the mouth instead of
covering it, the better to allow the wearer to feed upon their intended victim.

Should one of their number fall during a hunt, the cult will take great pains to recover the
fallen one’s mask. Only rarely will the cult craft a new mask. Instead, the Bitter One
grants new inductees into the cult the mask of one of the fallen to bring them into the
fold, and to give them a connection to those who came before them. Nevertheless, one or
more members of a cell often learn some measure of leatherworking so that they can
provide a new mask in those rare occasions that one is needed, and they take great pains
to match the grotesquery of the mask they were unable to recover.

Within their rituals, the mask takes an important place, symbolically binding them
together as one within their coven. Those who have utterly forsaken their old lives go so
far as to staple or sew their mask to their faces, only leaving their mouths exposed to feed.
A Withered One without their mask is one who has lost their place within the coven, and
their former cohorts quickly turn on them. Even a Withered with their mask who acts too
strangely may be devoured and their mask ripped from their body, set aside to be given to
a new recruit who can honor it.

Faith of the Withered

The faith of the Withered Ones is a simple matter. Most have given up on the unlives they
once knew to dedicate themselves to the destruction of their own Clan. Though the exact
reasoning might differ from cell to cell as to why the Nosferatu deserve destruction, the
primary goal remains. Each cell has its own stories, its own rituals, and unique masks that
share the grotesque and twisted visage of the Nictuku.

Sacred Acts

The Withered Ones are not without ceremony. Their rituals, held in small gatherings of
the cell in a hidden chamber of their warren, help them to indoctrinate new adherents
and bolster their resolve to act despite their abject fear. The local members tell stories of
their kills and recite whatever local variation of the myths of the Nictuku they hold as
truth. While demeanors among a cell may vary, many established adherents share a
sadistic glee in these retellings. This dark amusement is proof their humanity has already
begun to slip further than those more recently inducted into the cell.

The most sacred rite of all is bestowing a new mask. This is a personal rite of passage for
the fresh inductee to the cult. The recruit is often blindfolded, taken deep into the tunnels
around the cult’s lair and, seemingly, left there lost in the dark with nothing. Their obje
ctive is to find their way back to the cult, while along the way, cultists dog them — or
sometimes, depending on the bloodthirstiness of the cell, hunt them — while wearing
their horrific masks. The ceremony is designed to make the inductee fearful near to the
point of madness, until they stumble back into the relative safety of their brethren and
are given a mask of their own, which symbolically transforms them into one of the
monsters that had pursued them. While many inductees to the cult are willing
participants in this awful rite, having sought out the Withered Ones based on rumors and
driven by their own fear, this is not always the case. Some Withered take special delight in
snatching an unsuspecting Nosferatu and twisting them into one of their own through
fright and torture.

When one of their own vanishes, the Withered gather, don their masks, and implore their
masters to make the chosen one of them. They make offerings of their own vitae or even
capture a Nosferatu to leave staked out in a place of the coven’s choosing in the hopes that
they will be taken and devoured in their stead. This place is always the same; always near
to the cult’s lair and exposed to the sun in some way to ensure the dawn destroys the
offering even if the Nictuku never claim them. Should the offering disappear, the
Withered celebrate, seeing this as an acceptance of their plea. In the case that such an
offering is not accepted, the leader of the cell will often devour the offering themselves
and write off their missing comrade as dead. There is no rite of mourning, as the cult
largely sees death as inevitable — most are only working to die last. Instead, they move
on, and never speak of the missing again.

Nictuku Convictions

The convictions held by the Withered Ones help keep them from descending into Wassail,
though they remain only a temporary measure at best.

Do not hesitate to slake your hunger on the unwitting: Those Nosferatu who grow
too lax in their security or too resistant to the urgings of their paranoia deserve their
destruction. The Withered see them as easy targets and devour them to emulate and
serve the Nictuku.

Never leave sign of your passage: A Nosferatu who disappears without evidence as
to their fate strikes fear into the hearts of the clan. The Withered use this to their
advantage. Practicality, of course, also plays a role — with no evidence to lead back to
them, they can continue to strike at the clan in secret.

Never strike against another Withered: The Withered Ones are few, and thus as a
measure of practicality view attacking other members of the cult as anathema. A
strike against another Withered who remains true to the cause is wasted, they feel, as
long as they all share the same purpose. Destroying each other deprives them of the
numbers that aid them in their ability to do their sacred work.

Perspectives

Anarchs: They treat our hunted kin marginally better than the supposedly civilized
Camarilla, but it doesn’t matter in the end. We’ll devour them, too... and perhaps, once our
own clan is dealt with, our masters will have us move on to the others.
Camarilla: Ah, the beacon of Kindred society. It’s laughable, really. Those that know of
our masters believe them to be little more than ghost stories told by the wretches of a clan
they merely tolerate. We shall see how they hold together when all their spymasters and
information brokers vanish without a trace.
Clan Nosferatu: They cower in their holes, in their hovels, trying to outlast what they do
not understand or even entirely believe in. We will make them fear the dark. Perhaps, then,
more will come to see the truth for what it is?
The Shattered Spear: These zealots managed to destroy a few of us in Lisbon without
understanding what or who we were. Vengeance may not be our way, but I know more
than a few that wouldn’t hesitate to snatch one of them up if given a fighting chance.