Vampire and Kult Integrated
Karl (lexus@CWNET.COM)
Hello all. My Name is Karl. Some friends and I have been running a live action vampire game based on the Kult universe for about a year now. We run every Saturday and have about 70 players per night. It's great throwing the Kult background at a bunch of jaded vampire players who think they know everything about the game. You should see their faces when they get torn into by a Razide or screwed by someone who has mastered the Lore of Death. One quick point, We changed Yesod to from "the founder" to "the Paramour" and made it much more on par with the lore of passion. It worked for us. Special thanks to Paul Beakley for his initial inspiration to run a Vampire/Kult game.
And so without further delay...
How the Clans are Controlled by the Secret Masters
Cain is not the progenitor of all vampires. Vampires do not carry the curse of Cain. Cain was not made a vampire by the Demiurge as punishment for the first murder. There never was a vampire named Cain. Neither did vampires fall from Metropolis with man. They were never the lords of the Primal City. In the beginning there were no vampires. Vampirism is an experiment gone terribly wrong. Thirteen times Malkuth attempted to alter the bodies of human beings hopping that immortality would grant them the experience necessary to break free of the Illusion. Thirteen times these beings were perverted by Malkuth's enemies each twisted in some way to serve the jailers. As each clan grew from its founder the secret masters found ways to better use them until they have become the most powerful tool in maintaining the illusion. Each clan is influenced by different beings and each master has it's own method of domination.
Ironically, the greatest of the vampires' handicaps to enlightenment was wrought by Malkuth itself. Thinking to give its creations a spark of perseverance, a hyper survival instinct was added to the basic formula. Instead of giving the vampires will enough to face the truth this Beast turned lose in the jail! made them mad like caged animals. The Beast has become the vampires chief enemy, giving them cruel and petty egos hot and fierce when they are young only to burn slowly into cunning isolation and devastating malice as they age. Malkuth failed to see the flaw until all thirteen had been made and had never been able to remove the Beast from future blood lines, though it has tried. Before getting into the particulars of each clan, please not that time is not linear.
The time of certain actions taken by archons and death angels may seem incongruous with the reasons for performing them however to these powerful entities, who exist outside the illusion of time, they make perfect sense. Hareb-Sarap twisted the early Brujah, placing in their blood a fierce augmentation to the Beast which makes them lust for battle and long for the blood of innocents on their lips. Thaumiel the Unjust Ruler has found uses for this trait in the Brujah. Under Thaumiel the clan has diverted the energy of their beasts to fighting authority. They are directed into fight after fight for perceived oppressions and injustices. This may sound counter productive to the death angel's nature, however rebels are actually very necessary to perpetuate the cycle of oppression and they are never allowed to see the real oppressors. One quarter of the Brujah elders are actually razides directing the clan to the purposes of Thaumiel. It takes very little to keep the clan fighting other than a cause and the means.
Clan Gangrel were cursed by Nahemoth the Defiled World into an eternal restlessness. They may never find an answer to their longing Beast and are crippled into melancholy isolation that sap their will and blunts their perseverance. This curse keeps them from enlightenment at the same time it makes them hard for lictors to manipulate. Though Binah exerts a moderate influence on the Gangrel they remain the only clan free of most of the secret masters machinations.
Perhaps the cruelest trick upon vampires was worked by Gamichicoth the False Rescuer who gave the Malkavians a vision into the truth that could not be expressed and drove them all mad. Of all its creations, Malkuth maintains the purest guilt over the fate of the Malkavians. Malkuth has directed this clan, through her lictors, to enlighten others in the only way they can; acts that shock the psyche into a state of pure vision.
Hod the. Punisher gave to. the Nosferatu their visage in retribution for Malkuth's violation of the Demiurge's law. Forced into the underground the early Nosferatu met the agents of Tiphareth who have been using the clan since. The clan is given superior information by the Archon's lictors in exchange for their knowledge of vampire activities and their promise to protect the subterranean entrances to Metropolis Tiphareth knows the information she gives the Nosferatu will disperse and uses this to her advantage. All data given out is slanted and meant to spurn other parties into likely action. Some information is simply falsehood designed to test certain institutions or beings.
The Toreadar were perverted by Yesod the Paramour who gave them a sensuality and an aesthetic appreciation that keeps them bound to the illusion by their senses. Binah now uses the Toreador to control both mortal and vampire society. Her lictors teach them secret rituals to build social groups and bind each member to her duties to the others. In exchange they become very powerful in these groups.
The Mages of old House Tremere were under the influence of Kether the Ruler long before he convinced them to drink the blood of the Salubri founder. Discrete changes have been made over the centuries to the Tremere power structure and an effort has been made to move away from the old customs. Kether's lictors now make up the entire council of seven and most of the Pontifects. Kether's lictors use the Tremere to rule the prison and fight his dark twin Thaumiel. The Tremere, locked into their illuminanti power structure rarely think to question who really directs them or why, so greedy are they for the small magic that Kether allows them to learn.
Clan Ventrue received its special perversion from Thaumiel, who continues to control them. The blood of the clan calls them to subjugate other and bend their wills. It is an instinctive need that draws power from the Beast. The Ventrue subconscious. sees everything in Darwinian terms of victim and victimizer though they like to believe otherwise. They are the black jewel in Thaumiel's crown of iron. The death angel's razides are firmly entrenched in the Ventrue power structure. In fact, it is these servants who guard Ventrue's sleep in body and translate his "wishes" to the clan.
Togarini the Protector of Death twisted the Capidocian's Beast, obsessing them with the illusion of death in order to make them pliable pawns. The clan was loyal to his cause, perpetuating the concept of death until a few of the elders began to awaken as a result of their morbid experiments. A group of Togarini's lictors, the Giovanni, were immediately dispatched to exterminate the entire Capidocian clan and replace them with a clan more directly under the death angel's control. This was accomplished very thoroughly.
Children of Osiris, now a motley band of freedom fighters, serve no archon or death angel. They learned the truth about reality from their founder shortly before he was destroyed by Thaumiel along with most of their clan. Those few who are of the true blood and not merely converts seek the destruction of Thaumiel's pawn, Set, and an end to the prison.
Set's blood was maligned by Gamaliel the essence of Perverted Sexuality. Since then, Thaumiel has found them almost as useful as the Ventrue in oppressing the mass. The Followers of Set are singularly masters of bringing entire armies of the disaffected into Thaumiel's influence through their use of secret cults and sex rituals. Thaumiel controls the Settites through their absolute loyalty to Set, whom he has replaced with a particularly vial and twisted lictor. Those who do not adore Set or obey the Typhonists, the lictor's agents, are sent to the death angel's inferno where they "learn gratitude".
Clan Giovanni came into being to serve Togarini. Humans of the Giovanni family were selected to serve Togarini's lictors in the place of the Cappadocians. The death angel gave the new clan a lesser discipline that will never lead them into the Truth and saw to it that the clan is firmly dominated by it's lictors/Dons. Their main function is to maintain the aspect of the illusion called death. As long as they perpetuate this lie by their belief in it, Togarini's lictors leave them in peace to follow their pursuits. Those that do not toe the line may serve the illusion as a wraith.
It was Kether who twisted the Lasombra, making their Beast crave power and subjects in a way similar to the Ventrue. It was Kether's intention to neutralize the Sabbat threat to the prison with the clan's leadership. When Astaroth returned from the Abyss, however, the Demiurge's dark twin set his sights on claiming the Sabbat as his warriors. Astaroth successfully seduced the Losombra with infernal magics and special powers granted from Inferno. The elders of the clan are fully aware of who they serve and all within the clan who opposes their infernal master are killed.
The already wild Ravnos succumbed to Samael, their beast altered into a thirst for total annihilation. Malkuth's, who the clan reveres and Deana the Mother, has been able to keep this primal desire focused on the destruction of the illusion, though her control is less than perfect. Samael's razides and Malkuth's lictors can both be found hidden in the Ravnos' ranks.
The founder of the Salubri, like Osiris, enlightened to the nature of reality. However, Kether's lictors goaded the Mages of House Tremere into slaying her before she could relate most of her knowledge. After that the Salubri were hunted one by one until all that remained were eight, all very skilled in hiding from Tremere and the shadowy lictors. The Salubri of today have a distorted view of the Truth. The clan teaches others to awaken to their own godhood. They believe each person is responsible for it's own personal reality. They do not personify the archons and death angels, leaving them as philosophical concepts. The Salubri do not have any concept of the jailers or their virtually total control Of man's destiny. The Salubri was easy pickings for lictors until the last eight became totally paranoid.
The Sabbat originally formed under the influence of Malkuth, however she quickly lost control to Kether when he seduced the Lasombra. Kether used the sect to destroy all opposition to the Illusion. When Astaroth returned to Reality he wooed the Lasombra from Kether and uses the clan to direct Sabbat attack against his enemies in the Prison. The Sabbat, today, is very factious. Kether and Malkuth still have influence and some of the death angels have their own followers as well. The Black Hand went through a radical policy change when a Hand Nosferatu
Antitribu named Kaleb awoke to the nature of True Reality. He was able to write his insights down in an enigmatic book now referred to as the Book of Nod before the lictors of Kether silenced him. The Hand quickly distributed pieces of the work and now exists solely to protect the book. The Hand is still a part of the Sabbat and must constantly play a cloak and dagger game with their enemies within the sect.
