The Damned 
Our True Name
The Ghouls
The Embrace
Anotomia Vampirica
The Hunger
The Beast
The Burdens of Immortality
Vita Sub Tenebras
Origins of the Kindred
The Masqureade
Childer
The World of the Undead
Diablerie
Last Plea
Clans of the World
Diciplines
Click to return home
We are monsters to thee, yet heroes as well, we are the incarnations of dark metaphors and suppressed desires, yet we are also the nobility of fairy tales, beloved of children. We are a baseless superstitions, and artistic genre, a psychological condition, a yearning made flesh, an externalisation of a guilt-lust-violence complex, and many other things besides.
Our True Name
Some two and a half centuries ago, a French churchman named Calmet sought to collect all the information extant on the nature of vampires. It is not surprising, then, that his treatise contains many contradictions and areas of uncertainty. Quoting from the reports of Papal Commissions sent out to deal with 'plagues' of vampires in Austria, Hungary, Moravia, and Silesta, he reports that a vampire may be destroyed by being transfixed with a wooden stake, followed by decapitation and the burning of the remains. This will indeed destroy a vampire, just as certainly as it would destroy a mortal. Such a clever man, Calmet.
Motion pictures have abbreviated this treatment somewhat, creating the fallacy that the stake is sufficient. Do not believe such tales. Transfixing its heart on a stake will immobilise a vampire, but some further treatment is necessary terminus sit. Weather this be burning or sunlight, ist egql; but trust not the stake alone; Neither should you place your faith in weapons of metal, as did your American friend. Such things injure, but the wounds heal quickly - else I should not be writing now.
Sunlight, it is said, is infallible doom to my kind. Motion pictures show motley greasepaint vampires crumbling to dust at Sol's caress, or bursting in to flames like those doused with Greek Fire. Sadly, this is true, if somewhat overstated. Sunlight burns our skin as dose flame, and only the oldest and strongest can withstand it for long.
Thus we must sleep during the day and act only at night. During the day we are very sluggish, and find it difficult to do anything besides sleep. Only those of us who have not left our human nature very far behind are capable of taking action when the sun is in the sky. I myself have not seen the light of day for many centuries, and have nearly forgotten the gleam of the sun's golden rays. But I do not miss it.
Crosses, holy water, and the other trappings of religion may be ignored - the Church is the first refuge of mortals faced by things beyond their comprehension, especially in former times, Ipso dicto, however, I have seen rare occasions where such items were capable of causing considerable discomfort - their wielder almost glowed with faith in the Divinity, and I can only conclude that the religious items served somehow to channel the power of that faith. Ignore the tricks of cinema, however, with their crossed candlesticks and shadows of windmill sails.
The reputed properties of garlic, aconite and their herbs are likewise more superstition. They repel vampires no more than they do mortals, foe all the canting of the good wives who peddle them. Like the Church, the village wisewoman was often required to use her 'magic' against vampires, and was just as successful.
Filmmakers have made other fallacious legends part of the common parlance. For instance, we can see our own reflections in the mirror, though some of us pretend otherwise in honour of the great cinematic tradition. Likewise, we can appear on film. Indeed, some of my kind have appeared in movies, and one was even a director of little repute.
It is equally ludicrous to presume that a vampire would not be able to travel around as he would like. We Cainites (one of our race's terms for ourselves, the origin of which I shall later discuss) may enter at house and home we please at any time. It is likewise preposterous to think a vampire would not be able to cross running water. Indeed water affects us not at all. We no longer breathe; hence we cannot drown. While being trapped under water is unpleasant and may, if prolonged, result I some physical deterioration, no vampire has died from immersion alone, although some bloodlines are rumoured to have a weakness vis-à-vis water. Belike this is how many of the rumours originated, for weaknesses have arisen in several bloodlines and have been passed from Sire to Get.
The cinematic vampire, it seems, may take several forms if the human shape suits not his purpose: wolf, bat, mist - In some legends, cat and night-bird also. The powers of the Elders are considerable, and they are seldom found in those of later generation. I have seen many wonders during my brief and unwilling involvement in their game of Jyhad, and I no longer discount the stories of shape-shifting. But I tell you this - a vampire who has plural forms will either be of a rare breed, the Gangrel clan, or will be very old, very wise and very powerful. I pray that such a one will never cross your path.
Many of us, however, have abilities which a mortal would consider supernatural. As predators, our senses are sharp, and some have developed other talents to aid in the hunt. One example - the ability to inspire fear, stillness, obedience and other emotional responses - is a useful one, although popular writers have embellished it somewhat in the interests of their stories.
The Ghouls
It occurs to me that some of the confusion about a vampire's supernatural powers and weaknesses may be due to mistaken identity. There exists a class of creature in between mortal and vampire, which the Kindred (and the most popular) have named Ghoul. It is not the legendary corpse-eating ghul of the Indies, although certain individuals may display similar behaviour.
Mortals who drink the blood of the Kindred without first being drained become Ghouls. These creatures may go abroad in daylight as other mortals do, but they do not suffer the Hunger nor do they age as long as they feed on Vampire Blood Regularly. They may even have superhuman strength and reflexes. From time to time, it is advantageous to create such servants, commanding their loyalty through the Promise of eternal life. They need not even be human - a hound that has drunk one's blood becomes the most perfect and faithful guardian one could desire. Thus do tales of hell-hounds arise.
While Ghouls display some of the strengths of the vampire, they retain most of the weaknesses of the mortal. Impalement will slay Ghouls as effectively as mortals, and a lead bullet will kill as surely as a silver one. They may even develop a fear of religious trappings, or garlic, or what you will - a purely neurotic phenomenon, based on the fact that they believe these things can harm them. The existence of Ghouls in animal form may partly explain the widespread belief in shape-changing vampires.
Some Ghouls may well believe themselves full- fledged vampires, having been deceived to that end by their creators. They may even act according to their mistaken ideas - to the point of drinking blood - for they seldom understand the ways of the Kindred any better than Mortals. Most are deranged to some extent by the experiences they have suffered - witness, zum Beispiel, your late husband's employer - and many are deliberately misinformed by their masters, the better to serve them.
The Embrace
Mortal superstitions deal at great length with the means by which a vampire may come in to existence. These range from the predictably religious to the utterly bizarre, and can make an entertaining evening's reading if one is inclined. Other than entertainment, however, they serve little purpose.
The first and most common of these myths is the legend that anyone bitten by a vampire will himself become a vampire. Thus each time a vampire feeds, it creates another of its kind. One wonders how it is that any mortals are left in the world. Furthermore, a corpse may become a vampire if it was a suicide, an oathbreaker, a member of a tainted bloodline, or de tout an evil person. Again, the globe would be peopled with nothing but vampires - and I tell you this, I have not seen this army of undead. Indeed, to my understanding, there are not many of us upon this globe. To my knowledge, there is only one means through which a mortal may become a vampire. Shame fills me again when I recall that I intended this fate for you, and I rejoice that providence denied me. Truly do repent the eternity of sorrow which so nearly was your destiny.
There is a grain of truth in the legend de gustando. To become a vampire, one must lose all one's mortal; blood - but that's only part of the horror. Mortui exsanguinati mortui veri, if nothing further is done; the fang will kill as everlastingly as the bale of bullet.
As mortality stands on the brink of extinction, as the flesh slowly dies, the vampire assailant may choose to spare the victim from death or deny Heaven's grace, for all is one his rebus. By replacing the stolen Mortal blood with a little of the vampire's own, a Progeny is created. But a single drop of blood upon the lips of the dying arouses him sufficiently to drink from the wrist of his Sire.
How can I express the horror of the Embrace? The fear and confusion? The revulsion and terror? The pain? Even the passing of centuries has not dulled the memory.
Understand that I am no coward. As a soldier, I endured the privations of the camp, the perils of battle, the savagery of the victor, of which I plead guilty to my share, for such was the Zeitsmode. But even those things I witnessed as a prisoner of the Turks could not have prepared me for the experience of being hurled into this cursed half-life.
I was, de gratia potestates descriptis, I a most peaceful state of mind as my blood was stolen. As deaths go - and I have seen many kinds - this was surely the least distressing. It was as though my experience was a strange and somewhat unsettling dream. Far off in the warm, soft darkness of my failing mind, I became aware of a light; I knew that this was where I must go, and I knew that, once I arrived there, all would be well with me. I began to drift toward it.
Abruptly the welcoming light was extinguished. My face felt an impact like a musket-ball, and as I tried to scream, my mouth filled with liquid fire. The vitriol seared my throat and stomach; consciousness returned as though it would rend me limb from limb. A thousand fishhooks tore my flesh in every direction.
I prayed for death - anything to stop the pain - but I could not even lapse from consciousness. Nec Turcos nec Inquaesitores ever commanded such torment. Magnify a thousandfold the sting of vinegar on a cut finger, and flood the feeling through every limb and every vein . Add to this the gnawing starving ache of five days' forced march without food or water. Deny Sleep, swooning or any other surcease from the all-consuming dolor. But no. My meagre wordsmithing can convey nothing of it.
I knew only that I must drink, and as I did so the pain abated a little. My eyes cleared, and I saw what it was that I drank.
My first reaction was denial This could not possibly be happening. Eve in the fifteenth century, men of education and breeding scoffed at the superstitions of the peasant. As a child, my nurses had frightened me to sleep with stories of the terrible vrolok, but I had outgrown such tales long before. This was a nightmare, and hallucination of some kind. I tried to focus on thoughts of meat, fruit, wine - but to no avail. Blood was all. Blood was reality. All else was discarded.
I can only be thankful that I was in a remote place. Had I been Embraced in a city, with people all around, there is no telling what havoc might have ensued. The Hunger blotted out reason entirely. Had my own son appeared before me then he would have died to feed the Hunger, for I was utterly enslaved to it. No opium fiend in a Limehouse or Shanghai den was ever so helplessly, so wretchedly dependent.
I cry for mercy. The memory - and the recollection of what followed - distresses me, and I shall not continue the narrative. Instead, I shall address another, but related topic.
Anatomia Vampirica
Though our External appearance remains much like that of the living, there are those among us who insist that the Change transforms its subject into another species - Homo Sapiens Sanguineus, Homo Sapientissimus, and Homo Vampiricus have all been advanced as names for this new race, following the Swedish classification.
Be that as it may, it seems beyond dispute that the body undergoes as much of a change as the psyche. As will become apparent, much of what follows is - and can only be - conjecture, unsupported by dissection.
The gross physical changes are a matter of common knowledge, so much as that we have allowed them to remain in popular fiction. The canine teeth are indeed long and pointed, the better to draw blood. However, they are only fully extended at the time if the kill, being at other times withdrawn into their sockets by the contraction of a flexible tissue at their base. Both speech and secrecy would be most difficult otherwise. Some lack the means to withdraw their teeth, but they are easily discovered and are a dying clan.
To feed, we merely need to bite, retract the teeth from the wound and then begin to drink. If we lick the wound after we drink, then no trace of our feeding will remain. Indeed, if we lick any wound which we have caused with our claws or fangs, we can heal it completely.
Our own skin, as with the cinematic vampire, is invariably pale. Partly, it seems, this stems from our aversion to sunlight, but it is also due to the arrested state of death. Daruber noch spater.
Our Hunger is a drive for sustenance, of that there can be no doubt. From this and from bitter experiences with the foods I most enjoyed in my breathing days, it appears that the inward parts of the vampire have lost their facility for digestion. One seldom sees a stout vampire, and nearly all remark on a newfound slenderness after the Change. Being no longer required, the organs presumably wither.
The vampire's body remains as it was at the time of death, Hair and nails continue to grow for a few days, as they do on a fresh cadaver, but that is all. Yet I have seen vampires who have over time managed to grow hair ad nails this is still to me a mystery I have yet to unravel. If I wish my hair or nails to be shorter, I must cut them each evening after I rise. It is my conjecture that the body of the vampire is actually dead, and is only arrested from the natural process of decay by the power of the Change. The skin becomes a little tighter over the bones, much as it does in the newly dead.
The lungs of a vampire no longer breathe - though many have learned to feign breathing while among the living - for the fresh blood of the prey provides the small amount of oxygen needed to sustain the dead tissues in their stasis. Only a young or foolish vampire takes blood from the jugular vein, where it is near the end of it's journey and full of impurities; the blood of the carotid artery is clean and wholesome, and much to be preferred.
Just as the lungs no longer breathe, so the heart no longer beats. The blood of prey somehow suffuses through the body by a process of osmosis, rather than flowing along veins and arteries. This can be seen in the fact that when a vampire weeps - which indeed we do, and more often than a mortal might suppose - the tears themselves are of blood. Cut a vampire's throat, and you will find the vessels empty. The closure and atrophy of those blood vessels nearest the skin is another reason for the pallid complexion which marks the vampire, although a rosy hue is noticeable after feeding.
The blood of the prey, coupled with the blood of the Sire, does appear to have some remarkable properties. We are able to heal ourselves of most wounds with remarkable quickness. We still feel pain, and a reflex sends blood to the afflicted area -- just as in life, blood will suffuse bruised tissue and colour it purple. The one exception to this rule is the stake so beloved of writers and filmmakers. This will induce a kind of paralysis or trance, although it will not kill in it's own right. Quite why this is so is unknown to me, for the heart no longer beats and so is not necessary to pump the flow of blood. I have heard various mystical explanations of this phenomenon, but must confess myself at a loss to explain it rationally.
The body no longer makes and replenishes its own blood, and relies entirely on prey for fresh blood and the nutrients which Science has found blood to carry. Something in the blood of the Sire, passed down through the Change, fans the spark of Life and arrests decay, but regular infusions of fresh blood are needed lest decay begin again. And when a vampire is destroyed, that decay is fantastically swift, as through Time were recalling the debt of decades or centuries. Nothing remains but dust, which is why anatomical study is impossible and so much must be guessed.
We are able to heal our wounds using this blood upon which we feed. We are able to use it to regenerate whole limbs and organs, given time and need. Regeneration always restores us to the physical state we possessed when we died, including hair length, face shape, body weight - everything. When the body is injured, it will reform itself in the same mould again and again. We are already dead, and so cannot die except through toe forces of life - the eternal sun and the primordial flame.
One last question remains in re corporis - a somewhat prurient one, which I shall answer with as much delicacy as I may. Through the popular entertainment's, the vampire has become established as a highly potent figure of romance -- and betimes of more than romance. While the act of love is physically possible for a vampire of either sex, the associated impulses, drives and responses have died along with the flesh -- which, incidentally, is cold to the touch rather than warm. By effort of will we may go through the motions, forcing blood to the relevant areas in the same way as healing a wound, but that is all. The ecstasy of the Kiss replaces all such needs within us. Blood is the only object of our desire.
The Hunger
To live as a vampire is to live with horror. Always squatting on one's shoulder like a warlock's fiend is the knowledge of the Hunger. And always, always, does it approach - sometimes slowly and surreptitiously, sometimes with great hates, but always ravenously. The Hunger can never fully be satiated.
Hunger, we call it, but the term is woefully inadequate. Mortals know hunger, even starvation, but this is as nothing. The Hunger replaces almost every need, every drive known to the living - food, drink, reproduction, ambition, security - and it is more compelling than all of them combined.
More than a drive, it is a drug, one to which we are born with a hopeless addiction. In the taking of blood lies not only our survival, but also a pleasure beyond description. The Hunger is a physical, mental and spiritual ecstasy which throws all the pleasures of mortal life into shadow.
To be a vampire is to be trapped by the Hunger. The Beast may only be kept subdued by the greatest effort of will; to deny the Hunger enrages the Beast, until nothing may keep it in check. Thus we must commit monstrous acts to stop ourselves from becoming monsters - that is the Riddle Monsters we are, lest monsters we become.
That is the paradox of our life. It is the curse of my own.
The Beast
The Beast rages constantly for release, and only the strongest will may hold it back. Sometimes it breaks its bonds, and runs riotous until it is recaptured. The strain of self-control, and the shameful memories of failed control, are hard enough to bear, Worse still is the knowledge, constant as the Hunger, that these things will surely happen again. Over the decades and centuries, this awareness gnaws at the mind like a rat at a ship's cable.
To be a vampire is to live on the edge of madness. Obsessive devotion to some self-appointed task can help keep despair from the mind, and if the task is one of great goodness, it is possible to reason that the end justifies the means. Some deliberately cultivate addictions, such as gambling or collecting art. Others shut themselves away and confine their hunting to a small. Sparsely-populated area, telling themselves that they are protecting the rest of the world. These things can perhaps delay the onset of madness, but they can also provide it with its first foothold.
Ultimately, hard as we may strive against it, madness awaits us. The flame of Humanity ebbs and sputters until finally it is extinguished. Then the Beast is victorious, and monsters we become in truth. The Beast resides within the heart, and directs us towards evil, but when it overtakes the halls of the soul, then shall we be evil.
Some speak of Golconda, the vampire's Salvation. Both mortal and Kindred lore deny us Heaven's grace, but in Golconda we look for surcease from the Riddle. It is a stasis, where and individual may balance the Man and the Beast against each other so that striving is no longer needful. The descent into madness is halted, and although the individual is no longer recognisable as human in his thoughts and deeds, what remains of Hunamitas is safe. In almost five centuries, I have met a meagre few Kindred who have reached the blessed state, but all desire it as mortals desire Heaven.
The Burdens of Immortality
We are, as the most cursory student of folklore knows, ageless and immortal. In this case, lore and tradition have the right if it. Once made, a vampire lives until actively destroyed, or until the Beast wins over the Man, or until, after countless millennia, the Blood is exhausted.
Down the centuries, mortals have hungered for the secret of immortality, thinking it would give them great power. From the priests of heathen times through the alchemists of my own breathing days and down to the physicians of the present, mortals have expended more wealth and effort in the war against ageing and death than in the cause of any religion or trade.
Many newly made Kindred - myself included - rejoice in the thought of immortality when they first overcome the shock of the Change and begin to reconcile themselves to their new situation. Yet it is a barbed gift, and another door by which madness may enter in.
Consider, for example, having to watch your loved ones - even your children and grandchildren - grow old and die, while you remain strong and vigorous. There is a necessity to live completely outside mortal society, or at least to move on every decade or so, lest it be noticed that you do not age. The tide of history flows over you like a stream, leaving you unchanged.
The longer one lives as a vampire, the greater the sense of detachment from the mortal affairs. It can be an advantage at first, helping to deaden the guilt of killing and the pain of losing one's mortal family to remorseless Time. But as detachment grows, Humanitas wanes, and the Beast grows stronger. The most terrible of mortal serial killers often are detached from their kind, atrocitates tranquilliter gestandae. It is the same face on a different coin, as the Turks would say.
Even if one can fight off this dehumanizing verschiedenskeit, Time lends madness other weapons. For without detachment, guilt and remorse may work unchecked eating at the feelings like acid eating metal. Mortal soldiers return from foreign wars wounded by the violence they have seen and done, yet they have only to live with their memories for a few brief decades. A vampire's guilt is eternal, and time can sap the strongest will. Another face of the Riddle: we may lose our Humanity to avoid losing our minds, yet what is madness but lost Humanity? Sooner or later, grins the Beast you shall be mine.
A further paradox - we grow stronger as we grow weaker. The older a vampire, the more powerful - the more cunning to have lived so long, the better versed and practised in certain arts and powers, the better able to withstand those things that are anathema to us. And, perhaps, the stronger of will, not to have become a monster. Yet the weaker, for the Beast tries the bars of its prison ceaselessly, and in time they must yield. The oldest shut themselves away from the rest of their kind, fearing the day when they shall become monsters and distracting themselves with paranoid games of cat's-paws using younger Kindred as playing-pieces.
Vita Sub Tenebras
There are other reasons for our nocturnal life besides the need to avoid the sun's rays. It is so much easier to stalk and hunt in the hours of darkness. Imprimis, the pray is usually dulled by fatigue - and betimes drink - and can see little in the poor light. The hunter, on the other hand, is normally fresh and fully rested, and can often see as well as a mortal does at noonday. Secumdus, the hours of darkness are less populous, and promise fewer interruptions Feeding is a vulnerable time; the Beast is near the surface, and may stand at bay rather than leave a kill. This has been the undoing of more than one Neonate.
The Origins of the Kindred
Like mortals, we have our own history and lore, by which we seek to explain our existence and understand our place in the world. Just as the veracity of your legends is lost in the shrouds of history, so is the truth of our lore uncertain. However, over the years I have unearthed a number of different sources, and through painstaking study, I believe I have arrived at some semblance of fact and truth.
Most of our lore is contained within an ancient text known as the Book of Nod. Neither any of my acquaintances nor I has seen of heard of a complete copy, although fragments have-been unearthed over the centuries, multis linguis, multis-causis. There is much confusion and contradiction, and some versions appear to have been deliberately falsified.
Over the centuries, I have been fortunate to peruse fragments in Greek, Turkish, Aramaic, Latin and Hebraica Quabalistica, as well as translations from Old Kingdom hieroglyphics and Assyrian cuneiform. Inconsistencies are rife, but the main body of the tale states that my kind is descended from Caine, whom some call The Third Mortal.
Outcast from mortal society for the killing of his brother, Caine was cursed with eternal life and a craving for blood. We, his children, are the heirs to that curse, condemned to repeat his crime endlessly.
Caine wandered in the wilderness until his name was all but forgotten. He returned to the world of mortals and was able to establish himself as the ruler of a city, by the name of Enoch, Uniech, Enkil or what you will. Many Kindred call it the First City. Here, Caine created three Progeny - those whom we call the Second Generation. They in turn begot the Third Generation, who are Numbered at nine, twenty-seven, one hundred or none at all, according to the source one reads. Caine forbade the creation of any further Kindred, perhaps having gained some understanding of what he had unleashed upon the world. There is now word of any Kindred establishing Caine's rule elsewhere, and if they all remained in the First City, their increasing numbers must have strained the mortal population.
All was tranquil in Canie's domain until a great flood destroyed the city. Caine saw this as divine punishment for returning to the world of mortals, and resumed his wanderings, leaving his Progeny to their own devices. Though he forbade them to create more, they ignored his imperative as each of his Progeny desired a Brood of his own.
No more is heard of our ancestor, although from time to time, a vampire calling himself Caine will appear in some part of the world or another. Occasionally, he is revealed as an impostor, but more often he vanishes as suddenly as he appeared. Some believe that Caine still lives, while others - myself included - think it more likely to be some subterfuge of the Elders. It is said that Caine is rent with sorrow for having unleashed such misery and suffering upon the world.
Once free of Caine's restrictions, the Second and Third Generations created a great multitude of Progeny. They ruled together briefly, but all was not calm between them. Eventually, the youngest Generations rose and slew their Sires, drinking their blood. This Forth Generation built another great city (some sources hint that it might have been Babylon, while others suggest that it rests somewhere beneath the sands of Egypt) which we know only as the Second City.
The rule of these new vampires was not untroubled, for certain Kindred of the Third Generation still lived. Indeed, some say they were secretly behind the slayings of their Elders. It was decreed that they alone reserved the right to beget Progeny, and that any of the Forth Generation who disobeyed them were to be hunted down and killed along with their Sires. Though the Forth Generation lived in public, the Third Generation, whom we know today as the Antediluvians, lived in secret and revealed to no one the location of their havens. For nearly two millennia (some say 23 centuries), the Forth Generation ruled the city, while the Third Generation ruled them. Eventually, the culture grew decadent and the city died. In a great uprising, the people rose up and killed all the Kindred they could find.
When the Second City fell, its rulers fled. Scattered far and wide, they were too numerous and too widespread for the hidden Elders of the Third Generation to threaten them, and thus was begot the Fifth Generation. The Kindred grew in numbers and settled in all parts of the world.
Mortal history records a time, beginning over two thousand years ago, of burgeoning empires locked in combat with one another - the time of the Persians, the Greeks and the Tartars. Thus did the Fifth Generation establish its own order. Meanwhile, the Antediluvians lay hidden and pursued their own mad schemes. This age of wars may even have been of their making, the beginning of their great Jyhad. Whatever the truth, almost none remain to speak of it. I myself have meet only one of the Fifth Generation, and at the time I did not know it.
It is said by some that near the end of this period, the Antediluvians emerged from their hiding places and sucked the blood of all my kind, each leaving but one new Progeny of their line. This legend has it that this was the close of the Second Cycle, that the Antediluvians' lust for blood was so great that hey needed all of my race as their Vessels.
Those who believe in the Cycle legends predict an Armageddon in the near future. They say that the Antediluvians are asleep now, but someday they will awaken and they will feed. The Third Cycle is coming to a close, and none but the Third Generation will remain alive at its conclusion. The true believers say that each Cycle lasts 2300 years, and soon, very soon, the time approaches. They call it Gehenna, and some prepare for it fervently. As a man of science, these beliefs seem extreme to me, but they cannot be entirely discounted. Whatever the truth of the matter, I know that the Elders of the Fifth and older Generations exist in complete seclusion. Those of the Inconnu fear one another that much. To have lived this long, they must be cunning and powerful, and they may be expected to cover their tracks well. This leaves my own Sixth Generation and its descendants as the bulk of the visible Kindred. I have heard claims of a Thirteenth of Fourteenth Generation, but prefer to dismiss them. Such creatures must be very weak and close to mortality, for it is said that the Blood thins as it is passed from one Generation to the next.
The Masquerade
In 1435, there was founded an organisation, a cause, an obsession, a war. Call it what you will; history knows it as the Inquisition. Besides burning harmless old women and excommunicating French field mice for eating farmers' wheat, this Inquisition did betimes achieve its aim, and cleansed the world of no few true witches, warlocks and monsters. Many such monsters were Kindred, and the diligent Inquisitors traced whole bloodlines and put all to the flame.
For the first time, our kind stood in real danger of extinction. Superstitious belief coupled with scientific thoroughness placed in mortal hands the wherewithal to rid the world of monsters forever. It was a terrifying time - as insane to us as the Holocaust which mortals visited on one another earlier in this century. Those Kindred who survived bear the mental scars of the Inquisition to this day, and many live a life of paranoid seclusion, dealing with the breathing world as little as possible.
Before this time, we had lived more or less openly, relying on our power and position to preserve us. Though we did not announce our presence, we did not struggle to hide it either. We had grown proud in our power, and the fall which followed was terrible indeed.
The survivors quickly learned the wisdom of stealth and secrecy, and networks sprang up as they do among mortals in times of crisis, conveying information and individuals sub rosa for the safety of all. This was the birth of what may be called a Vampire society.
The name Camarilla arose for this organisation, reflecting the small, secret rooms used for meeting and concealment. Groups made contact with one another, united for the first time by this adversity.
The first global convocation took place in 1486. Many chose to absent themselves, but this meeting gave itself the power to speak for all Kindred existing or yet to be made, and to pass laws governing all. The founders of the Camarilla made themselves its lawmakers. The first such law, and the mast sacred, is that of the Masquerade, It is this law which I willingly violate by laying these pages before you.
The horrors of the preceding decades had taught us the need for secrecy and shown us that, after all, we were vulnerable. It was vital, therefore, that the breathing world be convinced it had killed the last of us, or, better yet, that we had never existed at all. We must match organisation with organisation and cause wit cause if we hoped to survive.
The Masquerade had two faces, each with a number of contingencies and lesser objectives. Imprimis simplicissimusque, reasonable secrecy and care was required of all Kindred. Nothing must betray our continued existence, and any individual who broke the secrecy would be outcast and hunted down as a danger to all.
Seundus, active steps must be taken to change the character of mortal society, and direct minds away from superstitious thoughts. Many of the Kindred had turned to scholarship to beguile to lonely decades, and certain matters were made available to the Taggänger in the fields of alchemy, literature, art, geography, cosmology und so weiter. Many mortals were already turning their steps in this direction, so the task was not unduly arduous. Names spring to mind such as Bacon, Dee, Galileo, Copernicus, Ariosto, Michelangelo, da Vinci, Cellini and Columbus. It was a brave Age we made.
With so many fresh discoveries clamouring for attention, the mortals lost their single-mindedness in chasing monsters. A little later - Principally due to an alliance of French Methuselah's - material and political philosophies were influenced. Science had bred Reason, and Reason denied monsters. Over the following centuries, we were able to crush superstition almost completely. No one of any education seriously believed we had ever existed.
Adjustments continued over the decades - a war here, a discovery there to keep breathing minds focused away from us. We have had a hand in some of the most significant events in history. Do not, however, think that all your history is our work, for marionettes you are not and have never been. Marx was your kind, and no vampire could have formulated his thoughts. Brief decades later monstrous deeds were performed in Europe, but none of my kind were involved. Those monsters were entirely your own.
Not long ago, moral minds turned once more to the mystical - though the greatest mystery to me is the appeal of the music which was born in those days - and superstition briefly waxed ascendant. The knowledge of certain chemical substances was made available, and many inquisitive minds were distracted or forever silenced. Throughout this last century, steps have been taken to preserve the image of the vampire in popular entertainment's, for thus it may be seen more clearly as a fiction. The Masquerade is unravelling, as the mysticism of the mortals increases. The Camarilla struggles to turn back the ride - the evidence of that is all around you.
Childer
Comical as it may seem, there is a generation gap among vampires just as there is in mortal society. The younger vampires - primarily those Embraced in the latter half of this century and those of the most recent generations - include an element which chafes at the restrictions of Kindred society and laws. Like rebellious adolescents, these "anarchs," as they call themselves, demand their freedom and ignore the effects on the rest of their kind. They would create their own Broods without restraint, deny the authority of Princes, break the laws of the Masquerade, and do a hundred other things which would force the knowledge of our existence upon the mortal world.
The Elders, and many other Kindred, do not take kindly to this attitude, and in some places a virtual state of war exists between them. Some see this as a sign of the end of the current Cycle, and speak of our imminent extinction
These anarchs do not believe that they are being told the truth by Elders, and they know that they are not being told all about their situation. The Elders do not trust the anarchs, fearing that they seek to slay them.
The World of the Undead
On one level, the world of the vampires is the world of mortals. A vampire moves in the world of mortals much as a nobleman moves in the forest of beasts while hunting. Just as the noble has his castles and courts, however, so the vampire has a world of his own, where he may consort with his own kind.
Some vampires shun the society of their Kindred, but such society exits, paralleling mortal society in both function and form. Just as there are mortal rulers and mortal societies in the world's great cities, so too there are vampire Clans and Princes.
Most Kindred seek Princedom, for it is the only means by which to create a Brood of one's own. Princes do not often allow others to create Progeny, and even if they do they are allowed others to create only one. A Prince may create as many Progeny as he wishes and their loyalty adds to his strength.
It would be fatuous to list and describe every Clan, Prince and Fief in the world. Suffice it to say that every mortal city of any size supports a vampire population, and these populations are organised in a number of different ways Some rule collectively, others autocratically, but all rule and all resent intrusion. Like organised criminals and law enforcement agencies, they have structured their Domain to Their liking and suppress anything which threatens to disturb their peace.
Accordingly, a vampire who enters a new city is required by höflichkeit to make himself known to its rulers and satisfy them that their rule is not threatened or challenged. To fail in this courtesy is to invite war. No witch-hunter ever pursues his prey so diligently as a Clan or Prince seeks out a stranger nouveau arrivé.
Most rulers, I have said, are content to keep the peace in their Fief and pursue their own arcane ends. But there are exceptions. One is the league of Clans which calls itself the Sabbat, or the Black Hand. Their Fief extends across the Eastern half of North America, and they are everything that mortals expect of monstrous vampires. Revelling in the violent, the perverse and the bestial, they are shunned by their own kind, and woe betide the incautious Vampire whom they find in their territory.
Above the Clans stands the Camarilla. All vampires are aware of this league, and all are invited to join. To take an analogy ex mundo vivantis - if a Fief is a regional or national government, then the Camarilla is the League of Nations. To my mind, it is equally effective, but some set great store by its infrequent convocations. Certainly the Elders of the Council are not to be underestimated as individual powers - most are very old ad very powerful. Primarily it enforces the ancient Traditions, most Important among them the Masquerade, so soon enough I may have cause to test its resolve and strength.
The Clans all have they're various alliances and oppositions, which shift as often and widely as those of the small countries of the mortal world. I have mentioned the protocols which must be observed when entering a Fief as an outsider. These obligations and structures are no more than protocols, and may be broken from time to time; but there is a stronger Bond - Stronger even than the ties of blood kinship - whose auctotitas is absolute. It is the mystic tie we call the Oath, or the Blood Bond.
I have touched upon the power of the Blood to create new Kindred and Ghouls. Its effect on Kindred is no less powerful. It is said to be the sweetest blood in the world, but it creates a potent bond between donor and drinker. A vampire who drinks another vampire's blood on three separate occasions becomes trapped in a blood kinship as strong as that between Sire and Get; in fact many Sires force this bond upon their unknowing Get at the time of creation, the better to command their loyalty. Among the Kindred, the Oath is a most potent bond; to take the Oath is to give over one's mind and heart to another, and willing Oath is never undertaken lightly. If all else fails and you have no other means of defence against a vampire, use my name - the chance is slender, but if your attacker happens to be Blood Bound to me, then you shall be safe.
Diablerie
My now, if my labours have been equal to my intent, it will be apparent to you that the society of the Kindred is as diverse as that of the living. We have our princes and paupers, our dreamers and men of action, our heroes and criminals, our idealists and perverts. The matter I am about to disclose is little more than speculation, but increasingly I am inclined to believe the rumours.
I have said how the blood of the sire empowers the blood of the prey, so that the body is sustained in its unlife. According to rumour, the blood of the Sire loses this power with the passing of centuries and millennia, and an exceptionally aged vampire must, needs to drink the blood of Kindred to Survive. Although the decay of a mortal cadaver is spared us, time still takes a toll, and the Blood is not absolutely immortal. A young vampire of an early generation is able to subsist on the blood of animals, but as the centuries pass - or as the blood thins with transmission - first animal and then mortal blood loses its ability to sustain.
The Antediluvians are said to prey on the Kindred as we do on mortals, and there is no end to the stories of their depravity. Increasingly, though, rumours spread of younger Kindred doing likewise. The reason for this is unclear. Perhaps the youngest generations bear so little of the Blood that it serves them only for a few centuries, or perhaps they seek the powers of the Antediluvians by imitating their ways. I have long wondered if this is the cause of the war among my kind, the Jyhad which has lasted so long. The antediluvians hide, for they fear that they will be killed by those seeking their blood and thus their Power. The Elders fear the anarchs, for they fear they shall be eaten by them as well. The anarchs fear all those who are older than they, for they know that they are prey to a most deadly predator. The conflict between my kind is a cannibalistic and horrific war indeed.
I have already mentioned the Oath, which is undertaken by drinking the blood of another vampire (usually one's Sire or Prince). It is known that taking blood of one's own Get carries no such bond, and it seems also that the Antediluvians - and those others who habitually prey on their own kind - are able to do so without creating any kind of bond or obligation. This fact, more than anything, makes the practice of Diablerie (as it has come to be known) a shocking and perverted thing to the Kindred, and any vampire who is a Known Diabolist may be killed out of hand by any who find him. The Diabolist hunt with care, for he stalks the most dangerous game in the world. Doubtless some find a great exhilaration in this existence.
The Elders, needless to say deny these rumours absolutely. To admit to such things would incite a revolution as terrible as the rising of the Forth Generation. Yet there is evidence, which the diligent can find though the Antediluvians cover their track ever so carefully.
Last Plea
My discourse is at an end; my treachery complete. By now, I hope you will understand in some measure what impelled me to those acts I shall always rue and why I felt it necessary now to place this document before you. I cannot ask for your forgiveness - my crimes are too great. But if there be pity in your heart, pray for me.
You know more about my kind than any mortal living - aye, even more than your friend the professor when he sought to destroy me. The use to which you put this knowledge I leave to your own conscience.
I have changed a great deal since we last met. For many years thereafter, I sought within myself for something inexpressible. Now, I Believe I have found it, or am about to If Golconda be truly within my reach, I may endure, for in the depths of introspection which prompted my writing, I have found a desire for quietus at any price. That was a partial reason for my discourse. I know full well that the knowledge I have imparted could lead to the destruction of myself and my kind. The will to live - if life this be - is too strong in any vampire to allow for a more direct suicide.
Whatever you decide, I wish you and yours well. I have followed the career of your son Quincy with great interest, and the lives of his children also. I rejoice that Fate stayed my Beastly hand and ensured the welfare of your fine family. What a great comfort they must be to you.
In Parting, may I presume to render my condolences on the regrettable death of your husband, of which I read in the Times of London. Your love for him is only too well-known to me. If the prayers of such a creature may be of any comfort, know that you have mine.
You shall hear no more from me unless you wish it. I say again, my service is yours to command. I can be reached through the personal columns of any major European newspaper; merely mention my name and your own and my retainers shall pass on your message to me.
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