CREDITSWritten by: Bruce BaughDeveloped by: Justin AchilliEditor: James StewartArt Director: Richard ThomasLayout & Typesetting: Becky JollenstenInterior Art: Michael Gaydos, Leif Jones, Andrew

Trabbold, Drew Tucker, Christopher ShyFront Cover Art: John Van FleetFront & Back Cover Design: Becky Jollensten

W H I T E W O L F

735 PARK NORTH BLVD..SUITE 128CLARKSTON,GA 30021USA

G A M E S T U D I O© 2001 White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.Reproduction without the written permission of the pub-lisher is expressly forbidden, except for the purposes ofreviews, and for blank character sheets, which may be repro-duced for personal use only. White Wolf, Vampire, Vampirethe Masquerade, Vampire the Dark Ages, Mage the Ascen-sion, World of Darkness and Aberrant are registeredtrademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. All rights re-served. Werewolf the Apocalypse, Wraith the Oblivion,Changeling the Dreaming, Hunter the Reckoning, Werewolfthe Wild West, Mage the Sorcerers Crusade, Wraith theGreat War, Trinity, ClanbookLasombra, Clanbook Assamite,Libellus Sanguinus 3, Guide to the Camarilla and Guide tothe Sabbat are trademarks of White Wolf Publishing, Inc. Allrights reserved. All characters, names, places and text hereinare copyrighted by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.The mention of or reference to any company or product inthese pages is not a challenge to the trademark or copyrightconcerned.This book uses the supernatural for settings, characters andthemes. All mystical and supernatural elements are fictionand intended for entertainment purposes only. This bookcontains mature content. Reader discretion is advised.For a free White Wolf catalog call 1-800-454-WOLF.Check out White Wolf online athttp://www.white-wolf.com; alt.games.whitewolf andrec.games.frp.storytellerPRINTED IN USA.

SPECIAL THANKS,SUMMER CONVENTIONSHASON EDITIONDean "Unrelenting" Burnham, for two solid weeks of non-stop punishment.Mike "Stank" Tinney, for renting the room that smelled likeold lady armpits.Jess "Correspondence" Heinig, for trying desperately tocreate an airport that came to him. Twice.John "What the Funk?" Chambers, for "rescuing" the juke-box from Garth Brooks and the Backstreet Boys.Conrad "Zoomtard" Hubbard, for nearly dying twice andbeing utterly unaware.Fred "Naptard" Yelk, for calling it quits on the first night butgrowing progressively more psychotic over the rest of the trip.Chad "Von Tabs" Brown, for pills & thrills & bellyaches.Brian "Wingman" Glass, for being there every second of thetwo-week journey into the guts of debauchery.Tim "Whoah" Avers, for learning about titty bars the hard way.Steve "Patience, Grasshopper" Wieck, for not ninja-kickingthe bejeezus out of those three drunken hooligans batteringdown his door at half past two.Spirit Creek, for hosting the GenCon party.Lost Goth and Big Daddy Thwak, for, well, porn.

THEIR OWN CIRCLE OF HELLBAM BAM BAM BAM BAM! "Housekeeping! Cleanyour room?"

OopsA correction: Ree Soesbee's "Additional Material" creditwas inadverently left out of Clanbook: Tremere.

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA2

I

c

!;•

CONTENTSINTRODUCTION: THE DARKNESS CLAIMS YouCHAPTER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDORCHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS UNLIT HALLSCHAPTER THREE: NEW SHADOWS

41O4O74

Everything belonged to him — te that was a trifle. The thing to know was what he belonged to, how many frontiers of darknessclaimed him for their own. : • • ,;:

—- Joseph Conrad, "Heart of Darkness"

"pen yeAK Ago:J cAn feet tAe pulsein my AeA A,totfAef AnA fASter

AS men fiteoA spurts from A Aoz.en tuts to Arip pA&tmy fAte toWArA the pile of firoken glASS fielow me.Trfly VAn's emergency ftAshers reflect filAck from A

I thonsAnA corners, At Att Angles, wherever mirrorsIcAme forest After tAe collision.'^AeshAttereA streetlight,I somewhere Afiove me cASts An octAsionAt shower of? &pArk&. J fiettme AtvAre t&At there's nt> ivAy put e£ Ms,£ven i£ tfose £7^1T* mAAe it here tvittin tAe ne&t—nit, J'tH fting tt Ate.

Jt ftAfsaeneA snAAenty. J'A 6ein Arivinft my new, testing the meAijitAtiens for AAnAs-tnty tontrel

A mAnuAt trAnSmissten. £tAry itu^f fat JH0m AnA Z&AAsAt in ^Ack, AtSAp

t not ^uite twitting to SAy SO, AnA mAnAftinff tAe sort£ tOnversAtifn we AtWAyf &AA en Ms AnniversAry.

inft AtvktvArA £ik.ef'j/lreyi>n sure t&At A trip pie6e trying Ms sort 0^ tAingt-" or, "Aen't you

think th.At ten yeArs f t efisesiive Anger nfront theActiAent is ene Hgfa"

Z&AA AftnAtty &AA someinterestinfi stories A^entrecent £0n&trnction arpjetts AnA peinteA out work Aisfirm AAA Aontfy tAe mAnsions we Afove pA&t. J'AAeaAeA to tAke tAe ifnfi WAy home, meAnAeringArennA tAe rroyo ^eco AnA seeing Aow mAny

tAnAmArks we tout A iAentifry firom vAriotis mwies.,/1tot e£ t2)AA's ctrporAte customers tiveA Aere, AnA some

tAe money to firing Ais form in for Aomestic work,ff- it WAS "just ptAin strAnge, too, tike tAe

m witA tAe etevAtpr-mOttnteA teiting tAAt tAeowner tontA lower to jive feet Afipve tAe fteor for A"cozier" foet. Z&AA stArteA testing Att tAe faitAingcoAes tAAt AAA to fie circnmventeA Or firifieA pASt fortAAt one. ;

"then All tAe tigAts went out for two fifetks onevery siAe.. flot fust tAe streettigAfs — everything.$*orcA tigAts, Aonse tigAts, even tAe AAsAfioArAsecurity system tigAts in pArkeA cAfS. ~£Aere WAStotAt AArkness witA only the new moon overheAA. JStArteA to ®ntt over/ Ait something slippery AnA wentover A firiAge Afintment. '

^tt A mAtter of timing, J suppose. fewSeconAs eArtier AnA 3 WOntA hAve steereA into A ten-foot-high HOtSf-reAfiction WAlt. Jt WOntA hAVt hurt,mAyfie A tot, fat then we'A fie stoppeA.,/1 few seconAslAter AnA J'A hAve hit soliA f<280& v'tntAge, sniciAe-AiSconrAging hurricAne fence. £ikety we'A AAvecAreeneA off thAt AnA spun, mAyfie ftippeA, fatstoppeA somewhere on the firiAge.

"^here's onty A smAtt gAp fietween WAlt AnAfence, AnA J hit it tust right.

THE DARKNESS CLAIMS You

VAn tumfrleA lengthwise en its WAy to theroof of the WArehouse. ""fchAt's why y'm here AlmostupsiAe Aown, my useless legs AAngling overheAAwhite my Arms Are pinneA. Jl-J coulArAfse my rightArm/ y coulA touch one of the four glASS roAs thAtslAfttttteA through the winAshielA AnA an into the&Ack. @ne re A runs through Z>AA's thro At, TWO morepierce *W\em, One in her right eye AnA one just Mowher collArtione. 3&AA gurgleA for A jew minutes, frut7/Hom never mAAe A SOunA. y think AeAth cAmequickly for them.

£o it's just me, y cAn't Often my Aottr. J cAn shoutfor help, 6ut there Aoesn't seem to 6e Anyone ArounA.y CAn't move to releAse my hArness or AisengAge thesteering column iirAce or punch in An emergency coAeon the cAr phone,

"~£hen the fights come &Ack on, without AnypreliminAry flickering, J ckn see the whole WAre-

spreAA out fretow, or perhAps A&sve, me. Jt'syy construction, y wrote An Article once

the immense AurA^ility of "temuerAry" 6nilA-ings like this one. ~£wisteA sheets ofa corrngAteAAluminum now He sprAWleA over long rows 06 glASS.T^tirrors/ wtnAows, fjetnliAr pAnes whose functiony cAn't imAgine. £*-it lights reflect through theAe&ris, reminAing me Briefly of the moon Auring AlunAr eclipse, AArk reA AnA Ominous. ~£he whole scenereminAs me of something. Ant 7*Clee on A &AA AAy.f^tme futurist nightmAre. ~£he 6leoA keeps ponnA-ing in my heAA. tupiA eAucAtion. mArt Aoesn'thelp you when you're pinneA in An ttpstAe-Aown vAn.J\0> j^lee WASn't so hAm+hAnAeA.

y tAke Another look in the reAr-view mirror. T^HypArents Are right where they Were, "^he CAr sfiAesAown A fat. ~£he seAtiielt cuts into my neck AnAcetlArfrone. \rfithont WArning, there's A hAnA on myshonlAer. y cAn't turn my heAA, so J hAve to roll myeyes AS test y cAn to see the slim, neAtly mAntcureA

fiingernAils. Jt's A SmAll, grAceful hAnA, very AArkinAeeA, perhaps 4 fricAn or from y\ew ^nineA.^1,quick check in the mirror shows nofoAy there, y AmhAllncinAting.

voice is cleAr fnt soft/ Alme&t whispereA.£,Ach SylMle emerges perfectly ftrmeA. y see noth-ing in the mirror; y feel the hAnA on my shenlAer.'*£hehAnA AAS no pulse. ?

'yinArew, AcknewleAge me. ^/ffw heAr mefy SAy nothing."y Am not A hAllt^inAtion. Ven're Aying, AnA we

must speAk."y SAy nothing.

"^onr life is A story you hAven't reAA. £peAkwith me." .'..."

& omethingA&OHt thAt SffMnAs so « i . overwroughtthAt y Almost lAHgh, AnA y speAk to the unseenpresence. "\f$h,At steryl-^/lre you gting to clAim to £ethe Architect of my misery^ ~£he nemesis who mAAe mesuffer for my A rtf thrive me AfoeAk, £ven oaygen-StArveA, y expect something tetter th^n thAt."

"~£hAt's precisely whAt 3 WAnt to tell you."

"y me An to tell you thAt your life hAS £een myfor A^out A AecAAe, AnA thAt the time hAS come

for you to AeciAe whAt to Ao neat, J^isten to me."~£hevoice unfolAs A steAAy UtAny of secrets, things y'venever tolA Any one else.' the petty frustrations AS WellAS the greAt ones, the minor trials Along with themASSive cAlAmities. ~£he speAker, whose sex. y cAnnotguess, speAks to me A^out cAreless Aoctors AnABerserk mAtlmen AnA ArrogAnt eAttors AnA the count-less Others who've mAAe my life unpleASAnt. y reAliz.e,somewhere Along the WAy/ thAt the voice never pAUsesfor tfreAth.

'flnA yttt mAAe it hAppenl-""y AiA whAt

CIANBOOK: LASOMBRA6

jLanghter. "itf-er the j-irst time 3 j-eel cenfiAent t£atthe voice falengs to a woman, "Z&p yen. knew the stery

"<P/ cenrse. tfieA teek away everything fir em. him,to preve te£atan that $e& was werthy. 3 hepe yen'renet gelng te claim te fa the angel eft the J^orA."

"listen te ftte.""£he voice remains so fit, fint there'si' a cemmanA In It, l/fty month snaps cleseA wlthent

Any censclens Aeclslen en my part.^ single nail enthat Immacnlate hanA pierces my skin. "£pare meyenr everts at hnmer. 3 AlA net select yen te fa myfester." s ' ; ; . _ ' . ' , ". ,. . . ,: ^ . : ; • . ; , • . ' . . .

3 cannot ask the efivlens ^nestlen, tint she Antici-pates it Anyhow. "3 neeAeA to filnA ent what yen were(ike wlthent the things that Aefilne yenr lAentlty. 3ft 3cenlA remove yenr train AnA pnt It In a far teexperiment npen, 3 went A. 3 haA te cnt AWAy the llfie

rennA yenr minA, as far as possible, te see how yen.\ cope with loss. "Wonr llfie has faen a test. *^e

3 cAn SfieAk AfiAin. "\/~$hAt Ae 3 wl*& 3hepe it's A tewet. ^Hy *yt& &tln%,"

"3 &alA 3 AlAn't want te speak with an"VW AlA. 3 am net an angel,"3 can hear a smite

In that velce. "JL,et me shew yen,"3 hear metal scream anA fireAk fahlnA me.^t

first 3 think thAt 3'm losing my peripheral visien..~£hen 3 realize there's tangible Slackness faslAe thecar, a column efi something like smoke, floating Inthe mlAAle e£ itf 3 &ee a woman. £ he's tall 6nt slim,her face heavily scarreA. frjer hair... isn't hair at all,It's layer npen layer ffj- moving shaAows, like exfiell-atlng granite or peeling fiark. tyer arms seem nermalenengh—3 recognize the hanA anA wrist that resteAen my shentAer. "£,etew them, thongh, a seconA set efaarms pokes threngh slits in the gray re fa she

"they're mettleA Hack, remlnAlng me slightly eftpictures 3 &aw Where the experimenters lefit raw meatentAeers jer a year, phetegraphlng Its changes.

£ he scAres me hat^ te AeAth, net thAt that's se farA trip jnst new. 3've hatlnclnateA fa^ere, anA 3 &nafrsetntely nene ej the cues that tell me my ^rain isfabricating the scene. 3t takes me 4 mement te realizethat she's hanging nm&lAe AeWn In that Aarkness,since we see eye te eye. 3 feel chains o£ a&&eclatlen atwerk In my minA, as thengA seme antenemensthenght precess has gene searching £er everythingthat "Aarkness" means te me. T/Hemerles flicker anAMare like the Aarkness arennA the weman,

'{/I nArew," she says threngh lattlceA tips, "^ensee year tears in the Aarknes&, Aen't yenlr"^ he sees myslight neA. "^tt yenr llfae, all Anyene's lifae, thesethings live faneath yenr skin. "Hew they [lew entaleng with yenr Hie Itself. J^earn."

@ne ef these shaAew-arms stretches tewarA me,3ts frlnnt enA smashes threngh the remains e£ theArlver-slAe winAew AnA snakes arennA In frrent ej-me. \^ith ene swift metlen It wrap& arennA my heaA,completely ceverlng my eyes. W~er an Instant there's

,ntter, prefrennA nething. £,ven tAe retlnAl flickers thAtge en fahlnA cteseA eyellAs Alsappear; In seme sense,the Aarkness penrs In fahlnA my eyes, 3 can't even takea frreath.

"^he flashes e£ memery faceme mnch mere Intense,"^here's ne sensery cempenent te them, enly states efiminA. nger, at the acclAent, at the bespital, at myparents, at the government finreancrAts, at thefackheaA Aecters Whe fait te nnAerstAnA what 3 tellthem. $Fear, efa refectien, ej- leslng my minA as wellas my legs, e^ never writing again, ef el A age anApevertyln this cenAitlen.^ mfiitien anA prlAe, fier thenext great werk, te preve wreng all the Aecters anAAe niters, te shew my parents the fielty e^ their hopesier me. Z&epressien weven In threngh it all, the Aeslre

THE DARKNESS CLAIMS You

te simpty Arifit away from the My. J see myself asa vesSet stepping ever with Aark passiens, tackinganything te 6e $-t>r, fitting the emptiness with a tengtitany e£ things te tie against.

\S~tsien returns, Jt's cletiAy new.&eme Hue A hasceagntateA arennA my eyes/ anA new my peripheralvisien really is ftaAing fier tack eft e&ygen. Z&eathcannft tie jar away.

"^en seet^nAreWf yen have cut yenrset^ eat ej-the fabric eft seciety. J>*t£ yen Ae net yet knew whatyen want te ctethe yenrsel£ in, anA yenr anger is netenengh. 3$e yen seeV'1 neA, er at teast J try. Hy $ace

niim£. "Jiet me tett yen what awaits."rst her story seems irrelevant, feme secenA-

rate pastiche. £he Aestri&es grewing up in the^etgian @enge, hearing in her heart the voices eftgeAs that theceteniat masters senghtte Aestrey.£he.Aescrites rapine/ the Aestrnctien efi whete tri&es,enslavement anA hnmitiatien at the hanAs (>£ £nrepe-4ns tome te get rich.£he Aescrtfres hearing the veice

eft the night "tnsiAe a particntarty 4m6itiens entpestsuperviser, enty te tese himte his maAness anA setf-Aestrnctien. "£e yen see, nArew, ethers knewsneering tee."

,£, he tetts me the stery eft wanAering the riverfranksat night, hoping te hear a worA j-rem the meen ertheshaAews.,/1 nA ene night the shaAews speke te her.^/lpate man emergeA anA telA her the titany ej- herserrews anA eUereAher the pewer ier revenge,Watch, nArew." ;

~£he shaAew-arm gratis the seat J'm inAraws it smeethty ent eft the car, with the ethershaAew-arm tearing efifi the remains eft my Aeer in eneyank. V$ith a snAAen frtip, J'm right siAe up again.~£he weman pivets te remain facing me anA sinksstewty te the grennA. 7/Hy shees tench Hoe Ay sharAsej- gtass. ~£he weman steps out efc the cetnmn etAarkness anA picks the seat anA me up with ene

tesses me casualty inte the air a Uw times

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA8

frefrre setting me. Aewn. J'A vomit if thereAnything (eft in my stemAch.

£ he s^nAts te teek Airectty At me AS J famfU farthe seAtfatt tAtch. "^tfp," she SAys, AnA J freeze, "ftst{ncAH&e. J WAnt tff fat tiecAKSe net ene votnntArymnscte An&Wers me.

,/lgAtnst my witt, my Arms nnfackie me AnApush me into An upright petition. J tetter far Amoment AnA then/ tnevitAMy, fatt face.-frrwArA t>ntethe gtASS. }JAtf A Aozen shArAs stice me open, one Atiny frActten ef AH inch from my right eye. piecepokes into my menth, te Aging AgAinst my uppergums. J CAn fret it scrApe teeth AentAth the gum.

"T/leW AreAm,^/l nArew. JmAgine yenrsetf A^tt toAo whAt J've "just mAAe yen Ae. "^en remember yourenemies, J mAAe sure ef thAt. &An yen envisien them

f suffering AS yen Ae now, AnA wer&elr \/~$itt yen Accept

nAt werA CAtehes me 6y surprise, "^ifr^"i& 6teeA AnA hurt is A jftfft' ^tt snce AgAin the

chains e£ ASseciAtien fitAre, J hAve £een very cenfiAentthAt J nnAerstAnA hew the wertA werks. J've mtcktA

whe AiSAgreeA. 3n my Aesk At heme there's A• white faite ei tetters fretH reAAers Whe report Aisittn-sienment AnA to&s oft faith frecAnse ofa whAt J'veWritten. \^ontA Anything tess thAn this hAve cen-vinceA melr

J picture, the sort ej- termcnt the wemAn"^eS."Tht werA oozes etttArennA the gtASS

WeAgeA into my month. "Vw.*^ hAAew Arms fitip me ever so thAt J'm tying en

my &Ack. £he epens her menth te shew me. fangs.T^ey Aen't teek tike, movie-monster preps. Then Artthe reAt thing, emerging orgAnicAtiy frem her JAWAnA serrAteA tike cArnivere fangs, s she teAns overmy neck, nff 6reAth stirs my shreAAeA cettAr. "&er Amoment J set chAnnets Ateng the fang&'ihsiAe edges,

stAineA with smAtt fitecks t>& ArieA 6teeA. J mArvet Attheir ej-jidency....

J thenght thAt J kne-W seme-thing A^ent &n^frr-

ing, fat this is the shArpest, most consuming AgonyJ've ever frit. T^t pricks Are smAtl, AnA J know thAtthere Are ne mAtor nerves ArennA them, fat nenethe~tess it's tike jire sweeping frem one siAt oft my 6oAyto the ether.

$n$t AS ynickty, there's pteAsnre. flet orgAs*MCpteASnre —— there's no physietegicAt component, entyA sense otcemptetion AnA rightness. Jn my minA,JheAr the wemAn SAy, 'This is yenr fancfton AS prey,"p^ememfrer whAt yon Are teAving, kine ne mere^T/Hypntse fietemes errAtic, weAk-^teps. @tinitAtty, J'mAeAA. Vhy eyes continue to see, Aimty,fat thAt'tt Stepseen. *y\o mere ex,ygen in the MeeA. "fte mere 6teeA.There's stittness in my £eAy.

1/Hy eyes Aim, sej Aen't see the wemAn fan Aeverme, J heAr her fate semethingi £he presses her cot Aswrist to my month, fcfer frteoA — thick AnA stew-~—ArAinS pASt my stitt tips. Ain returns, An etectricAtshock or something tike it rippting ptit from mythreAt. Jt's faen ten yeArS since J frit Any reAtSenSAtien Mew my hip&. T/lew, AS the shock frtAStsthrongh them, J cAn fret them AgAin. J frit the, Aefrris,AnA my tronsers tonching the hAir en my tegs.

thAt isn't tifr Stirs Within me.eyes open. T^ wemAn smites At tie.

WAS the first step."

'yiew:£e yen see, you're not the enty ene to kneWthesert

ef tess yen've fett.^es, J'm sure thAt the pAin whereyenr famity, yenr ]0&, yenr stAnAing in the cemmn-nity ence, were is shArp. J knew these, things tee.

Tare's A WAy to reAress it, if yen WAnt.^re yenreAAy to become A preAAter for reAt, rAther thAn preywith AetnsienS ef grAnAenrir

THE DARKNESS CLAIMS You

And o/tentimes, to win us to our harm,The instruments of darkness tell us truths,

Win us with honest trifles, to betray'sIn deepest consequence.

— William Shakespeare, Macbeth

THE FIRST LESSON:BEGINNINGS

This night's cold, not that the packmates are about toadmit it. The winter storms blast off the North Pacific andup the Columbia River, driving sleet like knives. The windhasn't fallen below 25 miles an hour since sunset. Gustssometimes move as fast as cars on a highway. The packmatesfeel something in the air, though, and without actuallyspeaking a word to each other, they agree that they must takeextra care to show they understand their condition. Onlytwo of the new recruits have any real prophetic sense, butthat's enough. The Vaulderie transmits their glimpses of animpending encounter with the mentor/judge/teacher/cop oftheir brethren.

So it's with special flourishes that they ascend to theirmeeting ground, the roof of the still unfinished municipaladministrative building. Nobody wears an extra layer ofinsulating clothing. Druitt makes a grand show of stripping

handed. For the others, T-shirts and unbuttoned jacketssuffice to make the point. "Yes," their actions say to theirductus, "We understand that the memory of being colddoesn't matter anymore. We know how to will a little bloodthrough our veins and keep ourselves warm. See for your-self: We know that humanity lies below, while we riseabove."

Andrew watches their ascent with quiet pleasure. Heremembers how long it took some lessons to sink in. If therain Jet up, he could look over to the Bank of Americabuildingand see the scorch marks where Leo met the sun lastfall. Leo never quite got the hang of the basics. His examplegoaded (or scared) the others, and Andrew doesn't thinkhe' II have to destroy another of this pack. He can feel Dembanearby. She's not as phased with the brood, but then shenever is. He doesn't notice any little gatherings of shadowindicating an impending strike. He hopes that his studentswill make it through the night.

In short order, all seven of Andrew's charges sit orsprawl on the rooftop tarpaulins. Through the Vinculum he" u - - - o — —— — " "J *•*•" 'f £"" "^ T • *™"" " *-* • •• «" "- ' '-"-'_/ WL/ w**i iyv*ta,n,i ij , j. f tl L/Ptit' t W 1C V II tU-M-t-MI (I 11C

his chest bare be/ore dragging himself up the scaffolding one- can sense their fear and anticipation. He's surprised at howCHAPTER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR

much foresight Ming and the Other Razor show, andcongratulates them. "You're doing well. It's not quiteenough, of course. If you really thought it was a trap, youshould have stayed away. But your concern is a good sign.Those of you who survive will probably do well for your-selves, and each other." He pauses. None of the fledglingscan sense it, but Andrew hears the whispers in shadow andhurries on.

"It's lecture night." The pack groans in unison. "Notfrom me. Tonight you'll be hearing from the woman whoreally did, once upon a time, teach me every thing I know."He makes a slightly theatrical bow, and Demba coalescesout from the shadows in Andrew's coat. She does not smileat the students. All their little motions, nervous tics andsemiconscious habits, stop immediately. Her native appear-ance is completely hidden: Tonight she stands as a statuecarved from shadow, lacking any facial features except verylong, very sharp fangs. She has no mouth that any of thestudents can see, but her words carry through the air ratherthan directly into their minds.

"Good evening, young Keepers. This is a lecture and atest, rolled into one. Let us begin."

ALL TRUTHFirst, I will tell you the foundational truth, the key

to understanding everything about the vampiric condi-tion. This is it: We can never know the truth.

You know that all evidence can be faked. Some ofyou here can yourselves craft works of art so flawless thatno breathing art critic can distinguish them from thereal thing. You know that money can buy many things,that persuasion and intimidation can earn you the rest,and that no human being begins to grasp what you andyour kind can do.

You know that the kine desperately try to deceivethemselves and each other about us. You've benefitedfrom this willful denial, and you must realize that otherCainites do as well. You know that many importantrealities never appear in any records you can examine.

Furthermore, you know that will and memory aresomething less than absolutely sure. Most of you herecan force a mortal to do something and never realizethat he was, for that moment, your direct tool. Some ofyou are learning the art of personal charisma, makingthem love you simply because of the power in yourBlood. You've no doubt seen that your ductus and otherolder Cainites can do far more than the few tricks you'velearned so far.

Where is truth in any of this? Anyone's memoriescan be changed. All records can be adjusted, created orremoved. There is absolutely nothing you can count on.Everything, inside you and out, might be a lie, perhaps

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA12 \

created deliberately, perhaps the unintended side effectof some plan that doesn't concern you, maybe even theresult of haphazard psychosis. None of you have met atruly deranged elder yet, have you? Just wait till the nextPalla Grande. In the meantime, cultivate paranoia.

Assume, for the moment, that you do exist. I do notgive you my word that I have refrained from tamperingwith your perceptions of this occasion. What goodwould that do? None of you can tell if I'm lying or not.So 1 simply assert it. You are Cainites, as am I. We arein fact a sort of walking corpse that feeds on the bloodof the living. We burn in sunlight. Our progeny growweaker with every generation. We are not part of thenatural world. We make no sense in scientific terms,and science isn't bunk, no matter what some fools wouldtell you. It explains many parts of the world, and the factthat it cannot explain us is just one more sign of ouralienation from nature.

I'll return to that point again later, perhaps. Fornow, remember this: The fact that you are what you are,here and now, does not mean that the stories we telleach other about how we came to be are true. Individu-ally, each of you has lied to each other and to yourselvesabout how you came to be what you are, both beforeyour death and after. Do you think that we stop lying aswe age?Nor do we become infallible in our observationsand deductions. When we talk about our shared past, wetell stories. Just as you must distinguish what seems likefact from what may prove the case after all, so you mustdistinguish the facts of now from the explanationsoffered for them.

ORIGINS ON EARTHMany Cainites, whether they believe in the common

myth about our origin or not, describe it as a Christian tale."Adam and Eve had two sons," the story says, "named Caineand Abel. Abel was a herder, Caine a farmer. Each offered thebest of his harvest as a sacrifice. God accepted Abel's sacrificeof meat but rejected Caine's sacrifice of fruits and grains. Cainemurdered his brother. God cursed Caine with vampirism. AllCainites descend from Caine." Some versions embellish thetale with details of the steps by which our dark father Cainerejected God's forgiveness, learned secrets from Lilith andotherwise carried on like some Campbellian folk hero. Thisversion suffices for our purposes.

I have, in the first place, reason to suspect that afairly recent editorial hand has been at work in thecommon tale. The terminal "e" in "Caine" doesn'tmake sense in any of the ancient languages of theMiddle East, where the story presumably originated andsmacks altogether of an English speaker who eitherwasn't careful with his (or her) spelling. Given that we

are a proud and boastful lot, I'd be unsurprised to findthat the unknown editor simply wanted to suggest thatthis was the real spelling of our father's name, as opposedto the version used by ignorant mortals.

Name aside, this story exists in a suspiciously pol-ished framework. The linkage with Adam and Eve isn'treally necessary in any meaningful sense to the story,and several scholars of our clan say that some earlyrenderings of the tale don't mention the Hebrew figuresat all. The God who curses Caine need not be the Godin the sense that a modern Christian or Jew would usethe word, and maybe not even in the sense that anancient Mesopotamian or Babylonian would. The Godof this story is a powerful force being appeased throughsacrifice with the power to inflict the curse of undeath.That's all. Everything else is accretion.

I believe that the tale conveys an important truth,which I shall try to summarize for you.

Caine and Abel represent, respectively, the societ-ies of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age and the Neolithicor New Stone Age. Humanity's ancestors gathered andscavenged before they hunted. For a very long time,great beasts preyed upon humans at least as often as theypreyed on other creatures. Before brave warriors huntedthese creatures, nervous defenders huddled and hopedto keep predators at bay. This is where the first weaponscame into use: not for aggression, but for defense. Caineis quite rightly the elder brother, the symbol of that timeof peaceable, passive and frightened existence. Abel,the younger brother, symbolizes the move toward mas-tery and conquest.

I told you at the outset that not all truths can beknown. I believe that "Cainites," for lack of a betterword, prowled the starless night before any knownhuman civilization and in fact before humanity. Per-haps the dominant species of any given era receives thedeathless power, or perhaps it arises some other way.Regardless, I think it sensible to say that the predatorsCaine and his folk feared weren't just wild beasts, butcreatures like us, at least in some cases. Perhaps thoseearly Cainites were human, perhaps they belonged tosome other hominid species, perhaps something elsealtogether. Abel the hunter didn't just fight animals, hefought the devils in the night.

Caine's example shows that it doesn't do to under-estimate the kine. He rose up and mastered first his ownbrother, then the powers in darkness. They may haveforced undeath upon him, but perhaps he compelledthem to give such to him, and then destroyed them. Thefact that no trace of them remains except implicitly instories like this one shows the magnitude of his victory.Whatever the "Cainites" before him were, they have

CHAPTER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR13

left no lineage that any of us can now detect. We are allCaine's childer. This is why we venerate what some ofyou call the "homicidal farmer" — not for his agricul-ture, but for the thoroughness with which he becamewhat he had previously feared and hated.

Caine is kine become greater, victorious over allopposition. He is therefore rightly our ideal, our Pla-tonic ideal, if you will, the one in whose name we turnon our own opponents.

THP GODDESSBefore I proceed, let me insert a caution about as-

sumptions. The oldest signs of human worship that I'maware of all involve the worship of a devouring greatgoddess. Certainly, men throughout history (and before)have sought to make women's display of power an evil andunnatural thing. That need not be the whole story,however. Perhaps Caine was the first male "vampire," orat least the childer on whom he turned were female. Whenpeople of every continent share the imagery of a womanwrapped in darkness, who must be placated with bloodalong with other gifts, who awes all around her, we maywell have a window into the real past.

BEFORE THH FLOODIf you've got an ear for fairy tales, you can seek out the

Noddists among our sect. They'll gladly prattle on aboutthe First City and the Second City and who knows what

else, with tales of this brother and that sister and the othernephew. I have no patience for such things as anythingexcept entertainment on a dull night. You may come toagree, or disagree. Let the tale-spinners give you theirversions and make up your own mind.

However, I can discuss some facts. Insofar as any-thing I tell you is true, what I tell you about the physicalworld is. Go and see it, go and speak with others whohave. It's easier to detect tampering with rocks thanwith the soul.

The very word "Antediluvian" presumes facts notin evidence, as a solicitor would put it. More strongly, itpresumes claims proven false. Who was present at thisuniversal flood? No god or spirit ever covered the worldwith water during humanity's existence, eliminating allbut a few chosen survivors. Floods swept different partsof the world, both rapidly and through gradual inunda-tion. But the term "Antediluvian" implies being a raresurvivor of the deluge that destroyed almost all others,and so nearly as science or examination can say, this ismerely hubris. Use it to refer merely to the eldest get ofCaine and those of the lowest generation (or genera-tions), and you'll avoid deceiving yourself into acceptingthe myths.

We first find traces of Cainites in history much asthey are now. The same clans existed, apart from ahandful of dubious experiments that managed to turn

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA14 \

on their creators or would-be manipulators. Here is thelesson of Caine again. Do not underestimate the kine.And if the kine can accomplish so much, how muchmore can we ? I am aware of few Cainites now active whopersonally recall events of the pre-Christian era, but wedo have a smattering of documents and physical evi-dence, and we have a surprisingly accurate roster ofCainites whose sires date back millennia.

Everything different about Cainites — those inde-pendent of the current clan lineages, for instance — isconveniently pushed back before the first availableevidence. You can believe that Caine and his childerreally did found the city of Enoch, if you like. I cannotprove you wrong. I simply point out that you have noobjective evidence for it. Noddist literature is preciselyas useful as any other holy book, which is to say, not atall except when it comes to finding out what the priestswant you to think and do.

I suspect that if we could peer into prehistory, we'dfind that clans of some sort existed long before Caine.Each lineage's particular gifts sometimes change overtime, with the emergence of bloodlines. This conformsprecisely to Darwinian evolution, and while we aresupernatural creatures, we are nonetheless partly natu-ral. One cautionary note: The sages of our clan know ofabout 13 clans, more or less depending on where oneseparates "clan" from "bloodline." In the absence ofmysticism and numerology, I see no pressing reason toassume that we know of every Antediluvian and itsprogeny. Do not assume that you know everythingabout who else rises as the sun sets.

In any event, here we are, and there we were. Theearliest human settlements were in southwestern andsouthern Asia. Even when we reject the notion of anactual city of Enoch, the archeological record points atfoundations for more complex truths underlying themythology.

Catal Huyuk predates every other known humancity. Its remains stand on a plateau in interior Turkey,an area now barren but then fertile. By 6500 B.C. it wasalready a flourishing city, with more than 6,000 perma-nent inhabitants. Around 5600 B.C. the old city wasabandoned in favor of a new site to the west, and around4900 B.C. people left the area altogether. Humanarcheologists debate the reasons for the inhabitants'actions. Catal Huyuk anchored trade routes stretchingfor hundreds of miles in every direction.

Oddly enough, the city had no streets. The build-ings stand flush against each other, with openings in theroofs to let people out. Traffic moved across the roofs.Presumably walkways, ladders or ramps connected the

rooftops with the surrounding hilly ground. The cityevolved around obsidian and the volcanic goddess whoproduced it. Imagery of the all-creating, all'devouringgoddess fills the city. Leopards, who even tonight preyferociously on humanity and its primate kin, attendedher. Wrapped in cyclopean blackness, she cast forthdestructive heat that in turn carried the precious blackglass. Her devotees in Catal Huyuk traded it for all thenecessities and luxuries their own people couldn't pro-duce, spreading the earth's extrusions far and wide, andthe religion of the goddess with it.

Does none of this strike you as allusive? When youhear this story, do you not think of the power that movesin you, and picture it moving across the landscape of thefirst city? Can you not picture your sire's sire's mostremoved sire reaching down, by hand or shadow come tolife, drawing forth sacrifice from the life-filled roomsbelow? Does your mind's eye not show you individuals soterrible that the kine found it easier to objectify them andassociate them with forces of the earth itself? Can you notpicture human worshippers scattering in the wake of somedreadful conflict between Cainite lords and ladies, thehumans scurrying to establish some new center as the olddissolves into blood and unleashed fury?

This is our Enoch, the echo of our present state inthe past, reminding us of our legacy. This should besufficient for you for now.

The winds have died down, and the sleet's piled upwherever drifts can collect. In the calm, the temperaturerises slightly and then falls. Hail and snow meld into solidmasses of ice.

The change doesn't affect Demba's steady facing. Hershadow feet leave no mark on the rooftop. Her shadow-wrapped throat emits no quiver or stutter to disrupt herspeech. Druitt wishes he hadn't been quite so melodramaticin ascent and is burning through his vitae to heal the frostbitethreatening his fingers, toes and buttocks. The others don'tactually huddle for warmth, but do make an effort to avoidwasted motion and unnecessary exposure to the worstgusts.

Demba pauses mid-step. Her face remains as blank asbefore. The gathering heard a brief snuffling sound, airmoving through some passage very unlike a human nose."It's later than I realized. One more topic andl conclude forthe night."

ORIGINS IN DARKNESSIn addition to the facts of history, timeless, recur-

rent principles arise. We are the clan of darkness supreme,and you can look for our origin in every shadow. Thefears embedded in human consciousness and culturefeed our kind, giving us openings to exploit—what youmight call "leverage" in modern business jargon.

CHAPTER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR15 I

"The oldest and strongest emotion is fear. And theoldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."So said an American writer, Lovecraft, 80 years ago orso. Lovecraft showed the peculiar blindness of his era inthinking that identifying something as rooted in fearmeant showing that it was not rooted in reality. I tellyou now what you should already know: The kine areright to fear us. When you loom out of the shadows thatobey your command, demonstrating the ability to shat-ter a human body and overwhelm a human mind, youact not just with your own force but with the heritage ofcountless millennia of our kind.

Throughout history and before, gods in the nighthave demanded blood and meat from humanity. Theseare our sires. You are Artemis. You are Ahriman. Youare the volcano goddess of Catal Huyuk and Tezcatlipoca,the Aztecs' god of the smoking mirror. You look skepti-cal. Think, students. A darkness so thick it obscures thesun, wielded by the one who requires more blood thanany other god except the sun? This should sound famil-iar. You are Inguma, the Basque spirit that haunts theIberian night and strangles sleeping victims who did notpropitiate it. You are Hina, the Polynesian goddess whoguards the underworld and teaches crafts.

You are darkness personified. So were your sires backto the beginning. Look through history for darkness.There you find us.

Without warning, Demba's form collapses. Her shadowflits from the rooftop, leaving Andrew and his pack alone.

WHAT MANNER OF CReATUfteCainites don't have sex very often, and after a

few hundred years many of the physical and psycho-logical features associated with gender wither. ElderCainites often cease to care very much about genderquestions. Nonetheless, anyone wishing to speak ofan Antediluvian needs to use some pronoun.

Camarilla usage generally goes with the gendersthat tradition assigns: male to Brujah and Tremere,female to Gangrel and so on down the line. ManySabbat instructors encourage their students to stripthe implied humanity from the Antediluvians. Justas they frown on traditional names like "Ennoia" infavor of "the Gangrel Antediluvian," so mostLasombra priests teach that the best pronoun to usewhen speaking of an Antediluvian is just "it." SomeLasombra and Tzimisce never speak the clan namewhen referring to the Antediluvian at all, preferringtitles like "the King of Shadows" and "the Eldest."

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA16 \

THE SECOND LESSON:ANTIQUITY

The worst of the storm is past now, leaving a legacy ofwinds chill enough to keep the ice frozen. Andrew's packspends two nights seeking out stranded motorists and feedingon them. Andrew makes it a training game, with the objectof inflicting the most thorough carnage without any residuefor police or others to track. Ming shows the most creativeflair, cleverly arranging blankets of temporal shadow tocatch the mess she makes eviscerating her victims.

On the third night, Andrew stirs to wakefulness in thepack's communal haven. Some subconscious signal tells himto keep the pack together. He makes sure the neonatesdiscuss Demba's lesson and related subjects, so that they'llbe prepared to answer the bishop's pet questions at the nextFestival of the Dead. He's not very surprised to find morereasons, as he sits up in the old hotel basement.

A small Cainite sits by the door. He's dressed in a tansuit and wears lightly tinted glasses. His complexion isslightly swarthy. Andrew knows him by reputation andimmediately assumes a forma! manner. "Welcome to ourhaven, sir. I trust you had a pleasant enough trip, and thatHis Excellency the archbishop won't need your servicestonight." The small Cainite is one of the archbishop'spaladins, a scholar and first-rate torturer.

The paladin moves his lips in a rough approximation ofa smile. "Thank you, lord. Yes, 1 did, and no, he won't.Demba spoke with us last night about her educational effort.She would have returned to continue, but other mattersrequired her attention. I offered to help."

Andrew doesn't speak his thoughts while rousing thepack, introducing them to the paladin and arranging thehaven for a lecture. Is Dembanow destroyed? Is an invasionfrom some credible enemy underway? Andrew knows helikely won't ever know and tries to calm himself as thepaladin stands to lecture.THE ANTEDILUVIAN

Be careful not to let the gift of skepticism degener-ate into the bane of mindless doubt. The fact that oneelement of a story is false or at least unsupported is notwarrant to dismiss the rest. 1 remind you of this at theoutset, because I speak to you of facts that generallytravel in the company of lies.

Regardless of the truth or falsehood of Noddist myth,the Antediluvians really do exist. In fact, at least 13progenitor Cainites, each responsible for one of the majorclans, still infest the earth, or at least they did once (theremay well have been more, whose lines failed or who havebeen forgotten for various reasons). I believe they allendured well into the Christian era and even now, more

survive than not. To understand an Antediluvian is oftento understand much about its clan.

The Lasombra Antediluvian was certainly realenough. It perished only a few centuries ago, and wehave accounts even in the modern nights from thosewho saw it, spoke with it and dwelled with it. Its originssubstantially influence our nature.

The Antediluvian originally lived somewhere in thewestern Mediterranean. In time, Sicily became thecreature's favored haven, for reasons I'll discuss in amoment. It may have been born and lived there, or it mayhave originated elsewhere. I favor Malta. It has some veryold temples built from black stone with obsidian artifacts,and it has sufficient caves with attached legends aboutmonsters. It pleases me to think of Calypso as somemortal's effort to explain away a thaumaturge of our clan.Other Lasombra historians point at Corsica, Sardinia orthe Balearics. Realistically, we have no way to settle thequestion definitively. It's primarily a way to justify furtherresearch and argument.

Cainites do have some solid facts at hand, however.The first is that our founder was in life part of theMediterranean region. Unquestionably, the oldestLasombra all spring from that part of the world and spreadelsewhere over the millennia. The second is that it camespecifically from the western Mediterranean; it alwaysspoke of the civilizations of the eastern Mediterranean assomething a bit foreign, targets rather than homes. Thethird is that it was a creature of the sea, either an island-dweller or a resident of some coastal community.

These are not just facts of history. They echo insideyou now. You must have felt that peculiar fascination torise in time to see the sunset without feeling anycomparable urge to catch the beginning of dawn. Youmight even know the drive to spend time on, near andunder the water, even if in life you cared nothing for it.Those are part of your heritage j ust as much as the powerover shadow. You are, that is to say, part of my field ofstudy, as I am myself.

One excellent reason to doubt Noddist myth is thatthe proposed roster of Caine's childer matches theactually existing Antediluvians so poorly. Who wouldhave been a suitable sire for the Lasombra Antedilu-vian? None of the three fit very well. They serve toaccount for the Camarilla clans well enough, I suppose,but the story has more players than the pathetic seven.In any event, some Cainite Embraced our founder, andit set about building its haven in the shadows. Specula-tion rages within the scholars' ranks about the motivesand nature of the sire. We generally (though not al-ways) agree that the Antediluvian didn't spontaneously

CHAFER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR17 \

innim.—" s aL ^—- "^_in» J

transmute itself into a Cainite, but frankly of the sire wecan know nothing.

THH SPA PEOPLESOur clan has a long heritage of leadership in a very

primal and pure sense. We do not soil ourselves with thepetty details of reckoning every little scrap; we commandand seize. In antiquity, you find us leading this way amongpirates. Demba, I believe, spoke to you about Catal Huyuk,but she has a sometimes disproportionate fascination withsettlements. It comes from her personal history. I wish tospeak of peoples on the move. Quite early on in history, wefind records of great raiders.

In the second millennium B.C., the so-called "SeaPeoples" ravaged all the settled lands around the Mediter-ranean. The Hyksos even ruled Egypt for two successivedynasties. For a while, the Sea Peoples dominated allcommerce in the Mediterranean. Nobody sailed withoutpaying tribute to them or courting destruction. Indeed,around the turn of the millennium, the Sea Peoples playeda major part in smashing the Bronze Age civilizations inand around Greece, ushering in an era that more landboundhistorians like to call a "dark age." An age of darkness.Need I belabor the point?

Pardon? Yes, sir, you are quite correct. Lord Emory,I wish to commend your student Druitt for his attention

to detail. It is indeed one thing to point at a historicalphenomenon, another to show that it matters to ourkind. Let me cite some specific examples. This is froman Egyptian account of the execution of a band of SeaPeople raiders captured in the Nile Delta. "As the firerose, all the prisoners cried out to various gods. Somenamed gods of our land, even offering prayer to Anubisin the most correct way. Most called upon the power ofdarkness that they named Laza Omri Baras, which thepriests said signifies The God of the River of Darkness.'But he did not attend to their prayers, and so theyperished." Another record, from a ship captain who wasthe only one of his crew to escape a massacre while ona voyage from Thebes to Athens, gave the name of thegod in question as "Lau-Som-Bheu," which is quitepassable Proto-Indo-European for "profiting togetherby knowledge" or "profiting together by domination."

I could multiply the examples, but these shouldsuffice. Our Antediluvian's name came to the lips ofpillagers wishing to invoke a power of potency andauthority. This may not constitute proof in a purelyacademic sense, but then this is not a university. Youwill not be graded for failure to master points of detail,merely destroyed at some point for want of knowledgethat could have saved you if only you'd bothered tograsp more fully your heritage.

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA18 \

THE FIRST DISPERSALIn 1627 B.C., the volcanic island of Thera erupted.

Foolish scholars try to link it with everything from theExodus to Atlantis, when it was simply what it was —a tremendous eruption, spewing ash and dust aroundthe world. The sea recovered quickly enough, but manycoastal havens suffered. In the wake of the eruption,something like a third of our clan chose to seek betterfeeding and opportunity elsewhere.

The Antediluvian made one of its periodic greatwanderings at this time, returning centuries later withthe childe Montano, whose name we associate with thefoolishness of honor. More of that another time. Itdidn't travel alone, and we can establish firm connec-tions between the post-Thera dispersal and theappearance of Lasombra Methuselahs in Africa andinterior Asia. The subject of Lasombra in the NewWorld before A.D. 1492 is a little more complex, andwe'll save that for later. Suffice it to say that Lasombraof the Fourth and Fifth Generations established them-selves throughout much of the world at this time, albeitin small numbers.

I see a question. Ah, yes. Yes, certainly a world filledwith dark skies is good for us. But a world in which our foodsupply is diminished and more defensive isn't. The mortaltoll of the eruption is what motivated the dispersal.

PARASITES AND PLAGUESI will not speak in detail of our clan's involvement

with pirates during the Greek-dominated centuriesafter the dark age. One man's pirate is another man'shero, to begin with. The line between soldier and pirateis the line between you and me. The decentralizedgovernments of the time favored opportunity and... Imust address a point of terminology.

Cainites stricken with conscience, that most lamen-table retention from their mortal days, sometimes rantabout us as a race of parasites. We aren't, of course. We arepredators. We are also, in a rather literal sense, a diseaseuponhumanity. Consider the course of a plague. It emerges,sweeps through the area, kills all those most susceptibleand then fades into inactivity. That's the way raiders andwarriors within humanity operate. They emerge, gatherall the interesting loot and then wait until more lootarrives. We do the same, when we operate in a style moremobile than the Camarilla's favored hiding. Piracy is partof our clan's legacy. It's also a remarkably sensible way forCainites to exist.

Kine epidemiologists refer to humanity and othertarget species as a disease's way of making more disease.The same rule applies to them. Humanity is a Cainite'sway of making more Cainites, or of simply feeding well.

Note that this perspective immediately cures thecommon misconception that human history as such isdriven by our desires. It isn't, and it doesn't need to be.The kine choose as they will. So do we. Events thatfavor our good feeding and continued reproductionendure. Events that make existence harder for us do not,because at those times we seek to cull out those respon-sible for the problem. We don't initiate manydevelopments because we don't need to, any more thanevolution has to wait for a species to deliberately inno-vate. The myriad choices human beings make everyyear are the social equivalent of mutations, and we arethe force of unnatural selection.

Like a disease evolving toward commensurate rela-tions with its host, we aim toward a state in which thekine prosper (insofar as we wish them to) and so do we.None of this requires us to be kings over them. As theirtrue masters, we can and do take what suits us withoutthe petty demands of being first among equals. Humanbeings don't participate in the social life of their herds,and we don't need to, either.THE SECOND DISPERSAL

All good things must come to an end, we are told.So it was with the golden era of Mediterranean piracy.Alexander's empire seriously constrained our opera-tions in the eastern Mediterranean — for half a decadeone simply couldn't mount a suitably profitable large seacampaign, and things remained relatively grim for de-cades thereafter. For all their various squabbles,Alexander's warring successors often maintained theirguard against our folk and our comrades in spirit.

The crushing blow came from Pompey, a Romangeneral, 68 years before the commonly reckoned birthof Christ. The man should have been one of ours, sogreat was his talent. In mere months, he took the vastpower and wealth the Roman Senate granted him anderadicated essentially all organized piracy throughoutthe Mediterranean Sea. No longer was the sea ours.Now the Roman name "Mare Nostrum" or "Our Sea"was something more than an idle boast. Many of ourclan's havens fell to joint sea and land invasions, includ-ing the Maltese stronghold that had until then mostoften provided the Antediluvian with its home. There-after the black citadel in Sicily served as our father'sfrequent haven.

With piracy no longer an option, our clan wentthrough a second era of dispersal. By the end of the firstChristian century, Lasombra had spread everywhere inthe Old World, though many of those who went eastsubsequently perished at the hands of Cathayans and

CHAFER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR19 \

I

other menaces. Pompey's crusade also gave significantreinforcement to the terrestrial faction of our clan.

I have spoken primarily of our clan on the waves. Itis also true that some lineages felt more comfortabledwelling on land, weaving themselves into the fabric ofhuman societies and wearing the resulting garments asboth camouflage and lure. The Antediluvian itselfexperimented on mortal communities, though prima-rily as part of its ongoing search for desirable childer. Asmembers of the Sabbat, you know that identificationwith humanity cripples us, blinds us to our true poten-tial. You inherit an ancient and glorious tradition ofmastery from outside. However, certain things must besaid about the rival tradition of mastery from within.

As you meet Cainites who belong to other clans,you'll find a straightforward correlation. The morededicated a clan is to preserving the foolish illusion ofhumanity, for whatever reason, the more its membersboast of their glories in "controlling" or "manipulating"human societies. The Ventrue and Brujah in particularmake much of this, to the extent that childer Embracedmere nights ago seem determined to reenact the PunicWars in their social relations. You should feel at libertyto mock such pretensions — in fact, you should feelcompelled. I hope to point out a few of the complexities

LASOMBRA HAVGNSAND/: ;; THE COURSE OF EMPIRE 1

•: 'Our clan has a very ancient practice that is ftregrettably not generally available to you newcom-

1 ers. Ever since human empires began to expand, :some of us have followed just behind the front lines, Jsetting up havens in conquered lands and letting theimperial forces keep away all other troubles while wemake them take care of our sundry needs. Lasombra '.'.went with Hittites and Sumerians and Parthians, soit should come as no surprise that we went with |Romans as well. Elders describe those centuries as agood ones for the clan, because dissenters couldspread out to engage in experiments without cutting ;joff contact with the main body of the clan. Not until ?

•!the last three hundred years or so did we get so much |routine exchange of information and resources. f

Alas, I do not see how you and your peers can Denjoy anything comparable without either cheap itravel to the stars or a massive collapse of existing s

^Social institutions. Some of your clanmates tried to !1 engineer a nuclear war or global plague for precisely •;<that reason, but none of their efforts worked out. The i

iCourts of Blood authorized the, destruction of all |involved. You may not purchase your haven at the |cost of everyone else's. 1

of the real situation, which are in my opinion vastlymore interesting than Cainite mythology.

ROMEAs I was saying, Pompey's campaign shifted the

focus of clan attention. It simply wasn't feasible tocontinue piracy as our primary mode of predation.

Many of you probably think of the Roman Empireas a looming, static sort of thing. It wasn't. For onething, in 68 B.C. it wasn't an empire. It was a delight-fully corrupt and convoluted republic of a sort, dominatedby an aristocracy who made a fetish of hobbling thestrong. A century before Pompey's crusade, the republiccontrolled territory from eastern Spain over to thewesternmost tip of Greece. Carthage still stood, thoughmost of its empire was already gone. By the time Pompeywent into action, the republic had pushed its frontiersouth to include former Carthaginian lands (and theblighted ruin of Carthage itself), all of Greece, Egyptand much of Asia Minor.

Fun as it might be to claim otherwise, Cainites hadvery little to do with this. Certainly our forebears didtheir part to build up networks of contacts, cultivatemortal proteges and the like. We read of the occasionalgeneral stricken with a mad fear of shadow or of myste-rious murderers in the night, and you may smile inrecognition. Nevertheless, an empire doesn't run onsuch things. All vampiric influence amounts to correc-tive nudges and reefs in the path of human history. Thevery futility of vampiric rulership should be a lesson toyou that it's not what we're fitted by nature (or perhapsunnature) to do.

Pompey's success led to the downfall of the republic.The details are complex. Suffice it to say that a jealousSenate tried to strip him of power and deny his requests onbehalf of his troops, and that when the dust settled twentyor thirty years later, the republic was gone. Julius Caesarruled openly as emperor, and by the time he died theempire had grown to almost its furthest extent.

At least two codified versions of the Path of Nightdate to around the beginning of the Christian era. Chris-tianity itself spread so rapidly because Roman citizenstraveled with unprecedented ease and safety, and youknow how interesting the Christian faith has been tomany of us. The Courts of Blood moved away from theirBabylonian origins to reflect fresh thought among bothhumans and Cainites about efficiency and justice, withresults that remain largely applicable even tonight.

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA20

THE THIRD LESSON:THE GREAT REVOLT

The Festival of the Dead is over. As always, the policeand the mayor scramble for hasty explanations about all theextra bodies. As always, they tried to cover it up, butamused Sabbat made sure to keep the local media informed,and the corpses made fine frontpage news. Andrew reachesup to feel the bishop's hat given to him on the last night of thefestival, marking his triumph over his rivals. Ductus nomore — now it's Bishop Emory, thank you very much. Hispleasure in the moment would be complete were it not for theelder standing next to him, surveying the city from the debrisof the house they torched in last night's fire dance.

Brother Oso looks like the bear of his name. He's halfa foot taller than Andrew, with fiery red hair and beard.Thick curly hair covers his arms and hands, the thickestAndrew can recall ever seeing on someone who wasn'ttrans/ormingmtoananima[/orrn. Brother Oso is bulky, butit doesn't look like there's any fat or flab there. Andrewremembers quite vividly watching Oso juggle three flamingroof beams, all the while balanced on one foot and using thefree foot to keep kicking at the firemen unfortunate enoughto be first on the scene.

Oso turns from the panorama to look down at Andrew."You have a worthy pack, bishop. If they last, I expect thatthey'll be following you on the path to honors."

"Thank you, sir. I hope so." Andrew doesn't knowhow much deference Oso actually wants, so he aims for aneutral tone open to many interpretations.

"Iwouldliketospeakwifathembeforelkave.Doyouobject?''"I'd be honored. I take pride in having a pack who

understands their world, and whatever you choose to sharewould no doubt serve that end."

Oso nods, then casually vaults backward, landing witha twist to face the gathered pack.M URDERING THE FATHER

None of you know what it's like to exist in thepresence of a god, or something so powerful that it mightas well be a god. You look at your leaders in the Festivaland find them intimidating, but not one of them is morethan four centuries old. I was the oldest present at therite, and I am less than a thousand years old myself. ButI know what our founder's gaze was like, and why itmade the great patricide necessary.

You are ambitious creatures. It's part of your nature,and if you showed no drive to improve your position,you wouldn't have made it this far. You chafe under thedead hand of those over you, looking at the archbishopor the cardinal and thinking how many decades they're

likely to stay right where they are. Don't look surprised.Remember that it's difficult to keep secrets from yourelders; plan accordingly. But now imagine that yourleaders had existed not just for decades but for millen-nia, that you could at any time find yourself commandedby a creature older than all recorded history. Imagine allyour hopes and fears known and dismissed, your planscasually toyed with to suit some scheme older than thelanguage you speak.

THE GREAT REBELOur clan in its modern form begins with Gratiano

de Veronese, scion of a medieval Italian noble family.He grew up in the early 12th century, in the hothouseof peninsula politics. The German empire ruled theregion's upper half, with the Norman Kingdom of Sicilycontrolling most of the rest. Religious and civil politicswere often one and the same thing, and always inter-fered with each other.

Gratiano was one ambitious young noble amongmany. He first made his mark as an articulate preacher,using the bishopric his family bought for him when hewas still in his twenties to rouse popular support forfamily causes. In the guise of righteous anger at noblesins, he skillfully set the mob against inconvenientrivals, generally picking up much of the glory theydropped in their hasty flights. Once the de Veronesefamily was secure, he turned to wider ranging matters.Specifically, he hoped to assemble an effective coali-tion that could force the imperial government to grantmore autonomy in Italy.

In this he failed, completely. Thecity-stateswouldn'tgiveup their prerogatives, and all the nobles in the empire choseto pursue their separate advantage rather than cooperateagainsttheenemyin the background. Inasmall way, Gratiano'sefforts at inspiring resistance likely contributed to the mid-century extinction of most city-states' independence. Theybecame sufficiently annoying that theempire and theNormanSicilians each crushed those within reach. That, however,came later. What mattered at the time—about 1130—wasthat Gratiano realized he was not fated to be the nextCharlemagne or Pompey. He planned to step back from thenational stage to return to the concerns ofhis own family, afterone final visit to the emperor.

It was one visit too many. The de Veroneses felttroubled during his absence, harboring inner doubtsabout Gratiano's real worth or intentions. They didn'tthink to associate these new fears with the denser-than-usual shadows ranging through their estate, and ofcourse with merely mortal willpower they never wouldget the chance. All they knew, with increasing cer-tainty, is that Gratiano had offended the family's honor

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with his hubris and deserved punishment. Family agentsquietly undermined Gratiano's efforts, as did whispersin the nighttime corridors of empire.

You recognize the secret face of this story. Yes, theLasombra Antediluvian had taken an interest in Gratiano,feeling that the time had come again for it to make a newchilde. It set about ruining his life to test his character, justas our clan does to its potential childer now.

Gratiano responded to the challenges with re-newed fervor. It became a point of pride with him to facedown opponents and destroy their arguments, humiliat-ing them in front of witnesses. He gained quite afollowing among dissidents around the imperial thronewho felt that Gratiano made much sense when hetalked about the benefits to the empire of a moreindirect rule in Italy. Unfortunately for the childe-to-be, his arguments couldn't penetrate the reinforcedmental barriers of the officials who actually had thepower to approve or deny his requests. When thevaguely worded summons back home arrived one day,Gratiano found himself forced to admit defeat for thefirst time in his adult life (at least the first failure of anygoal that had become important to him).

The irony here is that Gratiano actually had plot-ted to betray his family. Bavarian and Bohemian nobleswith interests in Italy convinced him to betray hisformer associates in the Italian autonomy movement inexchange for estates and opportunities in Germany.Gratiano made no great effort to conceal his growingenjoyment of German custom. He simply concealedhow deep the change of sentiment ran.

The failed diplomat returned home to face arrest.His parents accused him of treachery, of plotting tosubvert the family's position through calculated of-fenses to the empire, which he would then exploit forpersonal gain. Quite convincing evidence accompa-nied the charges. You know how well some of you canfool mortals; just think what a few thousand years'practice could do for you. In any event, Gratiano wentto jail and the threat of imminent execution.

The Antediluvian came into his cell and spokewith him that night. It was not the Antediluvian'scustom to force the Embrace on anyone. For its ownreasons, it wished its childer to ask for the change. Muchto its surprise, Gratiano wasn't initially inclined toaccept. He felt sure that he could negotiate his way outof the situation and laid out two fully developed schemes,either of which would suffice for the purpose. Naturallyhe found the Antediluvian fascinating, and he certainlywanted to learn more about being a Cainite, but hedidn't feel himself so deprived of opportunity that hewould want to give up life just yet.

With surprise and a touch of dismay, the Antedilu-vian withdrew to make other arrangements. Thefollowing night it returned to the cell. This time Gratianodid not leap up in surprise, for the torturers had brokenboth his legs. His eyes did not widen in shock, for theywere both swollen shut after repeated beatings. TheAntediluvian didn't need to do much to inspire the deVeronese interrogators to do their worst to the youngman — it simply showed them and the family eldersproof of Gratiano's German deals. The Antediluviannow spoke again to Gratiano about the blessings of theEmbrace, and this time Gratiano listened more care-fully. He realized that mere mortal cleverness wouldn'tserve. With that realization, he accepted the Embrace.

The details of Gratiano's escape are mundaneenough, involving a body altered through blood magicto resemble him and left in his place. What matters isthat Gratiano accompanied the Antediluvian to itsSicilian stronghold. As he realized how far the blackhand of the clan (and of other clans) reached into theaffairs he'd tried to direct as a mortal, he became filledwith the desire to topple the Antediluvian just as hehoped to topple the emperor. As his first step, he setabout becoming the Antediluvian's model childe.

Some of you can sense the future, and you've seendemonstrations enough to know that stronger oraclesexist. It seems ludicrous to believe that the Antediluvianhad no inkling of its coming destruction. Several theoriesprevail as to why it allowed Gratiano to continue.

• Outside support: That is, Gratiano did not actalone. Either another Antediluvian or some other forcegave him aid. You'll hear rumors of infernalists or thespirit-demons of the old Tzimisce domains. Disregardthem. They're ludicrous. You may meet Gratiano your-self some night, and whatever else may be true of him,he does not reek of the infernal or anything like it. As forother manipulators, well, a theory that can explainaway all evidence isn't actually useful at all.

• Suicide: That is, the Antediluvian chose toperish. Perhaps it got bored, perhaps it felt it had atonedfor some primal sin or that it never could. Why doesanyone ever commit suicide?

• Plan gone awry: That is, the Antediluvianwanted its patricidal childe for some scheme of its own,and Gratiano's rebellion was a matter of sheer luck onhis part, bad luck on his sire's part, or both. Like the"outside support" theory, this offers no basis for analysis,so in practical terms it's a religious doctrine.

Whatever the case, the fact is that the Antediluvianaccepted Gratiano's flattery and ignored the elders whowhispered to it that he would do in the dark palace whathe'd tried to do in Germany. I was myself Embraced some

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decades after Gratiano and remember vividly the atmo-sphere — Gratiano continued to try directing the Italianprincipalities, now using his powers as well as his nativeaptitudes. It didn't work all that well, but he gainedvaluable experience and became increasingly annoyedwith the vampiric hierarchy that blocked him far morethoroughly than any mortal one ever could. We youngones often spoke in the early morning, just before slumber,about the desirability of fresh opportunity. What distin-guished Gratiano was that he dared to act on it.THE ERA OF REVOLT

I can scarcely describe to you what a horrible era the14th and 15th centuries were for us as Cainites. Thegreat plague swept away much of our food and leftremaining mortals sparse enough that maintaining ourdisguises within the mortal world became more diffi-cult. Meanwhile, Cainites continued to create childer,making more cities crowded to intolerable levels. Whilethe Antediluvians themselves spent more and moretime in torpor, far too many Methuselahs remainedactive to torment us all with unobtainable prestige.While they and their rotten sires ruled, we could expectnever to achieve what we felt to be our potential.Violence erupted as generations clashed and as clansforced into competition for valuable kine resourcessharpened their antipathy.

To make matters worse, we faced organized mortalopposition on an unprecedented scale. The fools of ourkind alerted clerical and civil authorities to our presence.The Inquisition mutated from a random collection ofdoctrinal questioners into an efficient secret police, ca-pable of ferreting out us and our pawns. Just as theInquisition's ranks swelled, the expanding Ottoman pres-ence — all the way to Vienna, before turning back! —forced eastern European Cainites to flee westward. Theirmovements and their crowding into others' cities onlymade it that much easier for the hunters to find us all.

By my tally, the overwhelming majority of theCainites who existed in 1350 had perished by 1500,whether at the hands of mortals or Cainites. You canpicture nothing like it. You are all too young to remem-ber the 1919 influenza, let alone actual genocide. It wasa time in which all saw that we could not continue asbefore. That was Gratiano's great contribution.

Gratiano planned while the rest of us fretted anddabbled. He made contacts among the so-called anarchs,listening to their complaints and showing them twinlessons. First, he taught them how to identify andexploit opportunities in whatever their circumstancesof the moment happened to be. For most of a century heran a sort of Socratic academy for anarchs, covering

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Qso's account differs in some ways from theones found in other Vampire books. From thevantage point of the Final Nights, there's no objec-tive way to establish the truth of the matter. Allsurviving witnesses and participants claim greatcertainty of their recollections. Simple tests revealthat they are all telling the truth as they recall it, andthat all involved are sure that no mind control,hypnosis or other mental manipulation happenedalong the way. Nearly all Lasombra know whatDominate feels like, and none of the conflictingaccounts shows such traces. Nonetheless, the storiesdon't add up. Cainites interested in Sabbat historydeal with discrepancies mostly through selectiveignorance and discreet silences.

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mortal and vampiric politics, the use of religious orders,trade and the like. Second, he showed them that how-ever useful these lessons might be, in the end it all camedown to the whim of the eldest. In between sessions ofhis academy, he traveled all over Europe, cultivatingnew alliances outside the clan. His deals with theAssamites of the Holy Land and the Balkans provedmost important for us all.

Sometime around 1400, Gratiano became convincedthat he could destroy our Antediluvian. For two fullmortal generations he laid his plans. Around the middleof the century, things finally started to happen. The"Victory Order" and other groups of Lasombra enforcersencountered anarchs with memories of Lasombra eldersconspiring with them to commit acts of diablerie. Somesuch memories immediately proved false, while othersheld up to sustained examination. The Courts of Bloodconvened more and more frequently in response to chargesof this sort of conspiracy, and the ranks of the clan's eldersthinned visibly. The Antediluvian itself didn't seem tonotice or care, and never answered questions about whatits progeny should do.

Gradually, the memories the Assamites implantedinto selected anarchs more selectively incriminated theelders Gratiano saw as a threat. Above all, he wanted toremove Montano, but he also worried about lesser figuresof the court. To his dismay, the targets he most wantedremoved proved most resistant to charges based on mentalforgery. Gratiano himself assisted the Assamites in mindstirring, and as he says now, never before or since did heever dominate mortals so thoroughly. The pressures of hisplan and the general situation must have inspired him togreat heights, not to be ascended again until some futurecrisis makes it necessary.

With the clan in chaos, the killing blow fell oneevening in the summer of 1483. Well, perhaps not.Accounts differ as to the actual date; this is what I recall.A mixed-clan force of anarchs assaulted the Sicilianstronghold. The Antediluvian did not wake or rise, andmutual distrust hobbled Lasombra defenses. In shortorder, all the castle's inhabitants other than the Ante-diluvian faced the command to surrender or perish.Montano evaded capture for the rest of the night,flitting about with Obtenebration arts not known toanyone else (except, presumably, the Antediluvian). Inthe end, Montano escaped. Everyone else surrenderedto Gratiano's force or became the invaders' food.

Gratiano and a handful of elders descended into thedepths to face the Antediluvian. The void-spirits com-mon to the stronghold's lower reaches were absent, sothe descent was quick and easy. Half a dozen raiders fellupon the sleeping thing and drained it in minutes. Itnever awoke or stirred. When the draining finished, itsimply crumbled into a fine black ash with tarry residue.There was, at the last moment, no great drama about it,merely the completion of a well-executed plan.THE CLAN WITHOUT ITS HEAD

Gratiano convened the Friends of the Night, theAmid Noctis as they were then, and presented them withthe deed already done. They could condemn him. Indeed,he dared them to do so, taunting them that if they did notstop him now, he would remake the clan into somethingaltogether new. The Friends listened and stepped aside.Some Friends chose to join with Gratiano's revolt. Otherskept quiet and let events unfold.

The great rebel announced that unlike AugustusGiovanni, he would not claim the status of clan founder.He was, he said, quite content being a member of ClanLasombra, now that the monster which once definedthe clan was gone. Now every member of the clan coulddecide for himself what the lineage meant and actaccordingly. No single will would thereafter run theclan: Gratiano explicitly rejected the role and "sug-gested" that the Friends of the Night not anoint asuccessor. Montano frantically campaigned against thisstep, but to no avail. He and a handful of his supportersbecame a roving clan-in-exile and were dubbed by someunknown wit among the Friends as an "anti-tribe."

HATCHING THE SABBATJust one decade after Gratiano struck the decisive

blow against our clan as it was, the Anarch Revolt cameto a formal end in the pathetic declaration known as theConvention of Thorns. In short, the vast majority ofanarchs meekly submitted to their elders once more in

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exchange for symbolic declarations of allegiance on thepart of their once and future masters. Only a courageoushandful in each clan chose to continue the fight. Ourterm, the "anti-tribe," became a badge of honor; even-tually the form antitribu found widest acceptance.

You must remember that organization of any sortbeyond the scope of a single clan was very new. TheCamarilla was an actual innovation, something ourkind produces only slowly. Elders turned to it not somuch out of enthusiasm as out of the dread sense of itsnecessity. Caught between mortal pressures and chal-lenges from neonates, they voluntarily gave up asignificant portion of the autonomy which used todefine their status. The clans that stayed out of theCamarilla did so primarily because their elders werewise enough to see that the imperatives of the neworganization would destroy old ways just as effectively ascapitulation to the anarchs would have.

For the next half-century, our clan simply pursuedits own course. So did the Tzimisce, who copied ourdestruction of the Antediluvian, for similar reasons, theAssamites (who cravenly capitulated to the Camarilla'simposed curse), Giovanni, Ravnos and Setites remainedat liberty. Our elders largely continued as they had donefor some time, since the Courts of Blood continued tofunction. Our neonates experimented with new rela-tions with humanity.

I remember very clearly the first occasion on which Iheard the term "Sabbat" applied to a pack of Cainitepreying on mortals. It was on Maundy Thursday in 1502,just after the midnight service. I remember this because I'dgone to Mass with certain clanmates in Naples. There wasconcern in the region about what some Friends called theCainite Heresy. (I will not pause here to discuss thematter. Ask your pack leader, or your archbishop.) Afterthe midnight service, a small group of us stood in thecourtyard, admiring the stars and casually discussing thewhole question of what role we played in God's order. I wasso earnest then, and so foolish.

One of the youngest neonates spoke up to say thatthe whole area of Italy was blighted with peasantsuperstition (as it still is), including the notion thatcovens of witches roam the countryside in "sabbats,"dragging off adults and children alike for hideous rituals.He and his associates, he claimed, dressed themselves invarious styles traditionally ascribed to witches andacted as they were expected to: They ran with superhu-man speed into a village, shouted out that they hadcome to collect the souls due their lord Satan, breakdown doors at random and seize enough people to feedthemselves. We all found the notion highly amusingand commended his ingenuity.

I remembered that clever fellow again perhaps sixor seven years later, when reports came to us of Cainitepacks doing the same thing in the Danube Valley andalong the Baltic coast. The presence of these SabbatCainites was, for many mortals, a precursor of theOttoman siege at Vienna.

FREED IN BLOODNot long after the Ottoman tide peaked and turned

back, we began to hear in Sicily of this new thing, theVaulderie. You, of course, take it for granted. Youcannot easily imagine what a startling thing it was.Bishop Emory never subjected any of you to a bloodbond, did he? No, I thought not. It used to be that yoursire or another elder could bind you to himself bymaking you drink his blood, and you would feel com-pelled to obey his whim, and love it. It was the recurringthreat against disobedient childer.

Suddenly, thanks to some anonymous blood magi-cian, we were free of the threat. We could form bondsto our like-minded peers, the Cainites to whom wechoseto commit ourselves, and leave the elders none thewiser. I myself was one of the first to drink from theVaulderie cup in the grand rituals we held above theashes of our Antediluvian, and I helped remove my sirenot long thereafter. It was a sweet, sweet thing. When-ever you chafe under the bond that the Vaulderiecreates, remember the alternative, and know that theold horror is always waiting to creep back if we cease ourvigilant guard.

Whoever invented the Vaulderie, it spread like wild-fire in the middle of the 16th century. Quite soon,particularly as Cainites measure such things, it was thedefining practice of Cainites rebelling against the Camarillaand the sect's masters, just as the Sabbat pack was alreadythe defining organizational unit. The combination of thetwo created a sense of unity among the dissenters. Some-time around the middle of the century, we began referringto ourselves as the Sabbat. The Courts of Blood first usedthe term in charges brought in 1552, and again in 1558,and then regularly after that. Remember, of course, that atthis point we Lasombra mostly associated with each other;cross-clan packs were still rare as far as we were concerned.We regarded them suspiciously, even with the Vinculumbond at work.

Nonetheless, we took part in efforts to harass andundermine the Camarilla. You'll find quite a good descrip-tion of me in one of Charles Fort's books, where he records(with his usual exuberant skepticism) an attack by Cainiteson Maltese pilgrims in 1585. Even this scar is there in histext. We created such a public disturbance that theAntediluvian-lickers spent literally years trying to smooth

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things over again, and of course in the end it didn'taltogether work. Such successes came too rarely, perhaps,but we certainly forced them to commit more resources tothe response than they would have liked. Our rising gloryestablished us as genuine rivals to the sect and attracted asmall but steady flow of defectors who wished to be whatthe sect would never allow: Cainites exercising them-selves to the fullest.

B UILDING PATHSHuman philosophy took fresh twists in those cen-

turies. So did ours. But first I must lay the context foryou, as it was a time very different from this.

Most Cainites throughout history have always keptto a moral standard more or less like that of the humansociety in which they originated. They reject sometenets, of course, but keep to others. They are morelikely to think of themselves as wicked people than asgood beings by standards that have nothing to do withhumanity. Around this contemptible fascination forthe ways of the living, tradition placed a number of"Roads," more or less formalized ethical systems reflect-ing vampiric experience. Most of them took someparticular interest—chivalry, or insight into mortality,or what have you — and magnified it into a whole... Ibelieve "paradigm" is the modern word.

In the late Middle Ages, the weaklings in the newlycreated Camarilla went on a crusade against the Roads.Yes, faced with rising challenges from humanity andgiven the opportunity to join the anarchs and Sabbat-to-be in turning on elder tyrants, they chose to purgeCainites who refused to pretend to be kine. I'm sure thisimpresses you just as it did me when I first learned of it.Yes, the Camarilla in its collective wisdom decided thatthe real problem was with those Cainites who chose notto exist in ways conducive to hiding among humanity.Many of the Roads disappeared altogether, and the restvanished from general view. Afterward, their practitio-ners kept their secrets hidden.

All of this created an intellectual void among Cainites.Under the aegis of the Sabbat, a great intellectual fervorroiled throughout the 16th and 17th centuries. Nearly adozen new ethical systems came into existence and re-ceived the ruthless acid test of practice in the hands andminds of Cainites very keen to shed more humanitywithout losing themselves to the Beast. Collectively knownas the Paths of Enlightenment, these systems are amongthe great lasting achievements of our sect. It goes nearlywithout saying, I hope, that Clan Lasombra played a vitalrole in this development. We wisely refrained from anni-hilating our own distinctive Road of Night, and thusbegan with a better foundation for Path development

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than any other clan. The Amies Noir provided extensivesupport for the philosophers and sages interested in codi-fying other approaches, as well.

There's a curious feature of this work. Most of thekey inventors chose to remain anonymous. We simplydon't have reliable names or necrographies (if I maycoin a term) for the Cainites who, for instance, formal-ized old dualist notions into the Path of the Cathari orworked out the elegant compromise that is the Path ofHonorable Accord. You can learn much about earlyadherents to each of these, and it's a plausible guess thatthose speaking and writing early on about a given Pathare the ones who created it, but that cannot be morethan a guess. Perhaps there's something in the act ofcreating a system intended to be universal that conflictswith the normal egoism of Cainites. Or perhaps, as someLasombra tell it, the fact that the creators chose toremain in the shadows is a literal fact as well as ametaphor, and indicates the creative power of theAbyss at work within them.

INTO THC New WORLDI do not reveal a great secret when I say that despite

our best efforts, we did not succeed in displacing theCamarilla from Europe. This shouldn't be any great sur-prise, of course. Of the clans outside the Camarilla, onlywe and the Giovanni had significant presence in WesternEurope. The others were all, in their respective ways,marginal, attached to other lands. We had fervor on ourside — holy fervor, I like to think, an echo of the passionthat drove Caine — but we lacked the resources.

Inevitably, then, we examined alternatives. TheCamarilla knew about the discoveries across the Atlan-tic just as we did, of course. They simply didn't care,except for a passing interest in Aztec and Incan cities.We didn't have the luxury of passing interest — we hadto find new realms for ourselves. So it was that, indi-vidually and then collectively, we sailed with our clan'sown corsairs (and unwitting mortals) to carve outempires from the lands of the savages.

I see a question in your faces. Yes, I said "savages."I don't care what social feats they achieved beforeEuropeans came. A people who do not build great citiesare not a people worth feeding from, let alone worthycandidates for the Embrace. The European notion thatthe city defines civilization is at least in part a tribute toour influence, and it is one of the great truths of ourkind, Gangrel and other rabble notwithstanding. Webacked settlement ventures everywhere in the NewWorld to create proper homes for ourselves.

Those were nights of chaos, or so those who made thetrip early on tell me. Cut off from their various clans'

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procedures for governance, the emigrants constantlysquabbled among themselves. Efforts to organize conti-nent-spanning Vaulderie gatherings came to nothing, sothe only reliable bonds of unity were local. In addition, theemigrants encountered a level of Lupine activity unprec-edented in our experience since the Stone Age. Nor didwe get the continent to ourselves: Camarilla rabble (andsome infiltrators disguised as rabble) made their way acrossthe sea as well, bringing with them the stifling protocolsthey worship as "Traditions."

It goes without saying that in the middle of thisstruggle, we distinguished ourselves as leaders. Thesomewhat decentralized nature of the Friends of theNight means that our clan's members are never whollycut off so long as an experienced clanmates is nearby.The Courts of Blood became, for several decades, theclosest thing to procedural justice in the New World,and on some occasions the Friends even contracted outtheir services to Camarilla Cainites needing disputessettled. Just see if any of the participants who stillremain active ever discuss that, though.

The subject of parallels between our practices andvarious traditions the savages practiced warrant discus-sion, but on some other occasion. Suffice it to say fornow that just as we'd incorporated disparate Europeantraditions to suit our emerging body of ritae, so we drewon these unfamiliar customs as well. Unfortunately,while we engaged in this syncretism, the main force ofthe Camarilla itself arrived in the late 17th century; by1700, significant enclaves arose in most port cities andsome interior settlements. Our hit-and-run tactics faredbetter on the frontier, so we concentrated there, leavingbehind too many choice morsels.

We did better in Central and South America. Mexico,of course, has been ours almost since Cortez. We werethere as the old city of Tenochtitlan became Mexico City,with literally miles of warrens perfect for our gatherings.We were slower to follow Pizarro and his ilk, but that's thefault of the Amazon and the fanatically Cainite-hating

THE BLOOD MASTERS FADESeveral holes in Lasombra history suggest the use

of high-powered mental Disciplines. One of these isthe activities of the thaumaturgists who inspired theLasombra to support genocide in the New World.After about 1550, they just don't show up anymore inthe records. Nobody asks about them. Perhaps theywere destroyed or perished voluntarily. Perhaps not.They might just as easily be out there in the deserts andmountains, pursuing whatever ends brought themacross the Atlantic millennia ago.

creatures who dwell there. It took time to work out saferoutes to new Sabbat strongholds in the mountains andsouthern shores. I don't wish to give you the impressionthat we did nothing in the English- and French-speakingcolonies, merely that it was harder to make progress. Forsome reason the Camarilla "Kindred" from northernnations did a better job at opportunistic aggression thantheir southern cousins. We faced the sharpest competi-tion along the northern Atlantic seaboard and down theSt. Lawrence Seaway.

Your instructors have, I'm sure, pointed out that asa clan we seldom attempt to drive human affairs, simplyto profit from them as suits our own interests. Thematter of the conquistadors and the Aztecs is an inter-esting exception. Two Lasombra scholars accompaniedthe second expedition to Mexico, and they listenedwith great interest to Aztec priests' accounts of how thesacrifices to Huitzilopochtli, god of the sun, insured thatthe sun would rise every day. These were nights ofsometimes mad ambition among our clan, and a pair ofSpanish packs decided that they just might be able toplunge the world into eternal darkness by eliminatingthe Aztecs.

This wasn't quite as ludicrous a notion as you mightthink. Early Sabbat travelers in the New World en-countered ancient thaumaturgists lurking in the wilds,practicing paths unknown in the Old World. Some ofthem seemed to be very old indeed, Methuselahs, per-haps even Antediluvians whose names were lost tohistory. It frankly didn't seem entirely out of the ques-tion that they might have powerful magic affecting thesun, or at least the passage of light to Earth.

We did not make the great genocide. For thatmatter, neither did the Europeans, directly, at least.Disease did most of the work long before armies arrived.We did as a clan provide funds for missions of conquest,and we used our influence to support the dream ofconquest at moments when bad news might have weak-ened mortal commitment to the cause. All of thisamounted to helping mortals do what they alreadydecided to do, but we made them more effective thanthey'd have been otherwise.

As you know, the sun did not go out when sacrificesto Huitzilopochtli faltered and stopped. Pity.

PEACE AND FLIGHTThe century of mortal revolution was also a century of

war within the Sabbat. No American or French revolu-tion could be any more incestuous and altogether wretchedthan the conflicts for scarce herds that swept through oursect. For a tense decade around 1800, it looked like theSabbat—at least in the Amertcas—might not survive as

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a united entity. Obviously, from your presence here, wedid survive, and we owe much of that to a deal struck in1803. The so-called "Purchase Pact" proclaimed an end toold grievances and granted a right of destruction againstindividuals acting in ways that threatened the sect'sinterests. This latter gave more power to the ecclesiasticalhierarchy that was forming at the time. (Standardizedtitles and ranks didn't appear until later in the 19thcentury.) The Purchase Pact didn't end all strife withinthe sect, nor did anyone expect it would. It reduced thelevel of existing tension and made it easier to respondquickly to future conflicts. That was remarkable, underthe circumstances.

The peace, such as it was, took time to spread south ofEnglish- or French-speaking lands. It never fully took holdin the new nations carved out of northeastern SouthAmerica. Simon Bolivar and his revolution changed themix offerees at work. The Camarilla stayed further awayfrom the ongoing mess, while our kind reveled in it. Evennow, you simply don't find many of the Antediluvian'sservants in Colombia, Uruguay or Venezuela. In an envi-ronment with fewer external pressures, our internaldifferences ranged more freely, and something like warfarehas always existed among the local archbishops andcardinals. Which reminds me...

CAINITHS IN MITCRSSome of you, I'm sure, have wondered how it is that

a gathering of Cainites dedicated to the free expressionof our innermost selves comes to resemble humaninstitutions dedicated to doctrinal conformity. Twodistinct but constantly interacting forces make it so.

First, there's parody, or rather satire. We use theforms of mortal religion, primarily but not exclusivelyRoman Catholicism, because it amuses us to do so.Cainites get bored, and a bunch of bored Cainites in oneplace is an invitation to trouble. Since we need somestructure to our routine affairs, why not make it one withintricate details and much potential for administrativecomplications? Our institution, like our rites, is in parta game.

Second — yes, we glorify the power of the indi-vidual Cainite. But to fully understand what that poweris, we must seek the truth and eschew error. We deceiveothers. We must not deceive ourselves. The truth weprobe is ultimately religious. Whether you subscribe tothe modern fad for treating Cainites in anthropologicalterms or possess the courage to acknowledge that ourexistence points directly at God, spirit, soul and other

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facts the modem world flees, you must see that thequestions we pose are religious ones. We deal with thenature of the world, of sin and damnation and redemp-tion, of curses and death. These are real things, not theproduct of our imagined hopes or fears. There are activepowers in the night and beyond the stars, and those whoapproach them unprepared perish.

The ecclesiastical hierarchy, at least when admin-istered the way we run the Sabbat, brings preparedindividuals to the top. The structure serves to remind usall that distinctions exist between us, and that some arein fact better prepared for particular roles than others.You give obedience to your superiors because they aresuperior in certain regards. You owe your survival tothem for performing their assigned roles properly. Youare not prepared to confront alone the enemies we face,let alone the deeper threats behind them. You serveprecisely in order to develop yourself in freedom. Totalfreedom would be mere annihilation — you surrenderwhat you must to gain what you can.

Other veterans of the Sabbat would cite at least twomore points. Neither of them impresses me much, butyou may as well hear them as not.

Some members of our sect believe that this or thathuman religion actually speaks truth. The late CardinalMongada was our most prominent exponent of thatnotion with regard to Roman Catholicism. The pecu-liar Abyss cult among the antitribu holds the samenotion with regard to Zoroastrian and other dualisticreligions. They would tell you that we use mortalreligious structures when those structures are true. Givethis notion whatever respect you feel it deserves.

And finally, some of our most prominent elders arguefor the use of mortal religious structures for purely psycho-logical reasons. When die Sabbat came into being, RomanCatholicism was the official religion in the lands we werestrongest in. Protestant Christianity prevailed elsewhere,but has frankly never generated a very strong set ofsymbols, so we can make little use of it. Even in Protestantlands, Catholic (or Eastern Orthodox) imagery conveys asense of sacred authority. In Hindu lands, our cadiedralshold shrines to all the gods of death, chaos and terror. Inthe Americas, we erect totem poles to dark forces andgather in sweat lodges as well as temples. Wherever we go,whatever speaks of the sacred becomes a tool for us toevoke a state of mind in you, while you learn to grasp dietruths to which the symbols point.

It grows late. The rest is for someone else to tell you.

THE Fo URTH LESSON :THE R EST OF THEWORLD

It's been fifteen nights since the battered freighter leftBangkok. Andrew and his pack are having a marveloustime. They came on business: The Pacific Rim cardinals"asked" several reliable bishops to investigate rumors ofheterodoxy and possible infemalism among the SoutheastAsian packs. Andrew decided to bring the pack along, tohelp them make contacts (and establish some Vinculum tiesthat might come in handy somewhere down the road) and fora change of scenery. Back in his living days, Andrewsometimes corresponded with a mysterious old crone namedDun Meiling who resided in Bangkok and wrote some of themost scathingly nihilistic revolutionary screeds Andrew everencountered. It was, in the end, not a great surprise to learnthat she was a Cainite — Brujah antitribu — and had beenfor decades.

Dun's pack shows unusual prowess, enough to fuelsuspicions that they've received infernal investments. An'drew introduced himself and his pack, and promptly got aninvitation to join Dun and her brood on piratical rounds.The time since then has been glorious. The freighter, with abase crew of completely conditioned mortals, maneuversalongside a target ship and asks for help. Dun dispenses withthe mortal trappings of Asian piracy, the speedboats and soon, in favor of brute strength. She leads the pack over the sideof their ship to the target via leaps or sprint swimming. Theydestroy any resistance by hand, take whatever valuablescatch their fancy and depart. Sometimes they scuttle theships, sometimes they leave empty derelicts to confusemortal authorities.

Tonight the two packs rest comfortably on the forwarddeck of a chartered yacht. Pieces of the crew and touristpassengers drift behind them, the wake glistening red in thereflectedjune moonlight. One of Dun's brood turns out tobe Lasombra, and a Chinese Jew at that. This boggles theAmericans. Lin Baloh laughs at their confusion and suc-cinctly explains the Jewish settlement in Nanking, syna'gogue'building under the Qing dynasty and other strangematters. He's something of a scholar, and a random ques'tion about some aspect of Sabbat history turns into anincreasingly formal lecture. Andrew sits back and listens toLin's careful cadences.THH CLAN IN THF WORLD

I've noticed that while many proletarian Ameri-cans and Europeans hate to admit that any thing's wrong

I CHAPTER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR29

with their lands, many bourgeois and intellectual Ameri-cans and Europeans seem afraid to admit that anything'sright. The culture you were born into leads the world.The same is true in vampiric affairs. We childcr of Caineall spring from founders in the arc from Europe throughAsia to India, as nearly as I can establish, and our siresspread from there.

So the Europeans among you can take proper pridein being close to the heart of the clan and the sect, justas the Americans among you should glory in being soclose to the great events of our time. You do not, I assureyou, give offense by pointing out facts of history, norshould they embarrass you.

ASIAI can establish with some certainty that Lasombra

were creating childer in China before 1300 B.C., andthat Brujah and Malkavians established broods in theKorean peninsula not later than 1100 B.C. Dating earlyarrivals by the other clans is difficult. Of course, manyof these strangers didn't last long in the face of opposi-tion by the native Cainite-spirits, whom some of youcall Cathayans. It takes great determination and intel-ligence to flourish amid hostile natives, which of courseis why the Lasombra in particular did well for them-

selves. We have never enjoyed large numbers here, butthroughout the recent millennia, a few dozen of us havealways made our havens here.

CHINATraditionally, more Lasombra exist in China than,

say, Japan or India, for several reasons. India sees enoughCainite presence from the other clans to make compe-tition both fierce and relatively unchallenging. Littleseems distinctive, from our perspective, in grapplingonce again with Ventrue and Ravnos and so on. Nogreat glory comes to those who survive in such condi-tions. Further east, matters change. The Cainite-likethings who dwell here do afford us great challenges. Sodo the peculiar mortal hunters with their various preter-natural gifts and the fiendish alliances of Lupines andcomparable werecreatures of other breeds. Even now,three thousand years after our arrival, much remainsmysterious to us.

I shouldn't give the impression that it's all justfighting other monsters. One can go decades or centu-ries encountering no other supernatural beings at all,apart from perhaps the occasional ghost. My sire and hersire and his sire and so on back to the Chou dynasty haveoften exercised power in mortal courts, and half of themnever had direct experience with the "Cathayans."

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA30

i

!

, ONF BLOOD ; : '«" Separate bloodlines don't arise among the |Lasombra outside Europe. They all share the same fclan disciplines. What differs is the range of com- |mon out'of-clan disciplines. I

Mind you, mortals can be great challenges by them-selves. The philosophical tradition in which I grew upregards supernatural manifestations not so much asblasphemous intrusion, the way many of you weretaught, but as a private matter best handled throughpolite silence until it goes away. That's opportunity.The concomitant challenge is that observers who be-lieve themselves skilled in omens and propriety feel atliberty to attack those who engage in "improper" mani-festations, where your mortal ancestors would havedeferred or fled. Fully a third of those in my lineage haveperished at the hands of mobs.

I've heard that Western Lasombra date their clan'sfirst great expansion to the aftermath of the Theraeruption. That fits my research. My great-great-great-great-grandsire arrived, as I said, sometime before 1300B.C. — that gives three centuries to travel from theMediterranean to China, plenty of time even with stopsto establish broods and pursue goals other than travel.I can only prove the arrival of my remote ancestor in theBlood, but I would be unsurprised to find that hetraveled with companions whose lineages have sinceperished. I know of another Chinese Lasombra lineage,in the upper Yangtze Valley, of about the same vintage,and I can trace back a Japanese Lasombra lineage to1200 B.C. or so.

More Lasombra arrived around the dawn of theChristian era, as part of the post-Pompey dispersal.Many of you never learned this in school, but for acentury or more, the eastern edge of the Roman empireand the western edge of the Chinese empire were withina few hundred miles. While diplomats never made thecrossing officially, traders did. At least half a dozenlineages run back to the period from about 50 B.C. toA.D. ZOO, when the Han empire fell into civil war andthe western frontier became much less hospitable.

Lasombra who presented themselves as gods of dark-ness seldom flourished — the Confucian tradition is notreceptive to claims of authority on the part of evil spirits,given Confucius' obsession with moral government. Con-fucians do respond quite well to sage spirits in shadow whooffer wise advice and speak with the voices of ancestors.Thus my ancestors in the Blood have often emphasizedthe mental arts of domination over Obtenebration. Someof the early Lasombra settlers brought with them mastery

CHAPTER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR31

of the diviner's arts, secrets of concealment and disguiseand some forms of blood magic. Auspex in particular is ascommon among us as Obtenebration, which I gatherconfuses hidebound classifiers of clan.

Vampiric immigration came to a nearly completestop for centuries after Rome and Han China fell.Climatic changes dried up old routes, and various inter-nal conflicts among the "Cathayans" made it difficult todevelop new ones. The existing lineages settled into anisolated existence, drawing intellectual stimulation fromtheir mortal environs rather than the interplay of kin-dred thoughts. Some, like my own line, flourished ingreat cities, playing subtle games of influence and study.My own sire and grandsire still compile their notes fora comprehensive mathematical model of human be-havior, with enthusiasm not noticeably dimmed despitecenturies of data collection. The Yangtze lineage Imentioned earlier occupies itself by acting as oracles,flitting here and there to answer prayers and petitions.A small brood ranging through the northwestern desertseems to spend most of its time desecrating tombs in thesearch for evidence of elders in torpor. Whatever keepsone's attention focused, I suppose.

Contact with Europe resumed in the 15th century,and an era of purges followed once more Lasombraarrived. Some Asian lineages had become just plainpeculiar and not dedicated to behaving in ways condu-cive to survival. Word of the Antediluvian's destructionand rise of the Sabbat came less than a century after theinitial contacts with Lasombra who'd come on Portu-guese and Spanish vessels, and it was a deeply confusingtime. The fact that I am here now, comfortable amongyou, shows that the Sabbat view prevailed, but 1 can anddo still regret that nearly half of the Lasombra lineagesactive in 1400 had to be destroyed by 1600 for theirrefusal to adjust to the new reality.

In a way, the news that one of the founding Cainiteshad been destroyed helped win us relief from someconfrontations with the native Cainite-spirits. Theirmythology teaches a version of the Wheel of Ages inwhich, as time passes, more demons arise. Creaturescapable of slaying the eldest are sufficiently demonic formany "Cathayans," and while they didn't like us much,they left us alone at least some of the time, as harbingersof the age. We were of course glad to exploit this beliefto secure ourselves.

Industrialization was a boon for us. Large urbanpopulations in a condition of extreme alienation makewonderful prey and also sometimes cast up just the sortof humanity-hating visionary who becomes an asset toour clan. The smoke of factories, particularly the oldcoal-burners, makes a marvelous night sky, all cloud and

reflected fire, much more interesting (at least to my eye)than irrelevant stars. I myself was one such visionary inthe wake of the Taiping Rebellion, bitterly disillu-sioned by the manifest failure of my revered leader andby association disillusioned with all of Chinese tradi-tion. I threw myself into Westernization wholeheartedly,though it did not relieve my soul. My sire spotted someof my poetry—why, Bishop Emory, you smile. You too?Heh. Once again we find that the Toreador hold nomonopoly on the arts as a tool for recruitment.

In any event, when I speak of the desirability of thewretched age, you must understand that I have a per-sonal attachment to it all. I give thanks for thecircumstances that brought me here.

LANDS AROUND CHINATo the best of my knowledge, few Lasombra flourish

in Japan, the Koreas, the Indochinese peninsula andelsewhere in Asia, nor have they ever done well there.My sire used to speak of bands of "feral" Lasombra whoroam the New Guinea highlands, encouraging tribalwarfare and feeding on the fallen. I didn't hear thephrase "urban legend" until much later, but even at thetime I suspected a tale.

AFRICADiscussing Cainite history in Africa before the

colonial powers' arrival is a mess at the best of times. Inrecent years — the last generation or so — mortalscholars have argued quite passionately and sometimesentertainingly about the real ethnicity of this civiliza-tion or that, the flow of ideas from one civilization toanother. They don't realize that arguments over whoowes what to whom have been going on since beforeanything their history records.

The best person I know of to talk with you aboutthis would have been our packmate Liu Dou, whoresided in Kenya from 1575 until 1976. Unfortunately,last year he ran into a mid-level bureaucrat whose viewof herself as a monster hunter in training proved muchless delusional than we would have guessed. She's deadnow, but Liu is ash. I will do what I can to pass along histhoughts, along with my own study.

It's very difficult to distinguish early Lasombra fromearly African Cainites of any other sort. As the sayinghas it, they all look alike to European-based chroniclers.I myself cannot readily distinguish the various tribesthat produced Liu's childer, or even predictably identifyan African as Bantu or Nilotic or what have you. Manyobservers, particularly those with axes to grind, fail tomake important distinctions or create divisions wherenone exist. I am quite certain, for instance, that while

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA32

some of the members of the African bloodline some-times called "Laibon" do refer to one of their distinctivegifts of Caine with the Swahili name "Abombwe," noneof them did so before the invention of Swahili, and thateven now Cainites inhabiting all the places in Africathat do not speak Swahili are unlikely to do so. In someeras, mania for grand syntheses arise, often at theexpense of particulars.

When dealing with Cainites, the problems thataffect the study of mortal cultures only get worse. Few ofus exist, and when we get powerful enough, our delu-sions become very hard to shake. In his final decades, forinstance, my grandsire refused to acknowledge that theMing dynasty had in fact fallen to the Qing. And withinhis haven, it hadn't, or at least you couldn't tell that ithad. His hapless, mind-controlled guests created arti-facts to support his views, and no one in the area coulddisagree without a tremendous act of will. So the factthat an elder believes it was a great force in the land inthe time of this dynasty or that does not itself constituteproof, even if you find the account credible in someways.

So you must understand that everything I have tosay on these matters is tentative and conditional. Pro-ceed carefully.WHHRF No LASOMBRA HAVE BEEN

As nearly as I know, there has never been a signifi-cant Lasombra presence in Egypt. The Setites havealways thrived there, as have Lupines with a particularfetish for hunting Cainites. Even more so than theirkind's general obsession with that pastime, I mean.Only the advantages of Sabbat practice make it possiblefor a band of Lasombra to venture in reasonably safelyon a particular errand, and even then they shouldn'tlinger. Likewise, I know of no Lasombra presence amongthe Pygmy peoples.

ANCIENT KINGDOMSNow, clear-cut evidence places Lasombra in east-

em Africa south of Egypt even before the post-Theradispersal. Half a dozen words in the ancient language ofMeroe, far up the Nile from Egypt, reflect names ofknown childer of the Antediluvian. Pottery from theKhartum Mesolithic culture, around 10,000 years ago,sometimes depicts scenes of shadows flying under themoon, images that look familiar to anyone who knowsour powers. The Antediluvian's Sicilian strongholdcontained silver artifacts crafted in styles that nour-ished in Nubia and Meroe in Mesolithic and Neolithictimes, and as nearly as I know they came across the seanot long after their making. One of them, at least,features in Pompey's account of his attack on Sicily's

pirates as "a chalice of great antiquity, ascribed to thepower of a night spirit from far to the south," which thepirates filled with blood and drank before their raids.

A little further south, we find similar evidence ofLasombra presence in Ethiopia. It is, of course, wellknown that the Antediluvian's eldest surviving childe,the great failure Montano, came from one of the tribeswandering through the land that modern maps dividebetween Ethiopia and Kenya. If you listen carefully,you'll hear that the stories speak of previous experi-ments by the Antediluvian among those various tribes.The nomadic peoples who settled Kenya 4,000 yearsago almost immediately took up maritime activity. Istrongly suspect that the Antediluvian's interest inseafaring had something to do with this, with it usingthem for its sundry ventures. I find intriguing hints of anancient Lasombra presence in what's now Mozambique,but the migrations that settled Kenya also wiped outpreexisting societies on the southeastern coast. Toolittle evidence exists to settle the question.

SHADOWS AMONG MANYWhat interests me most is that once our clan

arrived in Africa (or returned to it, depending on yourpreferred theory of vampiric origins), our predecessorsnever made much of a mark on the mortal societies theypreyed upon. The Antediluvian itself engineered catas-trophes of various sorts but gave that up after the seconddispersal, and few or none of its childer attempted to dothe same. Did the Antediluvian fear the creation ofsome destructive rival? The ironist in me wants tobelieve that it did, and that this set the scene for itsdestruction thanks to the absence of a real challenger toGratiano, later.

Cainites of other clans set themselves up from timeto time as kings and sages. We did not. We inspired fear.Our influence was indirect and indeed undirected.While you may trace the evolution of myths about darkgods and night powers and show how they stem from ouractivities, you will find precious few accounts of any ofthose powers speaking to fearful mortals, providingexplicit lessons or commands. We were what we were,and they reacted as they deemed fit.

You will also find a surprising number of havens —literally dozens, if not hundreds — inhabited by tightlybound brood lineages for centuries or millennia, thatseem to have had no impact on any nearby kine. Theyfed, chose childer, pursued their philosophical or reli-gious ambitions and passed without a trace. Abyssmysticism flourished among the African lurkers, alongwith research into the nature of our blood-borne pow-ers. Perhaps if some strong leader had risen among

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them, the African lineages would feature prominentlyin clan history. As it is, they're scarcely a footnote.

Tne FIFTH LESSON:INTO THe FINALNIGHTS

Demba returns to Portland in mid-October. She's beentraveling around California, trying to make sense of thecontinuously evolving chaos among Cainites there, and notat all sure she understands what's going on. She decided tocelebrate the Grand Ball in more secure circumstances andlikes the styk of the Oregon Sabbat.

Andrew, for his part, continues to consolidate hisposition as bishop. It's tricky, particularly with two of hispack gone under ignominious circumstances. Ming left anote sayingshe was off to find the antitribu. Druitt promptlychallenged Andrew to Monomacy, claiming obvious failureof leadership, and the ambitious young Cainite perished onthe field. Two more individuals from other packs also triedto take the bishopric away; Andrew mastered Black Meta-morphosis in the course of beating them down.

It's two nights before the Grand Ball, now. Nomadicpacks begin to gather. Andrew's own pack is back fromstirring up incidents to keep the police busy, and relaxing inthe chill rain. Demba started talking about the Anarch FreeState, the New Promise Mandarinate and the rest of thesordid mess down south and gradually segued into a morethorough review of Sabbat affairs in modem times. Andrewenjoys her reviews, since he always picks up somethingnew.BEFORE THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

The Lasombra position in Europe before the Indus-trial Revolution may best be described as "bad." Thesame goes for the Sabbat as a whole. It's just not easy totake on a well-established secret hierarchy connectedto a variety of groups who'd love to destroy you. Weretained a few strongholds in Spain, the Sicilian fortressand enclaves here and there. Beyond that, only no-madic packs could flourish. The one good thing aboutthe Camarilla in Europe is that it very thoroughlysubdued the Lupine menace long ago, making it muchmore feasible for us to flourish in rural lands.

In the Americas, things were better. The antitribuin the Sabbat did us all great service, most especially theGangrel, Malkavians and Ravnos, in forging havensamong the aboriginal tribes in North America. Theypresented our kind as familiar monsters and spirits whoshared enmity with the forces of static civilization.Never mind that we would gladly have paved them overourselves, given the chance. The tribes needed to see

only that the Camarilla's notion of desirable cities isn'tours. The Camarilla's fondness for modern cover storiesplayed into our hands as well, since our missionariescould point out quite truthfully how seriously we as asect take spiritual matters.

Central America remained a delightful playground.We have never bothered establishing extensive influ-ence in mortal affairs in Mexico, primarily because wedon't need to. The succession of tyranny and revolutionkeeps the population more than adequately roiled forour purposes. American invasions and imperialism inthe peninsular lands served the same function. Whoneeds to order mortals when they think of such thingsall by themselves?

South America largely remained hospitable, apartfrom the great wilderness in the Amazon. In BuenosAires, our clan took the initiative in working out asensible compromise with the Toreador of the area,which keeps sect strife to a minimum thanks in part tothe Courts of Blood. They often settle disputes beforethey escalate.

In Africa, as I believe Lin Baloh described to you,our clan continued making little difference, before thecolonial era began in earnest.

NEW TOOLS, New CONQUESTSUnlife improved for us quite dramatically in the

early 19th century. The Industrial Revolution, begin-ning in England and spreading rapidly throughoutChristendom, created whole new opportunities for us.

First of all, factories disrupted patterns of rural life.People gathered in towns, then in cities. They had togive up old customs, old notions of family organization,adopt new ways of organizing their days and years. Theywere confused and scared. They made wonderful prey.I've often wished for the opportunity to travel back tothose nights. Of all the eras of Cainite history, I believethat none is more perfectly suited to our way of exist-ence. Prey was plentiful, and so disoriented and suspiciousof new authorities that many crimes went altogetherunreported except in private accounts. Reading thediaries of workers in Manchester or London, tracing thelitany of murder and mysterious weakness, provokesenvy.

With industrialization came empire-building on amuch grander scale. For centuries, some harsh or ruggedenvironments had held Europeans at bay. No longer.Mid-century, Europeans spread throughout my owncontinent, ending an era of relative isolation and... notstagnation, because in fact Africans developed severalsocieties comparable to anything in Europe before theRenaissance. Rather, an era of change within limits, in

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA34

which the absence of resources and concepts to progressbeyond a medieval stage of technology limited innova-tion to cultural rather than scientific spheres.

Industrialization also opened up Central and SouthAmerica to more effective exploitation. Humanity evenmade inroads into the monster-infested depths of theAmazon jungle, and we followed, in small numbers.The urban blight that made England so interesting soonappeared on the European mainland and in slumsaround the world. Lin Baloh talked about his ownexperiences in that time, yes? Many of the clan's currentleaders originated at about the same time, and withsimilar motives. It was a real outpouring of passionssuitable for leading one away from humanity. I becamea Cainite a few decades later, on the outskirts of thesame phenomenon in Africa.THE CODE OF MILAN

Some Sabbat historians like to speak in terms of"Sabbat civil wars." If you fancy such terminology, thenthe First Sabbat Civil War took place from the late1790s until the Purchase Pact in 1803. I've alreadyalluded to why no single date makes sense as an endingpoint for the conflict, and I frankly think it makes littlesense to lump a great many disparate battles together. Itimplies a unity of cause that never really existed.

If that was the first civil war, then the SecondSabbat Civil War occupied much of the early 20thcentury. Something like coordinated clan strife actuallyexisted between our clan and the Tzimisce around theturn of the century, with extended recriminations overwho was responsible for letting the Camarilla gain somuch ground in the United States. Obviously thatparticular issue didn't matter much anywhere outsideNorth America, but the existence of one feud catalyzedthe emergence of others. The two clans and the varioushangers-on came to blows over countless local issues.

The Code of Milan, issued at the end of 1933, broughtan end to all that. It reflected the conventional wisdom ofthat time about what the Sabbat's founders intended. Asfar as our clan is concerned, it embodies an extremelyprecarious balance between the views of the Black Angelsand the rest of the major camps. It's not quite what anyoneseems to have had in mind in the 14th or 15th century,least of all Gratiano and his coterie, but as an averaged-outconsensus statement, the Code of Milan could easily beworse than it is. I can tell you with a straight face that if youadhere to its tenets with reasonable faithfulness andperform your duties with competence, you are unlikely toever face harsh punishment for deviation from your lead-ers' wishes. That may not sound like much, but in a sect as

CHAPTER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR35

driven by conflict as ours, it's more impressive than youmay yet realize.

It's worth noting that no later effort to update orreplace the Code has won widespread support. Should youharbor revolutionary impulses, at least study the failures ofothers and try to make some fresh, interesting mistake.THF 2OxH CENTURY

Individual Lasombra won notable triumphs and ofcourse continued to provide good leadership for theSabbat, but that's not really the same thing. The closestwe came to united clan action was in 1957, in what youmay hear called the Third Sabbat Civil War. A Brujahantitribu uprising in New York went down to its inevi-table defeat, and somehow the rest of the rabble decidedto mount more uprisings in, I suppose, a display ofsympathy for those unable to properly gauge the odds.We and the Tzimisce joined forces to suppress therebellions.

In their wake, wise Lasombra leaders persuaded theTzimisce to accept the existence of a sort of "new clan"to provide a certain familial sense for interested Caitiffand antitribu. The aggressive if not always very intelli-gent Joseph Pander gave his name to the new entity, andhenceforth the Panders would take part in sect delibera-tions. Keep this lesson in mind. Even the most patentlyridiculous offers can appease the foolish if you make theoffer seem sufficiently worthwhile. Let the foolish be-lieve you're acting reluctantly and giving up somethingof value, and they will not notice what you do behindtheir backs.

THF COMING WARSNever mind what the nostalgic among us tell you:

The Sabbat has never been stable. We are born out ofchaos and always move amid turmoil. There's no baselinereference time to point at and say, "This is what we arewhen the world allows us to be." Our fundamental goalsremain constant — most particularly, to destroy every-one who'd stop us, from Antediluvians on down tomortal resistance. So while we face new opportunitiesand challenges in recent times, this only means that wecontinue to exist in history. "This is not your father'sSabbat," I believe some of you say, and you are correct,but part of your father's Sabbat was exactly the capacityto change into your own Sabbat.

More clans are in upheaval at the moment than atany time since the Inquisition. The Gangrel left theCamarilla, and we hear from new antitribu that theelders fear active Antediluvians. Let us all pause for amoment of shock and surprise that it took only fivecenturies for our founding tenet to register within thecollective unconscious of a Camarilla clan. The

Assamites are doing something complex and messy, andnot talking about it a great deal. Lesser schisms existhither and yon. All of this adds up to opportunity for us,since we combine a modicum of clan unity with inde-pendent action in a largely ideal balance.

In times of upheaval, current leaders fall and new onestake their place. The Camarilla regards this as a bad thing,because their whole existence depends on protecting thepower of elders. They run on individual identities. TheSabbat, by contrast, exists primarily as an idea, and oneCainite can hold to the creed and act on it as well asanother. We are, by undead standards, a sect of fledglings.If you pay attention and keep yourselves fit, the nextgeneration of leaders will include you.

Is Gehenna upon us? I think not. It's possible thatsome Antediluvians stir in their slumber, but I thinkthat what we see is mostly a combination of panic anddeliberate hoaxes. Last year, for instance, I was sub-jected to a long diatribe by a peculiar old Ventrueantitribu who claimed he used to belong to some Gehennacult operating within the Sabbat, and that a great stormin the afterlife had destroyed his leaders, and now theend would come at any time. I diablerized him, in theend. His rant was too painful to endure. Keep in mindthat he could have used tremendous resources to backup his delusions, if he'd chosen to. Apply a certainprinciple of parsimony as you look for signs and por-tents: Remember how much our kind can do, evenunconsciously, and retain your skepticism.

That's all for tonight.

THE ANTITRIBU sSTORY

The Seattle Police Department responded to a series ofcalls shortly before sunrise on June 12, 2000. Severalmorning-shift workers reported seeing what looked to be anAsian woman nailed or bolted to one of the Floating Bridgepillars, alive enough to thrash around but clearly fading fast.The police arrived just after sunrise, and found bloody boltsbut no sign of the woman herself. A satchel on the sidewalkcontained the following manuscript, which police psycholo-gists interpreted as evidence of a very sophisticated psycho-sis. Perhaps, they speculated, she believed in her vampiricnature so deeply that she had decided to "greet the sun" andend her existence. If she was part of some cult, perhaps herfellow fanatics took her away to keep their existence secret.

Alternatively, it might all have been some elaborate hoaxto play on popular fears of vampirism. Like many universitytowns, Seattle suffers its share of sophisticated pranks.

Investigation turned up no promising leads, and thecase soon became inactive. A routine inventory of the police

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA36 \

evidence lockers in September revealed the manuscript to bemissing. In the absence of any reason to pursue the case,nobody made much fuss about it.LAST WORDS FIRST

My name is Ming, and I am a child of darkness. Youdon't need to know the name I bore when I was alive. Thatpart of my history is over and done with. Now the unlivingpart of my history comes to an end as well. I will write thisaccount to explain to someone why I seek destruction, andthen my faithful human lackies will perform their lastservice to me. I will see the sun, and perish.

You will not believe this story unless you have hadsome experience to show you that another society existsbehind the one you know. If you have not had such anexperience, seek out someone who has. You knowsomeone who's been touched by darkness, who shows asecret fear or secret pain that they've never been willingto discuss. When you read this, you will understandthem. Seek them out and let them know that they wereright. In a world you do not own and which you willnever own, at least you can give that comfort.THB BEGINNING

In the beginning there was Caine, the first mur-derer. Yes, it's true. There was an Adam and an Eve, anda Garden of Eden, and a God who rewarded the sacrifice

of blood and condemned the sacrifice of grain. You livein someone else's story. I did not wish to accept thismyself — I was a child of my time just as you are,skeptical and sophisticated. Nonetheless, it is true. Inthe beginning one word made creation, and in the endone word will end it. But the ending is not quite yet.

The curse that God inflicted on Caine was what wenow think of as vampirism. Caine created three "childer,"or offspring, and those three sired 13 grandchilder forCaine. The 13 warred with each other and their cre-ators, and it was their wickedness as much as the sins ofhumanity that provoked the Great Flood. You may say,as I once did, that the flood is a myth without geologicalevidence. I say in return, who can trust evidence whenGod Almighty wills otherwise? Perhaps he removed theevidence, or just as likely, it's right there and we simplycan't see it.

If you believe any of this, you should feel fear. Goodfor you, if you do. My unlife has been a never-endingnightmare of fear, of being so close to such power,without defenses. We are all the pawns offerees beyondour control.

The 13 Antediluvians survived the flood. Did Godchange his mind, or have some other plan for them? Goddoesn't speak to me any more than he speaks to any otherdamned soul. Perhaps he might answer your prayer, if you

CHAPTER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR37

I

ask with a sufficiently pure heart. Perhaps you would bebetter offnot knowing, though. Whatever his reasons, the13 survived, and they founded clans of Cainites thatremain active to this very night. One of them is my ownsire eight generations removed, who is called by hisprogeny "Lasombra." All of his childer, including me,suffer from a particular weakness that makes us unable toreflect in mirrors, and we inherit an aptitude for prefer'natural strength, the ability to command others by force ofwill and the ability to command a sort of living darkness.Each of the other clans has some other distinctive combi-nation of a comparable sort.

A TALC OF Two GUILDERLike the other Antediluvians, Lasombra created

countless childer, for reasons of his own. Many heslaughtered for weaknesses of character — that is, forlack of the virtues that interested Lasombra, includinga ruthless determination to power. I suppose that werehe still walking the earth, he would judge me one of theunfit as well.

The eldest of Lasombra's childer still active in theworld is Montano. I met him once and was struck by theweight of sorrow on his shoulders. I read in the Biblethat the Messiah was to be a man of sorrows andacquainted with grief, and I think of Montano. Nosingle mortal lifetime, no matter how tragic, couldbegin to approach his state. Montano was once a boy onthe steppes of Kenya, more than a thousand years beforeChrist. Lasombra came there seeking a worthy heir.When Lasombra set about torturing the people ofMontano's village, seeing who endured, Montano vol-unteered to become Lasombra's servant in exchange forthe freedom of his people. Lasombra accepted. Neveragain would the Antediluvian go there or torment thosepeople (though he performed the same deeds in otherlands).

Montano hated the vampiric condition and still does.He is no happy childe of Caine. But he is honorable andeven now stands by his agreement to uphold his sire'sinterests, even though (as you shall read) his sire is gonefrom the world. Montano traveled throughout the OldWorld with his sire, learning languages and skills un-dreamed of on die steppes. When the two returned toLasombra's favorite haven in Sicily, Montano led mortalarmies and senates as well as Cainite forces. For a very longtime, everything he did prospered, no matter how muchhis jealous siblings tried to sabotage it. Still, Lasombranever understood his childe's soul and continued seekingsome other who might be his heir.

You may think that this is strange language for awoman born less than forty years ago in an American

city, and you would be right. But it's impossible for meto put it in any other terms. I write of gods and demonsamong men, and the jargon of a scientific society wouldcontain countless lies by inference about it all. When Iwrite this way, I hope to tell you something of what Ihave felt as well as what 1 know.

Lasombra had many other childer, some of whommay still exist, but they don't matter to the story of theclan as a whole. The childe who matters is Lasombra'slast. Not even a thousand years ago, Lasombra bestowedthe curse of vampirism on an Italian noble namedGratiano, an ambitious young man who showed the sortof ruthless dedication that Lasombra treasured. (Whowas Lasombra in life? Perhaps he was himself a man ofpower. I suspect, however, that he was a pathetic failure,Embraced (as we call it) for some trivial reason, whoflourished unexpectedly. Someone who had lived withreal success would surely not be so obsessed with thematter forever after.) Gratiano was perhaps whatLasombra wished he had been.

Gratiano, for his part, understood how to be asuccessful courtier. He gave Lasombra endless flattery,praising the Antediluvian's own accomplishments andthose of the clan, making a great show of studying it allso as to be a "worthy successor." Montano quickly sawthat Gratiano sought to take Lasombra's place, but theirsire wouldn't hear of it. Senility seems to come forCainites as well as for mortal men and women. We maycall you "kine" and "prey," but we are not so differentfrom you in some ways. For something like two hundredyears, Lasombra's oldest and youngest childer fought acovert war of influence against each other, trying to winsupport for their respective agendas. Montano lost.

The elder childe realized that he couldn't forestallGratiano's rebellion. He alternated long years of wan-dering with quietly desperate efforts at the Siciliancourt to awaken others to the threat. It didn't work.Gratiano used the clan's institutions for judgment todestroy his rivals, all the while impressing Lasombra.

Finally Gratiano struck. He had allies from otherclans and his own native treachery. The court filledwith blood, and Gratiano himself destroyed Lasombrain the Antediluvian's favorite crypt. In one stroke, theclan had no head. Montano fought a vigorous defense,but once his sire fell, the childe escaped. Around himcoalesced the heart of resistance to Gratiano's redefinedClan Lasombra, those Cainites still loyal to the oldnotions of clan order. Montano would not claim to beLasombra's true heir, but felt still bound by his oath toact in Lasombra's best interests.

Gratiano and other rebels created a sect of rebel-lious clans, whose founders dubbed themselves the

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA38

Sabbat in appreciation of human stories about demonicterrors. Most Lasombra surrendered their dignity andhonor and joined up. They bound themselves by unholyrituals. Only the loyal remnant, dubbed mockingly the"anti-tribe" or antitribu, carried on in the older style.FROM FOUNDING TO Me

What can I say about the centuries after that? ManyLasombra show a flair for the sea, perhaps reflecting partof our dark founder's mortal preferences. The antitribuseem to do even better at sea than the main clan. Piratefleets harassed the clan's financial interests and madethings risky for Cainites trying to move their slumberingbodies by sea. On land, the antitribu struck where theycould find weaknesses in the local Sabbat and otherwisemostly watched for defectors willing to join the trueclan's lineage.

The Sabbat, meanwhile, spread like wildfire. Somepeople will always hate humanity, and they respond to amessage of brutal vengeance and heartless domination. Infact, to my shame, I was one such person. I mistook myadolescent fervor for some real insight into the humancondition, and when a monster offered me the chance toindulge my hatred forever, I took it. It took me more thana year to realize how wrong I was and longer than that tofind out how I might go about doing differently.

Eventually, I made my way to a small gathering ofLasombra antitribu. I won't tell you where I came from

or where I found them, except to say that neither myorigin nor my destination was Seattle. I came here forpersonal reasons that matter only to the individual I hadto speak with before destroying myself. While with theantitribu, I met Montano and learned much of what I'verecorded here.

I came to my decision to seek destruction not longthereafter. If Montano, as ancient and powerful as he is,cannot stop his errant clan, what hope do I have? I sawtoo many elder antitribu becoming monstrous them-selves, creatures of blood isolated from any human joyor hope, seeking only an endless cycle of nights like thisone. I need something more to sustain me, and if thereis nothing more, than I am not sustained.

May God have mercy on my soul. I do not believehe will.

' . . ' " ' Memo to Scourge A(JaM"Pretoritis:™" , . '.' '' jDammit, Adam, this could have been a major |

fiasco if our people in the department weren't on the job. |Look at this. Masquerade breach first class. You tell me |that allowing those damned Lasombra to take part in »cowrt routine is a good idea. Antitribu be damned, I |•s&y, they're all the same. Clear them out, or we're going Sito get more fuckups like this. |

CHAFER ONE: AN UNMIRRORED CORRIDOR39

When we have ceased to love the stench of the human animal, either in others or in ourselves,then are we condemned to misery, and clear thinking can begin.

— Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave

The Bible says that the first murderer disavowedresponsibility for his victim, with the rhetoricalquestion "Am I my brother's keeper?" The Lasombraaccept the responsibility that their progenitor de-nied. Yes, they are indeed their brother's (and sister's)keeper. The Lasombra are not stewards, for they donot hold power on behalf of another. Nor are theLasombra kings, for they need no formality of title orposition, and they certainly accept no restraints ontheir power in the form of any human or divinesanction. The Lasombra simply are the rightful mas-ters of everything in heaven and earth, whether theirsubjects accept the fact yet or not.

This self-image puts tremendous pressure on theclan's neonates, whether Sabbat or antitribu. Anaccumulated glory burdens them, a standard of ex-cellence to which sires expect their childer to hew.

Few childer can actually do it. In previous ages, theLasombra elders tell each other, they could take thetime to select each childe individually and cultivatehim properly. Now everything must happen in ahurry, and sometimes inferior stock receives theEmbrace. A Lasombra childe who actually excels canexpect a combination of being taken for granted andregarded with suspicion, while childer who happennot to be the best in their field face a constantstruggle to avoid destruction.

Lasombra with an eye for ironic comparisonssometimes refer to their clan's younger members asthe Kennedy grandchildren of the Sabbat. It's not abad comparison, as the newcomers try to find someway of distinguishing themselves while overshad-owed by the legacy of Gratiano and the other founders.

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS41 \

THE GATHERINGSHADOWS:BECOMING LASOMBRA

Very few people successfully set out to becomevampires. In general, the desire to become an undeadcreature of the night goes along with psychologicalfeatures that work against vampiric survival, includ-ing a willingness to act with insufficient knowledgeand a lack of attention to details. The Lasombrachoose their recruits from among those mortals whoshow aptitude for survival whether or not the targetsyet know anything about vampires or would want thecondition for themselves if they did.THB SHORT ROAD

Occasionally a mortal selected more or less atrandom for "shovel party" transformation into anundead shock troop survives and shows an intuitiveknack for Lasombra powers. Estimating how oftenthis happens is tough, though most Lasombra arch-bishops agree that about one shovelhead in a thousandproves worth saving. It depends partly on how care-fully the shovelers selected their target for strengthof will, determination or simple hatred of humanityat large, partly on unrecognized qualities within thevictim and partly on sheer luck.

THE LONG ROADMost Lasombra recruits enter the clan more

slowly, with a great deal more deliberation on thepart of their sires. The Sabbat maintains no strictaccounting for progeny, but a sire who creates toomany unsatisfactory childer eventually comes to theattention of his superiors. Success justifies risk, inthe Lasombra conventional wisdom, so would-besires generally prefer to take their time in creatingchilder.

Long experience shows the Lasombra that kings,presidents, chief executive officers, popes and com-parable leaders seldom make good vampires. Suchindividuals are too tightly woven into the frameworkof their society, bound to human values and humanrewards. Better recruits come from the ranks of thosenear the throne but not actually sitting on it: assis-tants, understudies, secretaries, advisors and the like.These people may exercise substantial power in prac-tice, but on behalf of someone else who gets thecredit. While the vast majority of assistants deal justfine with this situation, some succumb to festering

resentment and take the first unknowing steps intothe Abyss.

Ambitious failures may also make excellent re-cruits, depending on why they failed. A would-bepolitician with great intellectual gifts who couldn'tquite mask her contempt for the public, for instance,bears watching. As a Lasombra, she wouldn't becalled upon to treat the public charitably. An entre-preneur repeatedly bought out or otherwise balkedby corporate rivals sometimes succumbs to deepen-ing resentment; he's also worth watching, to seewhether his hatred might broaden into the rage thatcharacterizes some of the clan's best crusaders. Anartist whose work offends critics and gallery ownerson whose whim commercial success depends is like-wise worth watching, to see whether herdetermination lasts in the face of defeat. If it does,she might be a valuable addition to the ranks of thosefacing Gehenna.

In each case, the sire looks for habits of thoughtand states of mind. The world is unpredictable, andsuccess doesn't prove the presence or absence of anyparticular quality. Experience counts, but in the endit's the soul that endures through the Embrace, whileall life's lessons become at least partly irrelevant.

Pride is not sufficient. Anyone can be too proudto get along, and pride untempered by judgment isnot a survival trait for neonates. Ambition is better,particularly if it's only partially satisfied in life.Revenge in all its forms is a good sign, as long as thevampire-to-be also shows patience. Cold detach-ment also warrants consideration. It's quite rare tofind a human being who can actually evaluate theworld dispassionately, and the Lasombra snatch upas many such people as they can.

Some Lasombra stick to tried-and-true sourcesfor neonates. They examine the dominant institu-tions of their society and perhaps rummage around incertain countercultures. Other Lasombra deliber-ately look elsewhere. Several of the most successfulwar leaders in current crusades were housewives inlife. In each case, a prospective sire noticed somequirk of behavior that caught his or her fancy, andfollow-up examination revealed untapped wellspringsof dark passion. Other talented Lasombra have comefrom hospices, refugee camps and medical clinics forthe working poor. People willing to stop being hu-man can turn up almost anywhere.

TESTING TO DESTRUCTIONOnce the prospective sire identifies a promising

candidate for the Embrace, she sets about testing

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA42

I

HUMAN HARDCORELasombra argue about the merits of Embracing

serial killers and other particularly violent, drivencriminals. Some vampires idealize serial killers asvampires in all but unlife already, humans becomingglorious predators, while others look at serial killersand see only dangerous competition, good enoughto be a nuisance but not good enough to avoid effortsat capture which can in turn seriously interfere withvampiric affairs. •.

Clan consensus currently leans away from re-warding such people with vampirism. Many of themare intelligent, but the psychological foundations ofserial killing almost always involve a level of obses-sion and behavioral constraint — the so-called"signature" of the criminal — that makes it hard toadapt to vampirism. Serial killers let loose amongthe undead almost inevitably bum themselves outin a few years, if not months or weeks. They can'tcontinue doing what they used to without signifi-cant modifications to their routine, and even thoughtheir unliving brains don't have the biological com-pulsions anymore, the habit remains. So they godown in gunfire, or under the fangs of their fellowvampires. Another experiment failed.

Still, a fad for Embracing serial killers ariies; every few decades. The last one passed in the early'90s. The one before that ran from the end ofWorldWar II through the early '50s. Whenever a signifi-cant number of Lasombra feels dissatisfied with theway their faction fares in Sabbat society, they turn toextreme measures of this sort.

him. Ideally, the testing happens over the course ofyears, though circumstances often reduce it to monthsor less. The testing measures the candidate's re-sponse to adversity — the sire usually attempts tobreak him by ruining his life.

The sire begins by striking at whatever the candi-date seems to regard as most important. If it's hisfamily, the sire kills them, or uses Disciplines andmundane means to alienate his relatives. If it's physi-cal ability, the sire cripples the candidate, infectshim with a chronic disease or otherwise takes theability away. If it's social standing, the sire arrangesa series of scandals to isolate the candidate fromformer associates. Whatever it is, a dedicatedLasombra can take it away, either by himself or withthe assistance of packmates and other allies.

Step by step, the vampire cuts off her childe-to-be from the world. The candidate must remain in

control of himself; Lasombra regard using Dominateto force states of mind as cheating — the point is tosee how the candidate copes. A candidate who breaksunder the strain generally ends up in pure misery.The sire abandons the experiment but seldom both-ers undoing the wounds inflicted along the way.

The tricky part of all this is to keep the prospectivechilde from simply feeling deprived of purpose. Eachloss must give rise to some new motive, whether it'ssimply reclaiming the lost thing or an emphasis onsomething that hasn't previously seemed important ordesirable. A vampire who lacks drive cannot fend offthe Beast or flourish in the Sabbat's harshly competi-tive environment, and the Lasombra prefer to separatethe losers from the passionately alienated before theEmbrace. The ideal Lasombra candidate, for most ofthe clan (and this applies to the antitribu as well), issomeone who feels distanced from his society andyearns to change or overthrow it, but isn't locked intoan overly narrow sense of what must be done. Even ifthe mortal's current vision looks only at what's close, itmust contain the seeds of grandeur, or the centuries ofunlife will become a burden.

FROM LIFE TO UNLIFBA candidate who remains driven and active

despite adversity at least meets his sire. He probablydoesn't learn at that time how much of his sufferingis the sire's fault. She generally lies like mad, sayingwhatever she deems likely to make the candidateaccept vampirism. She demonstrates her powers andoffers them to the candidate.

Some Lasombra prefer to tell the truth to theirchilder: "Yes, I set about blighting your life. You'veproven enduring, so now I offer you power." Mostsires find this too risky and prefer to spin fables abouthow they've noticed the miseries afflicting theirchilder and how the powers they offer can let themredress the situation. The shock of Embrace leavesmany childer a little deranged anyway — randomslaughter followed by sober realization cuts newLasombra adrift from humanity.

After the childe undertakes his initial period ofrevenge or otherwise deals with the misery of his mortallife, his sire brings him into Sabbat society, and theusual process of training and Creation Rites begins.

Note that revenge is not the defining neonatepassion in all or even most cases. Andrew Emoryaccepted the Embrace (see The Darkness Claims You)in large measure for revenge on people he hated, butthat's at least in part just how Demba's lineage chooses

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS43 \

its childer. Lasombra offer the Embrace with all sorts ofemphases, including the following.

• Ambition: Dominate and Potence make veryattractive offers to mortals who yearn for prestige orphysical achievement otherwise denied to them.Thus the ranks of Lasombra recruits include peoplewho begin unlife as suddenly successful boxers andmanagers, before they turn away from their mortallives altogether.

• Inquisitiveness: The driving desire to under-stand everything about the world and how peoplework often produces first-rate paladins and scholars.

• Belligerence: This category includes bruisersand soldiers, but isn't limited to them. The Sabbat'svarious crusades require tacticians and strategists,spies and saboteurs, and many other kinds of warriorsbesides the obvious. The Lasombra like to seek outthose who show a willingness to keep up martialefforts beyond the boundaries of a mortal lifetime.

• Specialized Expertise: As with warriors, sowith programmers, accountants, publicists and othersorts of specialists. The Lasombra need people whounderstand the modern world. An attentive eldercan learn to function perfectly well in an unfamiliarculture, but it always helps to have a freshly informedperspective. Access to the clan's resources and op-portunities for working outside the limits of humanlaw and morality draw specialists.

AFTPR THE LAST SAndrew surveys his newly constituted pack. They all

bear the scars of last night's Creation Rite and reek of

SIBB, Deceiving the childe about who ruined his lifecarries certain risks, though not as many as somesires worry about. The mere a childe becomes accus-tomed to regarding all humanity as prey, the lesswhat happened in life seems to matter. Many sires goahead and tell their childer the truth, when thechilder begin the process of siring themselves.

Sometimes a childe decides that the manipula-tion and lies do call for punishment. A sire whosenewfound childe spontaneously develops a bit ofAuspex may unexpectedly face confident accusa-tions of deceit, and sometimes a sire in the flush ofthe Embrace finds himself diablerized in short order.A more cunning childe may set about ruining thesire's unlife in revenge, culminating in the sire'sdestruction, with or without blessing from the Courtsof Blood. * •

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA44

tonight's blood. They stand confident, ready to take over theworld. He hopes to ruin their night.

Most new Lasombra don't survive. By making itthis far you've already beaten the odds, to somedegree, but never for a moment think that yourexistence is now secure.

More than half of the kine we choose to Embracefail to survive their testing period. They despair andcommit suicide, or break under the strain, or survivebut show that they're crippled by unworthy person-ality traits. At least one in a hundred, and sometimesmore than that, fail to survive the Embrace itself,either simply dying or emerging so totally mindlessand compulsive that they must be destroyed immedi-ately.

So of a thousand mortals who seemed worthyafter initial investigation, we now have about 450 to500. Look around you, and notice that where therewere ten of you on that first night, now there are onlyeight. We lose ten to twenty percent of new recruitsin the training interval before formal acceptanceinto the Sabbat. In times of crisis, the percentage candouble or even triple, and it's never much less thanten percent. Too many new vampires retain morehumanity than is good for them. That gets us downto perhaps 350 to 450 of the original thousand.

In the next five years, experience says, at leasthalf of you will have gone to your respective un-marked graves. You will perish in battle, or offendyour superiors and warrant judgment by the Courtsof Blood or the bishopric. Some of you will fall inMonomacy. Some of you will destroy yourselves inaccidents. One of you may attempt to join theantitribu, and may even survive to do so. If more thanseven or less than three of you stand together fiveyears from now, you will be a most unusual packindeed. Of our initial thousand, as few as 200, or asmany as 300, survive.

Those of you who make it to five years willcontinue to face challenges. Of the five or so of youlikely to last that long, at least one and perhaps asmany as three will perish in the next five years. Thepace of this brutal winnowing slows further andfurther for those of you who endure. Another halv-ing takes place between 10 and 25 years, anotherbetween 25 and 50, another between 50 and 100.Your instructors and I face the same challenges.Perhaps one of you will win the right from a Court ofBlood to destroy me and enrich your standing in theladder of generations. Perhaps then in turn one ofyour current peers will win the right to destroy you.

\ CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLFT HALLS45

\

In the Camarilla, which keep its pampered childerin gilded cages, more vampires survive past a centurythan in the Sabbat. You can even seek to join them,if you wish. All you give up is your only real chanceat survival when our true enemies appear, your free-dom to choose your own destiny and the precioussupport the Vinculum provides. Yes, you can existindefinitely as the Antediluvians' pawn and theprince's slave. Or you can remain here, burning morebrightly and becoming far, far more of what you canbe than they allow. Those who persist in our grandconflict reach heights of mastery that no humanity-fearing vampire, let alone any prey, can imagine.

You gamble your existence. Would you have itany other way?

IN ENDLESS DARK :LASOMBRA CULTURE

The Lasombra revel in the endless struggle forsurvival and mastery. At least that's what they saywhen asked, and what they try to convince them-selves they feel. It would be gauche to admit thatover the long years, social and physical warfare growtiresome. It would be far worse to admit that onesometimes admires virtues quite different from thoseidentified publicly with the clan, or that one wouldprefer not to shoulder the burden of leadership allthe time.

Lasombra consensus holds that overly rigid struc-tures turn on their creators. Thus the institutionswithin the clan operate flexibly and with substantiallocal autonomy. These informal distinctions are just asdeadly earnest as anything chartered and codified, butthey are much more lethal for being open to interpre-tation. Keeping things loosely defined allows for moredimensions of competition, many more opportunitiesfor the victors to show their superiority.

ON THE INSIDE LOOKING O UT:VIEWPOINTS

Individual Lasombra see the world and their rolein it many different ways. For survival's sake, like-minded vampires tend to cluster together, particularlyin the Sabbat. They only commit to Vinculum bondswith others they like or at least respect to somedegree.

Most of the Lasombra subcultures have no orga-nization or even a well-known name. They're outlooksrather than institutions. The only clanwide institu-tion is the Courts of Blood (and the Friends of the

Night behind them). Everything else is unofficial. Agroup that became organized enough to challengethe courts would be co-opted and folded into theFriends themselves or destroyed, depending uponhow well the group's leaders pled their case.

THE FACTIONLESSWhat the hell are you talking about?— Druitt, pack member, DetroitMost Lasombra identify themselves this way:

"I'm a Lasombra and a Sabbat." They don't worryabout other details much, and they don't feel drivento identify themselves with subgroups of any sort.

The factionless aren't mindless supporters of thestatus quo, or at least don't have to be. Many of themtake part in the debates about future policy for theFriends of the Night and the Sabbat as a whole. Theyargue about how to deal with the Lasombra antitribu,about who are the Sabbat's biggest enemies andother practical matters.

Factionless Lasombra vary widely in how muchattention they give to their clan heritage. In someways it's inescapable, thanks to the clan's signatureDiscipline and role in Sabbat history. (Not allLasombra learn Obtenebration, of course, and thanksto sharing between packmates, a fair number of non-Lasombra also know it. Some vampires revel in thefact, proud of having inherited power and glory anda tradition of using both effectively. Others justdon't care. They're interested in building their ownempires, however defined, and they regard the clanheritage as irrelevant or even a nuisance that pres-sures them to conform to norms they reject.

THE CRUSADERSWe are an army. Not a fan club, not a sporting league,

not a philosophy. An army. You stand on the brink ofdestruction at the hands of the Antediluvians' pawns. Youspeak of independence, but wish for yourself only theindependence of annihilation. I will make you survive andtriumph, regardless of what you think you want now.Submit to me and win.

— Dr. Julius Sutphen, Bishop of AtlantaA minority of Lasombra are "crusaders," Cainites

who view the Sabbat as a religious and militaryorganization almost to the exclusion of the Sabbat asan ideology of freedom. More elders favor this ap-proach than neonates, though a surprising fractionof the Lasombra Embraced in the last few years sharetheir elders' concerns, thanks to the rising possibly ofGehenna.

Assigning numbers and fractions to any set ofvampires is an inexact art. Too few vampires exist,

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA46 \

and ideas don't spread evenly around the world. Anylarge Sabbat city has at least a few crusaders in itsranks. In a few large cities and several small ones,crusaders dominate the local hierarchy. In mostcouncils, the crusaders are the annoying handfulwho either end up totally ineffectual because every-one hates them or making most of the decisionsbecause they wear their critics down.

In the Sabbat at large, the Ultra-Conservativefaction includes both Lasombra and Tzimisce elders,along with some antitribu elders, especially Ventrue.The crusaders specifically favor Lasombra leadershipof the Sabbat, pointing out that Lasombra began thecrusade and often citing prophecies of doubtful reli-ability to the effect that Lasombra shall complete it.

THE FAITHFULWhen Jesus was crucified, we were there, to darken the

skies until He died. We continue now, darkening the heartsof those who reject the salvation we can no longer escape,guiding them to destruction. In the end, we will gather alldarkness unto ourselves and descend into the Abyss, leavingbehind the world God intended. Thus we serve Him.

— Brother Paul, Franciscan, Barcelona

In earlier nights, many Lasombra took Chris-tianity very seriously indeed, as smaller numbers didJudaism, Islam and other faiths. They regarded them-selves as servitors of God locked into certain ornear-certain damnation. Their actions likely wouldn'tearn any reprieve from divine wrath but might post-pone final judgment as long as they remained usefultools.

Cardinal Moncada personified this approach tounlife. He was for centuries the leading exponent ofthe Faithful outlook, surviving the destruction ofmany of his former comrades. He sought to kindlethe spark of faith in new generations, but with littlesuccess. Vampires who lived in cultures that didn'tworry much about God seldom developed an interestin the subject after their Embrace. Even the Cardinal'soccasional pet project of mass Embrace in the midstof religious revivals didn't work very well. Few fla-vors of postmedieval religion lent themselves to theconcerns that drove him. Embraced snake-handlers,speakers in tongues and evangelicals had no use forthe cosmology he offered them.

With the Cardinal's passing, the Faithful lack astrong leader. Half a dozen rivals — almost all Latin

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS47

American or Mediterranean archbishops — seek toestablish themselves as "Mon9ada's heir," but noneof them can make a very strong case. ArchbishopMenard of Nicaragua has the most widespread sup-port at the moment, combining a deeplytraditionalistic Roman Catholic fervor with fanati-cal devotion to the Sabbat's various wars.Unfortunately for his campaign to succeed Moncada,his vision remains focused on Latin American con-cerns, and too many Faithful elsewhere simply getbored by his diatribes about the leftist influence inLatino Catholicism and the need for a purge.

THF BLACK ANGPLSTaint of sin in my soul! Fuck, yes! My every act makes

it manifest. It is my glory. Let me share it with you.— Madd Killah, ductus-in-trainingSince the first Christian centuries, some

Lasombra have interpreted their role as being literaldevils on earth, serving Satan's will by feeding moralas well as physical darkness. Even before Christianteaching spread, similar movements existed on thefringes of Zoroastrian and other dualist beliefs. In theMiddle Ages, the Angellis Ater or Black Angels con-stantly provoked the Friends of Night with theirreckless and relentless assaults on mortal society.The Black Angels' depredations fueled popular sup-port for the Inquisition's monster hunting. The cleversurvivors among the Black Angels played a crucialrole in bringing the Sabbat together with a doctrineof supremacy in evil.

In the last thirty years or so, the Black Angelshave re-emerged from the margins of Lasombra cul-ture. Explicit dedication to evil appeals to surprisingnumbers of neonates who've grown up in societiesthey find bland and unprincipled — any code ofconduct will do, it seems, as long as it provides a firmjustification for their depredations.

THE ABYSS'S CHILDREN1 find no truths except in darkness. The world will not

interest me until all traces of light have been expunged fromit forever. I act only to hasten the end of the last day.

—FilipeToreaso Maguno, packmember, Cali, ColombiaThe Children are the dedicated practitioners of

Abyss mysticism (see page 63). They tend to careabout the Sabbat only insofar as it affords them a safespace in which to pursue their studies. Occasionallythey venture forth to battle, demonstrating exoticObtenebration arts and often calling on unfamiliaroccult forces. Then they return to their labs andlibraries. Lasombra bishops love to have a few of the

• ' ; ^K^-f" PRIVATE SUBMARINES f; { Yes, they really exist. Most of them operate as Iilthe submersible equivalent of glass-bottomed boats

in the Bahamas, South Pacific and other tourist I^destinations. They seat anywhere from half a dozen |to a couple of dozen passengers andf cruise along at ;

4|a few knots. Some very wealthy individuals arrange >,for private subs built by businesses like US Subs |When yet another yacht seems so typical. In the IWorld of Darkness, a vampire with connections to J§ maritime engineering firm might well be able to Iarrange for custom modifications to a Navy or |scientific submarine, which then gets "lost" in inter- 5agency record-keeping errors. (The Kings andQueens of Shadow may prove useful in this regard, \if the corsair can make a suitable offer.) Such a {venture requires extensive resources and influences, Iand could get exposed if security slips. But then *

k-that'-s what makes it a challenge. j

Abyss's Children around in moments of crisis, andare then glad to see them go away. The dedicatedscholars of the Abyss are strange even by Sabbatstandards.

No city has more than a few of the Abyss'sChildren, but secret enclaves of Abyss mystics sup-posedly locate themselves far from known Sabbatstrongholds. Their inhabitants either don't minglewith the rest of the clan or do so under disguises noone has pierced. Skeptics figure that this is one morerumor used to keep vampires looking away from realtargets in search of fake ones.

THE K INGS AND Q UEFNS OF SHADOWYes, I believe in ruling from the shadows. But I want

to be the shadow that stretches ahead of mortals marchingaway from the light, intimately bound to them anddefining them in ways they do not recognize. My kingdomis their souls.

— Gloria Yee, ductus, ManilaSome Lasombra take the vampiric condition as a

mandate to rule directly over humanity. They servea very important function in the Sabbat, doing muchof the work performed by ghouls in the Camarilla.They take part in mortal institutions, exerting influ-ence, gathering resources and in general keeping themortal world soft and susceptible to Sabbat control.

Despite their grandiose name, the Kings andQueens of Shadow are nearly outcasts within theirclan. They must retain Humanity rather than adopt-ing a Path or they lose most of their ability to minglewith human beings at all. Furthermore, they must

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA48

retain a high Humanity to operate in the company ofpeople who aren't psychopaths. This means thatthey have to avoid many common Sabbat activities,including some of the most important rites. Beingassigned to duty among mortals is often a punish-ment, carrying with it the implicit sentence ofisolation from one's pack; choosing duty amongmortals shows either tremendous dedication or somesecret defect of will, and few vampires give the Kingsand Queens the benefit of the doubt.

Sometimes the Kings and Queens form their ownpacks. These often receive special (and critical) atten-tion from the local bishop. Several times a century, ascandal arises when some pack of Kings and Queensgets destroyed for heresy against Sabbat doctrine andconspiracy against Sabbat organization. Often thecharges are true: Cut off from other ideas, the packmatescome to think of themselves as the true Sabbat andformulate plans to establish their mastery. In othercases, the charges are simply convenient excuses forremoving vampires who've gotten a little too attachedto their charges and show too much sympathy for theCamarilla's notions of restraint.

THE CORSAIRSThree quarters of the world is covered with water.

That's more territory in pure darkness beneath the wavesthan in all the closets and caves that ever were. When thelands perish beneath pollution and your precious cities bumin the king's final war, my interests will continue undis-turbed. You tell me who's wasting time with trivial pur suits.

— Louisa Baker, Bishop of the Madagascar FleetMany Lasombra take interest in the sea once

in a while. The compulsion to spend time arounddark tides comes even at many generations' re-move from the Antediluvian. A few Lasombradedicate themselves to the sea full-time. Thecorsairs include disciplined individuals who werenaval officers in life (or wished they were) andecstatic, impetuous adventurers alike. Some cor-sairs operate ent i re ly alone, explo i t ingcomputer-assisted navigation for their yachts oreven commissioning private submarines.

Some corsairs run private empires in shipping,feeding on crews and passengers, moving their ha-vens from one vessel to another. They may never setfoot on land at all, or may spend much of the yearattending to business onshore. In recent decades,more corsairs have turned to piracy, particularly inSoutheast Asia and both coasts of Africa. MostEuropeans and Americans have no idea that thou-sands of people make a very profitable and violent

living preying on shipping in these areas. Wholepacks of vampires blend in without a fuss. Bishopsdealing with particularly violent packs sometimes"recommend" piracy to get the most violent trouble-makers away from prying eyes: Mortal pirates engagein enough butchery to conveniently cover almostany Sabbat acts.

A handful of corsairs deal with the world's navies.At least one fast attack sub is in Lasombra hands, aSoviet Kilo-class sub sold to Iran in 1995 and "lost atsea" two years later. The Black Fang preys primarilyon Camarilla-controlled shipping and, when pos-sible, ships carrying important members of theCamarilla. Archbishop Ferrari of Morocco directsthe three packs required to operate the sub. Vam-pires can neglect life support systems, with substantialgains in efficiency and stealth. This compensates forsome of the difficulties in getting first-rate mainte-nance.

The Friends of the Night keep the sub's move-ments a deep secret indeed, and on several occasionshave given Courts of Blood sanction to destroynoncorsair Lasombra unfortunate enough to see thesub in action. At least a dozen ambitious packs aretrying to get control of ships and subs rotting in ex-Soviet naval yards and other trouble spots. So far,none have managed to pull it off.

THF TRANSHUMANISTS"Every day in every way we're getting better and

better." This is a great time to be undead. Never mind all thetalk of Gehenna: Look at developments in cybernetics,materials technology, communications and all the rest. Wehave the best tools ever to build a world empire of blood thatwill never, ever fall. And I aim to be there for the rest ofeternity, breaking new ground all the time.

— Malcolm Federsen, pack member, DenverMany modern people (living or undead) don't

realize that theories of evolution run back to antiq-uity. Darwin didn't invent the notion, he justidentified natural selection as its mechanism. Sincebefore recorded history, some Lasombra have takenas their primary goal the mastery of all their implicitabilities, evolving into beings who show the fullpotential of unlife.

The spread of Darwin's idea made the notionmore acceptable to modern vampires who didn't buyinto Pythagorean mysticism and the other ancientphilosophies surrounding evolution. While they grantthe intrinsically supernatural state they're in,transhumanists point out how many natural laws stillapply to their condition and see their ongoing devel-

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS49 \

opment in essentially scientific terms. The moderntranshumanists aim to systematically create the per-fect vampire.

Transhumanism confuses both elders and neo-nates who think of vampirism in mystical terms.Transhumanists quantify their various powers, workout taxonomies and otherwise seek to reduce vam-pirism to data. Some end up retaining their humanitassimply because debauchery and villainy seem boring.Others excel at wildly inhuman Paths because theyregard human morality as a dam in the flow of ideas,forcing innovation into narrow channels.

Many transhumanists retain an interest in ad-vanced technology: computing, biology, medicine,aerospace engineering and the like. Others seek aperfection that relies on no tools, though they alsoappreciate logic and method. They're not Spockwith fangs, however — they recognize that passionand destruction are parts of vampirism as much aslogic and insight are, and when they take part in therites, they're often the most driven participants.They do everything that seems worth doing at all aswholeheartedly as they can. It's just that they ex-plain their fervor in terms that most vampires findincomprehensible.

Some transhumanist Lasombra pursue matters ofcommon interest with Tzimisce Metamorphosistsand antitribu who share similar inclinations. Othersprefer to associate only with their own clan.

THE FATALISTSIt doesn't matter. Everybody says that, but 1 mean it

really, truly doesn't matter. Your own sire can make youlick his boots and like it. What do you think the eldest can'tdo to you?

— Vincenzo Fiore, nomadic Sabbat, currently insouthern Italy

Fatalist Lasombra do not speak of themselves assuch, not if they want to avoid destruction. Insofar asthe Friends of the Night acknowledge the faction'sexistence, they regard it as a recurring failure amongotherwise worthy clan members.

The fatalists hold just one doctrine: that nomatter how things appear, they have no actual freewill. Some argue that the Embrace makes them (andall vampires) into tools of the eldest, but that humanbeings retain free will. Others claim that no sentientbeing ever enjoys free will because the Antediluviansusurp all minds, at conception or birth or adulthood,for the endless wars the eldest wage among them-selves.

Fatalism almost disappeared in the early centu-ries of the Sabbat era. Only gradually did youngLasombra pause to reflect that they were still sur-rounded by entities more powerful than themselves.The rising tide of unprecedented calamities in re-cent years brought fatalism back to popularity. SomeFatalists throw themselves into frenzies of activity.Others withdraw and avoid doing any more thannecessary to survive.

THE DOOMEDI drink to your memory, asshole!— Garcilaco, pack member, Mexico CitySome Lasombra style themselves heroes, war-

riors and other self-congratulatory terms. They aimat the immediate conquest of everything in sight.They're not really thoughtful enough to qualify asextreme worshippers of freedom. They don't dealwith anything so abstract. Self-indulgence, pure andsimple, is their goal. Some go so far as to make a pointof always showing their fangs, tattooing black handsand other shadow symbols in prominent places (likethe top of a shaved head) and otherwise flauntingtheir condition.

The doomed are just what the name suggests.Most Lasombra wipe such clanmates out on sight. It'sone thing to lord it over humanity. It's another to doso in stupid, short-sighted ways that invite reprisalswithout preparation on the vampire's part. It takes alot of Fortitude to shrug off a SWAT team, and moreto deal with hunters filled with the fearful knowledgethat punk vampires lurk somewhere in the vicinity.Exhibitionism generally doesn't pay, at least notamong the Lasombra.

THE IRON FIST: INSTITUTIONSIn most matters, Lasombra run their own affairs

in accordance with Sabbat principles and varyinginterpretations of clan priorities. The clan maintainsno permanent hierarchy, police force or other suchagency. Inevitably, clan members do fall into dis-agreement with each other, and the single prominentinstitution of the clan comes into play on suchoccasions.

Behind it stands an intermittently visible orga-nization, or working alliance, or some sort ofgathering. It operates with little obvious plan, anddoesn't set any sort of clanwide policy. Nonetheless,it exerts influence on the clan both by teaching andby example.

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA50

THP COURTS OF BLOODLong before the Sabbat existed, before any hu-

man society now known to mortal scholars, theLasombra Antediluvian realized that its childer would(just like the Antediluvian and its peers) seek to feedon each other. Suppressing the practice outrightwouldn't work anymore than, according to Noddiststories, Caine's decree against diablerie.

But predation could be bound by rules, and thedestruction of one's clanmate could be made thereward granted in accordance with procedures andpolicy. The Antediluvian set up the Courts of Bloodto put this insight into practice.

A Lasombra who has a grievance against aclanmate starts the process by making her dissatis-faction known. She speaks to the powerful Lasombrain her vicinity. They speak among themselves, andanywhere from three to 13 members of the Friends ofthe Night constitute a Court of Blood. They listen tothe plaintiffs petition and then dismiss her whilethey deliberate the case. This can take minutes oryears, and while the court deliberates, the vampirewith a complaint must not press the case or riskdestruction herself.

In over half the cases, the court decides that thecomplaint has insufficient merit. The court membersreprimand the plaintiff for poor judgment, and some-times impose a sanction like loss of status. In 10-15 %of cases, the court decides that the target warrantssome punishment short of destruction. Occasion-ally, the court simply orders the target to turn overinformation or assets to the plaintiff. More often, thecourt instructs the plaintiff that she's entitled tocertain property or influence if she can take themfrom the target. If she goes beyond that, she againrisks destruction by the court, and if she can't man-age to take it, well, she obviously doesn't deserve it.

In the remainder of cases, the court agrees thatthe target warrants destruction. Often the courtimposes constraints: no use of Disciplines, destruc-tion of ghouls and possessions before destruction ofthe target and the like. In all cases, one or moreLasombra, who may be chosen by the court or nomi-nated by the plaintiff and confirmed by the court,must witness the act of destruction itself. The plain-tiff can try to destroy the target either a limitednumber of times (usually just one) or during a spe-cific timeframe, after which the court considers thematter settled. The court prefers to grant the right totry rather than to guaranteeing a result.

The court convenes in darkness. The plaintiffshouldn't know which local clanmates hear her suit.

USING THE COURTSEsteemed Ming:

/ Ductus Andrew tells me that you're about topresent your first case to a Court of Blood. Just as Idid for him, I offer you a few words of advice on/getting what you want. •

1. Be prepared in advance. Make sure that youare clear on your target, and make sure that you candocument your grievances. This doesn't mean thatall your charges must be true. They must be plau-sible and supported by what appears to be goodevidence. Do not, however, attempt to fake thingsbeyond your capacity to succeed in the deception.

2. Be concise. If the court has questions, thejudges will ask you for more information. Do notstart by insulting their intelligence or experience.

,3. Offer kickbacks and incentives. If possible,explain how your action will benefit the probablemembers of the court. Do not make too manyassumptions in this direction. Above all do notconfidently assume that you know who isn't on thecourt and explain how this action hurts that absentFriend. Inevitably, either he or an ally of his will beon the court. If a judge has shared blood with him,she might heed the Vinculum's call to oppose you.

4-Be respectful and confident. The court could,after all, decide to destroy you. Show yourself aworthy heir to the clan's tradition of authority.Respect the judges. Command your inferiors. Ithelps in this regard to have some inferiors to com-mand. Cultivate subordinate members of your packfor the purpose if you expect to do this on a regular..basis. . , . - ; •• "': ,,. . .''''. '*••_.-.

t ; 5, Follow all instructions the court gives. Fol-fow them completely. Do not go beyond them. DJJnot stop short of them. Y; ; •' ^v*.'*/ • ' ' • • ' , ' : " ; " , . •

6. Do not get greedy. If you petition more thanonce every few years, you'll draw skeptical atten-tion. The court may well authorize your destruction

;«as a disruptive threat to clan interests. Do not wasteyour effort on trivial matters. You and your targetare in principle immortal. Take your time.*;• Regards,

Demba

She's summoned anonymously to a meeting placeand enters to find the judges already cloaked byObtenebration, Obfuscate or other means. If she canpierce their concealment, she's clearly worthy to doso, but any effort later to act on the knowledge that

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS51

\

a particular vampire was one of her judges almostalways warrants destruction. The courts are sup-posed to operate as the voice of tradition, abstractedfrom the myriad voices of individual Lasombra.

No formal procedure for appeal exists. A plain-tiff may request a second hearing, but the court hasno obligation to agree. Judges may themselves chooseto refer the matter to other Friends of the Night, butthis almost always happens in the deliberation pro-cess so that no other vampires know about it.Occasionally an appellate court gathers in the sameplace as the lower-ranked court and calls the plain-tiff back; the practice of concealment makes it hardto distinguish this from any routine request for fur-ther information.

Attempted destruction of another Lasombra(other than an antitribu) without court sanction isitself grounds for a complaint, whether the attemptsucceeds or not. A neonate acting in the grip offrenzy may win reprieve, as do some elders facingextreme provocation. In general, however, theLasombra expect each other to possess enough self-control to hold back from destruction (though notfrom lesser violence). The courts' efficiency in over-sight of such matters depends entirely how zealousthe Friends of the Night dwelling in that area are —in some cities, almost anything goes, while in othersonly the mildest infractions escape.

The whole concept of the courts exists in anuncomfortable tension with the Sabbat's organiza-tion. The courts do not respect position within theSabbat as anything but an incidental concern. Alow-ranking Lasombra may press a complaint againsta vastly higher-ranking Sabbat Lasombra, and if thecourt finds merit in the case, the inferior may pro-ceed and the judges will intercede (at least to someextent) on his behalf with the surrounding Sabbathierarchy. The court can decide to postpone a judg-ment until after some local crisis ends — very fewdecrees come down in the midst of a war, for in-stance, or right before one of the big annual riteswhen Sabbat officials must prepare for the occasion.

Few elder Lasombra see a conflict between sectand clan tradition. The Lasombra predate the Sabbat,and the Sabbat owes its existence to visionaryLasombra above all else. For elders outside theLasombra, the issue is equally simple: The Sabbatgoverns and the clans yield. Minor skirmishes oftenflare wherever a court decision upsets the Sabbatorder of things.

The courts actually operate in some cases amongantitribu as well as the main clan. Neither side adver-

tises the fact, but some cities rich in Lasombra simplydon't pay much attention to the division and makeclan "justice" equally available to both sides.

THE FRIENDS OF THE NIGHTBehind the courts stand the Friends of the Night,

a loose-knit network of clan elders and some youngermembers who have proven themselves exceptionallycapable.

Like the courts, the Friends predate all knowncivilizations. They usually render their name in what-ever language most firmly indicates culture andauthority. When ancient languages in the MiddleEast were still differentiating themselves from Proto-Indo-European, the Friends were "Brether Nokw."When Latin was the language of empire (and then ofscholarship after the empire fell), they were the"Amici Noctis." When French was the universalEuropean language for diplomacy and commerce,they were "Les amis noirs." In the last century or two,they've generally been "Friends of the Night."

The Friends take a simple oath to protect theinterests of the clan as a whole and to work against itsenemies. In theory, they stand apart from internaldisputes. In practice, of course, most Friends simplyassociate their partisan concerns with the clan's bestinterests and proceed accordingly. In times of strife,half or more of all convened Courts of Blood deal withdisputes between Friends of the Night. (Lesser clanmembers do not learn of such things. They only knowthat for some reason, elders are slower than usual toconvene courts and seem grouchy about it all.)

While the Antediluvian still existed, it was easyto identify overall clan concerns — they were what-ever the Antediluvian said they were. Since theAnarch Revolt, no consensus exists on the matter.

f.. * *" THE DEATH OF AMBITION i;>' Diligence is good for vampires, but the obses-sion with persisting without a break isn't. A vampire Iwho cannot cope with the limitations of his new Icondition is very likely to develop derangements or Isimply lose all self-control and perish in the final |fury of Wassail. Alert priests sometimes steer troubled 1neonates toward a suitable Path of Enlightenment |'to avoid a terminal crisis, but this only works when 3the youngster is ready to give up his humanity ;

altogether —-the problem is precisely that he's still |too attached to his old goals. The suicidal behavior ?of such neonates is one of the major causes, of Final IEJeath among the Lasombra. :;' i i

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA52

Some antitribu still take part in meetings of theFriends, their safety guaranteed by elaborate pactsand often reinforced by blood magic of various sorts.This is rare — most Sabbat Lasombra prefer to simplyannihilate leaders of the dissenters or (more el-egantly) to co-opt them through mental Disciplines.Nonetheless, it would come as a shock to manyyoung Lasombra to find out just how muddy the linesget high up in the clan.

Most Lasombra who survive a century or so getinvited to join the Friends. The Friends don't allspeak with one mind about nominations. Rather, anominating Friend consults with as many others aspossible and tries to address concerns. A sufficientlyunworthy Friend inevitably ends up the target of acourt-sanctioned destruction, and likely so does hissponsor, so these matters are somewhat self-correct-ing. A Lasombra of a few decades' experience may getan invitation to the Friends after some remarkablefeat — a brilliantly executed series of crusades (notjust one), a breakthrough in Obtenebration applica-tions, a diplomatic coup that strengthens the clan'sposition in the Sabbat, the defection of a prominent

antitribu lineage. These invitations are few and farbetween, and warrant careful concern.

The Friends of the Night are "secret" in the sensethat mortal secret police usually are. Everyone, or atleast every Lasombra with more than a few nights'instruction, knows they're there, and many Lasombraknow the names of several Friends. The scope of thenetwork as a whole remains concealed, and few of itsoperations take place anywhere outsiders can see it.The Lasombra don't conceal the existence of theFriends or courts from other vampires. They justdon't call attention to the institutions and few vam-pires of other clans think to ask.

THE RHYTHMS OF THE NIGHTWhat exactly do vampires do with their endless

existence?It's easy to overlook the constraints vampires

experience. Only the handful with extremely highFortitude can routinely resist the urge to slumberwhen daylight approaches, and low Humanity forcesvampires to sleep longer after the sun has set. Aver-aged over the course of a year, the vampires with thehighest Humanity get 12 waking hours per night.

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS53

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Lasombra havens, whatever other features theymay possess, almost all tend toward one of two ex-tremes in regard to mirrors. Some are mirrored onvirtually every surface (often including ceilings andfloors). A few seek out dramatic lighting and createartistic effects in the endless reflections, surroundingtheir guests with dazzling, even downright confusing,displays. The other extreme favors no mirrors orreflecting surfaces of any kind. Tradition associates afascination for mirrors with a preference for Domi-nate, while a hatred of mirrors supposedly goes with apreference for Obfuscate. Whatever truth once lin-gered in this tradition, it's just superstition now. Intruth, Lasombra who favor reflection like to keep theiraudiences abit on edge and disoriented, while Lasombrawho try to banish reflection like to quietly remindtheir audiences that something unusual is at work butthe host is in control.

Nearly all Sabbat vampires get substantially less,down to as little as eight or nine hours per night.

At least an hour a night usually goes towardfeeding, though in practice many packs don't huntevery night. They drink their fill and then do with-out for a few nights. Even with well-establishedherds — which few Lasombra other than the Kingsand Queens of Shadow enj oy — it takes some time toget kine together, feed on them and then dispersethem again.

Performing the ritae, auctoritas and ignoblis, takestime. The grand annual rites each require multiplenights of preparation and more time cleaning upafterward. Games of Instinct occupy all availabletime in a particular night. Ritual preparation forcombat against sect enemies takes all of the nightnot consumed by the fight itself. The Sabbat hasmany enemies, from the Camarilla to human oppo-nents (witting and otherwise) to other racesinhabiting the shadows. A crusade occupies weeks,months or years. Self-contained skirmishes can oc-cupy weeks even without the complications ofsustained conflicts.

By the time all is said and done, Lasombra cancount on only having a few hours a night for theirown pursuits. Within this window of opportunitythey must train themselves and each other, seek outentertainment, rest and do everything else that in-terests them. No human workaholic labors underanything like the constraints upon an ambitiousLasombra. One important reason the Sabbat as a

whole exercises less influence over mortal society isthe pressure of time: It cannot insinuate itself with-out forsaking the practices that define it as a sect.

Lasombra who survive their first nights oftendevelop quite elaborate personal interests: quirks ofstyle, particular aptitudes, some environmental fac-tor they require in any place they inhabit for a while.Such obsessions must compensate for the sort ofwell-rounded personality and expertise that hingeson time Lasombra simply don't have. Even the eldestlack the sort of diversified mastery a comparablyimmortal human being would, since the vampire'sendless years are still constrained at every step.

Vampires are creatures of ego. The Lasombra,pushed by their heritage to show themselves worthyleaders, feel a great need to make themselves stand outfrom each other and from the vampires around them.For young Lasombra, this is also a survival trait, show-ing impatient and distrustful elders, "See, in this way Iexcel and show myself your worthy heir."

Successful packs often recognize the limitationsof their existence and assemble diverse individualsto complement each others' weaknesses. A pack fullof hackers, or automotive aces, or performance art-ists excels at one tasks and had better hope that theydon't face other challenges. By contrast, a pack withone hacker, one ace and one artist can cover a lotmore ground adequately if not always excellently.Ambitious pack leaders compare notes about whatworks and spy on each other to learn the tricks thatdon't get noted. Clan Lasombra, like the mortalbusiness world, suffers from fads in management.THE CLAN IN THE

Elder Lasombra tend to feel possessive about theSabbat. It's theirs in very important ways, the fruit oftheir brave actions (or least actions they stood byand allowed). The elders of the clan expect that theirchilder and grandchilder will lead packs, teach doc-trine, preside as bishops and rise through the ranks.For the elders, if Lasombra aren't at the forefront inboth peace and war, then things aren't workingright.

By the numbers, Lasombra make up about aquarter of the Sabbat. They fill more than a third ofall offices, and in some cities an actual majority ofthe titled leaders belong to the clan. In addition,experienced Lasombra serve as advisors and special-ists even when they happen not to hold a Sabbattitle. The clan's elders don't actually cheat in help-ing promising young Lasombra gain power, but theycan and do provide assistance, information and co-

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA54

vert aid. Elders see this as a self-correcting process, inthat unworthy heirs flame out and perish, whileanyone who flourishes once in the position clearlydeserved to be there in the first place.

LASOMBRA AMONG THEMSELVESLasombra pride themselves on doing things with

style and elegance. That doesn't mean they all dressalike, act alike or furnish their havens the same way.Lasombra havens that win respect for their appropri-ate elegance range from recreated (or preserved)chambers in Mughal and Etruscan styles to the pin-nacles of I.M. Pei-designed buildings andself-sufficient rammed-earth homes half underground.Lasombra leaders may turn out for formal occasionsin clerical garb (earnest, blasphemous or satirical),classic evening wear of recent centuries or stylespopular in their mortal days. The Lasombra taste inritual observance and social gathering ranges fromancient pagan through selectively medieval to ag-gressively postmodern — sometimes varying wildlyfrom one performance to the next, depending onwhat they hope to accomplish.

Almost anything can be elegant. One of theclassic Lasombra virtues is the gift of exposition,allowing one vampire to explain to others why thisparticular choice is in fact elegant. The clan favorsits members who can articulate their preferences inpersuasive manner. The clan frowns on efforts toshock — unless they work. Managing to introducesomething so unfamiliar that it tramples on existingassumptions and yet, with explanation, manages tofit clan imperatives is one way to win a great deal ofhonor. Merely being offensive warrants loss of status,at a minimum, and may bring harsher punishment.

Sabbat Lasombra vigorously deny that they keepanything like the Camarilla customs of Elysium andsalon. Talk is cheap. In practical terms, mostLasombra gather and exchange news and views withlike-minded associates, and deal with each other inenvironments policed against random violence. Pur-poseful violence like dueling is another matter, ofcourse. The Lasombra seek to reassure themselvesand each other that they are, despite their differ-ences, united by superior lineage. At least that's howthe elders see it. Many younger Sabbat could care lessabout lineage, but recognize that angering their cre-ators is unwise. Generational tensions fester just outof sight.

For many young Sabbat Lasombra, tonight's el-ders seem very much like what the stories say Gratianoand the others rebelled against in the first place. Yes,

the Sabbat's structure allows new vampires to de-velop in ways that the Camarilla and independentexistence do not, but at a cost. A vampire who wishesto be more than human but rejects the crusadingelement of the sect, for instance, is simply out ofluck. She'd better conform and keep her opinions toherself. Paranoid elders see new conspiracies likeGratiano's in every unhappy gathering of neonates.This fear motivates ever more ostentatious rites,with an eye toward building Vinculum bonds strongenough to make rebellion difficult or impossible.Such acts themselves stimulate neonate plotting tofind ways around it.

So far the balance of power remains intact. Itwould take the coordinated removal of a great manyelders, inside the clan and out, to inaugurate a newera of Lasombra openness. If it happened, such apurge would bring immediate reprisals from theSabbat and opportunistic attacks from Camarillaand independent vampires. The would-be conspira-tors know all this, and haven't struck yet. Yet.

THE UNKEPT:THE ANTITRIB u

To begin with, the Lasombra antitribu never referto themselves as antitribu. The distinction has noth-ing to do with their view of the clan. Clan Lasombrais a single family of lineages. Some glory in thedestruction of the Lasombra Antediluvian and em-brace the Sabbat. Others don't. In addition, someindividual Lasombra choose to accept or reject theSabbat for reasons of their own. Thus the boundariesbetween Sabbat-committed Lasombra and the rest ofthe clan remain in constant flux.

The lineages that reject the Sabbat sometimesdo so for one of two diametrically opposed reasons.

REACTIONARIESMost Lasombra who reject the Sabbat remain

attached to the traditional (if outdated) order of clanhierarchy and childe-sire relations. They often sup-port the Camarilla, although a third of theconservative lineages steer an altogether indepen-dent course and avoid the sects completely.Reactionary antitribu usually value Humanity, andwhen they adopt Paths, favor scholarly, sedate ones.

Some reactionary Lasombra war against theirSabbat clanmates, but it's tough going. Sabbat doc-trine and training breeds very thorough warriors,free of the ethical constraints that often tie down

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS55 I

their antitribu assailants. The "Kindred" have fewgreat warlords or generals. This is one reason theywork with the Camarilla.

Within the reactionary Keepers exists a subfaction,"the Distinguished." These Cainites prosecute the waragainst the Sabbat, but not by direct means. At sea,they maintain the famous antitribu pirate fleets. Onland, they engage in complex schemes of espionage andsabotage. Some act flamboyantly within the context ofrigid, demanding ethics, while others are almost asmonstrous as their enemies. Like the Kings and Queensof Shadow, many Distinguished specialize in workingamong mortals to turn the surrounding society againstSabbat activity.RADICALS

The radical complaint about the Sabbat is that itdoesn't go far enough. Radicals fully accept that vam-pires are innately inhuman. They venerate theAntediluvian as darkness incarnate and think that anylater vampire who believes he can destroy darknessincarnate is too foolish to earn any respect. Radicalspractice Obtenebration and (whenever they can findinstructors) Thaumaturgy with consummate devotion,and seek to bring about the end of all light in theuniverse forever. They wish that their Sabbat clanmateswould give up this business about tearing downAntediluvians or banding together with other clansand get on with the Lasombra's true work.

Radical Lasombra seldom retain Humanity forvery long. It interferes with their calling.

BECOMING ANTITRIBUThe antitribu choose their childer very much as

Sabbat Lasombra do, including testing to destruc-tion, or at least to near-destruction. Indeed, in somecases the antitribu take it much further. The Lasombrasee pragmatic justification for this: Only a few antitribuexist, and they can't afford even one deadbeat ormarginal childe. Reactionaries must always thinkabout what impression they make on the Camarilla,since it wouldn't take much for a twitchy archon orjusticar to decide to sweep away "dangerous impedi-ments." Radicals need childer who can stand upunder the mental and physical rigors of constantexposure to the darkest forces.

Lasombra who belong to the Camarilla generallymake a very visible point of respecting the Tradi-tions governing Embrace and release, and theirreleased childer are among the best educated in thesect. (This only annoys many members of the six coreclans, who resent outsiders doing it so well.) The rest

of the antitribu follow their own inclinations andestablished clan wisdom about suitable childer.

The reactionaries have experimented on at leastthree occasions with mass Embrace in the style ofSabbat "shovel parties." Conservative Lasombra onPaths that didn't interfere with this practice set aboutcreating dozens of childer in short order, while theirmore humane allies Dominated the shock troops andgave them crash courses in using Disciplines. Theberserk hordes then went plunging into battle. All wereslaughtered. Some reactionaries speculate that a Sabbatrite infuses the sect's shock troops with knowledge andpower. Most of the experimenters disagree, but theycertainly missed something important. The SabbatLasombra occasionally get a worthy survivor out of suchefforts. The reactionaries never have.

The non-Sabbat Friends of the N ight have made itclear that they will not look favorably on any fourtheffort. The effort will still happen — the crises of theFinal Nights make it too tempting a tool — but it willhappen somewhere a few Lasombra gather in secret,well away from the Camarilla and other observers.DEFECTION FROM THE SABBAT

The Sabbat make no great effort to teach childerabout the antitribu and even less effort to provide anyinformation helpful to a would-be defector. Amongdisgruntled neonates, urban legends of all sorts pro-liferate — think of junior-high myths about sex for asense of how accurate the stories are. Any SabbatLasombra who decides to act quickly on her sense ofdissatisfaction, taking the common stories as herguideline, is likely to end up caught and destroyed.

Successfully leaving the Sabbat takes time. Avampire with extensive Vinculum bonds probablycan't do it at all. The knowledge that she is joiningthe enemy and fighting against her former allies issufficient to make unlife uncomfortable with a Vin-culum bond of 3 or higher, difficult at 6 or higher andalmost altogether impossible above 7. The would-bedefector must remove her allies herself or wait fortime and chance to do it for her.

Once she can leave, she must then find theantitribu. Likely she knows, at most, in vague termswhere nearby Camarilla vampires congregate. Sheknows nothing of their practices, and if a sheriff orscourge detects her, she'll likely be destroyed beforegetting a chance to make any other social gaffes. Shemust remain on her best behavior for an extendedperiod of time, avoiding giving offense to anyonewith the right of destruction over her and convinc-ing someone with influence to grant her at least

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA56

temporary protection. The Sabbat does not favor thedevelopment of those social skills. Either she knew itin life and hasn't forgotten it all, or she manages toscrape by on intuition and quick learning.

Nor does finding the Camarilla actually helpmuch, unless she wants to get adopted into someother clan. Few princes know much of anythingabout the Lasombra antitribu, and few want to admitignorance of such things or alert the Camarilla'sauthorities to the presence of a new oddball indi-vidual. So some defectors choose to give the Camarillaa miss, either altogether or once they've earned themost rudimentary acknowledgement, and insteadsearch for their own clanmates.

The antitribu try to keep some observers in areasof Sabbat activity. It's difficult and dangerous work.Most of the alleged defectors who come to theirattention are in fact decoys set to lure the antitribuinto traps. A genuine defector who makes a few toomany unconvincing moves generally ends up de-stroyed without warning by precisely the people shehopes to reach.

Perhaps one in ten defectors actually ends upwith the clanmates she hoped to find. Once found,she must undergo extended probation. The exist-ence of mental Disciplines means that her newassociates can't be entirely sure of her reliability; shemay have things inside her head she's completelyaware of, just waiting to explode. It takes years oreven decades to fully earn trust and standing amongthe antitribu, once one's been tainted by the Sabbat.

THE CLAN AND THEWORLD

The early night air is stagnant and humid. There's beenneither rain nor wind for more than a week, and urban smogcombines with the detritus of crop burning to leave the airreeking. Demba stands on the back deck of a Vancouvercondominium, looking with preternatural eyesight acrossthe Columbia River at downtown Portland. The unfinishedbuilding where she spoke to Andrew's pack about origins isdone now, even with the delays occasioned by an "accident"early one morning when a whole series of safety bolts failed.

She smiles at the memory — she still feels some emo-tions a human being would recognize — and looks down atthe Other Razor, who's still draining the last drops from thefamily whose condo this was. He bears the scars where he cuthimself to remain awake long enough into daylight to strike

after the morning shift was at work. She was impressed then,and remains so now.

"O.K.," she says. "Stop playing with your food."Immediately, he looks up. "Okay. I'm ready when

you are."Demba smiles again. "If you're still serious about

becoming a priest..." Henods emphatically, and she contin-ues. "... then youneedto know who you re fighting against,so that you can prepare your packmates in mind and soul."

"Everyone, right?""Well, yes. But not all targets are the same. Pay

attention, now."

THE SABBATYou'll actually do as much fighting within the

sect as against outsiders. That's a matter of practice,not theory. We who survive the first few years ofunlife might like it if the sect were a little lessfratricidal, but wishing doesn't change things. Thebishop would strongly disapprove of you saying thatthe chief enemy of the Sabbat is its own members,and I encourage you not to bring up the subjectunless your examiners broach it first. Even then,downplay it. Let them see that you know the realitiesof the situation but that you're not mired in skepti-cism about the great crusade.

Remember too that your only allies are inside thesect. Every outsider who knows about us hates us andwould like to see us destroyed. Of course we returnthe favor. Anyone who'd work at our destruction isan obstacle to our eventual triumph and must beremoved. Your only opportunity for companionshipis within the Sabbat. Don't use up the opportunityfrivolously.

In short order, of course, if your pack endures aswell as it seems to now, you won't have the option ofusing up your packmates. The Vinculum will ensurethat you don't. Does that seem frightening to you? Itshould. You should sometimes stir in quiet momentsand worry that a force you don't understand is work-ing in your body to make you care about these otherLicks, and to make them care about you. It shouldstrike you as strange that pronouncing ritual bless-ings with the right attitude turns regular vitae intosomething that can make the Vinculum bond. Youneed to remember that you are part of somethinglarger and older than yourself, which operates at alevel you do not now understand and which in someways you will never understand, unless the Courts ofBlood award you many diableries.

And that's the good news.

\ CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS57 \

The Fiends are our closest allies and most bittercompetitors. Never forget that we initiated the re-volt that led to the Sabbat. Before Gratiano and hisallies acted, and before Les amis noirs endorsed theiraction, a few disgruntled individuals made only hap-hazard strikes. Lugoj and his followers imitatedGratiano. The Fiends simply hate to come in secondon anything and seize every opportunity to punishthose with the misfortune to be more successful.They've launched wars against us before and will doso again. Always be on your guard. Always use them.Trust them only when you see the vitae go into thechalice during Vaulderie, and even then be slow tospread your confidences. Sometimes you'll find acommon cause on a specific project. Never pass up anopportunity to make useful contacts or to get some-thing worthwhile done. Watch your back, and keepthe mirrors handy to see them coming.

BLOOD BROTHERSYes, it's true, experimentation is vitally impor-

tant to our sect's continued existence. Were we todecline new opportunities, our enemies would soon

predict us, surround us and destroy us. That said, Iquestion whether this experiment in particular addsanything to the sect. We have cannon fodder. Per-haps some night I may see Blood Brothers accomplishsomething that commands my respect. Some night Imay diablerize Caine, too.

HARBINGFRS OF SKULLSI don't know. I don't want to know. They walk

out of the lands of the dead with masks and grudges.If they hate the Camarilla or other vampires, fine, Iwill work with them. But I prefer to let my trustedsubordinates handle it. These fellows disturb me likenothing else.

KlASVDWell-beloved student, if you ever learn anything

about these creatures, tell it to me and I will rewardyou handsomely.

PANDERSSpeaking of cannon fodder... I find their preten-

sions to clan status profoundly amusing. Encouragethem—you may need them to interfere with Tzimisceplans every so often.

\-J* j

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA58

I am slightly unfair to the mob. A few of theirmembers show real aptitude for our clan's Disci-plines and lore. You should recruit such individualsaway from the mob and arrange for a proper surrogatesire to fold them into our clan. What I said about therest of them still applies.

SALUBRI ANTITRIBUTruly we occupy an era rich in portent. Who

would have suspected that the Tremere's victimswould return in force, and so willingly fight for us?When I was young to unlife, the Salubri were one ofthe great cautionary stories about what one clancould do to another if the Antediluvians allowed it(or, more likely, encouraged it as a scheme of theirown). We knew that it's hard to completely destroyany group, but expected that any survivors musthuddle childeless in remote wastelands. Now herethey are, full of the warrior's drive. I welcome thesign, for it reminds us that Gehenna will bring ustriumphs as well as defeats.

They seem reclusive when it comes to their loreand powers. Any member of our clan who managedto acquire insights into the Salubri secrets would winmuch merit in the eyes of Les amis noirs.

OTHER A.NTITRIBUAt least the Tzimisce form a meaningful set of

lineages, bound together in blood and tradition.They have social and ideological coherence, even ifit's misguided. The antitribu all predicate their exist-ence on a "no" rather than a "yes." We and theTzimisce affirm our continuity with traditions worthrespecting, paradoxical as that may seem to outsid-ers. We annihilated our respective Antediluvians inthe service of our own survival and the goal ofultimate freedom. The antitribu begin with rejection,rightly turning against their pathetic ancestors butlacking much coherent alternative. They're gener-ally more eager to destroy than to build or rule. Thisis fine: Why sacrifice your clanmates when you'vegot volunteer cannon fodder? Give them even scrapsof respect and instruction and they'll follow youanywhere.

I have a personal fondness for many of the Ventrueantitribu. They understand what their clan has for-gotten, that the end to which we are fitted is power.If they had more defectors, they could pose a seriousthreat to our situation. As it is, they make goodlieutenants.

THC CAMARILLAIn the other corner, wearing this millennium's

fashions in shackles and pathos, the Camarilla. Ionce visited a carnival in New York. The barker'sstyle reminded me of the Camarilla, or vice versa.See the finest vitae in captivity to the manipulatorswho want to eat us all! Gaze on the awesome spec-tacle of the world's best predators cowering in thenight and hoping to turn back into prey!

Here's Van Zooks the Dog-Faced Ventrue, whothinks banks are better than thrones, next to EmiliaToreador, who lurks in the bowels of the art worldlike a tapeworm and regards herself as a co-creatorrather than an annoying parasite.

In the next booth, it's Rampaging Jack the Bruj ah,willing to boldly promote any ideology that won'tforce him to confront his inhumanity. He towersover Clever Zelda the Tremere, who's gotten as far asusing her blood to reshape the world but doesn'tthink this means she has to give up fawning over thekine.

Bringing up the rear, we've got Manson theMalkavian, willing to entertain any vision that letsher deny her inner yearning, and Ugly Charlie theNosferatu, who makes a big fuss over his clan'sindependence — they even hang out with evil old us— and how they're all bravely ready to get wiped outtogether rather than separately as Gehenna acceler-ates.

Oh, yes, and there's Gorgeous George theGangrel, the most beautiful mastiff who ever was. Hebarks out that he's slipped the Camarilla leash, buteven though he acknowledges the eldest are harvest-ing us already, he doesn't have the sense to join us.Pity. We could use the infantry.

And that's the group that thinks it understandsthe undead condition best.

Oh, very well, with a little less sarcasm and alittle more specificity.

BRUJAHIf I were forced to pick the single most pathetic

clan, Bruj ah would get my vote. Yes, even ahead ofthe Toreador or the Gangrel. The Rabble are theparasites' parasites. Their sect seeks to cower awayfrom mortal eyes rather than striding forth in glory orsimply blinding the kine with hot pokers. This clanin turn prides itself on rebellion but cannot actuallymanage to leave, take over or otherwise alter the

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS59

status quo. The antitribu are much the same, exceptwith more blood and piercings.GANGRPL

The Outlanders make good poster children forwasted potential. They could rule the wilds as gods ofchaos if they only had vision and organization. As itis, they scatter in the face of what they believe to beapproaching Gehenna. Precisely because theirstrengths do not challenge ours, I like to make a littleeffort now and again to recruit them. They couldstrengthen and diversify the Sabbat, if they werewilling to accept discipline. Certainly their twinSabbat bloodlines reflect well on a mongrel ancestry,producing surprising feats of vigor and cunning.

MALKAVIANSVisionary, lunatic; po-TAY-to, po-TAH-to. I

sometimes suspect that the Malkavians' collectivedreams and hallucinations are the result of a botchedeffort to simulate our clan's experience of the Abyss.Note the suspicious similarities, from the subcon-scious working to the symbolic nature of thecommunications, or so I'm told by a Malkavianantitribu who once belonged to my pack. She stayedlong enough to master Obtenebration to a surprisingdegree, so she had a basis for comparison.

The precise nature of the Malkavians' bloodcurse seems a little unclear. Do you suppose that it'simbecility, or simply a streak of infantile natureexactly deep enough to keep the clan trivial? Someof the antitribu seem interesting, but for every reallyvisionary general or inventor we get, quite a fewmore serve as educational examples.NOSFERATU

Any clan that appears so altogether patheticallyuseless and yet survives must be up to something wedon't see. Noddists say that a passage describes theNosferatu as first to fall in any war between vam-pires, and 1 suppose it's possible that one or moreAntediluvians keep the clan around for fodder insome impending battle. That strikes me as unlikely,however. I suspect that mere competence wouldsuffice to give the Sewer Rats a competitive edge inthe Camarilla. That sect does not (to put it mildly)display much collective wisdom, so the idiot savantinformation-broker act may simply lull the othersinto blissful ignorance.

The Nosferatu of our sect are a shifty bunch.They're not always smart, but they are clever, andthey see too much even with our clan's particular

\

advantages in the way of darkness. I try to keep theones I encounter busy investigating my rivals.

TOREADORPoetry! Sweet poetry! I think that I shall never

see a poem as lovely as a tree! There. Now, if youwere a Toreador in disguise, the beauty of my wordswould captivate you. Then I would slaughter you andyour servants, and seize your goods to sell later. Whata wonderful clan they are. I've found that some of theantitribu find our shadow-transformed bodies equallycaptivating. When you master the Black Metamor-phosis, you can build a little legion of Toreadoradmirers, if such suits your plans.

This is one of the few Camarilla clans I takeseriously. They have an effective organization, evenwith allowances for the greed, jealousy, backstabbingand other individual passions that drive us all. Theysystematically study the art of Thaumaturgy, whichis predicated on the unliving condition and oftenleads its practitioners into increasingly inhumanstates of mind. Were they to decide to pursue collec-tive power, they would be serious rivals indeed.Fortunately for us, the affairs of their sect keep themfrom mounting serious challenges to our position.

Not long ago, I lost contact with the Tremereantitribu I used to exchange services with. Rumor hasit that something befell them all. If you find any newdefectors from their clan, see that they're properlywelcomed and cared for.

VENTRUHThink of the Lasombra. Subtract the intelli-

gence, the forethought, the style and the dedicationto supremacy. That's the Blue Bloods: like us, butstupid.

ASSAMITESYou need a score card to keep track of what the

Assassins are up to now. Many longtime Sabbatstalwarts have returned to clan strongholds, and theyhaven't all just been wiped out. Meanwhile, a wholefresh crop of Sabbat admirers is spreading throughmany of our cities. I recommend proceeding very,very cautiously until you understand what caused thechanges. In the meantime, the Black Hand seems tobe in substantial disarray. Perhaps you or someoneyou know could fill one of the vacancies and helpgather the confused faction back under proper leader-ship.

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA60

FOLLOWERS OF SPTIf you ever find the Abyss as such too intimidat-

ing, try the Serpents. They dress up the darknesswith a snake. Fine if you like that sort of thing, Isuppose; it strikes me as the cartoon version of truthswe face directly. They're very useful business associ-ates as long as you remember to set boundaries. Theroster of Lasombra condemned by the Courts ofBlood includes too many fools who thought that onemore deal couldn't hurt. It can.

GlOVANNII don't understand them, and have no particular

interest in remedying this as long as I have allies whocan work with them. You might think that with thevarious points in common between our respective clanhistories we'd share some sympathy of outlook, but Ifind no point of contact with their obsession with thedead. At times I think it's even more pathetic than theCamarilla and their Masquerade. At other times, theGiovanni strike me as perhaps approaching the Abyssitself from other angles. Fortunately, I have little thatrequires me to deal with them.

RAVNOSI hate them. If I could, I would exterminate them

from the face of the earth. No, never mind the sillystereotypes about Gypsies and such. Their clan is asold as any other and just as diverse, and happensmerely to escape our gaze most of the time. Whatmatters to me is that they bring a unique sort ofconfusion and disorientation. When a Ravnos is inthe area, by far your wisest course of action is toretreat into the shadows and wait until it leaves. Thecreatures play on fears and hopes and willful delu-sions with virtuoso precision. I don't believe thestories about their mystical powers of illusion, nor doI think they need any such power. They're socialengineers of the finest rank. Unfortunately, they'vewed this aptitude to a disgustingly distracted andaltogether useless view of the world. They weaken allundead social structures as they pass, and the Swordof Caine cannot afford such turmoil. Let chaos hap-pen on our terms and no others.

CATHAYANSYes, there are clans of vampires native to other

parts of the world. You know from your historical

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' lkrr HALLS61

study about our interactions with the vampires ofAfrica in various ages. Of the non-European clans,the most successful ones I'm aware of reside primarilyin Asia, with occasional incursions elsewhere. I dis-like the term "Cathayan" myself, but no other seemsas widely known, so I'll use it for the moment.

The Cathayan sect they call the Pentuple Court orCrossed Court, their equivalent of the Camarilla orSabbat, includes at least three distinct clans, and per-haps as many as eight. It's difficult to establish distinctlineages among them, and many of them deny havingclans in the sense we use the term. What they hope togain by this deception I cannot readily imagine.

Their policy toward mortals is a peculiar combi-nation of our ideas and the Camarilla's, blending aproper sense of superiority with extremely convo-luted ethical guidelines and monstrously inflatedclaims of power for their elders. They deny theexistence of Cathayan Antediluvians, but if youencounter one of their Buddhas or Brahmans, de-stroying it would apparently be as much a service asthe destruction of any Antediluvian.

Some Cathayan factions seek territorial expan-sion around the Pacific Rim. So far, Les amis noirshave taken the view that expansion at the Camarilla'sexpense doesn't matter to us. Some elders seemconcerned, and the gathering as a whole meritscareful surveillance. If the Asian vampires threatenour clan and sect interests, then it will be necessaryto mount a crusade against them.

OTHER CREATURESWe have enough to do in dealing with the kine

and other vampires. To properly fulfill our destiny asthe Keepers, we will in time have to confront theother races that clutter the world. The rule of thumbis simple: Stay out of their way when you can, anddestroy those who refuse to move.

LupiNESIt's much easier for Lupines to destroy you, on an

individual basis, than vice versa. You enjoy severaladvantages — you are an urban creature who spendsa great deal of time with your kind. Even though youprobably reek more strongly of blood and whateverelse it is that upsets the Lupines, you pose a lesstempting target than the typical Camarilla or inde-pendent wanderer. When you discover Lupines activein your vicinity, exploit your advantages. Feed thema few sacrifices and either wait until the beasts leaveor relocate yourself.

One sometimes hears of vampires who work outdeals with the Lupines. I remind you that one hearsmore often of vampires receiving messages fromCaine. Treat the stories as equally valid.

MAGICIANSIn theory, Les amis noirs wants to understand in

detail what sorts of magic various human beingswork. In practice, it's just too dangerous. The bestblood magicians I know say that the magic thatcomes easily to vampires shares very little with mor-tal magic, so no pressing point of self-interest balancesout the fact that master magicians among the kineare very powerful indeed. As always, take actionwhen they threaten your current activities. Other-wise, steer clear.

GHOSTSYou've seen for yourself that restless souls do

exist. You know that they are driven by individualpassions that makes the typical Sabbat recruit in thefirst flush of Vaulderie seem temperate. If you drawany conclusion from this but "stay away," I willundertake to correct you. At times, it's possible andprofitable to deal with a ghost. Very occasionally,our plans bring us into conjunction with variouscamps who share our interest in toppling existingkings and potentates, even if they presumably wouldobject to our rule as well. Deal with them as Irecommended dealing with the Tzimisce or theSetites: Keep the deal clear and bounded, and stopwhen it's done.CHANGELINGS

Should you desire to better understand creatureswho supposedly feed on dreams and exist half in animaginary realm, well, Les amis noirs will lay out thecircumstances of your demise quite carefully. Clearlywe will have failed to properly instruct you in someway and seek to avoid that error in the future.

HUNTERSCertain venerable elders of our clan explain

confidently that they know everything importantabout kine society as it is now, or as it was at somemoment in the past. They're wrong. Even though weare blessed with vast superiority, our numbers aresmall, and the kine are many. Never assume that youunderstand everything about any situation. Allowroom for surprise, and you'll avoid many of the stupidends that destroy your fellow warriors. We hearreports of mortals with unfamiliar aptitudes in recentnights. So? Mortals are constantly coming up with

\ CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA62

something new. It's a sort of collective immunesystem, doomed to failure in the long term butsometimes annoying along the way. Don't panic.Study your environment and act accordingly. Noth-ing seems fundamentally new about thesewitch-hunters.

SHADOWS' DANCE:L ASOMBRA ANDMECHANICS

Keep in mind while reading this section thatyour game may start with the printed rules, but itdoesn't stop there. Not everything here may fit aparticular chronicle. If not, players and Storytellersshould modify to taste.

ABILITIESOCCULT

Not all Lasombra share an interest in the occultas such. The clan includes many pragmatists and...not materialists, precisely, since it's hard to believein a strictly natural order when you're an immortalbeing, but at least individuals who regard the searchfor deep secrets as a waste of time. They'd prefer notto squander their nights studying occult lore at all,except that it's clearly necessary to make the best useof Obtenebration.

A handful of skeptical stalwarts try to do with-out. Their clanmates think they're pathetic.

Many Lasombra lineages teach a sort of stripped-down version of Occult, or Shadow Occultism.Vampires who learn this collection of techniquesgain only fragmentary insight into the larger realm ofoccult studies. When a character attempts to useShadow Occultism for any purpose other thanObtenebration, the player should halve the rating inthe Ability, rounding down. The character is rum-maging through compressed and edited descriptions,hoping to find something useful, rather than drawingon systematic knowledge.

At the other extreme, Lasombra occultism con-stitutes an entire constellation of theories andobservations. Lasombra characters can learn Occultwith the Abyss specialty if they study the clan'saccumulated lore on the subject.

Non-Lasombra learn Abyss mysticism in twoways. About once per century, the Friends of theNight authorize teaching the subject to an outsider

who's rendered some particularly noteworthy serviceto the clan. This gift of lore comes with the stipula-tion that the outsider not teach it to others withoutpermission, which the Friends never grant. (Sooneror later, therefore, most non-Lasombra Abyss mys-tics end up hunted and destroyed for violating theterms of their agreement.)

In earlier ages, a handful of independentthaumaturges and other outsiders learned Abyss mys-ticism by studying the abandoned occult libraries ofLasombra destroyed or forced to flee. Since theTremere looted the clan's occult resources, theLasombra have guarded their secrets more carefully.It's been at least three centuries since anyone gainedenough raw material in the form of notes and com-mentaries to master Abyss mysticism this way... asfar as the Lasombra know.

The Abyss specialty applies to Obtenebrationuse, and to knowledge about and performance of ritesassociated with gods and goddesses of darkness, deathand destruction. The Lasombra traditionally feel anaffinity between their Antediluvian and gods of thedarkness. Lasombra thaumaturges — of whom a hand-ful more emerge with each century the Sabbat enduresthanks to packs' frequent sharing of Disciplines —enjoy the same bonus to darkness- and destruction-related blood magic, at the Storyteller's discretion.

MERITS AND FLAWSWEATHER SENSE (l-pT. MENTAL MERIT)

This acumen is very much prized among seafar-ing Lasombra. A few sires manage to pass on itsintricacies to their childer. You subconsciously senseimpending bad weather. The Storyteller makes aPerception + Survival roll (difficulty 7) on yourbehalf to give up to several hours' notice of stormsand other weather problems before they manifest.

MET: Make a Static Mental Challenge againstseven Traits for advance warning of bad weather.CONTROLLABLE NIGHT SIGHT(2-pT. SUPERNATURAL MERIT)

You can choose to invert the effects of light anddarkness on yourself. Spend one turn in concentra-tion to turn Night Sight on or off, plus one per eachhealth level of injury you currently suffer. WhileNight Sight is active, pitch-black darkness seemsbrightly and uniformly lit to you, while any lightbrighter than a hundred-watt bulb creates a zone ofpure darkness. The penalties for partial darknessinstead apply instead to weak illumination. ThisMerit doesn't allow you to see through

\ CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS63 \

Obtenebration-created darkness, which glows withpure white light that obscures all details.PELAGIC HARMONY (3-px. MENTAL MERIT)

Being close to the sea calms you and reinforcesyour self-control. All Willpower rolls made whileyou're on or within sight of the sea have theirdifficulties lowered by one.

MET: Receive a +1 Trait bonus to WillpowerTests while on or within sight of the sea.

POSEIDON'S CALL (l-px. MENTAL FLAW)Your self-control varies with the weather. Make

rolls to resist frenzy at -1 difficulty in completelycalm weather, but +1 difficulty on rough seas, +2 inthunderstorms and +3 in hurricanes.

MET: In calm weather, receive a +1 Trait bonusto Virtue Tests to resist frenzy, a -1 Trait penalty inrough seas and thunderstorms and a -2 Trait penaltyin hurricanes and other particularly severe storms.

UNCONTROLLABLE NIGHT SIGHT(2-pT. SUPERNATURAL FLAW)

Light and dark are permanently inverted for you.Pitch-black darkness seems bright and uniformly litto you, while any light brighter than a hundred watts

creates a zone of pure darkness. The penalties forpartial darkness apply to weak illumination instead.This Flaw doesn't allow you to see throughObtenebration-created darkness, which glows withpure white light that obscures all details.

This is a very difficult Flaw to handle in a story,both for Storytellers and players. Storytellers, be sureyou know what you're getting yourself into if youallow a player to assign this Flaw to her character.

MET: Make a Static Mental Challenge againstsix Traits to turn Night Sight on or off. Again,Storytellers should be very careful in permitting aplayer to take this Flaw for her character — it's evenmore difficult to adjudicate its use in a live-actionsetting, and you know that some players have noscruples....

Pelagic Compulsion (2-pt. Mental Flaw)You become increasingly agitated when on land.

Raise the difficulty of all Willpower rolls made whenyou've been away from the sea for more than 24 hoursby one.

MET: Suffer a -1 Trait penalty on WillpowerTests when you've been away from the sea for 24hours or more.

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64

DFATH'S REFLECTION(3-px. SUPERNATURAL FLAW)

You cast a reflection normally, which wouldcancel out the clan weakness — except that yourreflection always shows the state you'd be in if youwere dead. Any Lasombra more than a few decadesold looks in reflection like an ambling skeleton.Younger vampires appear as rotting corpses.

MET: Wear a card that indicates your conditionto others. Roleplay this Flaw.

MORALITY INTH^ SHADOWS: PATHS

Most Lasombra remain committed to the Path ofHumanity. They're not very good people, but theyremain tied in some ways to a human outlook. Sabbatnotions of freedom and inhumanity don't actuallyrequire practicing a Path of Enlightenment. MostSabbat members make virtues out of things that are,in terms of Humanity, sinful. That's their perspec-tive, and it doesn't change what happens on the levelof game mechanics. No matter how good a vampirefollowing Humanity feels about his masterful acts ofmass murder, he's still going to drop to Humanity 3in fairly short order and get the associated problemsof frenzy, sleeping late and so on.

ALMOST FALLING OFFThis is a central fact of belonging to the Sabbat

and staying with Humanity: Sabbat are not whollytheir own masters. No vampire stands altogether freeto choose his behavior, thanks to the Beast and thefundamental requirements of vampiric survival. TheSabbat makes matters worse with its beliefs andpractices, which repeatedly push participants intoacts that erode conscience (and Conscience).

When you play a Sabbat vampire, you take on adistinct set of challenges. It's not necessarily more"adult" or "sophisticated" than any other sort of vam-pire, nor is it automatically more "juvenile" or"indulgent." Sabbat exist within tighter boundariesthan most independent or Camarilla vampires. Noteverything you'd like to have your character do, or thathe would plausibly want to do, is actually within reach.

In his early years as Sabbat, your character cancompensate in part for the loss of Conscience throughattention to Self-Control. This isn't just a matter ofmechanics. Sabbat often turn calculating, probingtheir own limits through Games of Instinct andinformal challenges to establish the circumstancesunder which they snap. It's one thing to deliberately

lose control in the rapture of the hunt, quite anotherto go berserk because of a trivial provocation.

The Lasombra discuss this matter explicitly withtheir new recruits. The honor of the clan requires itsnewest members to refrain from acting with bone-deep stupidity, if they can possibly avoid doing so. ALasombra who does not learn from experience abouthis psychological vulnerabilities is very likely tosuffer Final Death at the hands of his sire or someother Lasombra in a position of authority. Lasombratradition, including the notion of "gods of darkness,"emphasizes the naked mind detached from fleshlyconcerns — not necessarily reason so much as con-scious choice, emotional as well as logical. The mindwrapped in shadow ought not act like a mind stillbound in flesh.

Unfortunately for would-be masters of the night,Self-Control also fails as Humanity crumbles. Aftera few years' worth of rites, crusades and routineSabbat existence, an experienced vampire must makeone of three choices.

• Accept diminished Self-Control. This is whatmost Sabbat — Lasombra and otherwise — do, forhowever many years they manage to survive. In mostSabbat cities, the veteran Lasombra look after oneanother to some extent, saving each other from actsthat would embarrass the clan as a whole... exceptwhen sacrificing the indulgent vampire advancesthe schemes of others. Elaborate scheming goes on atsuch times, with a few visible clues like increasedreluctance to participate in the Vaulderie with thechosen victim. (Ongoing crises make it easy to pleadbeing too busy or otherwise occupied — it's harder tobetray one's neighbors in peaceful times.) Individualambitions aside, the Sabbat provides plenty of op-portunities for vampires running short onSelf-Control to do useful things, from crusades torandom terror-provoking acts.

• Accept restrictions on self-indulgence. Thisis the choice for vampires who want the freedom tointeract with mortal society. They must carefullybalance their individual needs with the demands ofritual observance, and the situations into whichVinculum bonds may call them. See "The Kings andQueens of Shadow," p. 48, for more about theLasombra who choose this course of action. A high-Humanity vampire (by Sabbat standards) shouldexpect never to hold a high office in the Sabbat andto endure constant hostility from other Sabbat.

• Abandon Humanity. This is difficult, andnever happens lightly.

I CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS65

SHEDDING THE INNER S^LF: ONTO PATHSPaths aren't easy or fun to follow. They require

the vampire to surrender even more power of choicethan simply trying to maintain free will in the face oflow Humanity. The vampire deliberately adopts anartificial system of beliefs to contain the Beast. Aparticular Path may allow some measure of choice atlower levels, but survival in the long term requiresmoderate to high Path ratings. Paths lack Humanity'smargin for error. A vampire on a Path becomesincreasingly constrained and committed to a highlyformalized code of conduct. Observers who know thePath's tenets know a great deal about how a vampireon it must act, and in a brutally competitive societylike the Sabbat, this can be a serious liability.

Nonetheless, vampires do turn to Paths withtime, because Humanity, longevity and the Sabbatsimply don't go together. Playing out the change inworldview offers many hooks for troupes who wish todelve into the psychology of monsters. It may not bemuch fun for the vampire, but it can be tremendousfun for the player.

See Vampire: The Masquerade, Revised Edi-tion, p. 288, for the mechanics of adopting a Path.Keep in mind that these aren't just numbers tomeasure off on a character sheet. A vampire whoisn't already routinely committing planned acts ofextreme violence and general mayhem isn't ready fora Path. Humanity 3 is the highest score a vampirecan have when trying to adopt a Path, and at Hu-manity 3, the odds of success are small. Bring thescene to life: A creature with essentially no con-science, constantly succumbing to frenzy, triesdiligently to adopt a carefully constructed code ofethics. There's comedy in here, if you want it, alongwith drama.

A vampire all the way down at Humanity 1stands an even chance of making the leap to a Path.Of course, a creature so degenerate cannot count onsurviving for long — if he doesn't make the leap, he'sgoing to burn out quite soon.

The Lasombra offer help to clan members who wishto abandon Humanity. Many Sabbat cities have aFriend of the Night who specializes in teaching theyoung. He or she needs a particular combination ofaptitudes, including a moderate to high Path ratingherself, ties to comparably experienced practitioners ofother Paths and a knack for instruction. (A long-termLasombra chronicle focusing on the changing relationof the clan to mortal society could use a pack ofinstructors like this, who constantly have to study the

iOBTENPBRATION SPECIAL pFFHCTS: Some Disciplines like Obtenebration involve spec-

tacular effects. If players and the Storyteller agree,apply the following guidelines, or as many of them asseem like interesting additions to your game.| Wherever a power calk for spending blood, the

* blood pours out of a cut the vampire inflicts on herself(or from her mouth, tear ducts and other openings)and crawls through intervening space to the chosenarea of effect. A vampire using Shroud of Nighttherefore disappears momentarily in a fine mist ofblood, while Arms of the Abyss calls forth jets of bloodthat plunge into target shadows and animate them,

' Vitae itself isn't quite like human blood, and an astuteStoryteller exploits the differences as part of the shock.lvalue of Obtenebration in use.

Note that these cuts don't inflict any healthlevels of damage unless the vampire specifically

ftSehooses otherwise. They're outlets for blood createdwith deliberate effort, not random damage. Vam-

* pires who know Black Metamorphosis and more;advanced powers may choose to go ahead and inflictghastly wounds like ragged rips through their limbsor their own chest, which the emerging shadowheals on its way into the world: i .-.« i f " ;' ;H

ifi When the effect ends, a faint residue of blood maylinger. As an optional rule, failure or a single success onan Obtenebration roll leaves' enough blood for avampire with Enhanced Senses or other means ofidentifying blood to recognize the individual signatureof the vampire using Obtenebration. With two ormore successes, the vampire leaves a testable residueonly if she chooses to.

MET: To gain the option of leaving a residueorfnot, spend one extra Trait of whatever sort thef challenge involved. ,

Powers that don?t require blood draw on shadowsthe vampire ejects from herself. Depending on theivampire's own conception of the Abyss and her needsvpf the moment, the shadows may flow out of her open|t|iouth, from cuts she makes or even emerge fromI shadowed folds in her clothing. When the effect ends,

the shadows draw back into her the same way.

moral challenges of the moment.) While most bishopsand higher-ranked Path instructors feel responsibilityto all Sabbat members, Lasombra Path guides givepriority to their clanmates. The informal but effectivenetwork of alliances within the Friends of the Nighthelped give the clan an edge early in Sabbat history andcontinues to do so in the Final Nights.

\ CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA66

THE PATH OF NIGHTThe Lasombra claim this Path as their own.

Records show it being taught in earlier forms far backinto antiquity, and reasonably plausible legends at-tribute it to the Antediluvians' childer. The Path ofNight sums up the Antediluvian's legacy in a fewbrief imperatives: domination, mastery of the dark-ness, transcendence over fleshly limitations.

The Path of Night's ancient legacy gives it acertain organic flexibility that the more recentlyinvented Paths lack. Nobody's existed long enoughto really internalize a Path invented only a fewcenturies ago, and few enough vampires have ex-plored the ramifications thoroughly. The Path ofNight, on the other hand, exists in a variety ofrelated forms, and vampires who adopt it get to makea few choices. Once they commit to a particularversion, changing from one to another is as hard asadopting a Path in the first place, so Lasombra elderswho want to avoid tormenting their childer encour-age discussion and study before the new practitionermakes the commitment.

• The Cold Path of Night. The most prominentvariation of the Path of Night is often called the"Cold Path," as distinguished from the "Hot Path,"the common form of the Path of Night described inVampire: The Masquerade, Revised Edition, p. 291.The Cold Path relies on Conviction and Self-Con-trol rather than Conviction and Instinct. TheHierarchy of Sins remains intact with somewhatdifferent interpretations — Cold Path followers dothe same things for not quite the same reasons astheir Hot Path comrades. A Cold Path follower, forinstance, rejects impassioned and premeditated kill-ing because mortal death merely distracts him fromcontemplating the deeper mysteries of his existence.He kills and eats as he would scratch or blink.Likewise, he rejects accidental killing because hisgoal is to make every aspect of his existence con-sciously chosen, even when it's unimportant.

• The Allied Path of Night. The version of thePath of Night favored by many Abyss mystics re-places the role of the individual in the Hierarchy ofSins with the role of the clan as a whole. Thus thelevel 7 sin is "Asking aid of a vampire of anotherclan," while the level 9 sin is "Acting in the interestsof another clan." The Allied Path teaches that in theend, all Lasombra become one in the Abyss, andindividuals matter only until that grand dissolution.In the Final Nights, the clan as a whole becomes itsown new master, replacing the Antediluvian of oldwith a comparable power at the end of time. The

f,

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' Ikn HALLS67

Allied Path may use either Self-Control or Instinct,depending on the vampire's inclination toward frenzy.

• The Lightless Path of Night. The LightlessPath focuses on darkness as the quintessentialLasombra condition. Several sins change to reflectthis emphasis. The level 10 sin is relying on sight,while the level 9 sin is allowing light to strikeoneself. The most experienced practitioners of theLightless Path blind themselves and rely on sensesother than sight (at least physical sight, and theydebate the proper role of Auspex and the like).Rather than penalizing the lack of innovation, thelevel 8 sin penalizes depredations conducted in thelight: A Lightless Path Lasombra sins by killing orwreaking havoc while illuminated. The LightlessPath uses Self-Control.

• The Righteous Path of Night. This is one ofthe oldest surviving variants, more popular in timeswhen Lasombra believed in themselves as agents ofa divine will. Cardinal Mongada's destruction spurredwidespread abandonment of the Righteous Path.Just as the Allied Path replaces the individual withthe clan, the Righteous Path replaces the individualwith all vampires who believe in their divine pur-pose . Accepting the superiority of a fellow RighteousPath practitioner or, say, a devout practitioner of thePath of Caine or the Path of Cathari isn't sinful.Innovative killing is no particular virtue on theRighteous Path. Instead, the practitioner sins bykilling in a way that does not strike fear into thehearts of sinners and impress upon them the verypresent wrath of an angry God. The Righteous Pathgenerally uses Self-Control, but some packs of In-stinct-driven "fearful angels" do exist.

More alternatives exist as well, many practicedat any given moment by just a few Lasombra. Playersshould feel free to work up variations, whether pre-sented as new or old in the World of Darkness.Storytellers can use the examples here to judgewhether a variation makes sense. It should nevermake existence a whole lot easier for the vampire.

CLAN DISCIPLINESWhile Obtenebration shows the distinctive

Lasombra nature most clearly, the clan's scholarsbelieve that Dominate and Potence also reflect par-ticular aspects of Lasombra's legacy. For most Keepers,what they do isn't quite like what other clans do evenwhen they're using the same Discipline. Similareffects sometimes spring from very different causes.

DOMINATEThe two Lasombra obsessions — shadow and

reflection — come together in clan thinking aboutDominate. The Lasombra vampire doesn't just forceher will on her target in a generic or abstract sense.She incises out part of the target's own will, leavingtraces of herself inside his mind to direct him.

A famous painting from shortly before the GreatRevolt hangs in the clan's ancient Sicilian strong-hold. It depicts a commanding Lasombra surroundedby a crowd of mortals in two concentric circles. Thepeople in the inner circle look toward the vampire,and their eyes are all mirrors reflecting his glory. Thepeople in the outer circle look out, carrying theirvarious badges of office and power. Each one casts ashadow stretching away from the vampire, and ineach case the shadow is gray and translucent exceptfor a silhouette of the vampire within the person'shead. That silhouette is pitch black.

That's how many Lasombra think of Dominate.POTENCB

The clan abhors weaklings. On the other hand,"strength" comes in many forms. Few Lasombra de-velop great strength in a purely physical sense. Thesupernatural vitality many Lasombra possess doesn'trely on undead muscle and bone. It reflects thetransformation of the vampire's body into somethingincreasingly inhuman.

For Christian Lasombra (and those interested invarious of the Christian heresies that attract vampiricbelief), their mastery of Potence is a form of transub-stantiation: They retain the appearance of mortalitybut not its substance. Some technically-mindedLasombra believe that they draw on the intrinsicenergy of the universe through the Blood, and that intheory a master of the Discipline could literally moveworlds. Most Lasombra associate Potence withObtenebration. Potence is the clan's shadow legacyreinforcing the vampire's own body, rather thanmanifesting in the environment.

O BTCNeBRATIONLasombra have spilled more blood and ink over

Obtenebration's precise nature and operation thanover any other topic, including the Great Diablerie.Obtenebration is, if not the heart of the clan itself,certainly intimately bound together with what theAntediluvian was and what its childer are now.

The first question many new Lasombra ask aboutObtenebration is "What the hell is that stuff, any-way?" The darkness Obtenebration calls forth has

\ CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA68

substance. It can entangle targets and even inflictdamage. It absorbs sounds and scents as well as light.On the other hand, it doesn't seem to have much ifany weight of its own, and it has no substance thatany chemical analysis can detect. (Yes, a few Lasombrado point spectrographs and the like atObtenebration's shadow-stuff and establish onlynegatives. They know that Obtenebration createsnothing with any identifiable chemical signature.)The shadow-stuff operates by rules unlike those thatgovern nature.

In short, Obtenebration brings into the worldsomething even more alien than vampires. Depend-ing on the particular Lasombra's inclinations, shemay refer to the endless space within whichObtenebration's stuff resides when not summoned as"outside" the world, "beneath" the world or "be-yond" it. The shadow-stuff responds to the Lasombra'sblood and will, leaking out, under or beyond theworld once the command ceases. See Occult, p. 63,for more on the subject.

The linkage between Obtenebration and occult-ism bothers some Lasombra. A small minority withinthe clan insists that nothing about Obtenebrationrequires anything beyond their own vitae and theimmediate environment, that the Discipline merelychanges air and shadow much as the Embrace changesblood into vitae. The rigid self-control required tokeep this attitude while actually using Obtenebrationtakes a heavy toll, and in time most of the skepticsrecant or crumble under the strain. Another, some-what larger group holds that whatever the key truthswithin occultism are, it should be possible to isolatethem and incorporate them into a framework basedon rhetoric or philosophy or science. Millennia ofeffort have produced no success, but the rationalistskeep trying.

As always in such matters, clan legend attributesone such success to some adept vampire who's nowgone. The details move around from one account toanother like humanity's urban legends.

The prevailing answer to the question aboutObtenebration's shadow-stuff is simple and direct:"It's what it is. It's what you get when you do thething that draws it out."

All Disciplines can be shocking and frightening.They're not natural, by definition. They all comefrom an ancient curse keeping corpses alive. Somedon't so overtly offend human sensibilities, at leastnot in their weakest manifestations. In an era ofspecial effects and tales of PCP addicts on the ram-page, for instance, Potence and Fortitude look scary

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALLS69

but not completely unexpected. But Obtenebration'sovert manifestations are just wrong on a very deeplevel. Shadows simply don't move independently ofthe light, and they especially don't come loose to flyaround.

As a Storyteller, you should give some consider-ation to how the power strikes any mortals in thearea. It's disturbing. It confronts people with proofthat the world is something very unlike what theythought. In addition to panic, many people con-fronted with such upset respond with moral revulsion,the conviction that the wrongness must be removed— the conviction that drives Inquisitors and otherhunters, if they can manage the courage to avoidfleeing into the night.

If a character's courage fails him, it should meanmore in play than just "he runs away." It indicates acomplete collapse of choice and willpower, a mo-ment in which a single terrified impulse takes over aperson's mind to the exclusion of all else.Obtenebration exploits deep-seated fears in the hu-man psyche: of isolation, of demonic powers, ofnothingness. Vampires who use terrifying powerssoon learn what effect those powers have, and re-

peated, informed use is a good way to sap theirHumanity.

Shadow PlayMany players assume that one-dot powers just

aren't good for much. They're often wrong, andparticularly so in this case. Many Lasombra findShadow Play quite sufficient for most of their pur-poses. The opportunity to simultaneously enhanceStealth and Intimidation and to reduce targets' soakand Stamina, all for one blood point and no concen-tration, for an entire scene...

The Lasombra sneer at any of their clanmateswho can't find something useful to do with thispower.

Note that Shadow Play doesn't just make shad-ows slide around and provide dramatic lighting effects.Pieces of darkness come alive to wrap themselvesaround the Lasombra's victims. Irregular masses ofpure blackness fly through the air to swat at targets.Shadow Play involves a blatant show of supernaturalpower. Dazed mortals can explain away the effectsthat enhance Stealth or Intimidation relatively eas-ily. Animated shadows in midair just don't yield tologic.

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA70

Most Lasombra care nothing about the Masquer-ade as anything but a survival tactic, but they prefernot to be overtly supernatural except in situationsthey control. Hasty recourse to Shadow Play showsdulled imagination and poor planning, just as refusalto use it where it's appropriate shows a dangeroustendency toward self-imposed strictures.

Shroud of NightShadow Play's animated shadows spring from

existing sources. The transformation itself is scary,but at least it has an obvious source. Shroud of Nightbrings forth something that has no antecedents. Avampire using Shroud of Night must consider thetradeoff involved: The people inside are well andtruly wrapped in shadow, the ball of which is utterlyobvious to anyone outside. The ball of tangibledarkness Shroud of Night invokes can be a secretonly when the environment around it is also fairlydark. Then again, secrecy isn't always the priority,and for sheer shock value, a roiling mass of blacknessbeats many alternatives.

Lasombra in Rotschreck often subconsciouslyinvoke Shroud of Night to hide themselves from aperceived threat.

Arms of the AbyssArms of the Abyss is another power that seems

mundane only to people who have the benefit ofreading the rulebook. Characters in the World ofDarkness see shadow extrusions longer than them-selves come to life and act without apparent effort onthe part of the vampire who created them. Remem-ber that it doesn't take active concentration tomaintain the arms once evoked. Since it takes threelevels of Obtenebration to create arms at all, eventhe weakest shadow tentacles are (unless their cre-ator chooses to weaken them) stronger and fasterthan the average mortal. With sustained practice,even the meekest 13th generation Lasombra candraw out tentacles capable of beating humanity'sbest warriors in a fair fight, as if fighting againstextruded shadow powered by dead blood could be fairunder any circumstances.

Arms are of course useful in fights, but they alsoserve noncombat functions. Crippled Lasombra likeAndrew Emory use Arms of the Abyss to carry themaround; two tentacles can do the job. A shadowtentacle can pass through very thin openings (thoughits creator needs some other way of seeing where it'sgoing after that) and loses no strength or speed as aresult of the constriction. An arm need not be a"tentacle" in the sense of a simple flexible cylinder.

It can spread out into a fan, or break up into a knotof intertwined fibers, or spread flat over a square footof any surface (or open space), or take on nearly anyother shape its creator imagines. Thus an arm can liein wait until its creator brings it forth. A latecomerwon't see the blood or concentration it took tocreate the arm and may not realize the arm's connec-tion to the vampire.

Lasombra in frenzy often subconsciously createArms of the Abyss to help defeat the offendingtargets.

Optional Rule: The vampire may spend oneblood point to gain faint but clear sensory impres-sions from an Arm of the Abyss. This requires oneblood point per tentacle and covers touch, taste,pressure, temperature and the like but not sight,sound or smell. This way the vampire can use the armto explore beyond its creator's sight. If the arm burstsinto flame, for instance, the vampire might suspectthat sunlight waits around the corner.

Black MetamorphosisThis power reflects a great deal of the Lasombra's

self-image. When thinking about how a character'sappearance changes in the metamorphosis, reviewthe above sections about Lasombra conceptions oftheir legacy and individual natures. A Lasombra whoregards her powers as expressing original sin takes onelements of religious iconography, with a combina-tion of very confessional, personal and thoroughlycodified symbols of the sins that drive her. A Lasombrawho regards herself as heir to the gods of darknessmay become rigid and stylized in appearance, like acave drawing of some evil spirit or a statue of abloodthirsty goddess. A Lasombra who favors aLovecraftian approach to the Abyss may take onnon-Euclidean angles and peculiar spatial distor-tions. In any event, no two Lasombra, not even sireand childe, look quite the same while undergoing theBlack Metamorphosis.

The metamorphosed vampire doesn't look likemany people's conventional notion of a vampire. Shecan walk down a city street and probably get not oneresponse along the lines of "look at that vampire!"Lasombra interested in keeping the populace scared ofsupernatural menaces in general therefore favor theBlack Metamorphosis as a psychological weapon. It'sgood for appearing to mortals who think they're dealingwith demons, too: With Shroud of Night to mask anentrance and a sudden appearance in metamorphosedform, a Lasombra can convince most would-be occult-ists that their summoning ritual worked.

\ CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLFT HALLS71

Optional Rule: The Black Metamorphosis alsodraws on the mental states of bystanders. Any mortalwho's been the victim of a vampire's advanced Domi-nate powers (Conditioning or Possession inparticular) suffers a +1 difficulty penalty to rolls toresist flight. The residue of the vampire's powerinside the mortal's head combines with the currenttransformation to produce a particularly horrifyingresult. Any mortal who botches a Courage roll notonly flees but suffers partial amnesia, unable to recallany details of the scene except that they have wit-nessed something desperately, hideously wrong.

MET: Victims of previous advanced Dominateuses suffer a -1 Trait penalty on their Courage checks.If this reduces their Courage to zero, they panicautomatically and suffer partial amnesia.

Tenebrous FormThis power marks the threshold between control

of shadow and identification with it. A Lasombra inTenebrous Form has, for the moment, ceased beinghuman at all, even in form. She's now a disembodiedwill operating in the world as a force of nature, orrather a force of unnature. Some Lasombra prefer tospend as much time as possible in this condition andarrange the steady flow of victims necessary to keepthe Tenebrous Form active. Some particularly dili-gent elders even get infusions of blood into theirchambers so that they remain shadowed forms nestledin pools of blood during the day.

As with Black Metamorphosis, the Lasombra'soutlook affects many details of the Tenebrous Form.A Lasombra who regards Obtenebration as sin madetangible transforms with a series of eruptions, skinand bone shattering as the darkness gushes forthfrom her heart and mind, or becomes suffused bydarkness as if her veins pumped a poison throughouther body. A Lasombra immersed in occult studieswho regards the Abyss as the First Substance maycollapse as if into a black hole, her body sucking itselfaway into the Abyss and leaving only animatedshadow behind. A Lasombra who identifies shadow-stuff with some primal state of matter may transformall at once in a flash of darkness after three turns'meditation, or fade into translucence and regainopacity in shadow form.

Note that the Tenebrous Form cannot fly, butcan swim, and that since it lacks substance, it suffersno harm from increased pressure. Nor can any con-finement keep it in or out of a location, as long asthere's an opening a few molecules wide.

At the Storyteller's discretion, the optional rulesfor the intimidation value of Black Metamorphosismay also apply to Tenebrous Form.

COMBINATION DISCIPLINESSHROUD OF ABSENCE(DOMINATE • • •, OBTeisreBRATiON • • • )

This power refines Shroud of Night and com-bines the Abyss's intrusion into the world withpsychic manipulation of bystanders. Instead of ahighly visible cloud of blackness, Shroud of Absencecreates a region into which nobody looks. Bystandersdon't think to linger in the area. Anyone scanningthe scene just keeps looking, her eyes not resting onthe shrouded zone. It is a darkness as much of themind as of the world.

System: The player spends a blood point and rollsManipulation + Occult (difficulty 7). Success creates ablind spot about ten feet across, located anywherewithin the line of sight of its creator and capable ofmoving at up to the vampire's walking speed. Anyonewishing to peer inside must earn more successes on aWillpower roll (difficulty 7) than the creator achievedon the Shroud of Absence roll. Otherwise, he justdoesn't think to consider it. Note that this power iswholly supernatural in origin, and most mortals will nothave had the experience with the occult to evenconsider that they can try to see what is so malevolentlyforcing their attention away.

MET: Make a Static Social Challenge againstseven Traits to create the Shroud of Absence. Any-one seeking to peer in must win a WillpowerChallenge against the Shroud's creator. The creatorcan spend Social Traits to raise his Willpower totalfor this purpose.

THE ABYSSMost vampiric powers affect either the vampire

himself or the surrounding material world — mostlythe perceptions and mental states of nearby humanbeings. Like necromancers and thaumaturges, vam-pires using Obtenebration reach outside the worldinto a different sort of space and bring back dark giftswith them.

For many Obtenebration practitioners, the Abyssis simply the conceptual realm from which they drawshadow-stuff. A handful of Lasombra probe deeper,finding layer upon layer of mystery in that endlessblackness. The Lasombra Antediluvian sometimesclaimed that the Abyss was the state of all creationbefore an interfering God made light, and that as theperfect master of Obtenebration, the Antediluvian

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA72

\

incarnated that primordial essence on Earth. Whetherit was right or not, study of the Abyss repays thediligent student.

Intelligence exists in the Abyss. It does notpossess self-awareness or even identity in any com-prehensible sense. Fragments of knowledge andpassion come together for a time, then break apart.The mind within the Abyss is in some ways more likea computer capable of emotion as well as logic thanlike a sentient entity, a pool of resources executinginstructions provided by some unknown force.

CALLING THE THING IN DARKNESSActual manipulation of the Abyss requires a

total of at least five dots in Obtenebration andOccult (Abyss), with at least two dots in each. Belowthat, students learn only pragmatic lessons on apply-ing Obtenebration in the physical world.

Arms of the Abyss can draw out portions of theAbyss intelligence, when coupled with proper occultpreparation. This requires a one-hour ritual, oneblood point and a successful Intelligence + Occultroll (difficulty 7). Then the summoner invokes Armsof the Abyss with the player making the usual Ma-nipulation + Occult roll (difficulty 7). When usedthis way, only a single arm manifests. It has its regularphysical statistics and one dot of Mental Attributesper dot of Obtenebration the summoner possesses.The summoner can decide how to allocate the dots.Each success beyond the first on the ritual Intelli-gence + Occult roll provides another dot, as doeseach additional blood point spent at the time ofinvocation.

The Abyss creature possesses at least one power-ful derangement and an obsession that resembles oneparticular sin from a Path of Enlightenment (usuallylevel six or higher on the Hierarchy of Sins) chosenby the Storyteller. Each Abyss creature emergesdriven to do something, which may or may not fitwith the summoner's plans. The creature can moveindependently at the summoner's running speed andexists for the duration of the scene or one hour.Intense light (strobe lights, stage lights and so on)dispel the creature immediately.

The summoner can repeat the ritual steps toreinforce the creature's presence. If all steps succeed,the creature remains present for the rest of the night.The summoner can try to summon the same creatureagain, and three successes in a row allow it perma-nent presence as long as the summoner feeds it (10 -the character's Obtenebration rating) points of bloodeach night.

The summoner can attempt to absorb the mani-festation into himself. This requires the summonerto defeat it in combat, reducing it to zero healthlevels. This done, the summoner can drain its dark-ness into himself. He gains half the creature's dots ineach Attribute added to his own for the duration ofthe night. He also gains the creature's derangementand cannot spend Willpower to resist its effects.

If the creature succeeds in reducing its sum-moner to torpor, it can invade his body and controlit for the rest of the night. It can also return thefollowing night and try again, and if it defeats himthis way three nights in a row, it can possess himuntil driven out. The dispossession requires someother practitioner of Obtenebration to reduce theinvaded vampire to torpor and go through the stepsof the summoning ritual. If they all succeed, theAbyss creature returns to the void and never returnsagain with quite that combination of Attributes.

DESCENT INTO DARKNESSAn expert in Obtenebration can actually enter

the Abyss. As with calling Abyss spirits, this requiresan hour-long ritual, one blood point and a successfulIntelligence + Occult roll (difficulty 7). The vam-pire then uses Shadowstep (see Guide to the Sabbat,p. 111). If each step works, he passes into the Abyss,in the Obtenebration equivalent of Psychic Projec-tion. He also risks encountering Abyss spirits.

Every (the character's Obtenebration rating) turns,make a Perception + Obtenebration roll (difficulty 8)for the character to sense coalesced fragments of Abyssintelligence in the vicinity. If the roll fails, a creatureapproaches with statistics equivalent to one called withthe summoning procedure described above. The moreskillful the traveler is, the more powerful the entity thatwants to possess him — distribute its Attribute dots asif the player had scored the character's maximumnumber of successes on the summoning. The creatureattempts to possess the traveler.

If the roll botches, a creature immediately possessesthe traveler, and he falls out into the nearest dark place.

Treat the game mechanics of the Abyss like the"astral plane" (Vampire: The Masquerade, RevisedEdition, p. 152). The character moves at up to athousand miles an hour and can peer into any environ-ment in total or near-total darkness — the Night SightMerit or Flaw comes in handy for this purpose. If acharacter loses all of his Willpower in astral combat, no"silver cord" is severed but the Abyss spits the characterout into nearest dark place in the material world.

CHAPTER Two: THE KEEPERS' UNLIT HALIS73 \

If then the light in you is darkness, how; great is the darkness!— Matthew 6:23

From the most august, genteel and wicked elder tothe basest shovelhead, the Lasombra share one trait:pragmatism. Whether this manifests as a cunning skillwith manipulation or a simple meanness, the Lasombraare direct in their desires. It is no wonder, then, thatmany Cainites, some Lasombra included, see the Keep-ers as the counterpart to the Ventrue. But where theVentrue master Presence, the Lasombra hone their

prowess with Dominate. Where the Ventrue ask andcajole, the Lasombra proclaim their wills and woe to hewho fails to obey.

With that in mind, watch your tongue and keepyour wits about you as you peruse the gallery of mastersset before you. Know that with them, the end justifiesthe means — and that your end may well be the means.

CHAPTER THREE: NEW SHADOWS75

THF ACCUSERQuote: Yauhave nosecretsins. Everythingyaudo, we see. We know.Prelude: All your life, a peculiar guilt weighed on you. You had

a privileged life, from parochial school to the Ivy League to Fortune500 management. You married a fellow manager and raised two finechildren (with a lot of help from nannies and others).

Inside, something gnawed at you. The parochial school nuns,with their talk of endless fire and brimstone, impressed you in a waythat escaped your classmates. You believed their talk of judgmentmuch more readily than homilies about mercy. An inner need toatone drove you to charity, to efforts at socially responsible corporateengagement. None of it sufficed, because the stain didn't just comefrom what you did but from what you were.

You weren't exactly surprised when unseen voices began whis-pering your sins to you. You always knew that demons watched. In themorning, they spoke to you from the bathroom mirror. At night, theirwords emerged from shadows in the corners. You were surprised whenthey began whispering about others' sins as well. You realized nobodycould help you because everyone around you was damned, too. Thedemons began manifesting physically, unseen claws raking your flesh

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over a bridge...and landed in a web of living shadow.

A devil in female form waited for you on the ground below. She told you how hellhad at last claimed you, chosen you to judge and punish the wicked. You drain the lifefrom sinners and tell them why they suffer. You move unseen through boardrooms andback offices, learning sins that you later make public. You accuse your targets in their secret

places. You drive them toward the pit, and when they choose to die, you do notinterfere as that devil interfered with your death. Hell has you and your kind,and doesn't need the souls you feed it to minister to the earthly kingdom.

Concept: Your packmates find your conviction of demonhoodpeculiar. They can't deny your effectiveness in dealing with mortals, soyou're the one who does the work they cannot. As part of your routine for

torment, you make your victims procure the physical goods you and yourpackmates need. Thus do sinners support hell. Then you carry on withyour work. You are the face that doesn't show in the mirror, the Satanin its original Hebrew meaning, the "accuser."

Roleplaying Hints: Lot was right about Sodom, and everymodern city is Sodom. Not one righteous person graces this world.Everyone deserves suffering and death. This knowledge reaffirmsthe pain that gnawed in you when you were alive. You correctly

judged yourself; now you correctly judge others. In time you'll helpyour fellow demons, who think of themselves as vampires, tounderstand their true nature. In the end, when the light of theuniverse goes out forever, no illusions will remain. Hasten the night.

Equipment: Expensive suits, attache case with dossiers on yourcurrent targets

NBOOK: LASOMBRA76 \

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Tne ANGRY YOUNG MANQuote: There's always someone else who thinks he's escapedhisjust

desserts. He's wrong.Prelude: You grew up one more typical smart suburban kid,

physically comfortable and inwardly filled with angst over life'sminor indignities. That all changed the day before your sixteenthbirthday. During your last driver's education lesson, you made aperfect U-turn, only to run headlong into a drunk driver on thewrong side of the road. Your instructor died instantly. You lived, butthe impact shattered the top of your skull, sending bone shards deepinto your brain. You might have recovered fully were it not forsomeone's fumbling on the third of three operations to extract theshard. You emerged with permanent damage to the nerve centersthat controlled your legs, and never walked again.

Teen angst darkened into lasting rage. You poured out yourfrustrations onto paper — clumsily at first, gaining polish withpractice. The hospital's zealous cover-up of whoever crippled youbecame a symbol of everything wrong with modern life. Your essayscaught the attention of a vampire with literary ambitions ofher own.She liked your style and set about testing you. So many things wentwrong for you in your early twenties, from denied grants to corre-spondents turning hostile. Occasionally you stepped to the brink ofparanoia. Your sire was pleased that you never quite went over theedge, always coming back to a sane if nihilistic rage. After torment-ing you for five years, she decided you were ready.

On the tenth anniversary of your original accident, yourparents took you out for dinner. As you drove home in a vanmodified for hands-only control, everything went dark. Youswerved off the road, through the roof of a warehousebelow. You regained consciousness dangling upsidedown, watching your parents die from lacerationsacross their faces and necks. A woman drew you fromthe wreckage with living shadows. She smiled at you. Withfangs. She told you that if you were ready to leave theday behind, she could give you the power towreak the vengeance you'd dreamed of.

Youknewthatifyoulived,nothingawaitedyou but more of the same. You accepted thewoman's offer and felt almost nothing as shedrained your life away, then gave you backsome of hers. You soon discovered that youdidn't need legs, not when you can makeshadows carry you. And an entire societyawaits, ready to work with you to pull downthe world you've left behind.

Concept: You're the thinker, theone who weighs options and checks forhidden flaws. You're completely dedicated tothe Sabbat's ultimate triumph and have broad-ened your list of enemies to include supernaturalfoes as well as the kine. You hope that if yousurvive, you can rise through the ranks. Youexpect that you will.

Roleplaying Hints: You want to see humanity'sleaders cower in the rubble and beg for mercy, anddie in fear when mercy does not come. Now thatyou've learned about die Camarilla, you want diesame thing for them, and for the Antediluviansbehind diem. Yourfellow Sabbat don't always under-stand how it all fits together, so you have to explain itto them, and you protect them from their own igno-rance. The cause needs you just as you need it.

Equipment: Wheelchair, laptop computer, wheelchair-equipped van

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Quote: Something's under your bed, in your closet andlooming up behind you. It's me.

Prelude: As a child, you lived in a vivid fantasy worldand dreamed of being a superhero. You continued to visitthat realm in daydreams as you matured. It kept your hopealive amid crumbling family and personal circumstances.Visions of secret power kept you stable through two di-vorces, the suicide of one sibling and the murder of another,two roommates convicted for felony fraud schemes and awhole lot of other complications.

Your future sire never explained just how he noticedyou in the first place. In a bookstore? Overheard conversa-tion among friends? Random selection? All you know forsure is that gradually this tall, skinny guy began showing upmore and more often on the fringes of your social scene. Thenightmares began not long thereafter. Antidepressantscouldn't keep the vivid hallucinations about animatedshadows at bay.

Somehow it came as a bit of an anticlimaxto learn that you hadn't been halluci-nating. One night the shadowsdisgorged that tall, skinny guy, and hedemonstrated genuine powers to you.He told you that you were right to think thatthe world had many wrongs to redress, thoughyou were kidding yourself when you thoughtthat there were all that many good people toprotect. Vengeance and fear, he said, not justice.He offered you the chance to test out your theo-ries. You accepted.

You soon realized that your sire saw youas an expendable experiment. As far as heand most of the other vampires around youare concerned, you're a nut case. That's fine— you've been odd man out before. Thepower to see into men's souls has confirmedyour sire's skepticism about the goodness ofhumanity and made you much more com-fortable with your role as predator. Butmore sinners and fools need punishmentthan you could have imagined. You'll bebusy for a long time.

Concept: You're your own nightmarescome true, out to haunt others. If youweren't actually good at whatyou do, you'd be one morebuffoon bound for self-de-struction. As it is, you'rethe sort of wild card thatkeeps the Sabbat com-petitive — the sect's

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enemies don't really expect to see cloaked avengersleap through windows, shouting about the

reckoning for secret crimes.Roleplaying Hints: Deep inside

you, something yearns for a peacethat can only come from doing

good deeds, as you once thoughtof them. But the world as younow know it has no place forthat. You've settled for thenext best thing and try tomake the most of it. The

Sabbat often horrifies you,but then so did the ma-terial world as it ground

you down. You remindyourself that in its own brutal

way, the mass slaughter of hu-man predators makes the worlda better place, and you keephoping that something in theundead condition will allow youto escape the whole deep sea ofhuman misery, sometime.Equipment: matched pair of .45s

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makes it taste better.Prelude: Sixty years of life, and what did you get? A

deadbeat husband who drank himself into the grave, twoworthless children incapable of living without you to bailthem out, the one boy with promise dead long ago in sometwo-bit war and a clutch of grandchildren already busilyspawning brats when they're not selling themselves, drugsor both. You lost your home when the freeway camethrough and shuffled around a series of cheap apartmentsafter that. Everyone you ever cared about was dead or gone.

It can always get worse. One summer night, a gang ofyoung people grabbed you off the boulevard, hit you witha shovel and buried you. You managed to dig yourself out.Your assailants sent you and the other survivors into somebig rumble you never really understood. You were one oftwo to remain standing at the end of it all. The other onedidn't make it, but you did, albeit locked in asustained manic fit. By the time you regainedself-control, you'd been undead for four weeks.You found that nobody missed you. Youwere just one more minor statistic in acounty report on disappearances. Yourealized that for the first time since yousaid "I do" to that sad sack forty yearsearlier, you had a clean slate.

The Sabbat suited you.Amused mentors showedyou how to consciouslycontrol the powers you'dexercised instinctively.You listened to the loreand studied the rites. Af-ter two years of"apprenticeship," the lo-cal bishop decided thatyou had prospects andlet you join one of thelocal packs. Sure, someof the vampires havebeen undead a lotlonger than you, but youlived longer than theydid. Sixty years of work-ing-class existencetaught you things nosnot-nosed kid knows, no matterhow long he's been skulking in shad-ows as a parasite.

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Concept: You watch over the kids.They find this funny but let you do it. Afew of them even recognize that your care

keeps them from losing those lastscraps of humanity. You don't careabout grand crusades — you wantto protect the society that gives yourexistence some value.

Roleplaying Hints: Mommaknows best. Momma knows how tospot easy targets and recognize trickyones, how to hide the bodies later,

how to bless the cups for theVaulderie. Oh, sure, you've got alot to learn, but you're doing welland enjoying it. There's a womanat the top of the sect, you hear.Maybe some night there will be

another.Equipment: Sturdy clothes, por-

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\ \

THH PIRATEQuote: Hand it over. Now.Prelude: You were conceived in rape, and that set the pattern for

your life. Your mother was the priestess of some tribal religion in whathad been a remote African valley. Poaching and industrializationforced her people into a coastal city. Beyond that, you never quite gotthe story straight. You don't know whether she turned to prostitutionor was simply seized at random by sailors on a drunken rampage. Doesn'tmatter much either way, really—you were bom with the taint of thesyphilis she got at the same time she got you.

You grew up in war-zone squalor. Three or four nations ckimedto rule your area at different times. In practice they were all well-armedgangs, favoring their respective tribes at the cost of everyone else. Youwere violently and sadistically abused, or coldly abused in a detachedmanner, and that's how you could tell one regime from the next. Anyoutside peacekeepingforces were either ineffectual or in active collabo-ration with one gang or another, so that was no help. And youremembered that what they did to your mother, they could do to yousometime, if they wanted to.

By the time your mother died, you'd learned enough to makeyourself useful to petty waterfront tyrants. You escaped some of theworst abuse meted out to less talented children and might have goneon to lead (by the standards of the docks) a reasonably decent life. If it

weren't for the syphilis, thatis. Early signs of mad-

ness manifestedbefore your 18thbirthday, and your

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behavior cost you what marginal protection you once enjoyed. You never talk about thefew years after that.

Gradually you became aware of a persistent voice in your mind, somewhere in themental fog, an amused and curious probing. In your moments oflucidity, you learned about

the pirate captain with a taste for amateur physiology. He fed you the blood that let yourecover your sanity and kept the disease at bay, and also made you pretematurally strong.

The cost for all this was service, and you gave it gladly. You soon joined his crew andpillaged throughout the Indian Ocean. When he lost one of the mysterious

crewmates who only came out at night, he held a lottery to replace him. Youwon. Then the fangs came down.

You continue to serve your captain. Your existence gives you lots ofopportunity to hurt people and moments of solitude in which you don't haveto think much about anything in particular. Both suit you fine.

Concept: You're a pirate, and a good one. You know how to foil^dozens of security measures, jam distress signals, fence loot and so on. The

workings of the Sabbat seem nebulous to you; you know only the routineon your ship. But others who think you na'ive are setting themselves upfor trouble.

Roleplaying Hints: The world has hunters and hunted, nothingmore. You hunt. You're good at it. With practice you may become

much better at it. As you gain distance (physical and psychological)from your mortal days, you're beginning to wonder what elsevampires do and are taking your first steps out into larger Sabbatsociety. You'll always be a pirate, but you realize that that may notpreclude being other things as well.

Equipment: Seaworthy clothes, knives, books of Sabbathistory

•LANBOOK: I

82

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M E B I T S & [LAWSMERITS & FLAWS A B I L I T I E S

Firearms PoliticsA B I L I T I E S

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x.THF REVOLUTIONARY

Quote: If you could take the larger view, you would see that yourdeath validates the revolutionary struggle as your life validated the existingorder. But I see you have too much blood, in the way.

Prelude: You grew up not very far from the brink of starvationin Sicily. Your family lost a lot of its land in "reforms" after WorldWar II and never recovered from it. When you were old enough toleave home, you set out to make your fortune elsewhere. After a yearof wandering, you ended up in Rome.

Rome wasn't the greatest place to be poor during the 1960s.The combination of rampant corruption and clerical interferencekept everyone without connections constantly on edge. You couldbe arrested on trumped-up charges and put to work on someone'sestate, or simply harassed into leaving a particular neighborhoodbecause the cops didn't like your style. Had they deliberately set outto make a Marxist-Leninist revolutionary of you, they could scarcelyhave done a better job.

You suffered a crisis of conscience after kidnapping andtorturing an innocuous South American businessman. It's onething, you reasoned, to strike at the agents of tyranny. While inimportant ways all bourgeois are collaborators, was this actuallyhelping your cause ? When you asked questions, your comrades wereonly too happy to beat you within aninch of your life, frame you fordrug charges and let the po-lice haul you away. Romewasn't a good place to beimprisoned during the '60s,either.

So it was, twenty yearsafter leaving home, that youended up back in Sicily. Youwere still driven to do some-thing but had no clue as towhat. Your parents

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were long dead by this time, and your relatives didn't want to see you.You wandered the island, visiting tourist attractions. And youstarted hearing voices. Shadows spoke to you as you camped outsideold castles, telling you of a great war that your Marxist revolutioncouldn't begin to approach. You were pretty sure you were goinginsane, but you listened and sometimes carried out the daylight tasksthe shadows asked you to.

One night, the shadows came alive to reveal a nattily dressedold man, who told you the rest of the story. He explained about theAntediluvians, for whom capitalists are only the most recent pawns,and about the Sabbat, the ultimate vanguard party in all of history.He showed you how the dialectic of history made sense only in lighteffects that dialectical materialism couldn't allow. Then he offeredyou the opportunity to join the struggle. Of course you accepted.

Concept: You're a neonate amid elders. Still, you show thefervor that makes Sabbat founders smile, and if they seem sometimeslike part of the problem, that's a matter for another night. FromSicily, you and your fellow neonates strike out at Camarilla targetsall around the Mediterranean. You don't really belong to a perrna-nentpackyet—yourmentorsaretestingcombinationsformaximumefficiency. You aim to prove yourself worthy — who knows,someday you may strike against these elders as they struck againsttheirs.

Roleplaying Hints: There's so much to learn! Everything youassumed about the world seems false. You try never to admit yourfear, only your ignorance: You're quite willing to ask honestquestions in search of answers. You also seek to find suitable allies,the ones who show themselves most flexible and determined. Let th

Equipment: Disguises, collapsible firearms

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BROKER FOR THE DAMNEDQuote: It's all about leveraging your core competencies.Prelude: All your life you had a very simple goal: You

wanted to be rich. You got off to a good start, with a decentenough middle-class upbringing and an okay collegeeducation and a better business school and a lucky breakat a big Wall Street brokerage. You flourished in the '80s,exploiting regulatory chaos with the best of them andtwice managing to change jobs just before the SEC ruinedthe party. You almost wondered if someone were lookingout for you, some God of Leverage.

Then things got interesting, when the weirdoesstarted calling you in for nighttime consultations. Theirmoney was good so you didn't mind, but when you askedif they were vampires or what, they didn't exactly laugh.What the hell. You kept working for them.

Then came the night when it all changed. One ofthe weirdoes actually burst into your office and fuckingdrank your blood. Right there. Half a dozen ofthe other weirdoes came in and smashed upthat first one pretty bad. As you lay dying,they debated whether to give you hugs —at least that's how you remember it.(You've since learned of the "Embrace.")They poured some of their own blooddown your throat and you came back tolife, or at least back to something like life.

You'd like to still work as "a broker forthe Damned," the title you use sometimes,but it's hard when you can't go to themarket floors and have tobreak off a planning ses-sion just because the sunis rising. The guys youused to work with aredoing a lot better thanyou are, and they're go-ing to keep pulling aheadbecause you can't. Ever.Catch. Up.

Concept: You're avampire on the edge ofa nervous breakdown.You cannot maintain

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know of any alternative that you find satisfy-ing. You'd probably respond to a carefully crafted

pitch to join someone else's cause, unless you canmanage to invent one for yourself.

Roleplaying Hints: Panic. Don't showpanic. Show confidence. But confi-

dence in what ? You know you're notthe broker you used to be, and it'sprobably just a matter of time untilthe pack figures it out, too. Ditchthem? Maybe get leverage on them.Blackmail? Don't show panic.

Equipment: Last year's suits,portfolio

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THE CRUSADER O ux OF TIMEQuote: It's never too late to mend! Or, in your case, break.Prelude: You were one among thousands of Spanish peasants

who joined the 1930s civil war on the anarchist side. Whenrecruiters came to speak of a new society, built on the rubble ofhierarchy and power, it was like a revelation. You had to do your partto help.

The reality of war was less glamorous. You fought first againstNazi-backed royalist forces, then against your own ostensible allieswhen Stalin decreed that good Communists should now extirpateanarchists like yourself. Two years after enlisting, you found yourselfrotting in a cell somewhere outside Madrid, waiting for your turn infront of the firing squad. For company, you had only a raving old manwho babbled of ancient masters who would come to rescue alldeserving Spaniards.

You still remember with perfect clarity how surprised you werewhen an ancient master did come to rescue the old man. A foppishyoung dandy in archaic clothes shattered the prison wall with hisbare hands, scooped you and the old man up and ran off atsuperhuman speed. By the time you regained your composure, youwere safe and resting in some seaside manor looking out toward theBalearics. Over the next few nights, the young man, who provedto be more than eighty years old, explained the secret history ofthe world to you. It was, in many ways, just what you expected.Could anyone look at the history of Church and State and besurprised to know that immortal bloodsuckers were behind it all ?

When the dandy offered you the power to fight the secretmasters on their own ground, you readily accepted. Things wentwell enough, until the fateful night in 1941 when a crippledbomber unloaded its cargo before plummeting into the sea. Thedandy, the old man and all the others in that seaside manor perished.You were buried, trapped in torporfor more than halfacentury, untilworkers building a new resort acci-dentally dug you out. Now you'reback among theLasombra antitribu, try-ing to make sense of thestrange new world andget back into the fray.

Concept: You're an anachro-nism as well as an idealist. Youremember the world without comput-ers, the world with Hitler and Stalin.You bring a level of practical experi-ence with extremely dirty warfare thatmakes you valuable to your allies, valuable enough for them to put up with yourlimitations. Perhaps they also find yourrevolutionary zeal encouraging, an artifactof a time and place when the world seemedmore malleable.

Roleplaying Hints: This is terrible! Fiftyyears went by, and what good did your clanmatesdo?Not adrop, as nearly as you can tell. They needyou to show them how to do it right. It's time for bold deedsand strong words. While you're not about to explain vampiresto the masses, surely it's right and proper to rekindle the fire ofself-determination. Skeptics call it rabble-rousing. You know

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i that the rabble are the only people' ever worth bothering with. And as

for the malefactors of great wealth,well, you have ways of dealing

with them, too.Equipment: Rug-

ged clothes, assortedsmallfirearmsandknives, maps,

anarchist pro-paganda

CHAPTER THH

THF HARPYQuote: So you assert that your sire taught you nothing. This is

perhaps more convenient than admitting you are a fool, except thatthe end result is the same. Here is your sire to explain just what hetaught you, and what you have failed to do.

Prelude: You grew up in pretty average middle-class cir-cumstances in one of South America's more prosperous cities.You didn't have to live in a garbage heap (though you knew thatpeople did, not very many miles from where you were). Younever dealt in drugs or found yourself caught in a drive-byshooting. None of the northern stereotypes about your countryapplied to you, really. Your parents were successful profession-als, and so were you.

Ironically enough, your life began to fall apart during a tripto Rome. There you were kidnapped by the Red Brigades (notyet crushed by police assault and internal dissent) and torturedbefore your release. The psychological scars ran deeper thanyour therapist realized, as you became obsessed with analyzingthe "status markers" that led to such a terrible fate for you andother victims. You became a sort of business anthropologist,tracing the cues that invite attack and warning your peersabout them. You developed a reputation as a kook andbecame increasingly marginalized within your hometown.

Your sire discovered your work when she emergedfrom a decade-long torpor. She was intrigued — she'ddabbled in such semiotics herself, unsuccessfully. Whenshe offered you the opportunity to pursue your work throughall ages, what could you do but accept?

Once you mastered the basics of unlife, your sirepresented you to the local Camarilla. She was of theLasombra antitribu and an honored participant in hercity's secret affairs. You rapidly earned a place foryourself. Your idiosyncratic studies came in veryhandy tracing out the maze that is prestation inany flourishing court. You don't always agree withwhat the vampires around you do, but they neverbecome dull.

Concept: You're the model antitribu: intel-ligent, gracious and above all wellbehaved. You show up

t h efailings of your clan bycomparison, and were it notfor the stain of your heritage,you'd simply blend in with theCamarilla. Your ongoing studies lead . if1Cyou to travel, so that you can compare i ) 0C0Cthe workings of as many Kindred aspossible.

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Roleplaying Hints: In a sense, you'rereverting to your ancestors' attitude of

noble superiority, back when theyreceived grants of total power

over the aboriginal tribes inyour part of South

America. It bothers yousometimes to feel yourattachments to human-ity slowly drain away, butthe Kindred make suchfascinating subjects.Always ask politely,but never fail to ask.Understand what's go-ing around you. Once

you understand, youcan judge with wit andprecision.

Equipment: Fine clothes, exten-sive notebooks (gradually beingabandoned in favor of a handheldcomputer)

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THP STUDFNT OF THE ABYSSQuote: Dammit, if you'd just shut up for a second, you could

learn something useful. The Abyss will waitforever, but 1 could be offdoing something worthwhile if you're going to keep this up.

Prelude: All your life, you wanted to know something more,to understand the next layer beneath what you could see. Inschool, you didn't always get very good grades, because youpreferred to spend the time studying interesting topics to wadingthrough pablum. Once out of school, you pursued your interestsas an autodidact, ranging freely through the sciences and humani-ties alike. You found few close friends, simply because a lot of folksseemed confused by the notion of being simultaneously con-cerned with, say, quantum mechanics and Hermetic alchemy.Their loss.

With the Internet, you couldreach out to the other one-in-

a-million eclectic seekersand find some companion-

ship, albeit at a distance.Somewhat to your sur-prise, you even foundways to parlay your ap-proach to the world intofreelance writing of vari-

ous sorts. Not bad forsomeone accustomed to being

NAMP:PLAVFR:CHRONICLF:

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the odd girl out.At first you didn't notice just how systematically your life was going bad. Harassment on the job, your

family becoming even more stupid and truculent than their norm, net acquaintances disappearing orabruptly changing personalities... it didn't add up for a while. At first you just did your best to cope with

each fresh obstacle as it arose. The awareness of calculated harassment rose gradually, and when youtook your initial steps toward identifying the perpetrator, everything got worse. Credit fraud and

worse went on in your name, with very plausible evidence. You came close to the brink, but neverquite broke.

After five years of this, the mastermind presented herself. She didn't take long to establishthat she was the one responsible — she had the sort of proof it took to convince you — andshe essentially dared you to accept the power that would let you compete with her on an evenfooting. You accepted. She's gone now, and you remain. On to the next challenge: probing themysteries accessible to you now that you're no longer among the living.

Concept: You're a highly individualistic vampire. Your sire was Sabbat in all but name,really, and you're not comfortable with the vapid protestations of morality that characterizethe Camarilla. You associate primarily with anarchs, when you're not in the company of yourclanmates who share an interest in Abyss mysticism. You pursue knowledge as the pathway

to power. As power comes, you'll figure out what to do with it.Roleplaying Hints: Above all, behind all, after all, you want to know. You want to

experience reality. While you were alive, you went as far as living sensation could takeyou. Now you delve into unliving sensation. The Abyss fascinates you, though not tothe exclusion of other interests. You'd like to share what you find, but so few vampirescan see beyond the next feeding. Sometimes you try to break through their ignorance.Other times you let them stew and get on with things.

Equipment: Occult tools, extensive library of science and history books

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA90

SAMPLE BROOD :BLACK CAGLECONSULTING, INC.

Modern technology makes it easy for a wide-spread group to remain in regular contact. TheSabbat pack that operates as Black Eagle Consult-ing actually gathers for face-to-face meetings onlya few times a year, at great rites and as packmembers' concerns warrant. Nonetheless, mostmembers are in touch via e-mail, online chat andtelephone several times a week.

The original incarnation of the pack datesback to 1877 and a series of Sabbat attacks ontelegraph stations in the Midwest. Some forward-th inking templar rea l ized that a fastcommunication network would give her cause acompetitive advantage against the Camarilla'svastly superior social ties. It wasn't enough, ofcourse. The Camarilla stomped organized Sabbatpresence in the Midwest flat. But the NighttimeMessengers pack survived, and has continued toupdate its organization and membership to reflectnew technology. The pack added radio engineersin the 1920s, motion picture projectionists in the'30s, TV camera operators and station engineersin the '50s. The pack Embraced its first electronicnetworking specialist in 1980 and its recruitinghas become increasingly net-oriented since then.

Part of the pack's success is that its membersdon't make easy targets. A lone vampire can takeadvantage of cover that doesn't work for half adozen of them together. Pack members attendcarefully to security in their communications,working through relay systems often set up yearsor even decades ago. On the occasions when lawenforcement agencies have tried tracing one packmember's contacts, they've gotten nowhere. Somenomadic packs reject a lot of the modern worldand rely on their innate abilities. Black Eaglerepresents the modernist response, exploiting themodern world to make fixed havens largely un-necessary.USING BLACK EAGLF CONSULTING

This pack can appear in a chronicle in twodistinct ways: with just one of its members orassembled as a group.

See below for descriptions of the currentlyactive pack members. They all travel, and allenjoy seeing new sights. A couple of them actu-ally work on a fairly regular basis in mortal society,keeping up the appearances necessary to makeBlack Eagle Consulting a viable disguise. The restdon't do any real business with the kine, but dostudy mortals and spend time with them. Anycommunity with a high-tech industry of note, ora good university with scientific research facili-ties, or for that matter an interesting fine artsscene may attract a Black Eagle's attention.

When traveling alone, Black Eagles who en-counter other vampires claim Caitiff and anarchstatus. Earlier versions of the pack mounted boldchallenges against Camarilla courts and anarchalliances. After the third time when more thanhalf of the pack perished in the ensuing carnage,the survivors decided not to do that anymore.Now a Black Eagle on his own is just one moreabandoned vampire who would be ever so gratefulfor a little shelter and of course willing to tradehis technical expertise for the favor.

Once out of imminent danger of destruction,a Black Eagle generally makes himself useful. Suc-cessful spies know that as much of their covershould be real as possible. The best way to con-vince others that one is a good security specialistis to provide good security for one's customers.The Black Eagle maps out his hosts' weaknessesand then calls in the rest of the pack.

Black Eagle attacks aren't like other Sabbatraids. Most of the time, the pack seldom if everconfronts any of its targets directly. The BlackEagle method aims at exposing targets so thatother forces do the destruction on the pack'sbehalf. Over the course of several nights, the packimplements some or all of the following dirtytricks:

• Automatic signal splitting, so that privatecommunications (encrypted cell phone conversa-tions, direct e-mail connections and so on) getcopied to appropriate sources. Depending on thecity in question, recipients may include the localprince or bishop, government intelligence agen-cies, churches who show interest inmonster-hunting, the local press and so on.

• Signal destruction. Simply losing messages intransit does a great deal of harm. Forging plausible

I CHAPTER THREE: NEW SHADOWS91 \

replacements is fun, but takes time and requirespreparation, a luxury the pack rarely enjoys.

• Framing. Black Eagles commit crimes, leav-ing behind just a very few clues that point to thetargets. Vampires only leave fingerprints in oilysubstances, to take one case in point. A helpfulBlack Eagle may spend a lot of time showing hertargets how to use a new computer system which,of course, she keeps meticulously clean with vari-ous maintenance oils. Gradually, she can assembleplausible composite prints, and leave a few be-hind. A few hairs in the right place can keep adedicated forensic investigator going a long time.So can traces of blood. The trick in each case is toavoid overdoing it, and instead tantalize mortalinvestigators.

In the end, all Black Eagles perish, just likethe vast majority of other Sabbat. Lone BlackEagles sometimes screw up, and by a wrong wordor action reveal their underlying convictions. Orthey may just anger a host and get destroyed forpetty reasons. The pack as a whole has had severalclose brushes against targets who were more tech-nically competent than the Black Eagles realized,and the pack had to break off its siege and flee.The Black Eagles should be tough, interestingnemeses for non-Sabbat vampires and equally in-teresting mentors for technically inclined Sabbatneonates, but they are emphatically not unstop-pable engines of destruction.

THE CAINITESThe members of Black Eagle Consulting get

along pretty well, in part because they don't spenda great deal of time in each other's presence. Theyall maintain Vinculum ratings of 4-7 with eachother, and thus feel committed to each other'swell-being without having to do much for eachother night in, night out.

In terms of Lasombra outlooks, the BlackEagles straddle the line between simple factionlessviews and the Kings and Queens of Shadow. Theycan operate well enough among mortals, but feelno ideological commitment to doing so. This isjust how they pass the years, putting to use theparts of their old lives that still interest themwhile also pursuing distinctively vampiric projects.RICHARD B. WEINSTFIN, Ducxus

Background: Richard is the eldest survivingmember of the Black Eagles, apart from rumorsthat one or two of the 19th century bunch are still

in torpor in some Camarilla-controlled city. De-tails of his mortal life are not so much vague asinconsistent. While Richard doesn't yet have full-blown multiple-personality disorder, it's just amatter of time. Richard himself is intermittentlyaware of the problem. As nearly as he knows, he'ssuffering from internal trauma associated withdiableries he committed during the Third SabbatCivil War.

Most of the time, Richard remembers being anengineer at Los Alamos during World War II,working on early computer projects for the Navyafter the war. Consulting trips took him from hisnative San Francisco down to Los Angeles, wherehe met engineer and occultist Jack Parsons. (Ri-chard believes he must have met the young L. RonHubbard then, but cannot now recall any suchencounters.) During one of those trips, Richardran afoul of an anti-Semitic gang loosely associ-ated with the newly reorganized Nation of Islamand received the scalp burns that make his hairsuch a patchy mess.

Parsons' Crowley-imitating occultism provedfascinating, and Richard soon surpassed histeacher. His amateur attempts at demon summon-ing through human sacrifice came to the attentionof a Lasombra Abyss mystic, who studied him forseveral years before arranging Richard's Embracein 1954- The new vampire won distinction duringthe 1957 insurrection and joined the Black Eaglespack not long thereafter. Under a variety of coveridentities, he continued to do some mainframedesign and programming up through the 1970s.

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I

Now unable to keep current with his field, hefocuses on the welfare of the pack itself.

Sometimes Richard remembers two other stories.In one, he's a Bostonian literary critic who learned

about computers by having early programmers asroommates. His burns were purely accidental, in-flicted at an autumn bonfire at which Richard got alittle too drunk. He attracted Lasombra attention forhis elegant, cynical dissection of several local poets,culminating in the scandalous suicide of one of themon the night after her engagement was announced.In the other story, he's once again a programmer, thistime shuttling between aerospace projects in Denverand Raleigh-Durham. He had no interest in theoccult — he simply came to the attention of aLasombra sire who recognized that the Sabbat wouldneed members who understand computers. He re-ceived the burns on the night of his Embrace, in aslightly bungled effort to fake his death.

In the early '80s, Richard came to the conclu-sion that unitary identity is a mortal weaknessthat Cainites can overcome, and he stopped wor-rying about his conflicting memories.

Image: Richard stands just over six feet tall.His most distinctive feature is his scarred scalpand the mess it makes of his hair — for a while hewas annoyed to find himself treated as an obviouspunk music fan, and in recent years a wave ofpunk nostalgia has brought the compliments backagain, even more annoying this time around. Hepoints without much result to his immaculateregimen of suit and tie, or (for possibly messy fieldwork) untagged versions of his old Army kit.

Roleplaying Hints: You used to miss human-ity. Not any more. The world that once absorbedis, whatever it actually was, gone now. The Sabbatdefines your existence, and you're satisfied withit. You take vicarious pleasure in the accomplish-ments of your packmates and do what you can todiscipline them so that they can do, well, almost aswell as you did in your prime.Sire: probably Almira Veracruz, then Bishop ofOaklandNature: DirectorDemeanor: JudgeGeneration: l l thEmbrace: 1954Apparent Age: mid-30sPhysical: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3Social: Charisma 2, Manipulation 3, Appearance 2Mental: Perception 2, Intelligence 4, Wits 4

Talents: Alertness 3, Dodge 1, Leadership 3, Sub-terfuge 3Skills: Drive 1, Firearms 2, Security 4, Stealth 2Knowledges: Academics 2, Computer 2, Finance4, Investigation 2, Law 2, Occult (Abyss) 3, SabbatLore 3, Science 3Backgrounds: Contacts 3, Resources 2Disciplines: Celeri ty 1, Dominate 4,Obtenebration 2Virtues: Conscience 3, Self-Control 3, Courage 4Morality: Humanity 5Willpower: 7

GeoFFRrf Y ARMOR, PRIESTBackground: Geoffrey actually served as an

unwitting pack member for three years while hewas still alive. Richard discovered him exploitingvery subtle weaknesses in CompuServe in 1982,when Geoffrey was seventeen and using his par-ents' computer to grind out high-quality warez.Geoffrey showed an aptitude for trivia and prob-lem solving that stood out even in the crowd ofextremely diligent, utterly bored teenage hackershe belonged to. Richard was still active in theBBSing scene then, under two prominent handles,and passed specific chores to Geoffrey as a sort oftest, both of aptitude and morality. The boy showedwide-ranging competence and an utter disregardfor ethical issues, and by 1984 he drew a regularstipend from Black Eagle Consulting for help onencryption and networking chores.

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In 1984, Geoffrey went through a round ofchemotherapy for leukemia. It ended successfullywith the disease in remission, but Richard de-cided not to take a chance on losing a valuableasset. Geoffrey was fascinated by the whole no-tion of vampirism and took immediately to theSabbat — he already regarded the vast majority ofhumanity as boring prey, so it wasn't much of astretch for him. He studied the occult with thesame determination he applied to hacking, cata-loging a huge body of lore with an eye forunexpected correlations. The Embrace didn't doanything to relieve his hot temper and deep-seated conviction of personal correctness, and hehad some close scrapes in his early years. Eventu-ally he learned how to stifle the most egregiousinsults, and things went better thereafter.

Geoffrey has served as pack priest since 1993.His detached attitude means that he has no personalagenda to push, and his knack for careful questioningmakes him quite useful as a spiritual advisor.

Image: Geoffrey still looks like a teenage geek— he's very likely to get carded for any purchaseswith age restrictions. He hopes that eventually hecan work permanent alterations in his appear-ance, because he's tired of the hassles. In themeantime, he generally dresses casually, but whenthe situation calls for a dandy, he's the one theBlack Eagles send in. He has by far the pack's mostextensive collection of really fine suits and knowshow to wear them properly.

Roleplaying Hints: Unlife is the hack thatnever ends. Hacking's always been a means to twoends for you — superior knowledge and superiorstatus. Well, you know things that your formerpeers could never dream of (or cope with if theydid), and you're one of the secret masters of theworld. Hot damn! This is a great way to go. Youlove your existence and will go to any lengths toprotect it.Sire: Richard WeinsteinNature: Thrill-SeekerDemeanor: Thrill-SeekerGeneration: 12thEmbrace: 1985Apparent Age: late teensPhysical: Strength 2, Dexterity 4, Stamina 2Social: Charisma 2, Manipulation 4, Appearance 2Mental: Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 3Talents: Alertness 3, Leadership 2, Streetwise 3,Subterfuge 4

Skills: Firearms 3, Security 4Knowledges: Computer 4, Investigation 4, Oc-cult (Abyss) 4, Science 1Backgrounds: noneDisciplines: Dominate 1, Obfuscate 1,Obtenebration 2, Potence 1Virtues: Conscience 1, Self-Control 3, Courage 4Morality: Humanity 4Willpower: 6ANGELICA SHAWN

Background: Angelica says little about hermortal life. Her packmates know that she came ofage somewhere on the West Coast in the 1950s,and that she earned a reputation early on as adeviant of some sort. They know that she spenttime in mental hospitals undergoing elaboratedrug therapies and even electroshock. They knowthat she became a vampire while in prison for theattempted murder of her family, a desperate efforton her part to avoid more medical assaults. Shenever discusses the rest.

In fact, Angelica was transgendered. Her fam-ily interpreted her desire to become physically aswell as mentally female as evidence of psychosis.She accepted the Embrace in part because theSabbat pack preying on her cell block happenedto use Vicissitude in her presence. She offered topay any price they cared to name for the power tochange her form that way. She spent the nextdecade in the midst of danger, performing what-

grunt chores the pack assigned herever in

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA94

exchange for the occasional fix of Vicissitude.When, ten years on, they deigned to work a per-manent transformation on her, she diablerizedthe pack leader and fled.

As a mortal she'd studied mathematics, andwhile she had no applied experience with com-puters, she found herself crossing paths with BlackEagles more and more often during the '70s thanksto shared interest in some sorts of mortal targets.Gradually she went from loner status to packmember. She could in theory challenge Richardfor leadership, but she prefers to let someone elsedeal with the Sabbat hierarchy whenever pos-sible. This way she gets to work with the group shecares about and dodges the hassles.

Image: Angelica chose an exotic combina-tion of features for herself; observers sometimesmake out traces of African and Caribbean ances-try, but the product is uniquely her own. She hasalert gray eyes and long white hair. Most of thetime she favors functional, casual clothing, butwhen the pack needs "social engineering," shecan compete with Geoffrey for the honor of best-dressed member.

Roleplaying Hints: Humanity has potential,but so does dirt. You remain consumed with rageat the society that made you suffer. Never mindthe grand crusade for the future of the world, youjust want to make the bastards who hurt youbleed. And you want to make the sheep whoacquiesce to their tyranny bleed, too. No amountof human misery will satisfy you. It's only amongvampires that you can calm down long enough topursue your chosen science.Sire: WarriorNature: VisionaryDemeanor: CompetitorGeneration: l l th (originally 12th)Embrace: 1962Apparent Age: 30Physical: Strength 3, Dexterity 4, Stamina 3Social: Charisma 3, Manipulation 3, Appearance 3Mental: Perception 3, Intelligence 4, Wits 4Talents: Alertness 2, Athletics 4, Brawl 3, Dodge3, Empathy 2, Expression 3, Intimidation 3,Streetwise 2, Subterfuge 2Skills: Animal Ken 1, Etiquette 2, Firearms 2,Performance 1, Security 2Knowledges: Academics 3, Law 3, Linguistics 1(Spanish), Occult 2, Science 4

Backgrounds: noneDisciplines: Dominate 3, Obtenebration 3, Po-tence 2Virtues: Conviction 4, Instinct 2, Courage 4Morality: Path of Night 4Willpower: 8KATHFRINF SCHMIDT

Background: Katherine grew up in a house-hold steeped in both arts and sciences. Her fatherwas a famous geologist, her mother an equallyfamous illustrator. Quite early in life, Katherinedecided that she'd combine the two, and devel-oped her skills as a scientific and technical artist.Her parents enthusiastically supported her, thoughshe won enough scholarships to pay her own way.

Her first brush with the Sabbat occurred inParis. A pack of Toreador antitribu preyed onstudents the year she studied at the Sorbonne,destroying anyone whose work failed to entrancethem. Katherine woke up one night to find threeconfused vampires peering at her gorgeous draw-ings of snail shells and carefully inked diagrams ofbolt configurations, at once overwhelmed by hertalent and totally bored by the subjects. For a longtime she said nothing. They did not speak. In theend, they left, leaving her to wonder if it was alljust a hallucination.

Years later she had her second encounter. Bythen she was well established at a university press,mounting occasional (usually successful) exhibi-tions of her personal illustration projects anddabbling in arts and crafts from gem polishing to

CHAPTER THREE: NEW SHADOWS95

candle making. She was taking down picturesafter a show when a vampire murdered the galleryowner, turned to Katherine— then froze, en-tranced by her work. A second vampire enteredthe gallery. He killed the first, murmured, "Untillater," to Katherine, and dragged the corpses out.

She wasn't good for much after that. She sawsupernatural apparitions everywhere. Her worksuffered, becoming what critics called uninspired.In truth, she'd lost her faith that science and logicmattered to the world that forced itself on her inthe night. She struggled back to a point of poise,abandoning scientific work for disturbing surreal-istic work on horrific subjects.

The Black Eagles discovered her then. Theywatched her recovery and her growing occultfascination, and decided that they'd benefit fromhaving an artist in the ranks. Three members ofthe pack appeared to her one night and told herthe rest of the truth. She had a single question:"Will I be able to hunt down the ones who stalkedme?" When told that she could, she accepted theEmbrace. She's still coming to terms with hercondition and goes through bouts of intense self-loathing for which she compensates with evermore fervent efforts on behalf of the pack.

Image: Katherine is a short, stout woman withcurly brown hair. She doesn't actually need glasses, butshe wears them out of habit, along with many-pocketedcoats and trousers stuffed full of drawing tools.

Roleplaying Hints: The artist must alwaysportray what she knows. How can you turn backon the challenge of whole new categories of expe-rience? Soon, you hope, you'll be able to renderyour new knowledge in suitable media. In themeantime, you work with your new "colleagues"and appreciate the opportunity to make thingsharsh for the Toreador and their allies. The worstposeur that ever lived was not one-tenth thethreat to real art that those creatures are. TheJyhad cannot come soon enough for you.Sire: Richard WeinsteinNature: PerfectionistDemeanor: ConformistGeneration: 12thEmbrace: 1997Apparent Age: late 30sPhysical: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 1Social: Charisma 4, Manipulation 4, Appearance 2

Mental: Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 2Talents: Alertness 2, Dodge 1, Expression 4Skills: Crafts 3, Drive 1, Etiquette 1, Firearms 1,Performance 3Knowledges: Academics 2, Computer 1, Law 2,Linguistics 2 (French, German), Occult 2, Sci-ence 4 (Geology)Backgrounds: noneDisciplines: Dominate 2, Obtenebration 1, Po-tence 1Virtues: Conscience 3, Self-Control 3, Courage 3Morality: Humanity 4Willpower: 5

LASOMBRA OF NOTECARDINAL MON^ADA

The mastermind of Clan Lasombra has been de-stroyed. For nearly a thousand years he led much of hisclan and sect toward a vision of Cainite mastery, underthe dark banner of Heaven's wrath. He brokered truces,persuaded some antagonists and destroyed others, allthe while staying a dozen moves ahead of would-bechallengers. The Cardinal originated many of the poli-cies that now define the Lasombra's position in theFinal Nights, from rapid expansion into the New Worldto building brood havens on imperial frontiers.

For centuries, his mirrored chambers beneathMadrid were the epicenter of Lasombra culture.Mongada led his clan far more often than the Friendsof the Night gathering in the ruined Sicilian strong-hold and other places important in clan history.

Hubris took him, in the end. A combination ofunforeseen circumstances destroyed him in anAssamite attack on his haven. An Abyssal guardiansummoned long ago to guard his innermost sanctumturned on him, thanks to a peculiar conflict ofimperatives which none of the survivors understandvery well (or even at all). Now he's gone on to findthe eternal punishment he always expected.

The surviving portions of the Cardinal's ha-ven have become a pilgrimage destination fordevout Lasombra, and even for some devoutCainites of other clans. They travel to see the spotwhere the greatest advocate of Cainites' role astools of divine vengeance fell, and to ponder theirown uncertain futures. A small coterie of elderLasombra protect pilgrims in and around Madrid,shielding them from would-be predators.

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\

LUCITA

The most famous independent member of ClanLasombra faces her own difficulties. She took partin the Assamite assault on her sire the Cardinal,and believed that his destruction would at lastbring her peace. It hasn't. His presence within hermind is now gone forever. His legacy of ideas andchallenges remains.

Lucita hadn't fully grasped the extent to whichher existence was a series of negatives. She'dacted, more often than she realized, in whateverway would most displease her sire and interferewith his plans. Now it doesn't matter. He doesn'tsee or care. (At least, none of the mediums ornecromancers she's spoken with find any linger-ing trace of his soul.) Offending and sabotagingher sire's aims was never her only motive, but withthe Cardinal gone, the others jumble together inunfamiliar patterns.

Now Lucita finds herself seeking out the com-pany of other vampires on occasions besides thestart or end of a contract. In a variety of disguises,she listens to how fervent neonates in both theCamarilla and Sabbat define their senses of pur-pose, and to how elders worn down by recentstruggles discuss what to do next. For the mo-ment, she's stepped away from Fatima, whoseattention to Assamite clan affairs offers no in-sight to the problems Lucita wrestles with.

Lucita-spotting is a centuries-old hobby amongthe Lasombra. In recent nights, rumors put her inso many interesting locales. For even half of themto be true, she'd have to spend all of her timetraveling and then slipping up in ways that makeher visible. In fact, the vast majority of her realappearances among other vampires go altogetherundetected. At least a few ambitious neonatesand ancillae sometimes impersonate her. She findsthis amusing and lets them do it, knowing that thepenalties for being caught will in time weed outthe crowd.ZARATHUSTRA

Beyond the Sabbat and the antitribu, someLasombra regard all sect labels as so much transitoryfluff. Of these, Zarathustra is one of the most active.A native of Antioch (in modern Turkey), he wasEmbraced by a veteran of the post-Thera dispersalwhile in central Asia with Alexander the Great'sarmy. After a mortal lifetime's worth of wandering,he settled in his home town and set about protectingand improving it. He continues to do so in the newmillennium, when not in torpor.

Zarathustra is of the fifth generation. He cantrace his offspring all the way down to 14th gen-eration neonates created since the Gulf War. Atvarious times, his lineage has included more thana hundred active members. Thanks to unsuccess-ful crusades and a wave of successful vampirehunting by Sunni Muslim nationalists, only fortyor so members of the lineage walk the modernnights. Zarathustra himself remains unchallengedas secret father of the city.

He owes much of his success to a single-mindedfocus: Only events that affect Antioch concern him.When the Crusades brought invading armies throughhis city, he learned enough about mortal politics andreligion to effectively direct his childer to route ma-rauding hordes elsewhere. When Ottoman forcesoverwhelmed Turkey's western shores, Zarathustra andhis childer studied Islam and learned how to help theirfavored mortal families adjust. When Attaturk's na-tionalism brought Turkey into contact with the Westernpowers, Zarathustra learned the language of imperial-ism and oversaw a combination of diplomacy andcovert manipulation that protected Antioch, albeit atthe cost of leaving other parts of Turkey vulnerable toexploitation. They weren't his concern.

Antioch was a commercial port long beforeZarathustra's own time, and his lineage includesmany merchants and traders. In the Final Nights,some members of the line oversee brokerages inChicago and commodity exchanges in Shanghai,while a complex network of overlapping director-ates manages thousands of tons of shipping eachyear for the lineage's benefit.

Zarathustra survived the early Sabbat effortsto wipe out all Methuselahs through a combina-tion of prudence and good luck. He allowed hislineage to take part in some Sabbat efforts, if theywanted to, and resorted to bribery as well asintimidation to direct war parties at other targets.(In the course of thirty years or so in the mid-15thcentury, he used the Sabbat to eliminate at leasta dozen of his most serious rivals in coastal Tur-key.) When necessary, he simply withdrew intoshadow with arts unknown to neonates and waiteduntil their fervor burned out.

Once or twice a century, Zarathustra agrees toserve on a Court of Blood. He's adjudicated mat-ters for both the Sabbat and the antitribu. Noyounger vampire quite understands how he choosescases, but the other judging Friends agree thateach time Zarathustra serves, he acts within thecode of conduct accepted by the participants rather

CHAPTER THREE: NEW SHADOWS97 \

than imposing his own views. He also meets withpromising neonates — rumor says he sends childerand grandchilder out to wean ambitious Lasombraaway from the Sabbat. He doesn't presume to tellthe rest of Caine's offspring how to run theiraffairs, but when asked he makes a potent case forsimple independence.

DeMBA MAKEMBA ADOULA, "CONRAD"Background: Makemba Adoula grew up amid

one of the great atrocities of the 19th century, theBelgian occupation of the Congo. Under KingLeopold, a literal army of soldiers and a sprawlingmob of opportunists swarmed over the landscapein search of precious metals and any other loot.Disease took a horrendous toll — many settle-ments lost 90% of their European population everyyear — but more young men were always willing torisk it all in the pursuit of wealth. Elaboratemachinery rusted. Fanciful buildings rotted. Live-stock sickened and died. The European presencebecame a scene of constant entropy.

Diseases swept through the native popula-tions as well. Soldiers massacred whole villages.Panicked natives went to war with each other aswell as with the invaders, and religious fervorkindled fanatical crusades of all sorts. This waslife when Makemba grew up along the banks ofthe Congo.

As a young woman, she fell under the sway of oneof the countless charismatic conquerors who carvedlittle personal empires for themselves out of thejungle. She learned something about European tech-nology and culture, and watched an icy dark passion

I

consume her mentor from the inside. ("Icy" was itselfa foreign concept to her, and the notion of waterstripped of every property she associated with itfascinated her.) When he died, she threw herselfinto a blind panic and raced away from the river,toward some fresh illumination.

Elias Bruylant was a two-hundred-year-oldLasombra who came with some of the very firstEuropean explorers in the 1860s. He built a havenfor himself in ruins on the Sangha tributary of theCongo River and gathered select natives whoshowed leadership potential . He'd watchedMakemba's mentor with interest and marked hisstudent as a woman who might go far, if liberatedfrom her mortal constraints. When she fled, hefollowed and brought her to his haven. There heexplained very politely what he was going to do,and forcibly Embraced her.

Unlife wasn't altogether a shock for the newvampire. She already despaired of life, and follow-ing her mentor's darkening philosophy found itsomehow quite suitable to now be wholly depen-dent upon others as a parasite. Gradually sheexplored the scope of her new powers. When sheand Elias agreed she was ready, she went to Europeto investigate her mentor's homeland. She's neverreturned to the Congo, though she occasionallyvisits other parts of Africa.

Europe dazzled her. Here were empires andphilosophies such as she'd never dreamed, andnot a one of them could resist her blood-grantedpowers. She traveled the continent, making theacquaintance of her fellow Lasombra and gradu-ally joining in the Sabbat's cause. CardinalMoncada made her a personal project for severalyears after World War I, hoping to convince herto adopt his theology, but she had no use for hisnotion of God. She parted with him after explain-ing that as far as she was concerned, his God washer Devil and she didn't need to worship onepower of darkness with two faces.

In the 1920s, she began calling herself"Conrad" in a quiet personal nod to a Polish-English writer who made a deep impression onher. He'd been to her homeland and seen the samehorrors she had, and captured them in prose thatspoke to her soul. In moments when she feltpurposeless and truly dead, his written anger wouldrekindle her desire to reshape the world.

During the Great Depression, she came to theNew World in search of fresh opportunities. Hernatural flair for rhetoric gives her many opportuni-

QANBOOK: LASOMBRA98 \

ties in black communities, from North Americanghettos to poor districts in South America. She lovesto stir up trouble and see which souls show enoughfire or ice to endure when official persecution de-scends. From time to time, she dreams of organizinga coordinated Sabbat effort to provoke white gov-ernments in more tyrannical states, to see if Americanempires would breed more people like herself, but sofar nothing's come of it.

When she tires of personal ventures, she spendstime instructing new recruits in Lasombra historyand powers. Herself a product of destructive nov-elty, she remains curious about the opportunitiesthat the new century's chaos may bring forth. Thenotion of impending Gehenna seems ludicrous toher — somebody's world is always ending, andfrom it comes new vampires.

Image: When she's not in disguise, Conrad is atall slim woman with an extremely dark complexion.Her face is scarred with ritual marks, overlaid withgarbled Westerns symbols she picked up from herinsane mentor. She prefers to dress simply, in shirtsand trousers that give her room to move freely,though she can match the heights of fashion whenshe chooses to. When she deals with mortals, sheuses Obfuscate to very slightly shift her features, justenough so that she seems to belong in whatevercommunity she's manipulating.

Roleplaying Hints: You have a deep andspreading hatred for mortal society. You hate theconquerors who destroyed your hopes, and youhate your own people for lacking the spiritualstrength to resist. You now find hope only inindividuals who prove they can overcome, anddedicate yourself to finding them, then releasingthem from the prison that is life. You "grew up"outside the Sabbat, and even now it isn't quite socentral for you as it is for Sabbat-created neo-nates. With time, whether you will it or not, yourpersonal crusade intertwines more closely withthe Sabbat's great war. You're not sure whetheryou like that or not.Sire: Elias BruylantNature: VisionaryDemeanor: ArchitectGeneration: 10thPhysical: Strength 2, Dexterity 3, Stamina 2Social: Charisma 3, Manipulation 4, Appearance 2Mental: Perception 4, Intelligence 4, Wits 3Talents: Alertness 3, Athletics 2, Brawl 3, Dodge 1,Empathy 2, Expression 2, Intimidation 3, Leadership3, Subterfuge 2

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Skills: Animal Ken 1, Crafts 2, Etiquette 1, Fire-arms 3, Stealth 3, Survival 3Knowledges: Linguistics 3 (Belgian, English,French), Medicine 1, Occult 2, Sabbat Lore 2Backgrounds: noneDiscipl ines: Dominate 2, Obfuscate 3,Obtenebration 5, Potence 1Virtues: Conviction 3, Self-Control 3, Courage 5Morality: Path of Night (Cold Path) 6Willpower: 7

LIN BALOH, xne BLOODTHIRSTY PROPHETBackground: Lin Baloh grew up in a China

torn by unrest. The governing Qing dynasty lackedwidespread legitimacy — its emperors wereManchu, rather than Han Chinese, and in a timethat called for quick response and intelligent seiz-ing of opportunities, they could only ossifyConfucian orthodoxy and bar the door againstintruders. But in the early 19th century, the in-vaders didn't just come on horseback or withscrolls proclaiming dangerous ideas. They camewith guns.

Baloh came to manhood during the TaipingRebellion, in which a southern Chinese man pro-claimed himself Jesus' younger brother and rightfulemperor, gathering millions together into an armythat the Qing could defeat only with Westernmercenaries. Baloh's family was ethnically Chi-nese but Jewish in practice, an offshoot of acenturies-old Jewish enclave there. They had nofaith in the Taiping leader's divinity but sup-ported him as a more vigorous alternative to the

Qing. Baloh's father and three of his brothersjoined the revolt, and all died in battle or wereexecuted once the rebellion failed. Baloh stayedhome to tend the family farm outside Nankingand thus escaped punishment.

Baloh didn't escape the pervasive despair thatfollowed. He became an opium addict in a searchfor distraction from life's grinding routine. Whentax collectors took the last of the family estate, hewandered to the city, doing just enough day laborto pay for more opium.

A few opium users sometimes slip into ragesrather than stupor while under the influence. Balohproved to be one of these. He came to the attentionof Nanking's Lasombra brood in a particularly artis-tic and violent rampage along the waterfront, inwhich he used spilled perfumes and spices to createhuge calligraphic insults directed at the port au-thorities. The brood was impressed by his courageand resolve even while exhausted and drugged, andbrought him into their care. He served them as aghoul for more than a decade, doing daytime errandsand learning how to apply his blood-given powers toacts of creative destruction.

He won the Embrace during a dock strike, when hewas trapped with his soon-to-be sire in a burning ware-house. Baloh persuaded the vampire to let Baloh work outan escape, one that required true vampiric might. Thevampire accepted. Baloh did in fact escape and never hadto explain what happened to the desiccated corpse leftbehind. The other members of the brood saw Baloh'sobvious burns and assumed that the older Cainite wasn'tquite fast enough to escape a falling roof beam or some-thing of the sort.

The Nanking Lasombra had been antitribu ever sincethey received word of the Sabbat's existence. Baloh playeda decisive role in changing that. His own act of siredestruction fed his appetite for more, and he carefully setabout making contact with the Western Sabbat whosometimes sheltered in his port. He finally struck in 1889(exploiting a brief panic among Westerners in the portthat Jack the Ripper had come there from London),leading a pack of shock troops. Half the existing broodjoined the Sabbat. The other half perished.

Baloh became one of the youngest Lasombra invitedinto the Friends of the Night since the first great Sabbatrevolt, not long thereafter, and he still plays a crucial rolein keeping the scattered Asian Sabbat in touch with eachother and in accord with sound doctrine. He continues tospend most of his time in Nanking, but travels severaltimes a year to meet with his fellow warriors in convenientports throughout the region. He managed to forestall

many potentially sect-disrupting problems during WorldWar II through an aggressive program of establishingVinculum bonds, which continues to tie diverse packstogether. The news of mysterious chaos in India andBangladesh not long ago roused him to even more ferventeffort. He believes the great war is coming, and he intendsto remain standing at the end of it.

Image: Baloh is five and a half feet tall, and somewhatgaunt. He wears his black hair closely cut and often shaveshis head. He began unlife with a long queue, but got itcaught in an awkward moment once too often. He dressesin Western jeans and flannel shirts, looking very muchlike a textbook example of a "Westernized hooligan" asfound in Chinese police manuals. While he doesn't delib-erately go looking for fights, he certainly does nothing toavoid them, and prefers to dress functionally for thepurpose. He often wears wraparound sunglasses, havingbeen impressed by Arnold Schwartzenegger's look inTerminator.

Roleplaying Hints: Unlife is wonderful! In a particu-larly perverse way, you have become the well-balancedman of Confucian lore, balancing physical, intellectualand aesthetic exertion into a single harmonious whole. Ofcourse, Confucius didn't think of the whole being directedtoward the subjugation of all living flesh, but that's sagesfor you. You like who and what you are, and you take greatsatisfaction in strengthening the Sabbat in this land, farfrom the sect's birthplace. The recent omens worry you,but you compensate by being that much more attentive topreparations. Victory will be yours.Sire: UnknownNature: CompetitorDemeanor: GuruGeneration: llthPhysical: Strength 4, Dexterity 3, Stamina 4Social: Charisma 3, Manipulation 4, Appearance 2Mental: Perception 3, Intelligence 3, Wits 3Talents: Alertness 3, Athletics 4, Brawl 3, Dodge 3,Expression 3, Intimidation 4, Leadership 4, Streetwise 3,Subterfuge 2Skills: Drive 2, Firearms 3, Security 3, Stealth 3Knowledges: Finance 1, Investigation 3, Linguistics 3(English, Japanese, Vietnamese)Backgrounds: Contacts 3Disciplines: Animalism 1, Celerity 2, Dominate 4, Forti-tude 2, Obtenebration 3, Potence 3Virtues: Conscience 2, Self-Control 3, Courage 5Morality: Humanity 3 (preparing to adopt Path of Night(Hot Path))Willpower: 8

CLANBOOK: LASOMBRA100

NAME:PLAYER:CHRONICLE:

PHYSICALStrengthDexterityStamina

TALENTSAlertnessAthleticsBrawlDodgeEmpathy

1 Expression1 Intimidation1 Leadership1 Streetwise

Subterfuge

•oooo•0000•oooo

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BACKGROUNDSOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- ——— MERITS/FLAWS ——— *-

,

NATURE:DEMEANOR:CONCEPT:

SOCIALCharisma •OOOOManipulation •OOOOAppearance •OOOO

SKILLSAnimal Ken OOOOOCrafts OOOOODrive OOOOOEtiquette OOOOOFirearms OOOOOMelee OOOOOPerformance OOOOOSecurity OOOOOStealth OOOOOSurvival OOOOO

DISCIPLINESOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

-• ——— HUMANITY/PATH ——— •-

o o o o o o o o o o-• ———— WILLPOWER ———— •-O O O O O O O O O On n n n n n n n n n-• ———— BLOOD POOL ———— •-

n n n n n n n n n n

GENERATION:SIRP:HAVEN:

MENTALPerception •OOOOIntelligence •OOOOWits •OOOO

KNOWLEDGESAcademics OOOOOComputer OOOOOFinance OOOOOInvestigation OOOOOLaw OOOOOLinguistics OOOOOMedicine OOOOOOccult OOOOOPolitics OOOOOScience OOOOO

VIRTUESConscience/Conviction 00000

Self-Control/Instinct •OOOO

Courage •OOOO

-• ————————— HE ALT H ————————— >~

Bruised HHurt -1 nInjured -1 HWounded -2 DMauled -2 OCrippled -5 HIncapacitated H

-• ———— WEAKNESS ———— "~

Casts No Reflection

LOTHER TRAITS

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

NAME

OOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

LFVFL TOTAL:TOTAL SPHNT:spent on:

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooo

;NC, —————

•DERANGEMENTS

BoUNOTO•BLOOD BONDS/ VINCULI

RATING BOUND TO RATING

COMBATWEAPON DAMAGE RANGE RATE CLIP CONCEAL ARMOR

ALLIESBACKGROUND

MENTOR

CONTACTS RESOURCES

FAME RETAINERS

HERD STATUS

INFLUENCE OTHER

GEAR (CARRIED)POSSESSIONS

EQUIPMENT (OWNED)

FEEDING GROUNDS VEHICLES

LOCATIONHAVENS

DESCRIPTION

' \

HISTORY-PRHLUDH

A OF_______APPARENT AGE_DATF OF BIRTH_RIP_______HAIR________Eves_______RACE_______NATIONALITY_H FIGHT______

W FIGHT______

VlSUALSCOTFRIF CHART CHARACTER SKFTCH