, H, W H err you n e v e rt, yo maa t, m re s yoou e e.. If y m e w m noo w k n t k You do n t Yo us . lu c h y l s c es l m e A e c a l l m , c w, noo w Foor n l. F l l. w i l h e t h bu t l yoou, bu e l l y t e t t woo n t er w l er e c o m p i l tl e t t l i t Yoour l i Y ng. s i ng s s is m i es m l es fi l s f i ioous i rec p ec s pr is erra l of h i e v e ndd s fou n haa t fe w of w h y a e re o n l y e a e s es m.. T h e h e m t h k t tooo k I t i n n a re i t are res h e es yoou - t h m y red fro m ir ed u i qu q w e v e ac too n t i n n i v e n l b e g i v l l b ndd w i l , aa n e, e laac re p l c u e p ec e ry s er y v e yoou ldd y hoou l h s s s ndds haa n ng h i ng mooda t i c o m m s ac c es s a l es h l h uc mu m idd. u p i tu t ng s h i ng y a n y t h tr y yoours t of y jec pro ec s pr is e.. T h i e c nc haa n h haa v e o n e c Yoou h Y re effo e b e , b w, t noo w ndd i t n l of us . E n to a l l errous to ngg e s dda n is i tha n a ha ioous t i rec re pr ec moo e p ng m h i ng e s o m e t h loos yoou l y es . l es fi l e fe w i us lu c h y l s c es A e
Okay. Whoever wrote this should be strung up by their heels and slowly lowered into a bucket of blood-addicted boty larvae. To posit that the Ventrue are just one big bloodline oshoot o the Savages is… Well. It turns my stomach. And very little turns my stomach these nights.
This is something that I had hoped was local,
but isn’t. A number o Crone-worshipping Lords seem to have jumped on board with this idea, which is rankly appalling. Most Ventrue in the Circle have the good sense to believe themselves the relations to or children o gods. This kind o blasphemy, though, which takes it to such an absurd level? Ugh.
Revolting. Frankly, like any religious text, it’s occluded in all kinds o pseudo spiritual wale. At least it’s not very convincing.
The e ncircled Kings The Dark Mother watched a the fal e-faced one were con umed by the wallowing of the world and the inking of the even hill . Tho e of the legacy thought to u urp the de tiny of all tho e of the Blood, but it wa not to be, for the Mother of Mon ter knew them to be pretender . She, the Mother Savage, aw that the e civilized few were not what they claimed at all, but had h ad hole where their heart hould have been, hole in which gho t could crawl. Once the pretender were ou ted there remained only five familie : tho e of the dark, tho e of the worm , tho e of the mirror, her own children of the moon, and tho e who remain hidden. With the pretender dead, the table could not tand. And o with thi weakne the de tiny of the Dark Mother wa in danger, and the time came that the Savage Mother sought to recomplete the circle once more. She needed a childe who could walk among both bo th man and bea t a king, and o he dragged a human king, Taharka, into the temple at Gebel Barkal, and he con umed hi heart and hi blood and gave him part of her heart and a droplet of her blood in return. Thi outpouring of the Dark Mother’ power cored the wall with image of Taharka the Lord, the progenitor of the dead king , the keeper of the cepter of the Savage Moon. Taharka the Lord wa both man and bea t: a wift and ferociou a a lion, a commanding and intelligent a a king. He could peak to the nake and urge the heart of all men. He too had a hole in hi heart where worm could creep, and all of hi children are ho t to thi ame hole. Thi hole, born of the imperfection of the blood and bored into the meat by the weakening of the Mother’ own mon trou blood, till remain a terrible weakne to thi day. Should the gho t return they have a place in which to creep, cree p, a weightle a a breath but a heavy a in. The children of Taharka do not believe it po ible that they come from what they believe to be uch impure tock. They do not seel the pride in being the active heart of the Mother of Mon ter , the gra ping heart of the Savage Mother, and thi may be their failing. In pu hing away the true torie they fail to recognize the hole in their heart, and when the gho t once more ri e, they will not know how to call upon the Dark Mother and the moon to top them. s
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Colonialism and the migration of lords “Colonialism is a much more ormal word than what I think we’d pick i we were to give the ‘custom’ a name tonight. That name came up, I don’t know, in the 1500s, even though we’d been doing this same thing or a thousand years by then. For whatever reason, it stuck, and we still haven’t shaken it o. So when I let Holland or England, I wasn’t simply dodging an overcrowded — and rankly hostile — domain o overlapping fes just to get a chance at landing my own territory in Manchester or Aberdeen or even London. Instead, I was ‘a colonial, boldly going to bring my sire’s wonderul Blood to a new city,’ as my sire would say, ‘and thus expanding our worth or both o us.’ “Tonight I’d be like a kid going o to college to make my own way in the world. Nothing special, these nights, among mortals. The neonates I’ve spoken to about this all seem to think that braving a new city stalked by anonymous, territorial monsters is no big deal. Because they haven’t done it. “I can think o... hm, seven? Ten? Plenty o whelps who’ve gone o to other cities in search o their own power or lordship and just disappearing into the night. Maybe they’re just not reaching back to maintain their connections to their old
cities and their sires, but I’ll bet that they never made it to the city nor did they make it in the city. For those poor bastards, it’s a short story. “Tonight’s “To night’s mortals are brought up thinking that inheriting the amily business or inheriting your parents’ home or staying in the town where you grew up is so oten a sign o weakness. They think it’s pathetic, basically. They’ve been raised on bedtime stories o world explorers, whether i t’s Cook or Columbus or Indiana Jones. Going places is the only way to know that you’re going places, I guess. A lot o these edglings have trouble adapting to the idea that they may have to wait in the shadow o their sires or decades or a seat to open up at the table or a chance to be awarded territory by the Prince. Sticking around is passé, I guess. “You “Yo u know, to be air, the thing with the explorers was true back then, too. On the one hand, we’re trying to capture some o the glory and excitement — and, yeah, the prestige — o Aeneas and Brutus and the great conquerors among the kine. We sent our childer, our colonials, o to the New World because we wanted some Ventr Ventrue ue to be conquistadores, even though our sires and Ephors weren’t willing to risk their Requiems or their lordship or the chance. But they’d share a amily name with grand explorers, so that’s something.
“The Cartier brood, colonials o the New World” donated by Marienne Cartier
I got this short meditation on the nature (and purpose) o Ventrue colonialism by interviewing a Lord in my own city — though i you ask him, he will not remember it. What I fnd interesting here (aside rom his candor) is his sense o the danger lurking within every ally, contact and cohort we keep.
“The point, though, was to expand existing control and inuence beyond whatever limited territory was available in the local fes, not sow new power, like modern Kindred seem to think. “Look, when I let Holland, I was being petulan t. I wanted to be lord over some small fe, and I wasn’t willing to wait. But ater I got to Aberdeen and set up shop there, I ound that I was able to carve out a mighty three streets o tur because I didn’t care what kind o enemies I made. I discovered that coming into town without a reputation, without any implied juice behind me, is nothing but hurt. Lots o Kindred tried to take me out in that frst year because, you know what, why shouldn’t they? Nobody knew me and they had no r eason to think anyone was going to avenge my Final Death. What’s the consequence or chopping up a vampire with no allies and no connections? Nothing. “So, like a whelp, I tried to go mumming back to my sire in Amsterdam. I sent letters, but I heard nothing back. I sent a courier, but I still heard nothing back. Were the letters getting there? Was anyone who would be able to read through the Masquerade in my letters even still in residence at the old address? How the uck did I know? I had to go by what the courier told me when he came back with my letter in hand: Nobody was there. The place was abandoned. “It was humiliating, but I didn’t have much let to do to deend mysel but ingratiate mysel with the local Lords in Aberdeen. I swore oaths. I became another Lord’s vassal. I spent something like thirteen years getting mysel established again. I took on a new amily, drank new Blood and changed my name. “When my Priscus decided we should be getting rich o the New World, he picked three o us to brave the voyage by sea. (One o us was Embraced just or this purpose, in act.) We went to Wales, we boarded three dierent ships with us locked up in chests inside, and we sailed or the Province o Carolina. O the three o us, I’m the only one who made it, near as we can tell. This was 1662. “The frst thing I did when I got o the boat was hand the letter I’d written wr itten back in Wales to the frst sailors heading back. bac k. A year later, the Lord Priscus o Aberdeen wrote back. “So you see what’s happened now, right? And this was especially amazing back then. I was halway around the globe, in this bizarre bizarr e new territory, but I still had connections back in the old country. I had inormation about what was happening in England — inormation known only to important mortals and the Lords who made them kings — an d others here in the Colonies didn’t have that. So I became valuable in the new colonial settlements because I could predict hostilities and travels and visitors rom overseas. I was protected, at least a lit tle bit, because some important Lord with a city ull o minions could dispatch Ventrue blades, or activate some colonial Crypteia, to avenge my destruction.
Was this likely ? Not as likely as we made it seem. But it was a degree o protection, at least. “Tonight, the colonialism isn’t much dierent. I sent my childe out west with the number to a cell phone I keep just or him. So he can call me and have me send money or weapons or inormation I can coax out o other Lords with colonials in his city. He has an edge over the local Kindred who don’t have these connections. “But the night he arrived in that new city wasn’t much easier. Strangers with protective, territorial territori al Beasts smelled the stink o a oreign vampir e, and what could he do about it? Wherever he goes, he runs the risk o trespassing without even knowing which landlord he’s oending. He doesn’t know where this fe ends and that one begins. (Though, actually, I hear you can do that in St. Louis, where the Invictus have some ront company in the phone book, like First Estate Movers or some shit. Because a ew o the Society Kindred out there t here are in the business o shipping shippi ng Kindred in and out o the city. But you’d still have to know to call that number and say the right shit to get yoursel in touch with actual Society vampires.)
“The trouble with all this colonialism, though, is that every connection is like a cord, linking one Lord to another. Pull on that cord, and the Kindred on the other end o the connection gets pulled into view. It’s dangerous. It can be abused. “What i my childe changes his loyalties? Ater a ew years in the dominion o other Lords and other covenants, it’s probably more than likel y. He could give my cell number to some evil nomads or some tech-savvy Shadows and have me tracked, destroyed and robbed to pay o his debts or make his Prince richer or something. Anyone who wants to get at me could go through him. Every gate in the city wall is a spot where thieves and spies and assassins can infltrate. “This is why colonial Kindred are still so rare. This is why even the ew that do go out to try and expand control or money are kept secret. It’s in our best interest to keep our cities locked down and in our hands so that it is is scary scary or other vampires to come here. So that, when they do, they have to genuect and pay homage i they don’t want to be just another neonate that just suddenly disappears. disappears. “The scarier it is or others to come here or go there, the more valuable the individual players and kings are in each city, and the greater the return we get on our individual investments. The mayor I control is worth a lot more i no mega-Prince with a bunch o mayors in his control can come and tell me I’m doing it wrong. “And, on top o that, the scarier it is or others to brave new cities, the more valuable our network is. It’s It ’s not an edge i everyone has ha s it. We want to keep our connections as our edge, so we have to protect their rarity to keep them valuable.”
WH —
Throughout the States we heard those same rumors o bizarre, ritualized Ventrue ritualized Ventrue gatherings in European domains. The details were much as you said: masked observers, nude supplicants, virginal vessels on hand or the edgling’s frst eeding, baths o blood. Our frst thought was that, i true, the ritual was some amalgam o ceremonies between the Succubi and our kin. Our investigations overseas have turned up nothing more than similar rumors being spread rom one European city to the next. Our man in Paris heard this was happening in Venice. The ghoul we sent to Venice heard this was something they did at the court o Budapest. And so on. My avorite response to our questioning, though, came rom an ancilla in Vienna. When asked i neonate Lords were Embraced beore an audience o clanmates and courtly powers, he said, “That would be like having sex in ront o the Prince!” Not just the prudish American response, then. Even in Europe, the Embrace continues to be a private aair or Lords and their childer. The stretch o time between the Embrace and a childer’s Debut beore the clan (or the whole of the domain, depending) seems to be considerably shorter in the States than in Europe. Several Lords told us they were regarded as edglings under their sire’s care or two years or more. By the time o their Debut, it was a pleasantry — they already knew most of the Kindred who would attend such a thing. In the Americas, one year was thought of as a long time for a sire to be responsible for his childe (according to most of the Lords we could ask). But throughout the Americas, the Debut was also regarded as a more literal ceremony wherein the childe was revealed to clan and court (or, in practice, whoever truly attended). Prior to the Debut, childer were kept out of formal events outside the clan. In Mexico City, we were even told that it was bad luck or a new childe to be spoken to beore his or her Debut. For whatever reason, this seems to be a more mutable custom from domain to domain. More than any other, we ound the Debut was regarded r egarded as an unusual tradition in the the clan, particular to the local domains, though really it seems to be happening rom Bogota to Moscow. I keep wondering, though: How is it that the rumors o the bloody, cultish spectacle o the ceremonial Embrace have spread so ar with such similarity rom domain to domain? — VT
