Mind's Eye Theatre - Vampire The Requiem.pdf - RoseRed

esponding roughly to a later Spanish word meaning “power group” or a cabal of confi dential
advisors. The Camarilla’s might was unchallenged — anywhere Imperial Rome held sway, so did
the Camarilla. It is even suspected that many Kindred customs that survive to this very night
had their roots in Camarilla structure, such as the notion of Princes who govern autonomous
domains. While proof of pre-Roman vampirism is rare or incomplete, almost all Kindred accept
that pre-Roman vampires probably existed. They are commonly understood to have been
savage, monstrous and completely disorganized. If anything, their “society” was probably little
more than scattered, vague domains populated by a single vampire and any broods he chose to
foster. The now-defunct Camarilla was the fi rst successful attempt at a true Kindred society.
As the Roman Empire collapsed, however, so did the support structures of the Camarilla
crumble. As Kindred require the blood of mortals to keep them vital, they rely on mortal
society as a foundation for their own. With Europe fragmenting into isolated, feudal domains
during the Dark Ages, Kindred society had little choice but to do the same or fall entirely
into the barbarism of old.
The nature of the Kindred themselves hastened the ruin of the Camarilla, as well. Ever
scheming and jealous, few vampires who rose to prominence in the Camarilla social order did
so out of a sense of altruism or justice. The Kindred then as now craved power and infl uence,
and such could be obtained by crippling rivals’ access to the same.
It comes as no surprise, then, to see that from the remains of the shattered Camarilla came
several different factions, each espousing a different policy or philosophy upheld by like-minded
elders and charismatic demagogues. Where once a single organization had stood, a handful
of distinct covenants emerged from the bleakness of the era. This development even set the
standard for later covenants to distinguish themselves from established Kindred society.
Many of these covenants perished through the centuries, destroyed by opposing factions,
absorbed into similar ones, rooted out as heretics or simply abandoned as invalid. Vampires
cast about for covenants with which they could align themselves in hopes of achieving power,
but they remained ever wary that those factions would demand too much in return or limit
them too greatly with dogma.
As history progressed, two groups of European Kindred formed an alliance. As mortal
society’s strength hailed from the twin pillars of the Church and the state, these covenants
formed their own version of the balance between temporal and pious power. The Lancea
Sanctum, a dire and evangelical covenant claiming a Biblical origin for vampires, rose to
claim a position of prominence as the spiritual leader of the Kindred. Its counterpart, known
as the Invictus (a reference to the group’s Roman origins), positioned itself as the vampiric
nobility. In domains where the alliance was powerful, the Invictus served as political ruler
of the Kindred, while the Lancea Sanctum made sure residents were duly worshipful of God
and mindful of a vampire’s place in the world.
The alliance between the Invictus and the Lancea Sanctum was an effective model and
was easily hidden among the layers of mortal society it emulated. The allegiance experienced
great success, and it soon spread across Europe not unlike the feudal model from which it
drew its structures.
Not all Kindred supported the alliance’s supremacy, however. Many old domains that
harbored Kindred who observed pre-Christian and even pre-Roman rites and mythologies dissented.
Although they never formed a unifi ed front, given that their beliefs and geographical
locations were too disparate, an undercurrent of rebellion occasionally prevented the alliance
from taking hold in numerous places. Magic drawn from the Old Ways held the Lancea
Sanctum’s dark miracles at bay, and the pagans held their own in many cases. These faiths
survive tonight as a loose coalition of factions, rarely organized but defi nitely powerful, and
46
chapter one: society of the damned