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

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chapter one: society of the damned
The Lancea Sanctum
To members of the Lancea Sanctum, the self-proclaimed heralds of undead morality, their
origin defi nes everything they are and everything they do. Indeed, the modern sobriquet
“Sanctifi ed,” by which the covenant is sometimes known, incenses many elders and traditionalists
of the covenant, who prefer to use the Latin “Lancea Sanctum” when referring to
the collective covenant. They are the religious and even moral backbone of the Kindred, yes,
but they are also self-appointed priests and inquisitors. The most inhuman of an inhuman
race, they exalt the role of predator. Universally respected yet universally feared, this covenant
constantly seeks power over all Kindred everywhere, not for political rule, as the Invictus does,
but to enforce the dictates, attitudes and even thoughts that they believe have been handed
down to them from their originator Longinus, and by extension from God Himself.
The catechism of the Lancea Sanctum is that they are the ideological descendants of the
Roman centurion who used his spear to prod Christ on the cross. According to the covenant’s
dogma, some of Christ’s blood dripped onto the soldier, and this blood gave the centurion
eternal life. It also carried with it, however, divine retribution, and though Longinus’ act revealed
Christ’s divinity, it did so after an act of faithlessness on the soldier’s part. Thereafter,
Longinus was cursed to live eternally, but he could walk only at night and subsist only on the
same blood that had proved his undoing. As the creation myth blends into covenant philosophy,
vampires are a form of “original sin,” though God allows them to exist, and indeed even
charges them with the task of representing the risks of His divine displeasure.
Overview
Perhaps one of the single most fundamental differences between the Lancea Sanctum and
the Invictus is that members of the Invictus want to be the rulers of all Kindred while members
of the Lancea Sanctum believe that their covenant already does rule in all ways that matter.
The fact that its members claim dominance over fewer domains than the Invictus does is of
no concern. They speak for God and represent the pinnacle of what the undead should be.
Clearly, in the fi nal analysis, true power is theirs.
If the Invictus represents the nobility and aristocracy, then the Sanctifi ed are the priests,
bishops, paladins and the religious and spiritual advisors. (Members of the Invictus occasionally
refer to the Lancea Sanctum as the Second Estate, in extension of their own metaphor, itself a
perversion of the historical fi rst and second estates.) Most of the covenent’s members take their