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

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chapter one: society of the damned
The Unaligned
When one hears a vampire refer to the existing Kindred order as the “despised aristocracy of
the undead,” the speaker is probably one of these free-thinking spirits — those whom the vampire
world has dubbed “unaligned” or “unbound.” They are the rebels, outlaws and iconoclasts of
vampire society, those who freely fl out the rule of the elders among their kind. Independent
Kindred can also simply be apolitical vampires, those who acknowledge only their own authority
but who don’t necessarily make a grand show of defi ance against Princes and Regents. There
are as many reasons to renounce the notion of covenants as there are Kindred among the unbound,
everything from paper-tiger rebellion to acknowledging no greater authority than the
self to free will to downright bizarre mystic philosophies and even heresies.
The unaligned are fi ercely independent, and many would sooner face the rising sun with a
smile than spend eternity in submission before another creature of the night. While they do
not truly compose a covenant, the unbound are often overlooked individually and considered
in a collective rabble with others of their mindset, despite the fact that they have no shared
organization. Still, enough commonalities occur that they can be discussed as a phenomenon,
even if their status as a formal covenant is nonexistent. If a vampire disdains the prevailing
governmental structure but doesn’t belong to any structured covenant, the rest of Kindred
society almost always considers her one of the unaligned.
Overview
“Independent” Kindred resent or otherwise reject the neofeudal establishment of modern
Kindred society. They’ve been around as long as any of the covenants by virtue of the fact that
as long as a political movement is going on, someone will oppose or take no interest in it.
In nights past, some politically independent vampires were occasionally known as “anarchs”
or “autarkis,” a reference to their disregard for ironclad laws and orders among the Kindred.
Those vampires cared nothing for the proclamations and decrees of heavy-handed Princes, and
to a great extent, wished nothing more than to be left alone. In those nights, the unaligned
were considered foolish, but ultimately harmless, as long as each individual member was smart
enough not to jeopardize himself and his kind through his lawless actions.
The spread of an informal unbound sympathy would change all this. Many lawless, practically
careless Kindred did much to shake up the world of vampire society in a very short
time. Lines were blurred, boundaries crossed and dreadful decisions made, all in the name of