The Devil's Doorknob BBS Capture (1996-2003)/devilsdoorknobbbscapture1996-2003.iso/Dloads/TEXTFILE/VAMPIRES.ZIP/VAMPIREA.TXT

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2Origins of the Kindred

     Vampires supposedly were derived from Cain, whom some call The Third
Mortal.  Outcast from mortal society for the killing of his brother Abel, Cain
was cursed with eternal life and a craving for blood.  Vampires, his children,
are the heirs to that curse, condemned to repeat his crime endlessly.

     Cain wandered in the wilderness until his name was all but forgotten.
He returned among mortals and was able to establish himself as the ruler of a
city, named Enoch, Uniech, Enkil or what you will.  Many Kindred call it the
First City.  Here, Cain created three progeny - those whom are called the
Second Generation.  They in turn begat the Third Generation, who are numbered
at nine, twenty-seven, one hundred or not at all, according to the source one
reads.  Cain forbade the creation of any further Kindred, perhaps having gained
some understanding of what he had unleased upon the world.  All was tranquil in
Cain's domain until a great flood destroyed the city.  Cain saw this as divine
punishment for returning to the world of mortals, and resumed his wanderings,
leaving his Progeny to their own devices.  Though he forbade them to create any
more, they ignored his imperative as each of his Progeny desired a Brood of
their own.

     No more is heard of their ancestor, Cain.  Some believe that he still
lives, while others think he has since evolved or passed on on.  It is said
that Cain is rent with sorrow for having unleashed such misery and suffering
upon the world.

     Once free of Cain's restrictions, the Second and Third Generations created
a great multitude of Progeny.  They ruled together briefly, but all was not
calm between them.  Eventually, the youngest Generations rose and slew their
Sires, drinking their blood.  This Fourth Generation built another great city
( Some sources hint that it might have been Babylon, while others suggest that
it rests somewhere beneath the sands of Egypt ), which we know only as the
Second City.

     The rule of these new Vampires was not untroubled, for a certain Kindred
of the Third Generation still lived.  Indeed, some say they were secretly
behind the slayings of their Elders.  It was made known that they alone
reserved the right to beget Progeny, and any other of the Fourth Generation who
disobeyed them were hunted down and killed, they and their Sires with them.
Though the Fourth Generation lived in public, the Third Generation, which are
known as the Antediluvians, lived in secret and revealed to no one the location
of their Havens.  For nearly two millenium ( Some say 23 centuries ), the
Fourth Generation ruled the city, while the Third Generation ruled them.
Eventually, the culture grew decadent and the city died.  In a great uprising,
the people rose up and killed all the Kindred they could find.

     When the Second City fell, its rulers fled.  Scattered far and wide, they
were too numerous and too widespread for the hidden elders of the Third
Generation to threaten them, and thus was beget the Fifth Generation.  The
Kindred grew in numbers and settled in all parts of the world.

     Mortal history records a time, starting over two thousand years ago, of
burgeoning empires locked in combat with one another - the time of the
Persians, the Greeks and the Tartars. Thus did the Fifth Generation establish
its own order.  Meanwhile, the Antediluvians lay hidden and pursued their own
mad schemes.  This age of wars may even have been of their making, the
beginning of their great Jyhad.  Whatever the truth, there remains almost none
to speak of it.

     It is said by some that near the end of this period, the Antediluvians
emerged from their hiding places and sucked the blood of all my kind, each
leaving but one Progeny of their line.  Legend has it that this was the close
of the Second Cycle, because the Antediluvian lust for blood was so great that
they needed all of my race as their vessels.

     Those who believe in the Cycle legends predict a great Armageddon.  They
say that the Antediluvians are asleep now, but soon they will awake and then
they will feed.  The Third Cycle is coming to a close, and none but the Third
Generation will remain alive at its conclusion.  The believers say that each
Cycle lasts 2300 years, and soon, very soon the time approaches. They call it
Gehenna, and some Clans prepare for it fervently.

     Whatever the truth of the matter, it is known that Elders of the Fifth and
older Generations are in complete seclusion.  Those of the Inconnu fear one
another that much.  To have lived this long, they may be cunning and powerful,
and they may be expected to cover their tracks as well.  This leaves the Sixth
Generation and its descendants as the bulk of visible Kindred. There are claims
of a Thirteenth and Fourteenth Generation, but they must be very weak and close
to mortality, for it is said that the Blood thins as it is passed from one
Generation to the next.



2The Masquerade

     In 1435 there was founded an organization, a cause, an obsession, a war.
Call it what you will; history knows it as the Inquisition.  Besides burning
harmless old women and excommunicating Frenchfield mice for eating farmers'
wheat, this Inquisition did betimes achieve it's aim, and cleansed the world of
no few true witches, warlocks and monsters. Many such monsters were Kindred,
and the diligent Inquisitors traced whole bloodlines and put all to the flame.

     For the first time, Vampires stood in real danger of extinction.
Superstitious belief coupled with scientific thoroughness placed in mortal
hands the wherewithal to rid the world of monsters forever.  It was a
terrifying time - as fearful as the great Holocaust which mortal visited on one
another earlier this century.  Those Kindred who survived bear the mental scars
of the Inquisition to this day, and many live a life of paranoid seclusion,
dealing with the breathing world as little as possible.

     Before this time, Vampires lived more - or - less openly, relying on their
power and position to preserve themselves.  Though they did not announce their
presence, they did not struggle to hide it either.  They had grown proud in
their strength, and the fall which followed was terrible indeed.

     The survivors quickly learned the wisdom of stealth and secrecy, and
networks sprang up as they do among mortals in times of crisis, conveying
information and individuals 7sub rosa 0for the safety of all.  This was the birth
of what may be called a Vampiric society.

     The name 3Camarilla 0arouse for these organizations, reflecting the small,
secret rooms used for meeting and concealment.  Groups made contact with one
another, united for the first time by this adversity.

     The first global convocation took place in 1486.  Many chose to absent
themselves, but this meeting gave itslef the power to speak for all Kindred
existing or yet to be made, and to pass laws governing all.  The first such
law - and only one to stand to this day - is that of the Masquerade. It is this
law - the first and most sacred - that is being broken by the writing of this
document.

     The horrors of the preceding decades had taught the Vampires the need for
secrecy and shown them that, after all.  They were vulnerable. It was vital,
therefore, that the breathing world be convinced it had killed the last of
them, or better yet, that they had never existed at all.  They must match
organization with organization and cause with cause, if they hoped to survive.

     The Masquerade had two faces, each with a number of contingencies and
lesser objectives.  7Imprimis simplicissimusque, 0reasonable secrecy and care was
required of all Kindred.  Nothing must bebetray their continued existance, and
any individual who broke this secrecy would be outcast and hunted down as a
danger to all.

     7Secundus, 0active steps must be taken to change the character of mortal
society, and direct minds away from superstitious thoughts.  Many of the
Kindred had turned to scholarship to beguile the lonely decades, and certain
matters were made available to the 3Taggänger 0in the fields of alchemy,
literature, art, geography, cosmology 7und so weiter.  0Many mortals were
already turning their steps in this direction, so the task was not unduly
arduous. Names spring to mindsuch as Bacon, Dee, Galileo, Copernicus, Ariosto,
Michelangelo, da Vinci, Cellini, and Columbus.  It was a brave Age they made.

     With so many fresh discoveries clamouring for attention, the mortals lost
their single-mindedness in chasing monsters.  A little later - principally
thanks to an alliance of French Clans - material and political philosophies
were influenced.  Science had bred reason, reason denied monsters. Over the
following centuries, they were able to crush superstition completely. No one of
any education seriously believed vampires had ever existed.

     Not long ago, mortal minds turned once towards the mystical and
superstition briefly took the ascendant.  The knoweledge of certain chemical
substances was made available, and many inquiring minds were distracted or
forever silenced.  And throughout this last century, steps have been taken to
preserve this image of the Vampire in popular entertainments, for thus it may
be seen more clearly as a fiction.  The Masquerade is unraveling, as the
mysticism of the mortals increases.  The Camarilla is at war to turn back the
tide - the evidence of that is all around us.



2Childer

     Comical as it may seem, there is a generation gap amongst Vampires as as
there is in mortal society.  The younger Vampires - those created in the latter
half of this century - include an element which chafes at the restrictions of
Kindred society and laws.  Like rebellious teenagers, these "Anarchs" , as they
call themselves, demand their freedom and ignore the effects on the rest of
their kind.  They would create their own Broods without restraint, deny the
authority of the Princes, break the laws of the Masquerade, and do a hundred
other things which would force the knoweledge of our existance upon the mortal
world.

     The elders, and many other Kindred, do not take kindly to this attitude,
and in some places a virtual state of war exists between them.  Some see this
as a sign of the end of the current cycle, and speak of our imminent
extinction.

     These anarchs do not believe that they are being told the  truth by the
Elders, and they know that they are not being told all about their situation.
The elders do not trust the Anarchs, fearing that these Ancilla seek to slay
them.



2On the Nature of Vampires

     It is amazing how mortal writers regularly stumble across truths and
half-truths - sometimes very profound ones - by the most haphazard and
fallacious thinking; and then, unaware of what they have uncovered, they
proceed to expound generalities in completely the wrong direction.

     Some two and a half centuries ago, a French churchman named Calmet sought
to collect all the information 7extant 0on the nature of Vampires.  It is not
surprising, then, that his treatise contains many contradictions and areas of
uncertainty. Quoting from the reports of Papal Commisions sent out to deal with
"plagues" of Vampires in Austria, Hungary, Moravia,, and Silesia, he reports
that a Vampire may be destroyed by being transfixed with a wooden stake,
followed by decapitation, and the burning of the remains.  This will indeed
destroy a Vampire, just as certainly as it would destroy a mortal. Such a
clever man, Calmet.

     Motion pictures have abbreviated this treatment somewhat, creating the
fallacy that the stake is sufficient. Do not believe such tall tales.
Impalement on a stake will immobilize a Vampire, but some further treatment is
necessary.  Whether this be burning or sunlight; but trust not the stake alone.
Neither should you place your faith in weapons of metal, as did your American
friend.  Such things injure, but the wounds heal quickly.

     Sunlight, it is said, is infallible doom to the Vampire. Motion pictures
show motely greasepaint Vampires crumbling to dust at Sol's caress, or bursting
into flames like Greek Fire.  Sadly this is true, if somewhat overstated.
Sunlight burns their skin as does flame, and only the oldest and strongest can
withstand it for long.

     Crosses, holy water, and the other trappings of religion may be ignored -
the Church is the first refuge of mortals faced by things beyond their
comprehension, especially in former times.  There are rare occasions where such
items were capable of causing considerable discomfort - their weilder almost
glowed with faith in the Divinity, and I can only conclude that the religious
items somehow served to channel the power of that faith.  But ignore tricks of
the cinema with their crossed candlesticks and shadows of windmills' sails.

     Likewise garlic, aconite and other herbs.  They repel Vampires no more
than they repel mortals, for all the canting of the goodwives who peddled them.
Like the Church, the village wise-woman was oft required to use her "magick"
against vampires, and was just as successful.

     Running water affects Vampires not at all.  They no longer breathe, hence
they cannot drown.  While being trapped underwater is unpleasant and may, if
prolonged, result in some physical deterioration no Vampire has died of
immersion alone, although one Clan is rumored to have a weakness to water.
Belike this is how many of the rumors originated, for weaknesses have arisen in
several bloodlines and have been passed down from Sire to Get.

     The cinematic Vampire, it seems, may take several forms if the human shape
suits his purpose not.  Wolf, bat, mist - in some folklores, cat and night-bird
also.  The powers of the Elders are considerable, and they are seldom revealed
to those of newer Generartions.  There are not many in existance and I will not
discredit their abilities, but I tell you this - a Vampire who has plural forms
will either be of a rare breed or will be very old, very wise and very
powerful.  I pray that such a one will never cross your path.

     Many vampires, however, have the abilities which a mortal would consider
to be supernatural.  As predators, their senses are sharp, and some have
developed other abilities to aid them in the hunt, abilities pf the kind
discussed by M. Mesmer.  The ability to inspire fear, stillness, obedience and
other feelings is a useful one, although popular writers have extended it
somewhat in the interests of their stories.  In dealing with mortal kind, the
powers of Domination have proved most necessary.

     It occurs to me that some of the confusion about a Vampire's supernatural
powers and weaknesses may be due to mistaken identity. There exists a class of
creature in between mortal and Vampire, which Kindered have named Ghoul.  It is
not the legendary corpse-eating ghûl of the Indies, although certain
individuals may display similar behavior.

     A mortal who drinks the Blood without first being drained of theirs will
become a Ghoul. These creatures may go abroad in daylight as other mortals do,
but they do not suffer the Hunger, nor do they age so long as they feed on
Vampiric blood regularly.  They may even have superhuman strength and reflexes.
From time to time, it is advantageous to create such servants, commanding their
loyalty through the promise of eternal life.  And they need not be human - a
hound which has drunk of one's blood becomes the most perfect and faithful
guardian one could desire.  Thus do tales of hell-hounds arise.

     While the Ghoul displays some of the strengths of a Vampire, it retains
most of the weaknesses of the mortal.  Impalement will slay a Ghoul as
effectively as a mortal, and a silver bullet will kill as surely as a lead one.
They may even develop fear of religious trappings, or garlic, or what you will
- a purely neurotic phenomenon, based on the fact that they believe these
things can harm them.  And the existance of Ghouls in animal form may go some
way toward explaining the widespread belief in shape-changing Vampires.

     Some Ghouls may well believe themselves to be full-fledged Vampires,
having been deceived to that end by their creators.  They may even act
according to their mistaken ideas - to the point of drinking blood - for they
seldom know the truth of the Kindred any better than mortals.  Most are
deranged to some extent by the experiences they have suffered, and many are
deliberately misinformed by their masters, the better to serve them.



2The Embrace

     Mortal superstitions deal at great length with the means by which a
Vampire may come into existence.  Theses range from the predictably religious
to the utterly bizarre, and can make an entertaining evening's reading if one
is so inclined.  But other than entertainment, they shall serve you little
purpose.

     Firstly, and most commonly, the myth has it that anyone bitten by a
Vampire will themselves become a Vampire.  Thus, each time a Vampire feeds,
it creates another of its kind.  One wonders how it is that any mortals are
left in the world.  Further, a corpse may become a Vampire if it was a suicide,
an oath-breaker, a member of a tainted bloodline, or an evil person.  Again,
the globe would be peopled with nothing but Vampires - and I ask you this, have
you seen this army of undead?

     Indeed, there are not many Vampires upon this globe.  If fact have it,
there is only one means through which a mortal may become a Vampire.  There is
a grain of truth in the legend.  To become a Vampire, one must lose all one's
mortal blood - but that is only part of the horror.  7Mortui exsanguinati mortui
7veri, 0if nothing further is done; the fang will kill as everlastingly as the
blade of the bullet.

     As mortality stands on the brink of extinction, as the flesh slowly dies,
the Vampire assailant may choose to spare the victim from death or deny
Heaven's grave, for all is one 7his rebus0.  By replacing the stolen mortal blood
with a little of the Vampire's own, a Progeny is created.  But a single drop of
blood upon the lips of the dying arouses them sufficently to drink from the
wrist of their Sire.


As one such Vampire wrote:

     How can I express the horror of the Embrace?  The fear and confusion?  The
revulsion and terror?  The Pain.  Even the passing of centuries has not dulled
the memory.

     Understand, that I am no coward.  As a soldier, I endured the privations
of the camp, the perils of battle, the savagery of the victor, of which I plead
guilty to my share, for such was the 3Zeitsmode0.  But even those things I
have witnessed as a prisoner of the Turks could not have prepared me for the
experience of being hurled into this cursed half-life.

     I was, 7de gratia potestate descriptis0, in a most peaceful state of mind
as my blood was stolen.  As deaths go - and I have seen many kinds - this was
surely the least distressing.  It was as though my experience were a strange
and unsettling dream.  Far off in the warm, soft darkness of my failing mind, I
became aware of light; I knew that this was where I must go, and I knew that,
once I arrived there, all would be well with me.  I began to drift toward it.

     Abruptly the welcoming light was extinguished.  My face felt an impact
like a musket-ball and as I tried to scream, my mouth filled with liquid fire.
The vitriol seared my throat and stomach; consciousness returned as though it
would rend me limb from limb.  A thousand fish-hooks tore my flesh in every
direction.  I prayed for death - anything to stop the pain - but could not even
lapse from consciousness.  7Nec Turcos, nec Inquaesitores 0ever commanded such
torment.  Magnify a thousandfold the sting of vinegar on a cut finger, and
flood the feeling through every limb and every vein.  Add to this the gnawing,
starving ache of five days' forced march without food nor water.  Deny sleep,
swooning or any other surcease from the all-consuming 3dolor.  0But no.  My
meager wordsmithing can convey nothing of it.

     I knew only that I must drink, and as I did so the pain abated some
little.  My eyes cleared, and I saw what it was that I drank.

     My first reaction was denial.  This could not possibly be happening.  Even
in the fifteenth century, men of education and breeding scoffed at the super-
stitions of the peasent.  As a child, my nurses had frightened me to sleep with
such stories of the terrible 3vrolok0, but I had outgrown such tales long
before.  This was a nightmare, a hallucination of some kind.  I tried to focus
on thoughts of meat, fruit, wine - but to no avail.  Blood was all.  Blood was
reality.  All else was discarded.

     I can only be thankful that I was in a remote place.  Had I been made in a
city, with peopl all around, there is no telling what havoc might have ensued.
The Hunger blotted out reason entirely.  Had my own son appeared before me
then, he would have died to feed the Hunger, for I was utterly enslaved to it.
No opium fiend in a Limehouse or Shanghai den was ever so helplessly, so
wretchedly dependent.



2Anatomia Vampirica

     Though their outward appearance remains much like that of the living,
there are those among us who insist that the Embrace brings its subject into
another species - 3Homo Sapiens Sanguineus, Homo Sapientissimus, and Homo
3Vampiricus 0have all been advanced as names for this new race, following the
Swedish classification.

     Be that as it may, it seems beyond dispute that the body undergoes as much
of a change as the psyche.  As will become apparent, much of what follows is -
and can only be - conjecture, unsupported by dissection.

     The gross physical changes are a matter of common knowledge; so much so
that they have been allowed to remain in popular fiction.  The canine teeth are
indeed long and pointed, the better to draw blood.  However, they are only
fully extended at the time of the kill, being at other times withdrawn into
their sockets by the contraction of of a flexible tissue at their base.  Both
speech and secrecy would be most difficult otherwise.  Some lack the means to
withdraw their teeth, but they are easily discovered and are a dying breed.

     The skin, as with the cinematic Vampire, is invatiably pale.  Partly, it
seems, this stems from their aversion to sunlight, but partly also it is due to
their arrested state of death.  7Darüber noch später.

     The Hunger is a drive for food, of that there is no doubt. From this, and
from bitter experiences with the foods that many have enjoyed in their
breathing days, it appearrs that the inward parts of the Vampire have lost
their facility for digestion.  One seldom sees a stout Vampire, and nearly all
remark on a new-found slenderness after the Embrace.  Being no longer required,
the organs presumably wither.

     The Vampire's body remains as it was at the time of death.  Hair and nails
continue to grow for a few days, sa they do on a fresh cadaver, but that is
all.  If one wants their hair or nails to be shorter, they must cut them each
evening after rising.  It is conjecture that the body of a Vampire is actually
dead, and is only arrested from the natural process of decay by the power of
the Embrace.  The skin becomes tighter over the bones, much as it does in the
newly dead.  If the body is injured, it will reform itself to the same mold
again and again.

     The body no longer makes and replenishes its own blood, and relies
entirely on prey for fresh blood and nutrients which science has found blood to
carry.  Something in the Blood of the Sire, passed down at the Embrace, fans
the spark of life and arrests decay, but regular infusions of fresh blood are
needed lest decay begin again.  And when a Vampire is destroyed, that decay is
fantastically swift, as though time were recalling the debt of decades or
centuries.  Nothing remains but dust, which is why anatomy is impossible and
so much must be guessed.

     The lungs of a Vampire no longer breathe - though many have learned to
feign breathing while among the living - for the fresh blood of the prey
provides the small amount of oxygen needed to sustain dead tissues in their
stasis.  Only a young or foolish Vampire takes blood from the jugular vein,
where it is near the end of its journey and full of impurities; the blood of
the carotid artery is clean and wholesome, and much to be preferred.

     Just as the lungs no longer breathe, so the heart no longer beats.
The blood of the prey must somehow suffuse through the body by a process of
osmosis, rather than flowing along veins and arteries.  This can be seen in
the fact that when a Vampire weeps - which indeed they do, and more often than
a mortal might suppose - the tears themselves are of blood.  Cut a Vampire's
throat and you will find the vessels empty.  The closure and atrophy of those
bloodvessels nearest the skin is another reason for the paleness aspect which
marks the Vampire, although a rosy hue is noticable after feeding.

     The blood of the prey, coupled with the Blood of the Sire, does appear to
have some remarkable properties.  They are able to heal themselves of most
wounds with remarkable quickness.  Vampires still feel pain, and a reflex sends
blood to the afflicted area - just as in life blood will suffuse bruised tissue
and color it purple.  The one exception to this rule is the stake so beloved of
writers and film-makers.  This will induce a kind of paralysis or trance,
although it will not kill in its own right.

     One last question remains in 7re corporis 0- a somewhat prurient one,
which will be answered with as much delicacy as possible.  Through popular
entertainments, the Vampire has become established as a higly potent figure of
romance - and betimes of more than romance.  While the act of love is
physically possible for a Vampire of either gender, the associated impulses,
drives and responses have died along with the flesh - which, incidentally, is
cold to the touch rather than warm.  By effort of will a Vampire may go through
the motions, forcing blood to the relevant areas in the same way as healing a
wound, but that is all.  The ecstacy of the Kiss replaces all such needs within
them.



2The Hunger

     To live as a Vampire is to live with horror.  Always squatting on one's
shoulder like a warlock's fiend is the knowledge of the Hunger.  And always,
always, does it approach - sometimes slowly and surreptitiously, sometimes with
great haste, but always ravenously.  The Hunger can never fully be satiated.

     Hunger, they call it, but the term is woefully inadequate.  Mortals know
hunger, even starvation, but this is as nothing.  The Hunger replaces almost
every need, every drive known to the living - food, drink, reproduction,
ambition, security - and it is more compelling than all of them combined.

     More than a drive, it is a drug, one to which Vampires are born with a
hopeless addiction.  In the taking of blood lies not only their survival, but
also a pleasure beyond description.  The Hunger is a physical, mental and
spiritual ecstacy which throws all the pleasures of mortal life into shadow.

     To be a Vampire is to be trapped by the Hunger.  The Beast may only be
kept subdued by the greatest effort of will; to deny the Hunger enrages the
Beast, until nothing may keep it in check.  Thus they must commit monstrous
acts to stop themselves from becoming monsters - that is the Riddle.
1"Monsters we are, lest monsters we become."





                                   7L E S T A T
                                3PRINCE OF DARKNESS