Serpents of the Light

Serpents of the Light

of Note

The Setite antitribu of the Sabbat reject Theophidian doctrine in all its forms. The Cobras accept the myth of Caine as the First Vampire, which irritates more orthodox Setites. All Setites believe that their god-king’s return, with the awakening of the other Antediluvians, will destroy the world as we know it. Theophidians consider this desirable; the Serpents of the Light emphatically do not! From the orthodox point of view, the Cobras have sold out to the Aeons.

Perhaps the antitribu could reconcile with some Setite cults. Some Followers accept the practicality of cooperating with other supernatural powers — for now — and the militantly orthodox Cohort of Wepwawet lost most of its influence.

Only 20-some years have passed since the Cobras’ founders joined the Sabbat, however, and great bitterness remains.

The Serpents of the Light began as a Caribbean branch of the West African Setites. According to the Cobras’ oral tradition, the first Setites came to the West Indies more than 300 years ago, in the heyday of the slave trade. They say that a mortal cultist, captured and sold as a slave, became a sailor and returned to Africa. He pleaded with his undead masters to succor his fellow tribesmen who were suffering and dying on the sugar plantations and mills. The elders of the cult agreed that the cause was just.

One vampire-priest smuggled himself across the Atlantic on a slave ship; it arrived in Hispaniola with the slaves freed and the white men in chains. The great priest led a furious slave revolt.

The Europeans crushed the revolt — but not the cult that led the revolt, nor the vampire priest. The great priest now sleeps in the earth, but when he awakens he will lead all the faithful back to Africa. His lineage preserves the cult until that night.

The vampires of the islands know several versions of this legend. One vampire says the priest came from the Yoruba tribal nation; others say he was Ga, or Mende, or Kongo. Different vampires give the priest’s name as Chiyidi (orisha of nightmares in Santería) or Sousou Pannan (a wicked loa in Voudon) or a half-dozen other names. On the other hand, other Caribbean Setites argue that the whole story is a self-serving, “politically correct,” modern invention. They suggest that the Cobras’ ancestors came to the Caribbean as refugees from home-town power struggles, or to lord it over blood cults of plantation slaves.

Nor should anyone take the names of the Cobras’ founders too seriously. The Serpents of the Light take a slipshod attitude to vampiric genealogy. They freely construct “family trees” incorporating any loas or famous vampires they admire (including vampires of other clans) or famous mortals who never became vampires. A Cobra will reliably report his immediate sire; the rest of his ancestry is pure fabrication. For the Serpents of the Light, however, these made-up genealogies tell of the vampire’s aspirations and ideals. Indeed, the Chapter Two: After Such Knowledge Serpents of the Light consider bloodline obsession rather unhealthy: as vampires they possess no real families. They think that vampires who pretend that the transmission of the Blood equals mortal descent should stop fooling themselves.