Orders and Organizations

Orders and Organizations

**of Note**

Although the Assamites have never been as unified as some would claim, the center of authority that is Alamut has always provided the basis for a strong clan structure. This allows a degree of interaction on many levels that is much more difficult to achieve in any group without central leadership. In turn, the very existence of a clan structure has led to social polarization along many lines: political, racial, religious, professional and more. In the Assamite clan, secret societies and open organizations have always flourished.

Cynical observers note that, in addition to the clan structure that makes such clustering possible, many vampires share a common need to feel special or superior by belonging to some body that excludes others. In a clan that has traditionally stood alone, simple descent from Haqim is not always enough.

Whatever the reason, the Assamites have always had their share of internal groups that range from the deadly to the purely social. The following are some of the most prominent, noteworthy, active or visible.

The Sisterhood of the Erinyes The Sisterhood has existed in some form or another since the nights of ancient Greece, when a foolhardy vizier gave the Blood to a trio of sisters who were rumored to have powers of prophecy. This overzealous individual, whose name is lost to history, should have done more thorough research. The sisters had some small prophetic skills among them, but they were priestesses of Bacchus — and their divinations gave best results when performed with the entrails of a still-warm subject.

The sisters merrily used their sire’s withered innards to come to a better understanding of their new condition, Clanbook: Assamite then continued in their accustomed roles for another two centuries until an itinerant sorcerer encountered them and gave them a more thorough explanation of Haqim’s history.

After a brief consultation over the ashes of another Cainite sacrifice, the three agreed to accompany the sorcerer to Alamut and learn the ways of the clan.

During their journey, the sisters came to know the clan’s origins. They understood the value of history and heritage, and they faced something of a dilemma: Which of Haqim’s legacies should they follow, that of the scholar or that of the judge? The eldest favored study. The youngest, the pursuit of the guilty. The deadlock was broken by the middle sister, who suggested that perhaps another divination was in order.

Rather than go the way of the sisters’ sire, their guide quickly agreed and stated that, as he was more familiar with the ways of the clan, perhaps he should perform the divination. His readings of the stars suggested that the sisters would be best suited to judgement, and all three accepted this as the gods’ will.

When the sisters finally arrived at Alamut, the clan was in one of its periods of male dominance. Rather than being welcomed as long-lost fellows finally brought back to the fold, they were ostracized and ridiculed for presuming to be the equals of the clan’s male members.

The three patiently swallowed their pride and sought out the company and support of other daughters of Haqim who were equally piqued by the clan’s collective mindset. Taking the Greek gods’ own judges as their example, this first loose band declared their intent to hold truer to Haqim’s ideals of justice than any other Assamites could. They made no specific statement of gender exclusivity, but the implication was clear enough.

Over the centuries, the ranks of the Sisterhood of the Erinyes have waxed and waned in number depending on the clan’s current attitude toward its female members. The Sisterhood is a strictly informal group, more of an acknowledged social clique than a formal society.

Those who wish to make some sort of declaration of Sisterhood wear a pin or other emblem depicting the traditional blindfolded female representation of justice.

This is roughly akin to wearing an ethnic pride emblem; it confers no special privileges, simply giving knowledgeable observers a clue to the wearer’s sympathies.

Most female Assamites who strive to uphold Haqim’s Laws, particularly the Law of Judgement, and to maintain a roughly human moral compass are acknowledged as Sisters. This latter qualification means that Sisters tend to take moderate views on relations with other Cainites, and that no Sister follows a Path of Enlightenment other than Humanity. However, those who assume that this is indicative of some sort of weakness do so at their own peril. Most female Assamites of warrior alignment have had some level of dealings with the Sisterhood, thanks to that caste’s most recent surge of pro-male, pro-Islam sentiment. With the clan’s current crisis, the Sisterhood is split between supporters of al-Ashrad and dispossessed. Very few, if any, Sisters believe that ur-Shulgi upholds Haqim’s highest ideals.

Playing Sisterhood of the Erinyes Characters As noted above, the Sisterhood of the Erinyes is purely a social circle, with no formal rules except those that various ambitious neonates try to codify every few decades before learning the folly of such imposition. The only requirements for Sisterhood (and even these are understood rather than explicitly stated) are that the prospective Sister be a female vampire or ghoul and that she take Haqim’s Laws as her guide in unlife, with the Law of Judgement as the most important of the five. Sisterhood is theoretically not restricted to Assamites, though acceptance of Haqim’s Laws is not exactly widespread outside the clan.

Sisters tend to have high personal standards of honor, and they usually hold others to equally stringent requirements. Interpretation of “judgement” varies across the Sisterhood, ranging from the righteous to the malevolently gleeful. At least one Sister is known to enforce her personal ethics through character assassination, seducing her targets and then publicly humiliating them at important social events. Others may provide painful but nonfatal “object lessons” or simply document an offender’s actions for the local Cainite authorities. At least four Sisters have taken positions as sheriffs and scourges in Camarilla cities over the group’s millennia-long existence.

Most Sisters claim schismatic allegiance or dispossessed status, though a few believe that ur-Shulgi has Haqim’s best interests in mind and thus remain loyal to Alamut. Many have a level or two in Mentor or Allies, as Sisters tend to watch out for one another. Most have relatively high Humanity and Conscience ratings (a Humanity Trait of 6 or higher and Conscience of 3 or higher, respectively). They can be from any caste, and the potential for non-Assamite Sisters is slowly appearing as the schismatics interact with Camarilla society.

The Web of Knives Until the beginning of the Crusades, the warrior caste maintained a tradition of Embracing progeny and then allowing them to survive or die on their own merits. In 1102, a small band of warrior-caste assassins challenged this custom by establishing a training center in the Byzantine Empire. These individuals recruited the most promising mortal assassins they could find, imparting to them accumulated centuries of knowledge and training. When the Eldest questioned their behavior, they stated, “We are giving birth to the new breed of Haqim’s childer.” Over the next century, this group came to be known as the Web of Knives, and the graduates of its training program took their place among the elite of the warrior caste.

The Web still exists in the modern nights. Its members are some of the most devout adherents to the Path of Blood, and they are all staunch loyalists. Its mission is simple: to create the most lethal individuals in Kindred society so that they may serve as Haqim’s right hand when he Chapter Two: Prayers to Broken Stone returns to lead his lineage in a final war against Caine’s tainted descendants.

The Web maintains a startling combination of secrecy and open advertising. The locations of its training facilities and members’ havens are nigh impossible to uncover, as are the “safe” identities of its members.

However, most of the active assassins of the Web have one or more “field” identities through which they deal with the rest of the Cainite world. The Web never acknowledges its existence outside Assamite ranks. In fact, the name is only known to a few Camarilla and Inconnu intelligence-gatherers, most of whom believe it to be a mortal terrorist organization that the Assamites support. However, the Web’s reputation is such that the activities and origins of its members are generally perceived as those of the entire clan, though this stereotype is shifting in the Final Nights. The phrase “Web of Knives” is largely unknown, but its individual members’ deeds tend to attain an infamy out of proportion to their actual significance, and these accomplishments are the most visible contributions of any Assamite to the Cainite world as a whole.

Each member of the Web is recruited because of his martial skills, whether these lie in personal combat or in tactical command. His prospective sire gives him a choice: Join the world’s foremost organization of assassins or walk away. If he chooses the latter option, his regretful contact summarily executes him and disposes of the body. If he chooses to join, his recruiter makes him a ghoul and personally delivers him to one of the Web’s facilities, where he spends the next seven years in constant training. The recruit’s master visits him once a month to deliver another dose of vitae, but his night-to-night development rests in the hands of the Web’s permanent instructors and their ghoul assistants.

Supervised training lasts from sunset to dawn, seven nights a week. Another two to eight hours of each day are given over to physical conditioning or independent academic study. The instruction consists not only of physical training in personal combat but also includes investigative techniques, social deception, and, most importantly, an array of propaganda and brainwashing designed to convince the trainee of the Assamites’ innate superiority to all other vampires. The pressure is constant. Recruits take no holidays during Web training. No time off, no coffee breaks. Only an individual who has the discipline to maintain this exhausting regimen and the long-term vision necessary to understand its transitory nature has even the slightest chance of success. Washout rates in this seven-year period are obviously quite high. The instructors tolerate any given mistake exactly once. A repetition of the same failure leads to death.

Clanbook: Assamite After this seven-year apprenticeship, the student receives one last task: a final field test. He receives a photograph, a name and a hemisphere of the world where this individual may be found. He must identify, locate and kill this target within one month, then return to his training facility — a place from which he has not traveled more than 20 miles in the last seven years. Targets vary: Some are mortals, some are Cainites, and a few have been other supernatural beings of varying types. If the assassin succeeds, his sire Embraces him in a solemn, elaborate ceremony, and he enters the next seven years of his training. If he fails but survives his failed attempt, he is considered dispossessed. No Web of Knives member will ever acknowledge his existence again (with one exception; see below) unless he interferes with Web business.

The second seven years of training are more difficult but more lenient. The transition from ghoul to vampire is more severe than the transition from mortal to ghoul. In addition, most Web trainees do not receive indoctrination in the tenets of the Path of Blood until after their Embraces, so the neonates face the additional problem of a complete moral and religious readjustment.

Finally, the trainee is in the “real world” again, now under the direct supervision of his sire, acting as an aide and accomplice in missions of assassination for high-paying Cainite clients or to further the goals of Alamut. At the end of these seven years, the student undergoes a month-long examination ranging from philosophical debate to trials by combat. If he passes, his ceremony of induction into the Web as a full member includes the destruction by diablerie of an Assamite who failed to uphold the Web’s vision of the clan’s ideals — often one of the dispossessed who failed.

The Web has a consistently small membership, primarily due to attrition but also thanks to its rigorous selection criteria. At any given time, less than 20 fullfledged members are presumed to populate its ranks.

Half of these are active in the world, while the other half maintain the Web’s three training facilities in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Colombia. Under their supervision are several dozen ghoul candidates in varying stages of training and an equal number of elder ghoul instructors.

Members are overwhelmingly male, mainly due to traditional chauvinism. Physical requirements such as raw strength are easier to meet when one is a ghoul. Until the last century, all Web members were of Arab or African extraction, but a handful of Europeans and Asians have completed the training since the first one did so in 1869.

The Web operates on a seven-year cycle, with active members rotating between training duty and field work on a seven on/seven off schedule that begins with a field cycle upon “graduation.” The organization is small enough that it has no formal internal rank structure among its active members, though informal respect is awarded on the basis of seniority. The eldest member is the Web’s leader, and he reports directly to the Caliph and the Eldest at Alamut.