Tower

Tower

**of Note**

By Carmelita Neillson From Heretics to Great Religions Christianity, as a religion, is an outgrowth of Judaism. Same God, same part of the world. The Messiah and his rebellion against Rome and the old ways were played out inside a Jewish cultural context, but gave birth to a new faith entirely. As Christianity is intertwined with Judaism, so are also our sanguine myths intimately connected with both the old warrior Yahweh and his later, more peaceful, incarnation.

The Cainite Heresy believes Christ was one of us, the second coming of Caine. From this point of view, essentially all of Christianity becomes a vampire-myth cult, made palpable to mortals through a centuries-long process of canonization and the veiling of sanguine ideals. A process that culminated in the First Council of Nicea, where the idea that Christ was 2 5 O U R F A I T H C A M A R I L L A ity of the will of their ancestor.

Ancestor worship is not limited to the material plane. Many ancestor cults revere the dead as well as the undead. Michael of Constantinople is among the most hallowed of the Toreador methuselahs. We know he was destroyed along with the Dream, but that does not stop his lineage leading a church in his name. Michaelites, sometimes called Nephilim, receive tribute and service just through dint of their bloodline, many holding positions of religious authority throughout the Kindred world. Some even have figures of worship beyond Michael himself, but due to their ancestry, are taken at their words as paragons worth following.

Another example can be found within Clan Tremere. Karl Schrekt’s traditionalists believe Tremere himself was the pinnacle among magi, and they find great reassurance in attempts to replicate his successes, frequently sacrificing blood and worse in his name, mixing their belief in the power of the Blood, with the Hermeticism inherent in their clan’s origin. Thus the neologism “Hemetics” was born. The occultists have affected the belief system of the Camarilla profoundly. Even when we turn away from miracles, we tend to believe in magic rather than scientific theory to explain both our condition and abilities.

Perhaps this is the true core of our beliefs. We may not believe in God or Caine, but we sense there is a hidden order to the universe.

Prophecy, curses, fate, poetic makes every new cult potentially dangerous to that which it would replace, and doctrine reacts accordingly. Think of the Jewish and Roman persecution of the early Christians and Catholicism’s careful eradication of heretics. Among our own Camarilla cults and orders, the tendency is the same.

Do you know how many cults of Mithras existed before the current one, how different it was before Roger de Camden took charge of the cult? No, because such groups, once properly established, can tolerate no internal struggle against their truth.

Ancestor Worship Kindred who can recite their lineage generations back and tell tales of the deeds of their ancestors — good or ill — are often wellregarded by their peers and elders.

Respect and remembrance of the past is a comfort to many, and from this springs, no doubt, the practice of ancestor worship.

There’s something Roman to the idea of building a shrine in one’s haven, bedecking it with little idols of sire and grandsire, and asking them for guidance each night upon waking. I have encountered numerous Kindred who do this, as well as some warlocks who claim to quite literally commune with their ancestors in this way. Whether the prayers truly channel the power that allows one Kindred to telepathically link with another, I cannot say, but they clearly help the one praying, not least by lending them the authorjustice, synchronicity, wages of sin, good and evil. These are real to most of us. “The Emerald Tablet,” a second century text from Alexandria, states, in modern language, “As above — so below.” The meaning of this is that all things are connected and can affect each other through unseen connections.

Many Kindred, especially the Hemetics, follow the recent breakthroughs in quantum physics with great interest. Perhaps the science of our breathing days will finally unify with the bloody miracles of our long deaths.

Antediluvian Worship To the unworldly, worship of a clan founder is just another form of ancestor worship. However, the likely — current or previous — existence of the Antediluvians not been confirmed for very long, and the worship of these beings is traditionally more akin to that of a concept rather than an individual.

You do not light a candle and tell your sorrows to beauty and art as you would your great-grandsire.

For these reasons, it is rare to find a formal faith built up around an Antediluvian, with that of Set being the exception due to the clan’s former hierarchy of hierophants speaking for the founder.

Antediluvian cults often run synonymous with Gehenna cults, but have taken on greater permanence in the decade since the idea of global catastrophe first hit our society with full force. A Kindred who wishes to revive their founder, be their chief slave, and usher in a 2 6 period where Haqim (for instance) rules all Kindred, can be said to be nihilistic at best. Deranged and homicidal at worst. All we really know of our founders are rumours and speculation. But if what happened in Bangladesh at the end of the 20th century had anything to do with them, it does not bode well.

Yet, they are our most promising link to the genesis of all vampires, and the Book of Nod, the Erciyes Fragments, or other fabled texts may go a long way to explain what our true origins might have been. Did any of them meet Caine?

Was he real? With all these questions, and their godlike stature, it is no surprise many fall to this kind of faith. Some claim religion was humankind’s first faltering attempt at philosophy. “The world is at it is because the gods will it.”

It is tempting to think, how much nearer the truth would we get, if the gods could answer us. Still, it would be wise to remember that our myths have cast them in our image — they may not be what we imagined or even have our answers, not assuming they would want to merely enlighten us when they might as well set us on fire.

Mortal Religion Am I cynical because I am an archaeologist, a scientist, and a woman Embraced in the 20th century, or because I still identify as a (lapsed) Catholic? It is difficult to escape one’s mortal faith, and is it really wise to try? Without even considering it, I will find myself 2 7 O U R F A I T H praying, wanting to attend mass, or wishing I could cast off my sins in confession to a priest. Blame an ingrained belief or a hard upbringing, but this cross is mine to bear until I become ash.

The Camarilla neither encourage nor discourage mortal faith, but it does have many believers amongst its members. Death can shake belief or it can reinforce it.

In my case, it stayed as natural as putting on clothes when I rise. It is a core part of our ideology that we retain habits, customs, and perspectives from our mortal lives in order to remain virtuous. So why do we often frown at mortal religion? Because the church has hunted us almost to extinction once, and now are doing it again.

With this in mind, it is not strange that our sect is critical of organized religion.

The Ashirra are our opposite in this regard. Their sect spans much of what we regard as the Middle East and holds Islam as its fundamental core. There is certainly a hypocrisy there, given what Islam disallows and what the Ashirra definitely do, but they do not punish Kindred for remaining Muslims. Quite the contrary: if you want influence in the Ashirra, you need to appeal to, or at least be tolerant of, Islam. The great eastern sect respects and includes many Kindred of Jewish and Christian faith, all the people of the book are seen as brethren and are given freedom to practice their own religious code. To the Ashirra, faith holds many of the answers behind their existence.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are doubtless the most influential of the mortal religions represented in our sect and among of our close allies. I have met but a handful of Orthodox Jewish Kindred, to these most faithful, final death is often preferable to a long unlife outside the laws of God and Israel. Reform Jews and many of the other schools of Judaic faith often see themselves as a part of God’s plan, humbly accepting their sentence. Many of these act as protectors of the Jewish communities in their cities, bringing just death to anti-Semitic groups and Kindred. But there are as many faiths and more among the undead as among the living. Buddhism, for instance, shares many principles with the fabled path of Golconda and I know many Kindred practitioners who find states of spiritual balance with their Beast through following its message, despite frequent gross misdeeds.

Hinduism’s polytheistic faces to the singular Brahman, the espousal of quests for purity, and belief in the immortal soul, likewise has Kindred members. Many find the faith hard to reconcile with their condition, but some elders of the Hindu faith twist it to place themselves as the Brahman’s deities, creating an intriguing heresy within its vampiric adherents.

I have encountered few Kindred Sikhs, Jainists, Shintoists, or Taoists, but that is not to say they do not exist. I have heard there are at least four Princes of Sikh religion in the Punjab Region of India, so any vampire can cling to their mortal faith.

Conversely, many Kindred exist who still hold to Zoroastrianism and the old pagan religions of Greece, Egypt, and Scandinavia, but I suspect many times that is due to the age of the vampire and extended periods of torpor. Here, though, I must add another, altogether more frightening perspective on the rise of religion. According to celebrants of the Gangrel Cult of Odin, the Aesir were just like our latter-day religious charlatans. They were Kindred who gathered a mortal following. It follows, they say, that so were the gods of Greece, of Indochina, of Persia. Of Jerusalem.

One might well shudder at the idea of a world where the only gods are dead and faith is a trick to milk the last blood from the veins of the living. I wish the idea would not be so logical, so well aligned with all I have seen and learnt in my communion with the past.

Cults, Heresies, and Orders by Lord Roger de Camden, Pater of the Cult of Mithras You must forgive the old weak hand at work here.

It does so shake when I put pen to paper, so I find myself typing in the modern style, but alas, I do so slowly.

In my long, long life, I have encountered more cults than I can count. Many flare up like the pox, and are eliminated before the decade is out by a rival or internal disharmony. Such is the way of our kind that we never encourage growth. We see something new, and desire to stamp upon it. Alas, I barely shuffle, let alone stamp. I would need to ask my Heliodromus to do so for me.

But you wish for a sampling of the cults extant tonight? I can provide you with a few, certainly. You need to wash out the bad taste of the word “cult,” however. It is not what the modern presses would have you think, where all cults are led by megalomaniacs looking to indoctrinate herds of ignorant followers. Far from it. Those cults exist, but rarely outlast a century. Consider it more akin to how Romans, including my master Mithras, referred to the “Cult of Christianity.” To creatures as old as we, few religions outgrow the word “cult.” I am older than Islam, after all.

I will not mention the Cult of Mithras. Extant for two millennia despite attacks from all sides, it speaks for itself. Instead, I will mention some lesser known and more recently formed cults and orders.

You will find among the examples cults of pure Kindred origin as well as ways faithful Kindred find a role in the faiths of the breathers. For no matter what the Inner Circle tells us, we are as prone to self-delusion and the comfort of divine purpose as any of the living.

The Meneleans Menele or Menelaus is of course a prominent figure in the Iliad. He was the King of Sparta, and generally 2 8 The Amaranthans A dangerously-named cult, who has fallen afoul of persecution many times over the centuries despite their frequent protestations. Yet, the tenets of their belief will not allow them to change their order’s name, for they love their idol so dearly. Amarantha was the first victim of diablerie, and Amaranth is the archaic name of the crime, you see. It is an easy leap, therefore, to see Amaranthans as diablerists.

They are quite the contrary, however. The Amaranthans pursue diablerists with a violent fervor, acting outside the usual limits of Camarilla Tradition. They revere their idol for her martyrdom and innocence, striking down the guilty in her name. regarded as one of the Brujahs most powerful generals during the Punic conflicts with Ventrue-supported Rome. Despite his war prowess, the cultists of the vanished Menele believe their icon was a seeker of enlightenment and peace, quite the opposite to his clan’s stereotype. Some pray to him for wisdom when their Beast calls.

As with many cults, the Meneleans require some target for their rage. You do not form a cult on peace alone, for all need to divest hatred somewhere. The Meneleans blame the Toreador for betraying Carthage, and routinely indulge in the sacrifice of captive Degenerates, or so I’m told.

Eyes of Malakai This cult is recently emerged. It is led by Malkavians, but joined, for some reason, by many who seek to share in the mad visions of that clan. The eyes believe madness incarnate is the only way to absolute truth.

By losing their minds, they hope to gain insight. I myself have encountered one who was remarkably lucid.

It was she who gave warning about London’s fall.

The sacrifice cultists make to this cult is one of sound mind. I cannot claim to know all their rites, but I hear tell they quite literally stare into the abyss, the underworld, or some nebulous hell, waiting until all mortal thoughts leave their minds. What replaces them, I cannot say.

The Ur-Shulgi Cult This cult is evidence that with enough time, dedication, and wherewithal any group can ascend to become the orthodoxy. Prior to the waking of the methuselah Ur-Shulgi, I would have described the Banu Haqim as a predominantly Islamic clan. But with his return, the vampire claimed Islam a sham, and demanded that all Children of Haqim must revere their namesake rather than Allah and the prophet, or be punished by the loss of their Blood and soul through diablerie.

In the name of Haqim, his maybe-sire, Ur-Shulgi has become an active, powerful leader of his own cult. Claims of his skillful use of sorcery and purge of a thousand Banu Haqim have reached even my ears.

Many call this methuselah “the Great Destroyer,” with good reason.

It is worth noting that the awakening of the Skinless One parallels the growth of extremist interpretations of the Qur’an on both sides of the Sunni-Shia divide. His thirst for destruction is shared by many mortals, and in his wake violence rises, tainting the image of Islam (and the Banu Haqim to those who know) in the minds of the West.

The Aspirants of Yima Is it so unusual that the Nosferatu fall prey to vanity? When one must live with hideousness for an eternity, it is easy to succumb to dreams of beauty.

This odd cult has existed for at least two millennia, comprising Kindred in worship of the supposedly flawless Yima. Tale tells, he was Embraced before his founder was cursed with ugliness by Caine, but who can say?

Either way, this decadent, but ultimately vapid cult has gone to great lengths to stage great pageants and carve their own bodies to resemble something a little less offensive. Many members were beautiful in life.

Known as Cleopatras, they spend their years trying to regain what they have lost. 2 9 C A M A R I L L A The Patmostine Order Named for the isle of Patmos, where St. John received his Revelations, the Patmostine Kindred combine several unusual doctrines into a Christian sect with a truly peculiar view of the world: Rapture has come and gone. The seven years that are supposed to pass between the Rapture and the Day of Judgment are symbolic, much as some people interpret the six days of creation. Thus, no way exists of knowing when these seven “ages” will have passed, but the sect points to the Gehenna War, and the Patmostines are certain that the Four Horsemen ride closely behind it.

The Patmostines also believe that Caine was blessed, not cursed, by God. In fact, they believe that the Kindred received their undying status so they could survive all the years from the Rapture to the final judgment, that they might usher the worthy through the Gates of Heaven. They believe the Kindred themselves, not any of the remaining mortals, are those who will be saved on Judgment Day. Only someone worthy of Heaven — even if no mortal or Kindred can comprehend why they are worthy — will survive the Embrace.

The Patmostines have taken it as their mission to track down and Embrace the most worthy mortals they can find, thus securing them a place in Heaven come Judgment Day. The sect believes no more than 50.000 Kindred exist in the world tonight. If Judgment Day arrives before 144.000 have been Embraced, many who could have been saved will instead be damned.

The Shepherds of Islam The Shepherds are a group of Muslim Kindred who believe that Allah himself have chosen them to be the deathless caretakers of the words of the last prophet, Muhammad. It is their goal that Islam live on through those who personally witnessed the Word.

To the Shepherds of Islam, all arguments that have arisen since the lifetime of Muhammad, from the growing morass of interpretations of the ḥadīths to the discrepancies among so many bickering caliphs, should be answered simply by asking those who were there. For this reason, the Shepherds maintain a comprehensive list of all those Kindred who endured through that special time in history. They call these Kindred “witnesses” and strive to keep them undead at all costs, even risking their own unlives to ensure that Allah’s plan for them is carried out. Whenever a new witness is found, they are typically invited to join the group to become one of the “inner circle” of Shepherds. A great many mortal believers are employed in the endeavor of seeking out witnesses, forming a fairly extensive network worldwide.

Consumptionism God, as Nietzsche so succinctly put it, is dead. It is not, however, a recent passing; Consumptionist Kindred believe that the almighty has been dead for thousands and thousands of years, ever since Caine diablerized him.

According to their doctrine, God was, if not an actual physical entity, at least a spiritual being who could be reached with the proper magical ritual. And the killing of Abel was not a sacrifice but the culmination of a ritual intended to summon God made manifest. When it succeeded, Caine drew from God all his power, consuming his essence.

As the Consumptionists tell it, Caine walked among mortals for many years. After a time, however, he grew lonely. He could never know the presence of an equal — was he not God, after all? Thus he Embraced the Second Generation and in so doing spread out and diluted the power of God. Over time, other Kindred repeated Caine’s act, passing portions of their own share of God's might onto their childer, and their childer after that, until the modem era, when the Kindred have grown so numerous and so distant from Caine that the latest generations carry hardly any power of God at all. The world, Consumptionists believe, will come to an end only when the last Kindred, having reabsorbed all God’s power into a single form once more, recreates Caine’s feat and becomes God, allowing Him to sweep away the ruins of the old world and give birth to a new one ■ 3 0 The Passion of Uga Dugud (The Great Gathering of Ravens) Dugud and banished him and his small group of followers—who like Uga Dugud had refused to pay homage to Azu as a god— and sent them to live on Mount Ararat. There they stayed for seven score years and it was here Uga Dugud began developing and teaching an unknown style of warfare, known as the Path of Fury, that employed schismatic fits of frenzy to turn both he and his Sphinx Riders into ghastly warriors of retribution. 4. Many years later it happened that the main force of the Assyrian army crossed north into the borderlands and engaged in war against Azu. The haste of the assault and the number of mortal attackers greatly disturbed Azu, he remembered the military skills and daring of Uga Dugud and summoned him to return to his inner-council. 5. Calling upon Uga Dugud’s heedless courage, and out of his own fear, Azu addressed him as an equal. "Your fierce powers," he said, "and the victories you have won against larger forces are well known to all who hold the sceptre. I entrust to your valour this grandiose invasion of mortals in order that your reputation will grow even more." 6. When Caine’s best warrior heard these words—trusting not in numbers, nor in weapons or in 5th Generation Brujah Methuselah.

In Torpo. Circa 2600 BC Translation by Converyx (1861).

Revered of the Revered. Book: 41, Chapter: 28 in nomine nostri caine. intrabo in altaria gloriae. 1. During the reign of the profane Sargon of Assyria there was a persecution of Kindred in the rebellious exanimate princedoms of oriental (East) Anatolia. At that time a vainglorious Kindred by the name of Prince Azu ruled over Trebizond, and he was unduly hostile towards worshippers of Caine [written “Kagn” in the original text] because of his own self-idolatry. Of the Fangs given to his command the uttermost had joined his cult and worshipped him as a god and forgot the name of their common forebear. 2. Yet among his adjutants, like a rose among thorns, there arose secret a faithful servant of Caine known only as Uga Dugud.

Because of his zealous ardour, boldness in battle, and conquest of many citadels he had become renowned among his kind. He was sought out by those who deemed him worthy of homage and wished to be taught his methods. 3. Azu become jealous of Uga 3 1 O U R F A I T H armour, but only in his Path of Fury—he arranged for his few followers, still small in number, to follow him and go into battle formation, and led them against the vast enemy who was arrayed against them. 7. It was the darkest night and Sargon’s far-flung camp was spread across a plain like red locusts.

Just before they were about to enter close combat, he presented to his men as a matter for discussion his superior knowledge of the Kindred as vengeful lords of retribution. He said the following thing to them: "Within your fitful spleen is the rage of hell, the vehemence of Caine, the convulsion of possession by the Beast within. Tonight you are the demons all mortals fear. Spring upon them like the eruption of Hyksos. Caine will catch you if you fall.” 8. This is what he said to them and they believed in him, and charging forward with wild boldness they went from fire-to-fire and tent-to-tent and slew every man who wore sandals, and put flight to all the chattel warriors. By dawn they had gained a huge victory against Sargon, who had fled naked in dishonor. By making his chosen men witnesses of their own Blood power and by giving them knowledge of their own rage and fury in this way, the C A M A R I L L A and spite, yet accomplishing a good though they did not mean it, assailed Uga Dugud and his loyal Fangs in a courtyard with 166 of their own finest Fangs.

Uga Dugud and his followers at once went into a cyclonic dance of fury and dispatched them all. All who witnessed the event were unsettled and made afraid by what they had seen; it was later said to be the greatest exhibition of martial valour and skill in the history of the undead. 13. The Thirds took the matter angrily and sent Fangs to learn the truth of the matter and report it back. When they had determined, by means of those whom he had sent, that these things were so, they again summoned Uga Dugud and using flattery and threats, reminded him of his hatred for and bitterness towards the Apostates. 14. Veddartha said to him "You have devoured many of our greatest Fangs. Since you know how and why I cast out Malakai, the greatest Apostate, with what object or hope do you now make your case on behalf of yourself and your followers?” 15. In reply Uga Dugud shouted: "You only strengthen my resistance by what you have said.

For if all those you named had done me no harm, they would be standing here yet. Still you mock me by accusing me of waging war on you here in your own home, when I have arrayed against me a vast army of ancient beings. I cannot hope to win against you, yet holy prophet of the Path of Fury instilled in them a supernatural confidence and purpose. 9. All of this much disturbed Azu who had been hoping for defeat and planning on the victory for himself, and he deemed what had happened a personal affront.

By freeing from the mortal coil so many who were possessed by unclean spirits, Uga Dugud inflicted a vital blow upon the mortal claim to sovereignty for all Kindred and this very greatly humiliated that proud and evil Azu. 10. Uga Dugud heard of this and so returned to Azu and slew him and became the new ruler of the regnum, and all who knelt before him honored him as the Wrath of Caine and as his true witness and prophet. Yet never did he claim he was a god or anointed by the one; he humbly taught the ways of savage umbrage and took nothing for himself except the obligations of command. 11. Over three mortal generations of chattel all continued to go as the prophet planned, and he joined together many Fangs under his command and triumphed over many princedoms and greatly expanded his regnum. At last he became so famed that he was invited to the High Court of the Thirds, and so he travelled north and was adorned with a great welcome and his due rewards at their mountain citadel, which still existed then, as was fitting. 12. However, certain wary Kindred there, pursuing a project of envy 3 2