Tremere

Tremere I mentioned the death of Antediluvians and the replacement of clans. The Tremere, known in my childehood as the Usurpers and now called Warlocks, provide a glorious example of this. The sign of Gemini, the twins, once ruled an Antediluvian who called himself Saulot the Healer. I know your thought: a vampire, daring to call himself a healer? Before assuming that title, however, Saulot also extolled himself as a demon-hunter. Perhaps he had a guilty conscience due to his earlier role as father of demons. Our eldest clanmates remember a base lineage called the Baali and speak of them as the childer of Saulot’s rage. Strangely, no one else seems to remember this. At one time, we guarded the Baali’s patrimony as a great secret. Now, it hardly matters. Other vampires exterminated the demon-worshipping Baali long ago. The Tremere bear the honor of destroying Saulot himself. This clan began scarcely a thousand years ago as a group of wizards who became undead through sorcery, at cost of seriously offending numerous vampires of the Tzimisce clan. The war between the Tremere and the Tzimisce lasted some centuries. Their leader, the arch-wizard Tremere, located the sleeping Saulot and drank him dry, elevating himself to take the Antediluvian’s place. The Tremere soon established themselves as the premier sorcerers of the undead. I must admit that in some ways they surpass even ourselves. When their elders act in concert, they wield such power that they can levy curses upon entire clans; I shall write more of this later. If we recruited the Tremere to our cause, the Followers of Set could overthrow the Aeons completely. This may yet become possible: unlike the older clans of the Dodecad, the Tremere retain a guiding council that wields considerable influence in the clan’s affairs. If their “Council of Seven” commanded an alliance, I believe that many of the Warlocks would obey. A steady trickle of Tremere already join the Cult of Set in secret, drawn by the lore we preserve. The Tremere compete with each other as fiercely as do the Lasombra, and sometimes as fatally. They dare much to gain some bit of knowledge or power denied to their fellows. Oft they imagine they will learn our secrets and skip away, only to find that the Revelations of Sutekh change him who knows them. Forgive any small offenses a Tremere may commit in his ignorance. Seek his understanding, not his destruction. We of the elders follow the same policy regarding the clan as a whole, from admiration as well as utility. I believe that Saulot was a broken soul, perhaps one of those who bears many personalities in one body. The goddess Bast gave him the power to heal, but gentle Bast is also raging Sekhmet who fires the arrows of plague. Saulot’s clan, the Salubri, expressed this duality. Some Salubri became healers; others became warriors. Recall, too, the greater duality between the Salubri whom Saulot claimed and the Baali whom he disowned. No matter how terrible the Tremere might become if they warred upon the Followers of Set, I still prefer them to a mad god like Saulot!