Mortal Roots

Mortal Roots

Chapter One: A Familiar Conceit of us who became Kindred are just a little different from what’s normal. If you ask me, you got no reason even trying to figure out why God wants Kindred stalking His creation. You may as well ask yourself why there’re such things as wolves or lions. God knows. You don’t.

You can’t, so don’t fuck with it. You do your job and let God do His.

That “coming back,” that return from the land of the dead is what sets you apart from the living, and it’s what sets the Giovanni apart from the other undead. I’m not debating that the Embrace works. You don’t have to walk to a special room that’s labeled “Dead People” and step back out. Your body doesn’t make the journey.

Your soul does. It makes the trip and then returns to your body — that’s the Embrace.

That being the case, I’m sure I have to shed only a little more light on the subject. Unless you’re one of the lowborn American caste of Giovanni, you probably know that our stock in trade is souls, that the Giovanni have the power to grab the spiritual part of a mortal (or, more accurately, her spiritual residue left after she’s departed) and do what we want with it.

Hell, it wouldn’t surprise me if some Giovanni elder somewhere knew how to create Kindred without even resorting to the Embrace, maybe catch the soul of a dead man and stuff it back into his body at the moment of transition. Ah, but never mind that — I’m getting away from myself.

The most important thing is to remember that, as Kindred, you were made. You were Embraced for a reason. Your soul animates a clinically dead body for a reason, or, more likely, a multitude of reasons that just happen to coincide. My reason for Embracing you isn’t the same reason that Diego asked me to Embrace you, which isn’t the same reason your mother wanted me to step forward and suggest it in the first place, which isn’t the same reason that Margaret Milliner wanted to Embrace you instead of having me do it. And after all that, none of those reasons are the same reasons that God makes it possible for the whole thing to happen to begin with. Regardless of the nature of any single one of those purposes, those purposes do exist. That’s the best way to look at it.

The worst way to look at it is to consider that you fucked up dying and came home for more. Welcome back. Now the rules are different.

Mortal Roots I’m not going to pretend to be an expert on this part. All the shit we’re going to talk about happened as much as two thousand years ago. That’s not to say we’ve hidden Kindred in our midst for two millennia.

We’ve borne that distinction for only the last thousand years, give or take. That’s the reason most of those in the know believe us to be merely a product of the rise of the burgeoning middle class toward the end of the Dark Ages. That’s the problem with the other clans; they overlook the longevity and resources of the mortal Giovanni family. Kindred pride can blind you to the fact that the kine can and do affect history. But I digress.

The fact is that the Giovanni family first came to prominence at the height of the Roman Empire. Of course, we weren’t called the Giovanni at the time. Our precursors were known then as the Jovian family. Much as we Giovanni would later do during the Crusades, the Jovians made a tidy profit on the constant wars that plagued the Empire. The annals some elder seneschals keep at the Mausoleum in Venice even include cargo manifests the Jovian family transacted as early as 31 BC, when the Jovians shipped supplies to Octavian’s armies in northern Africa and then, to make an extra buck or two, ferried spies and messages back to Rome for Mark Antony’s side of the war. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Jovians sold the Romans the metal to craft the nails they pinned Christ to the cross with (again, assuming that Christ was real).

And, in a tradition the Giovanni continue to uphold, the Jovians began our practice of nigrimancy.

Clanbook: Giovanni Of course, the Black Art had yet to gain its dreadful stigma during the time of Roman dominance. Ancestor worship was accepted as part of the natural order.

Emperors were gods, and most families kept some sort of shrine or another in their homes to please the spirits of the departed. Familial responsibility did not end with death, on either side of the sudario. It was important that the dutiful lares familiares be venerated and the spiteful lemures be appeased. In return, the spirits of our ancestors blessed the family’s endeavors and came to our aid in time of need. In particular, the founder of our line was held in the highest esteem. Although his true name is lost to us, with the possible exception of Augustus or one of the most exacting anziani elders, he became identified with the deity Dis Pater, god of the Roman Underworld. Quite ironic, considering the root of our name came from Jove, god of the sky.

Through a combination of the mortal Jovians’ shrewd business acumen and possible aid from Dis Pater and the family’s other dearly departed, wealth flowed into Jovian coffers from all over the Empire. The Jovian family earned its wealth through moneylending, merchant ventures, shipping and travel, and even some degree of artisanship. You might say that they were one of the original conglomerates. Of course, that’s not exactly true — the family certainly wasn’t a very Dis Pater Although unknown to many but the eldest of Giovanni Kindred and the most dedicated students of the family’s history, the potent spirit that Giovanni anziani in the know consider the legacy of their family’s progenitor has wielded great power in the Underworld for thousands of years. In that time, the spirit calling itself Dis Pater, or Father Wealth, has subtly influenced the living and undead descendants of the Jovian family with varying degrees of success. While the standard Giovanni opinion on spiriti is that they’re only around to be used to achieve the family’s goals, like any other exploitable resource, most anziani — and even Augustus himself — treat Dis Pater with respect. The Necromancers cite several reasons for this unique reverence.

First, Dis Pater is a being of immense power, both as a potent force within wraithly society and in terms of his own personal puissance, and it’s prudent to have such a spirit on your side when many wraiths would be more than satisfied to see the Necromancers destroyed. The Giovanni’s veneration and the emotional energy it generates serve to give the powerful spirito a reason to intercede on the clan’s behalf when one faction or another in the Underworld decides it has had enough of the Kindred. For ages, a charge of direct violation of the Dictum Mortuum (the Code of the Dead, which until recently prohibited spiriti from interacting with the lands of the living) levied by someone of Dis Pater’s influence was usually sufficient to put an end to any attempt at wraithly retaliation against the Giovanni. Tonight, given the state of things across the sudario, no one’s sure of just what Father Wealth’s reach may be. Just keep in mind that on more than one occasion, Dis Pater has used its influence to pull Giovanni fat from the fire. And of course, by the same token, Dis Pater may also use his influence and might to harm those who displease him. The ancient wraith’s level of power is such that those Giovanni who make the mistake of showing improper reverence or, worse still, irreverence, tend to suffer grave misfortune (sometimes culminating in their Final Death). As the Giovanni well know, a Kindred has no better incentive for respect than the sense of self-preservation.

Second, Augustus shows Dis Pater respect. Not that the entire clan is populated by yes-men (though given Giovanni Embracing practices, few Necromancers would deny some truth in that), but rather, this ties into the respect based on self-preservation mentioned before. If you disrespect someone Augustus Giovanni himself reveres, you are indirectly showing your disrespect of the Antediluvian himself. Given Augustus’ temperament and ability to hold a grudge, this is not the way to enjoy a long unlife.

Finally, in the case of the eldest of the Giovanni especially, the reverence of Dis Pater is an ingrained habit. It’s something the anziani practiced in their breathing days, with the Wealthy Father being venerated alongside the Christian saints in the uniquely Giovanni observance of Catholicism. In Giovanni dogma, Dis Pater is the equivalent of the patron saint of the Giovanni family itself. Although to some modern Giovanni, even a few in Italy, Catholicism is nothing more than a social event where family and neighbors spend an hour or two each week renewing ties of community, most of the mainstream branch of the family, at least, observes a devotion that, while unsettling to many Kindred outside the family, nonetheless takes a reverential stance on the Trinity and the agents of God on Earth, passed on or otherwise. The Catholic Giovanni are taught from an early age that in times of need a member of the Giovanni family may call upon Dis Pater for aid and that, if the need is great enough, he will respond — a fact that has been borne out for many of the anziani elders since becoming Kindred. Having a patron saint literally come to one’s aid is a great way to reinforce a person’s, or a Kindred’s, reverence. centralized entity, so far as I can tell. It was like any family, with the individual members doing what they wanted. It just so happened that the Jovian family was also a prime network. The guy who sold you Venetian sculpture also had a brother who could get you spices cheaper than everyone else paid for them, and their cousin quarried marble that would look perfect for the floors of your new palazzo. They were guildsmen and black marketeers, talent craftsmen and scurrilous middlemen. One would fuck your sister and another would whisper of your grievance to the Caesar. They were everywhere, almost unheard of (or at least not Chapter One: A Familiar Conceit as prominent as they would soon become) during the last days of the Senate and suddenly ubiquitous at the emergence of the Empire.

Some of the Jovians, I think, also had to be aware of the Kindred. I’ve talked to one of the anziani about what showed up on a really old bill of lading as “two casks, filled with earth and other sundry material, to be left for retrieval” at Roman ports in Corsica and at the southern tip of what became Spain. Of course, I can make no guarantees, but I’m personally certain that also, during the Punic Wars that served as the mortal cover for the Malkavian-Brujah vendetta, any number