Ravnos create new childer for a vast number of reasons. Some Ravnos select a criminal mind as carefully as an artist seeks a prote'ge, while others look for candidates who can assist them in their own schemes.
In many cases, a Ravnos sire expects his childer to stay around for a long time — before the Week of Nightmares, many Ravnos structured their broods as families, albeit dysfunctional ones. During the disaster, most such families were wiped out in blood-crazed frenzies.
Of the few that survived, many have not been heard from since.
The Ravnos clan as a whole adheres to no single rule that all must follow — everything is fairly informal among most of them. Only those who turn their Damnation into a religion — the Paradox followers —have codified who, when, how and why a childe receives the Embrace. Among the Indian Ravnos, a prospective sire petitions her sire for the right to Embrace. With the permission and blessing of both her sire and the eldest Ravnos in her city, she brings her new childe into the fold.
New childer of Paradox followers are taught the clan's history and duties—a small degree of indoctrination into the Paradox mindset — and typically are released to become full shilmulo within two decades, usually much sooner. Neonates aren't expected to turn to Paradox before the first century of unlife passes, nor are they pressed to accept it. They are, however, expected to abide by its tenets when in the presence of their elders.
INDIAN MASS EMBRACES Sabbat-style mass Embraces are the primary exception to the Indian mode of Embrace. The practice is deemed brutish by those few outsiders aware of it, but some Ravnos feel — prompted by their conflicts with the Cathayans — that mass Embrace tactics are necessary for victory. As the number of Eastern Kindred increases and the fighting becomes more intense, the Eastern Ravnos are more willing to Embrace a dozen or so in a single night to use as cannon fodder. These unfortunates are not expected to survive, and are occasionally destroyed after they've served their purpose. Some elders protest this tactic, stating that it violates the tenets of Paradox and the mortals' own destinies. ^/AT/AND BLOODLINES Among the most traditional Ravnos, mortal lineage is at least as important as Kindred. Among the eldest, it defines the Kindred's role in the clan, much to the chafing of neonate sensibilities.
CLANBOOK: RAVNOS i How MANY? /How many Ravnos still walk the World of Darkness? In the nights following the Week of Nightmares, estimates range from fewer than 100 to double or triple that. Time of Thin Blood states that "perhaps 100 survive, and no powerful elders."
Nights of Prophecy implies that there may be more, and shows that Durga Syn and her brood clearly survived (and if Durga Syn isn't a powerful elder, who is?).
In truth, there isn't a single gospel answer as to -how many Ravnos survived the week, befond "very few." How many died? Most of them. This leaves a great deal of leeway in individual chronicles for Storytellers and players to determine just how many Ravnos are still around.
WHAT ABOUT THE HLDHRS?
Elder survival is another matter. It all really depends on how one interprets "powerful elders."
Does it mean that all fourth and fifth generation Ravnos were destroyed? Does it mean that no Ravnos stronger than eighth generation survived the purge? Again, this question is for individual chronicles to determine. Clanbook: Ravnos hints that a few powerful elders are up and about in the wake of the Week of Nightmares, but those hints may be misleading.
WHO CARESABOUT THE WFEK OF NIGHTMARES?
If the Week of Nightmares hasn't happened yet in your chronicle, or the Storyteller doesn't plan to use it, then simply ignore all references to it and its effects. The Ravnos ate still at full strength and up to whatever they were doing. It's that simple. ]ati is the Hindi word for "caste," and refers to a Ravnos' lineage within the clan. Several Ravnos jati exist, originating from nearly every continent and ranging in age from the most ancient to a matter of decades. Naturally, the eldest lines hold more status than the newer (some would say "vulgar") lines. Few Ravnos agree on what a jati should be, let alone whether any given line constitutes a valid caste.
Most neonates could care less about the entire question of pedigree.
LINES The following lineages are the original Ravnos lines and were prominent in India up until the Week of Nightmares. Some probably still exist, but not in CHAPTER Two: ON THE ART OF BEING RAVNOS sufficient numbers to make a large difference. Nearly all of the Indian elders were destroyed.
The Ravnos elders in India tried to enforce strict rules about which Ravnos could Embrace which mortals, often in much the same way as the princes in Western cities. For Indian practitioners of the Path of Paradox, however, the strictures carried the weight of the Antediluvian's words, or so the elders liked to claim. Ravnos were forbidden to Embrace mortals who were not part of their own caste — Ravnos Brahman could Embrace only Brahman, Kshatriyas could Embrace only mortal Kshatriyas, and so on. In truth, few Ravnos obeyed the stricture and many elders chose to assume the neonates came from the appropriate castes. With the conflict against the asuratizayya a constant threat, the Ravnos were more interested in results.
BRAHMAN The Brahman Ravnos have a gift of sight that the other jati do not, and often use it to divine the future or the locations of their enemies. The Brahman also consider themselves the keepers of the "Way of Mayaparisatya," or the Path of Paradox. Among the Indian Ravnos, the Brahman are the spiritual advisors and philosophers of the clan, and often serve as advisors to other jati.
Brahman replace Fortitude with Auspex in their clan Disciplines, and are otherwise identical to other Ravnos.
KSHATRIYAS The Kshatriyas are the traditional warriors, and most Ravnos in India belong to this jati. The elder Kshatriyas traditionally outlined strategy for the war against the asuratizayya, and many were among the deadliest Kindred in India. Despite tradition, many Embraced British soldiers and officers while India remained part of the British Empire. After the British departure, many continued to look outside India for competent soldiers to bring into the asuratizayya war.
In recent centuries, the Kshatriyas sometimes employed the "mass Embrace" strategy. They swept through a neighborhood or village and Embraced as many mortals as they could, often adding several dozen to their ranks over a single night. Those considered unworthy were given to the fledglings as their first meals. The Kshatriyas conducted such mass Embraces as preludes to massive assaults against packs of asuratizayya or individually powerful Eastern Kindred in an attempt to overwhelm them while the truly skilled Kshatriyas made the actual kills.
CLANBOOK: RAVNOS The Brahman warned against this tactic, but even they could not deny its success on several notable occasions.
Few surviving Kshatriyas remain in India, having chosen to seek their fortunes elsewhere. The Week of Nightmares convinced many that the war itself was futile.
VAISVAS Traditionally Embraced from the merchant class, the Vaisyas are the Ravnos who traditionally deal with mortal society. Most Vaisyas had many connections and much power in their neighborhoods and cities before the Embrace, and they maintain these ties through their families' wealth and influence.
Vaisyas oversee the cities so that the Kshatriyas are free to manage the war.
Typically, the Vaisyas handle Ravnos interactions with mortal governments and businesspeople, cover up any problems that could lead to discovery of Kindred existence (Eastern or Western) on a wide scale and track the movements of Eastern Kindred in the cities. Historically, one of this jati's more frustrating duties was to "clean up" after the Kshatriyas' holy wars, usually with fire or reports of plague or some other means of keeping too many mortals from asking questions. It's impossible to prevent suspicion completely, but with the number of humans packed into a city like New Delhi, the Vaisyas rarely found it hard to keep the wrong people from asking the wrong questions — if nothing else, they could simply shrug and tell others that the night swallowed those who vanished.
CHANDALAS Chandalas is the lowest-ranked jati. Its members are forbidden to Embrace, lest they spread their impure blood and ideals. Indian Ravnos consider any Caitiff to be Chandalas, and any Ravnos caught breaking the tenets of Paradox is likewise demoted to this caste. Members of other clans and bloodlines who come to India are seen as Chandalas, although the Ravnos may offer them more overt respect or consideration to avoid immediate conflict.
Chandalas often receive opportunities to improve their standing through onerous and odious duties—for example, arranging to gather and cremate the bodies of mortals considered likely to rise again as Eastern Kindred. Most Ravnos unlucky enough to be declared Chandalas have simply left India rather than suffer under such a stigma.
SUDRAS The Sudras are not a true j'ati, and no Ravnos is considered to be Sudra. Ravnos ghouls are considered Sudras and therefore beneath the Embrace. If a mortal was truly worthy of the Ravnos Embrace, he would not be a ghoul and thus a servant. Ravnos rarely treat their ghouls well, nor do they usually keep them for very long. Some Ravnos have kept personal ghouls for decades or centuries, and these servants are quite formidable for their age. A few have been passed from regnant to regnant and suffer from the shifting loyalties of each new blood bond.
Sudras commonly serve as scapegoats. If a Ravnos draws too much attention from the mortals, one of her ghouls will probably suffer in her place.
Among the Ravnos of India, ghouls are considered outside their dharma, much as Kindred are, and so do not receive the same consideration that mortals do, at least according to the Path of Paradox. The longer a Sudra has been a ghoul, the less connected he is to his human life, and the less valuable as an individual to even the most devout Ravnos.
In the West, the Ravnos have placed much less emphasis on lineage and pedigree, Embracing mortals for any number of reasons that may have little to do with blood relations or social standing. Such considerations may have been more important several centuries ago, but in the modern nights, Western Ravnos aren't tightly knit. Instead, they tend to find a niche and build it up. It's not unheard of to find a Ravnos acting as consigliere to a Mafia family, or working with the Medellm cartels. Lacking a tight social structure like that in India, Western Ravnos drift to whatever interests them most.
Consequently, most Western Ravnos form small coteries composed of neonates with no direct blood connection, or a sire Embracing a few childer to share the night with her, or simply individual Ravnos working with and among members of other clans. In the wake of the Week of Nightmares, most of the Ravnos-only coteries either fell apart or lost the bulk of their members during the frenzies that overtook the clan.
The surviving Ravnos have retreated into hiding, sought out other clan members, or taken the opportunity to approach mortal and Kindred society on their own terms without the influence of other Ravnos, especially elders. Those who form new coteries do so from the need to survive or the desire to CHAPTER Two: ON THE ART OF BEING RAVNOS