THE PATH OF LILITH Cast out of Eden, you say? Pain is the greatest teacher, you say? Ultimate freedom and self-discovery, too? If not for the fact that the Path is considered heretical even within the Sabbat, and that the Path rejects temporal wealth and power, Clan Tzimisce might have become Clan Bahari by now. Still, is it any surprise that individuals from a clan characterized as a bunch of mad scientists, Metamorphosists, perverts and scholars of eldritch lore might be attracted to the Path of Lilith? Lilin Tzimisce are the eccentric vanguard of our eccentric clan. These Fiends usually combine the most respected pursuits of the clan with their maligned following of Lilith. They hunt down lore with a curiosity to rival any Noddist, raise their childer with the care of the most dutiful sire and seek an understanding of the universe that exceeds the ambition of all but the most obsessive Metamorphosist. To date, bloody disagreements between Lilins and those who revere Caine keep the numbers of heretics to a minimum. THE PATH OF POWER AND THE INNER VOICF A Lasombra named Lord Marcus claims to have developed the Path of Power and Inner Voice in the 16th century. Is there anything the Lasombra won’t steal from the Tzimisce? Lookat the tenetsofthe path-WhatKeeperhasever respected a superior or waited until he faltered before usurping him? Although some Tzimisce Unifiers are neofeudalists, most Fiends who follow this Path preserve the outlook rather than the trappings of the Transylvanian voivodes . Driven by their Path, Fiend Unifiers are among the most powerful Tzimisce in the Sabbat. They seek any position of authority, whether secular or spiritual. The numbers of pack priests and prisci who follow this Path rival the numbers of Unifier bishops and ducti. A noteworthy portion of the clan’s strength lies in the Unifiers - it is a great innovation of the Sabbat’s that their most power-hungry members are also bound to respect their betters and treat their underlings well. While our clan is hardly the meritocracy that some make it out to be, the Unifiers keep the Tzimisce tough and lean. Acquiring power isn’t enough - one must also keep it. REVENANTS At least one aspect of our clan has endured: the servitude of the revenant families, those mortal lines that have borne our blood for so long that they no longer require its constant infusion. If the mortal world frightens you, old one, seek protection from the revenants. Though their numbers are far smaller than you may remember, their loyalty to our clan remains unquestionable, excepting the odd rebellious child. Since your time, at least, revenants have served the Fiends as caretakers, advisors, warriors andpotentialchilder. Though the mortal life span has lengthened during your slumber, revenants still live far longer than mortals - some revenant children know their great-great-greatgreat-great grandmothers. The members of each family still share a particular weakness of the blood. Different families exhibit different aspects of Caine. Perhaps you can tell me how these revenant families come to be? We have little to go on in these modem times. According to Wallachian folklore, some families were so evil that anyone who shared their name was cursed to serve devils. Since these families owned and cultivated so much of the tainted soil of the “land beyond the forest,” some koldun believe that that they became bound to their holdings by greed or obligation. More scientific Fiends, like myself, believe that the constant ingestion ofTzimisce blood from birth to death for so many generations created the revenants. But Assamites and Giovanni, with domains in lands untouched by indigenous land-spirits, have supposedly created their own families; how many ways can one make a revenant? The mystery of their origins pales next to the mystery of their name. “Revenant” means “one who returns.” When do revenants ever “return”? Perhaps they do so each generation without needing new Blood. The standard explanation from the patriarchs of the families isthetaleofaservant.Hislastnamedependsonwho’s telling the story. He was so useful to his lord that the noble wanted him to “retum” again and again until the end of the world so that he would always have a capable servant. His descendents were the servant’s vehicle to immortality. Some heretical Bratovitches tell a slightly different version of tlus story in which the family receives the Blood in exchange for teaching the Tzimisce Vicissitude. Though some of our clanmates have grown tired of the revenant experiment and would see them destroyed as a threat to our sect’s secrecy, the families still have their uses: They provide reliable hospitality to traveling Fiends. They produce the most suitable agentsfor dealing with the daytime world -szlachra are too warped, vozhd are useless outside their capacity as behemoth war machines, and ghouls unfamiliar the clan’s ways are young and ignorant they require too many years of remedial education. Revenants can exploit un-Blooded relatives of their families as well -though they are not revenants, their heritage makes them exceptional mortals (more than a dozen members of the 143-seat Romanian Senat are rumored to be related to a Bratovitch or Zantosa). Given enough time, who knows how advanced a species they can become? Finally, the revenants record the history that most of our clan is unconcerned with. In the ignorant Final Nights, a few Obertus know more about the clan than many Fiends themselves. Four revenant families and several minor lineages have endured to the Final Nights. Some of the families have met their fates, old one. Larger families absorbed the Narov and Ruthvenski. The Obertus, fearing a similar fate, use a surprisingly primitive method to ensure balanced numbers of male and female offspring so that too many daughters won’t marry away the family name into obscurity. The last names Vlaszy and Khavi aren’t entirely lost, but they are preserved only in revenants who received the Embrace. Another three families are so hated that the few Tzimisce who remember them refuse to speak their names. It pains me too much to even write them - no doubt you already suspect their names. RRATOVITCH Colorful as peacocks, unclean as swine, mean as rabid dogs - the Bratovitches in a nutshell. They live out their extended lives on their dilapidated plantations in the South and rural estates in the hills of the North. Surrounded by quaint but dusty antiques, families of Bratovitches work together, eat together, fuck together, tend the hellhounds together and serve our clan together. Family is everything to the Bratovitches, even if all that togetherness leaves a few of them paralyzed and/or knocked up. The history of our clan is the history of the Bratovitch family. In feudal Europe, Bratovitches ruled many eastern demesnes. Ifthelandwasatwarwithitsneighborsandtheserfs smiledwhenthey died, chanceswereaBratovitchheldpower. Though more Tzimisce in thase nights bore the name Szantovich, Bratovitch Fiends constituted the majority in what isnow P o l a n d a n d a l ~ t h e b b e ~ ~ n T ~ l ~ a and Wallachia. By their own account, they were the first revenant family, or at least the first the T z i m h didn’t destroy within a few years of its creation. CHAPTER Two Em AND EVOLUTION When the Tzimisce anarchs rebelled against their sires, the Bratovitch revenants sided with the uoiuodes. It really wasn’t a tough decision to make-some of the clan’s most powerful elders were Bratovitch, and every child of the family had been told from birth that disobeying their masters was the only sin they were not allowed to commit. But the Bratovitches hadn’t reached such stature through suicidal obedience. When it came time to switch loyalties to the anarchs, they knew how best to make amends. They slaughtered every Bratovitch child who had been born since the revolt began. No young revenant would remember that the family had served anyone other than the anarchs. Even in the Final Nights, the family serves the rebels, we whonow callourselves the Sabbat. Although Bratovitches are rarely lords of demesnes any longer, they have retained the bestial features of their ancestors - heads too big for their hunched bodies, mouths with too many teeth, tiny eyes arranged a bit too close together to avoid notice but that nonetheless warn of a cannibal intelligence. While the Bratovitches have forever lost the noble status of nights past, they remain useful to us. Many estates harbor kennels of hellhounds. Their keepers breed dogs for size and ferocity, then feed them meat laced with Tzimisce vitae. The Bratovitches fleshcraft the resulting monsters to meet the needs of their clients, usually the Tzimisce who donates the blood or high-ranking Sabbat in need of loyal and alert guardians. Not every Bratovitch tends the hounds. Although most traveling Fiends would rather dig their own temporary grave than take shelter at a Bratovitch estate, the revenants of this family also serve as guides and trackers through the countryside. In the modem nights, few Tzimisce traipse through the woods. When they do, they want someone at their side who knows how to avoid
Tzimisce · Vampire