THE YOUNG

THE YOUNG

THFNIGHTSOF THE YOUNG A Fiend in California Embraces and diablerizes serial killers, collecting their murderous souls. The regent dejtroyedapackinMexicoCityfor burningdownaGrimaldi state. A Tzimisce sire and childe sold their souls to Hell in exchange for the location of a sleeping Cainite with old blood in his veins (perhaps this is why you have awakened, dd one?). The clan you once knew, the clan of voivds and koldun, is a dusty painting hanging in some elder’s closet. Even Cezar Samoianu’s brood huddles in the alleys Df the New World like beggars. Some Tzimisce keep the old ways, but most of them now squander eternity on dancing through bonfires, gorging themselves on ostentatious blood-rituals, and then going about whatever business they please, clan and sect be damned. They call themselves “Fiends.”

These are your clanmates in the Final Nights.

How will you deal with these childer, old one? Even as mortals, they wielded power that you would consider miraculous. They can talk over continents - the voivode in Mexico City can speak to the Cardinals of the Lands Beyond the Forest as if they stood face to face. They have access to a book called the Internet, a book that allows modem folk to search, if not directly access, the whole of their accumulated knowledge. Through their public schools, the modem masses understand their world better than the wisest seneschals of your time.

And they conduct themselves in the most informal ways. Kings are rare in this time. The Greek‘s democracy is the rising vogue. Corporations control economies.

Their weapons are the province of gods. They possess things that will bum you, your haven and your city, old one, in one foul conflagration. Be careful where you take your sustenance - the mortals have eyes that watch the most hidden places. The mortals who now join you in undeath were born into this world; you will never learn even half the truths they have always assumed.

Although they are young, the modern generations sustain two sects larger than the undead population your Old World ever achieved. A charter of Traditions binds the Camarilla, a league that claims to speak for every Cainite in the world. How could a relic from our fractious past even conceive of that?

Both sects mntainlegionswhatever laws you followed in the Carpathiam, when our numbers were small and every childe knew his great-grandsire, are obsolete. While the Sabbat lacks the smctures of the Camarilla, it also maintains somethmglikeloyaltyamongitsmembers.Becauseofabloodsharing ritual called the Vaulderie, most of your cousins are now more Sabbat than Tzimisce. The Mongol horde still threatens to overtake you, old one. They share your Blood.

CLANBOOK: TZIMIW In a way, these modem nights are the logical consequence of our Father’s outlook. He sought to become something great, a being on par with the Creator perhaps or a being enlightened enough to be free of His rules. The young ones call this “ego.” Ego is Tzimisce’s ideal, pride as a way of being, the elevation of the one above the rabble.

The mortals of the past few centuries have co-opted our ideal as their own. They have declared God dead. Their governments make a show of treating citizens like “individuals,” entitled to certain rights. It is not some academic subject for them, but a way of mortal life; still, the bounds of pride, which a Germanic doctor named “ego,” have been described and debated by their scholars for almost a century. In their new self-importance, these generations understand little of convention, status or protocol. Rude childer, blood-smeared surgeons and fire-dancing witches have replaced voivodes, &upurn and koldun. Undeath is no longer a curse or an obligation; it is a punishment. For the active, it is a challenge. A threat.

Although the modem generations of Tzimisce reflect the mortal world, they still reject it as uninspiring, mundane, naive or metaphysically inferior. Humans, to most Fiends, are little more than food. But the progress of the mortal world makes more demands on the Children of Caine than it did when it wielded swords and feared demons. We rely on our breathing servants more than ever, as you shall see.

THE FACTS OF UNLIFE If you find any advantage to awakening in these vulgar times, it may be that the manners of these reckless childer are unsophisticated and simple to learn. As I suspect it was in your time, demeanor means more than one’s words when dealing withanothercainite. I’msureyouknewwhentoplaythewolf and when to play the cub, old one? Still, most of the young Tzimisce, those not stuck in the ways of your time, rely on few formalities when conducting their affairs. Those few who could recite their lineage do not, and no wi& are available to hear oaths of fealty.

I will offer you examples of their informalities. If they anger you, remember that few teach our ways in this time.

Remember that they would snuff you en masse for standing against them, as we did with the Eldest.

HFADFIR~T INTO UNDFATH Tzimisce don’t “select worthy mortals” for the Embrace. No such thing exists. Family name, education and status remain considerations, but they are no longer the prerequisites you remember. The Fiends pick mortals with the potential to become something great in undeath - to become a leader among their kind, tear down the Camarilla or uncover a new principle of Metamorphosis. Fiends Embrace for the same reasons other Cainites do - companionship, assistance, prestige-but most ofthem require that spark, that predestined ego. Genius isn’t enough.

To become Tzimisce, a person needs the drive to do something impressive. Some Fiends might have become presidents, inventors, artists or entrepreneurs if their lives weren’t cut short by the Embrace. Yes: The history of the world might have been very different without our kind.

But ego expresses itself in other ways - the serial killer who murders 13 people to accommmodate hls abuse as a child.

The pervert with the courage to indulge his taste for blood, despite society’s taboos. The scientist who creates a new disease to wipe out particular tribes in spite ofhls profession’s ethics. The atheist who writes screeds against the faith of others to subdue his own skepticism. The heroin addict who hates the world for driving him to the needle. Each is your grandchilde, eight generations removed.

Following the Embrace, some Tzimisce childer spend many years under the wings of their sires, sometimes their entire unlives. Traditional Fiends instruct their childer in every aspect ofthe Curse of Caine and in the conventions of the Sabbat and Clan Tzimisce. After the first few years of this wicked education, most Tzimisce see the concerns of their mortals lives as irrelevant memories and stand ready to destroy the Antediluvians and their Camarilla proxies.

Tzimisce sires often number among the most objective of teachers. While some Cainites tell their childer exactly what they want them to know and lie about the rest, most Fiends prefer honesty - brutal honesty. Survival leaves no time to make up stories. Tzimisce sires quickly destroy childer who can’t deal with the truth or fail to realize their potential.

Exceptions - Tzimisce who come into undeath through mass Embraces usually learn the facts of unlife from their packs. And the dangers of being Sabbat - crusades, Fire Dancing, Monomacy - orphan many Tzimisce. Far too many Panders - the Caitiff clan, old one -can blame the Fiends for their plight, most of them failed experiments or luckless bastards who somehow survived the suicide missions for which they were dragged into undeath.

Finally, the Tzimisce Embrace has a way of changmg people. Even those Embraced haphazardly during crusades tend to enter unlife somewhat distorted. What is it that tums a mortal - an a n d that uses religion and morality to convince itself it’s not an animal - into a blood-batlung demon who seeks evolution through Metamorphosis? Perhaps it’s a quality of the Blood, but more likely it’s the intensity of the Tzimisce unlifestyle - aside from the fact that they’re undead, having a blunt sire explain the war against the ancients while bonecmfmg their skulls is enough to make most mass-Embracees want to mwl back into the ground.

Loss of identity is an understandable fear, but some find it preferable to viewing unlife through human eyes. Regardless, even the best people canemerge from the experience ready to diablerize their way to &e. e CHAPTER Two: Em AND EVOLUTION Two HANDFULSOFDIRT I have felt the soil of the Old World in my hands, old one. At first, it seems cold and viscous. Then you squeeze it between your fingers, and you realize that it is wet. Not wet like mud, not some weak ooze, but like sandy clods of red dirt that have consumed 10,000 years of rain. As it crumbles, you realize that your gloves are wet, and later, they will smell a bit rotten. The soil resembles our clan, old one. It is fallow. We remain attached to it, though these modem Tzimisce rest most easily in the soil of whatever homeland they claimed as a mortal or a place important to their ego - the soil at their childhood home or the dirt of their intended grave.

But they do not call this addiction a weakness - it symbolizes the Fiend’s connection to their so-called homeland. At least, that’s how some Tzimisce regard their dependence on their native soil. Does one as old as you recognize this curse? Without at least two handfuls of dirt from a place important to them as a mortal, Tzimisce grow weaker until they spend a full night surrounded by their precious soil once more. Wise Tzimisce keep much more than two handfuls around. Some don’t feel safe unless they have a dozen crates of the stuff hidden all over town.

Perhaps you could answer a question for me, Methuselah: Are the Tzimisce territorial because their weakness complicates migration, or is it a punishment for their possessiveness? Noddists cite myths in which Caine curses the entire line for the feudal outlook of its founder.

Koldun believe the weakness is adebt to the land-spirits of their native domains, whose power affects all that falls under the shadow of the Carpathians. Few truths arise where myths and spirits are concerned.

Some Tzimisce have it worse than others. A very small number, bom continents away from Eastern Europe, actually need dirt from the soured lands of their ancestors. In the modem rughts, few Tzimisce realize what such childer require anddestroy them fortheir apparent weakness. Thcesires who know the old secrets of their clan or discover the truth in time to help a fading childe actually revere their progeny for their special connection to the Old World. Can you imagine, a Tzimisce sire serving his childe? With the modem reemergence ofKoldunic Sorcery, ancient bkhoften seekout these young Cainites in order to teach them the ways of their art.

They keep plenty of Old Country soil on hand to entice potential apprentices.

BLOOD, 0 URJAILFR According to our own legends, the Eldest was the first Cainite to discover the blood bond. In some versions (in which the Crone is conspicuously absent), Caine himself is ignorant of the power of his own Blood until his grandchilde teaches him its use. Whether this is truth or propaganda, throughout history, some Tzimisce have considered themselves masters of the blood bond, with the revenants and ghouls to support those claims. 4 t That our clan was responsible for the greatest innovation in the use of blood bonds is more than a myth. When the young Tzimisce of the Old World rose up against their elders, packs of rebellious childer sometimes pooled their blood into a bowl liberated from a wealthy voivode or the skull of a fallen elder. Each member of the pack drank from the container as a sign of solidarity. Packs that engaged in this practice displayed decidedly unvampiric tendencies: loyalty to their fellows and even willingness to sacrifice their unlives for their brothers. When combined with koldunic magics in a ritual that foreshadowed the Sabbat Vaulderie, these packs destroyed their blood bonds to their sires and proved immune to attempts to restore it.

Even before the Anarch Revolt, Tzimisce with advanced understandings of the Paths of Enlightenment could cause those enthralled by their blood to experience particular emotions or desires. These Tzimisce understood how to subdue their Beasts to such adegree that they could sometimes master the base impulses of their thralls as well.

Most regnants have little say in how the thrall expresses the mockery of love instilled by the blood bond.

Those of our kind who knew how to influence the bond, however, could make their thralls feel violently jealous, obsequious, reverent or even fearful. In the Final Nights, a few Tzimisce sufficiently stalwart in their Path of Enlightenment can create the same effect.

Perhaps I want something from you after all, old one. e NEVERFATYOUR OWN Many Tzimisce refuse to diablerize members of their own clan, if they indulge in the Amaranth at all. This perplexes other Sabbat, who widely regard diablerie as a vehicle topower. Itcouldnotbe, they say, that theclanhas such internal loyalty.

When questioned, some Tzimisce relate the story of Luther Wexler, a diablerist who met an unenviable Final Death. A year after Wexler consumed the soul of his sire, he bragged about the destruction of his sire to his pack while they shared blood. Before the bowl made its way back to the pack priest on the other side of the fire, Wexler and all the packmates who had tasted his blood stood up at once. Their eyes widened like those of frightened animals. Bloody specters climbed out of their mouths and sloughed off their skins, which fell away in neat puddles like dropped robes. The specters met in the fire and became flesh, then ran off into the night.

The survivor who spread the account was supposedly a fledgling who had yet to partake of the Vaulderie with her new pack. The rest of the Sabbat remains unconvinced.

The Tzimisce distaste for diablerie might be attributed to several factors. Traditional Tzimisce sires often warn their childer that when they drink a Cainite dry, they also drink her soul. Strong souls can linger after the Final Death, and some want a say in how their potent blood is CLANBOOK: TZIMIXE used. Some Metamorphosists fear that such an arrangement might lead them astray from &hi DaMca. Tzimisce who eschew Vicissitude almost never diablerize Cainites with the disease for fear ofcontamination. Other Tzimisce, protective of their egos, recoil at the thought of another entity dwelling inside them, influencing their thoughts.

Fetishes aside, most Tzimisce prefer remaining a weaker but self-made Cainite to becoming someone’s mighty puppet. The fact that mass-Embraced Fiends who lack the knowledge of our clan’s values and diablerie’s true nature don’t share their brothers’ compunctions lends credence to this theory.

This is not to say that Tzimiscenever practice diablerie.

Some accept the teachings of their sires but attempt to avoid complications by destroying all sources of their intended victim’s self-worth; when they finally diablerize the victim, his soul is broken and longs for obliterating quiet. Others actually relish the idea of becoming eternal prisons for the souls of their enemies. Some accept the risks, hoping the power is worth the price. Few of the youngest Tzimisce, which is to say much of the Sabbat, see any danger in diablerie.