Sascha Vykos

Androgynous Sascha Vykos — Noddist scholar, Tzimisce scientist and Cainite monster — has long been a staunch supporter of Sabbat freedom. It is Hell’s chief torturer and a musician with a scalpel. Sascha understands the nuances of every physical sensation and the nerves best suited to receive its ministrations.

It is also a creature of learning, with a collection of books and artifacts to humble the halls of all academia. Sascha’s enemies, including the Gangrel Beckett and the Malkavian Anatole, believe it holds cult-status within the Sabbat, wherein sect members emulate its actions. In truth, however, Sascha is a monster beyond its own years.

Few could ever understand the grand schemes of the Sabbat’s ronin priscus. Sascha Vykos, named Myca Vykos in the years before its self-inflicted castration, lived an enviable existence in the glorious Byzantine Empire. Born to royalty in the Carpathians before the turn of the first millennium, Myca seemed destined for greatness from a young age.

As a child, his fits and visions brought him to the attention of House Tremere within the Order of Hermes. He learned the basics of spellcraft and proved such an adept student that he inspired jealousy in the magus Goratrix. Goratrix’s later attempt to betray Myca to Tzimisce Cainites backfired, and the young boy found himself among the Fiends.

Eventually, Myca came to hate his clan and fled to Constantinople with the aid of his sire, Symeon, a Tzimisce renegade. The great books of Alexandria became Myca’s silent teachers while the political juggernauts within the Byzantine courts taught him the subtleties of influence.

Like the other Cainites of the city, however, Myca became enamored with the Toreador Michael and the Methuselah’s delusions of divinity. Alas, neither Constantinople nor Michael lasted. When the Fourth Crusade destroyed the city, both Myca and his sire fled to the Balkan strongholds of their Tzimisce brethren.

Although they left Michael’s legacy behind, his reach would greatly affect Myca even after the Methuselah’s Final Death. During Myca’s years in Constantinople, Michael encouraged Myca’s thirst for knowledge. It was his intent to make the young Tzimisce a walking record of Constantinople, Michael’s vision of Heaven on Earth.

Unbeknownst to Myca, the Toreador Methuselah instilled him with this vision and with a need to preserve Constantinople’s legacy. Myca became Michael’s architect, building a new kingdom without the mistakes of the past. Myca carried out Michael’s dreams by crafting a living empire of flesh rather than stone.

His city was to be a community of Cainites founded on pillars of blood CHAPTER ONE 25 and bone. His participation in the Sabbat’s formation was the first step toward that goal. During the antitribu uprising, better known as the Anarch Revolt, the anarchs attacked the elders’ strongholds to destroy everything associated with their former masters.

Myca, on the other hand, played the monster while torturing Symeon — repeatedly absorbing and regurgitating his sire before the final act of diablerie — but also took the role of scholar when he saved books at risk to his own existence. During the uprising, Myca aided his allies, Lugoj and Velya, and proved pivotal aid to the nascent Sabbat movement as priscus.

Over the centuries, Sascha — for that is what Myca renamed itself shortly after leading an assault on the village of Thorns — has served its sect as scholar and warrior. In both roles, it acts as wandering priscus, though its manner of advising regional cardinals seems more akin to making strong “suggestions” than polite recommendations.

As scholar, it maintains ancient libraries and repositories across the Balkan states. In this role, Sascha is an ally to the old-guard Sabbat who appreciate the strength of knowledge. As warrior, however, Sascha is also a frightening tool of retribution. With mastery over Vicissitude and Thaumaturgy, it can best most adversaries.

Generally, though, it prefers to capture foes rather than kill them. Many of Sascha’s prisoners have endured sessions of alternating torture and ecstatic pleasure that last for decades. Its victims are often unsure whether they are undergoing torture or rape. In this violent facet, Sascha appeals to the younger Sabbat.

Collectively, in turn, the Sabbat is a weapon for Sascha, a living battlement against the rapacious Antediluvians — the adversaries in Sascha’s morality play. Every death it inflicts strengthens the Sabbat’s position; every splatter of blood is part of God’s portrait; every agonizing cry is a nail in Heaven’s unliving city.

That is why it knows how each nerve screams, how much blood flows from specific wounds and how much fat it can rob from a mortal body before death.