Ventrue

At the turn of the 4th century A.D., Cret decided he needed an aide to take over his duties at his Mithraist temple, so he could spend more time on magical research. Cret found his assistant in an Ostrogothic soldier called Hilderic, who had joined a legion (nothing unusual for barbarians) and risen to centurion. As soldiers do, his men abbreviated his outland name to Hill.

More importantly, Hilderic was the youngest man ever to reach the rank of Father, the highest level of Mithraist initiation. Hill’s drive and intelligence impressed Cret, and the soldier’s situation as a barbarian proving himself to an empire reminded the sorcerer of his own mortal youth. Hill served as Cret’s ghoul for a few decades until the sorcerer Embraced him.

After the Mithraic religion collapsed, Cret didn’t need an aide anymore so he made the soldier his apprentice in sorcery. They went east so Cret could try learning new developments in Dur-An-Ki. Cret and an Assamite sorcerer traded apprentices for more than a decade.

Over the centuries, the Ventrue ancilla would make many journeys east to study under Assamite masters; Hill even helped invent the final power in the Path called Awakening the Steel, before the Crusades made partnerships between Eastern Assamites and Western Ventrue socially awkward. Hill and his sire gradually drifted apart, especially after Cret became Saulot’s disciple.

The Inconnu seemed too passive to the soldier, and the Antediluvian threat too remote. Instead, Hill spent 200 years trying to reverse the Dark Ages, with no success whatsoever. He watched the First Crusade and its hideous massacres sickened even his hardened soul. Hill decided maybe the Inconnu had a point about leaving the world to its own devices. Cret welcomed him back.

Hill did not conclusively renounce the world, though. He did his best to rescue the Salubri from the Tremere’s murderous purge, and struck back more than once himself. Hill knew these actions kept him from Golconda, but the soldier decided that CHAPTER THREE: MULTIPLE PERSONALITIES 87 protecting Saulot’s legacy mattered more than his own redemption.

Getting Into the Pact: When the Tremere laid siege to Hunedoara Castle, Hill wanted the elders to fight. He wanted to give the Usurpers a thrashing they would never forget — but the Council of Seven and their Gargoyle legions proved too powerful for the Twelve. Cret proposed the Pact as a strategic retreat and a refuge from which to counterattack.

Hill went into the Pact with his eyes open and helped persuade the others Inconnu to accept it. Since Then: Hill tried to stay loyal to his sire. He defended Cret’s choice for a century and a half. In the end, though, he tired of his sire’s sophistry. He became one of the most enthusiastic intriguers of the Twelve, always to weaken and oppose his sire.

Hill also continued his long-distance harassment of the Tremere and the search for Antediluvian influence. Relations with Others: Cret and Hill are now bitter enemies, piling up centuries of insults and grudges. The devotion wrought by Hill’s blood bond to Cret only makes the sting of mutual hatred all the more sharp. Hill joins any faction that opposes Cret. Everything else is secondary.

Mahtiel disgusts him, though, because she gave up the fight. Outside Influence: Like his sire, Hill uses his Thaumaturgy to spy on the world and manipulate events. Unlike Cret, the younger Ventrue employs mortal minions whom he guides through dreamsendings and equips with talismans. None of these “Retainers” know the true nature of their patron.

Hill enjoys plotting campaigns to destroy prominent Tremere or other Kindred whom he believes serve the Antediluvians (knowingly or not). The Deal: More than anything else, Hill wants to equal his sire. The demon enables him to do this, in part. Once every 50 years, the demon passes one of Cret’s rituals to Hill.

Thanks to the demon’s help, Hill can also summon any spirit known to Cret, except for entities as powerful as the demon itself.