E-Books: Vampire The Masquerade
Ripped by DarkAngell
Ripped by DarkAngell
Accordingly, a vampire who enters a new city is required by höflichkeit to make himself known to its rulers and satisfy them that their rule is not threatened or challenged. To fail in this courtesy is to invite war. No witch-hunter ever pursues his prey so diligently as a Clan or Prince seeks out a strangern ouveau arrivé.
Most rulers, I have said, are content to keep the peace in their Fief and pursue their own arcane ends. But there are exceptions. One is the league of Clans which calls itself the Sabbat, or the Black Hand. Their Fief extends across the eastern half of North America, and they are everything that mortals expect of monstrous vampires.
Reveling in the violent, the perverse and the bestial, they are shunned by their own kind, and woe betide the incautious vampire whom they find in their territory.
Above the Clans stands the Camarilla. All vampires are aware of this league, and all are invited to join. To take an analogy ex mundo vivantis - if a Fief is a regional or national government, then the Camarilla is the League of Nations. To my mind, it is equally effective, but some set great store by its infrequent convocations. Certainly the Elders of the Council are not to be underestimated as individual powers - most are very old and all are very powerful. Primarily it enforces the ancient Traditions, most important among them the Masquerade, so soon enough I may have cause to test its resolve and strength.
The Clans all have their various alliances and oppositions, which shift as often and widely as those of the small countries of the mortal world. I have mentioned the protocols which must be observed when entering a Fief as an outsider. These obligations and structures are no more than protocols, and may be broken from time to time; but there is a stronger bond - stronger even than the ties of blood kinship - whose auctoritas is absolute. It is the mystic tie we call the Oath, or the Blood Bond.
I have touched upon the power of Blood to create new Kindred and Ghouls. Its effect on Kindred is no less powerful. It is said to be the sweetest blood in the world, but it creates a potent bond between donor and drinker. A vampire who drinks another vampire's blood on three separate occasions becomes trapped in a blood kinship as strong as that between Sire and Get; in fact, many Sires force this bond upon their unknowing Get at the time of creation, the better to command their loyalty.
Among the Kindred, the Oath is a most potent bond; to take the Oath is to give over one's mind and heart to another, and a willing Oath is never undertaken lightly. If all else fails and you have no other means of defence against a vampire, use my name - the chance is slender, but if your attacker happens to be Blood Bound to me, then you shall be safe.
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