Perhaps it is all too familiar.
Yet, to fully understand it, you must look at it in a different light: a soft flame kindled for millennia and held up against the growing darkness that surrounds it. The century to come will almost extinguish that fire. In the decades that follow, technology revolutionises the world, aristocracy becomes an anachronism, gentlemanly behaviour becomes obsolete, and world wars ravage the planet. The idealists of that brave new world become even more jaded and degenerate, forgetting the propriety and etiquette of the Victorian era.
Forget these shadows of a future past.
History is yet to be written, and as the protagonists of our passion play you may yet rewrite it in your own image.
To recapture the spirit of this bygone age, its very Zeitgeist, you must die and be reborn. You must see the world anew as a vampire.
Cursed by God, Caine was the first of the vampires. His legend grows with each generation. Victorian childer view him in almost religious terms, for legend holds that the Almightly destroyed Caine's soul, forever banishing him from the Kingdom of Heaven. There can be no greater curse than losing all hope of salvation.
If you believed in the mercy of God and the promise of Heaven, then your God has forsaken you.
This age is one when faith is strong and damnation is absolute. The progenitors of your race rebelled against Man and God alike, and you have inherited their original sin. It is your birthright, your legacy, your inheritance through blood. More than a mere infection or disease, your very soul has withered under the blight of spiritual corruption. Every church is now a bastion of faith whose walls have been built to hold you at bay. The cross is a sign of a religion that has rejected you, reviled you and would actively seek to destroy you. Sunlight is anathema, for through your baptism of blood, you have been reborn as a creature of darkness. The Embrace may have been given as an unholy blessing, but it is soon to become your undying curse.
Vampires are supreme urban predators, gifted with immortality and frighteningly preternatural powers.
Removed from the mortal world, they spin webs of intrigue, playing deadly politics and enjoying great influence and wealth. While centuries slowly creep past, vampires sink into archaic depravity, sparring for control in the shadows of the night. Driven by paranoia, jealousy, and the constant, predatory urge to gain power, vampires form societies and hierarchies much like those of mortals. These creatures claim territory, both literal and figurative, and defend it with a vicious steadfastness even as they avariciously seek to gain more. Manipulation and political struggles are common, all hidden beneath the elegant porcelain mask of social customs.
As immortal creatures, vampires prefer to humble their opponents rather than destroy them, thus providing themselves with decades of amusement and a constant reminder of their personal superiority. Rivalries and alliances can intertwine in a vast tapestry, shifting in unpredictable patterns as politics twist and change. This worldwide struggle is called the Jyhad, and all vampires – whether they wish to participate or not – must compete if they wish to survive. The Jyhad crosses all sects, all clans, and all eras.
Diablerie
Victorian vampires often insists that, while their flesh has been corrupted, their souls endure. kindred elders also insist that their enemies in the Sabbat know the rituals of Amaranth, blasphemous practices that allow them to consume the souls of vampires they destroy. After slaughtering an older vampire (most notably, one of a lower generation), the vampire consumes his victim's blood and steals the power of his soul.
Since this rite is one of the blackest treachery, the practice is commonly known as diablerie; its practitioners are condemned. By diablerising an older vampire, a cultist of the Sabbat effectively steals the elder's pwoer, lowering his own generation and bringing himself closer to Caine. This is one of the reasons why sabbats of monsters are demonised as villains, for they threaten not only the domains of the Camarilla, but the very souls of the Kindred.
It is unthinkable that a Kindred of the Victorian Camarilla would commit such a crime. Those with supernatural insight may detect an aura of unwholesomeness around a diablerist. Under the custom known as the Tradition of Destruction, such a villain must be destroyed. yet, once again, there is a certain amount of hypocrisy. It is widely suspected that the very founder of the Witch's clan, Tremere himself, ascended to the ranks of the 13 Antidiluvians by devouring the soul of an Ancient. In typical Victorian fashion, many childer are thus taught that all Tremere carry this certain streak of vileness, even if it is dupliticously reproduced in the six other clans of the sect.
Bonds of Blood
Elders often fail to mention that they have their own, albeit weakened, variants of diabolical rites. Despite what Roman scholars may have said, blood is not merely life, but also a measure of one's very soul.
When one vampire feeds from the veins of another, they become soul-mates: The servant becomes enthralled with her new master, enslaved in some small measure.
The act of consuming another's blood defines roles of dominance and submission. The master is sometimes known as a regnant, while the servant becomes a mere thrall. If the thrall feeds three times upon the blood of the regnant over the course of at least three nights, he becomes subservient to her for all eternity - or so goes the whispered rumour. In truth, blood bonds fade over time, but elders rarely deign to tell their childer of this, lest they prove resistant to taking draughts of their own heady vitae.
With overwrought Victorian sensibility, this blood bond has been elevated to new heights of romantic significance. It is now quite the rage to host grand fêtes for childer who honour their elders by submitting to bonds of blood. Accepting a blood bond is seen as an acceptance of one's rightful place in society. While childer are taught to honour their sires, it is hardly surprising that the thought of being enslaved for all eternity still terrifies them. Often viewed as punishment, the blood bond has become a powerful incentive to conform - or, at least, feign conformity. Most Kindred are taught that a blood bond endures only when an older vampire holds a younger one in thrall. As with much of Camarilla society, this is a lie.
Morality
Vampires are social creatures. They need mortals for emotional and physical sustenance. Without Humanity there is no vampire. There is only the Beast.
The Industrial Revolution has changed everything. The Kindred were originally drawn by the droves into the mortals' swelling cities, where hunting was easy and the prey was everywhere - except that those Kindred who say they came to the cities for the food are liars. Since time out of mind, vampires have kept a measured distance from the flock that fed them, but now, they mingle together in secret not because it is necessary for the monsters' survival, but because vampires like to surround themselves with mortals.
Make no mistake, the castle-on-the-hill routine worked exceptionally. Any tunnel-stalking Nosferatu will tell you that. Vampires could have continued making forays into civilized lands to eat, while spending their days asleep and far away. No, they chose to come and dwell with mortals because vampires are social creatures.
Secret Societies
In Gothic fiction, vampires are solitary creatures by their very nature. Authors such as Polidori and LeFanu celebrated the monsters they envisioned as lone stalking predators.
A vampire might choose to hunt in solitude or to prey upon a select group of mortals. Yet, for creatures who scheme to survive for eternity, the thought of centuries of isolation is a curse far worse than hunger for blood. Faced with endless nights, vampires seek diversions and distractions. As natural predators, they eventually prey upon each other for their own amusement, contesting with one another over politics, culture and influence.
The societies they form are thin façades erected to obscure their own violent conflicts. Two societies define these conflicts better than any other, for they have warred for centuries over politics and philosophy: the Camarilla and the Sabbat.
Victorian vampires Embraced in this momentous age see the world in extremes. For newly created vampires, these two political sects represents the Good and Evil of the age. Whether this distinction is largely fiction presented by their elders is a matter of conjecture. The leaders of these two societies author cautionary tales of those who stray too far from their appointed roles as victor and villain.
Elder vampires have little trouble adapting to their ever-changing traditions, but in the Gothic Victorian age, these two sects undergo subtle changes that even the dread Methuselahs ignore at their own peril. In the Gothic Victorian age, the architects of these two societies have taken on new appearances and affectations. Yet, they also hide ugly truths, like a corset laced around a corpse.
A Powerful Lie
Desperate to lose themselves or eke the most out of their vampiric curse, a great many Sabbat attempt to follow the Paths leading away from Humanity.
They behave like monstrous kings, doing as they please to mortals and Camarilla Kindred alike. When Final Death comes, at least it's loud. And it always comes - because alien moralities are a hard thing for a human mind to subscribe to, and no matter how much they may despise it, vampires are as much human as Beast.
The lesson Sabbat elders teach their grunts, that a vampire can deny his Humanity, is a lie that makes hungry neonates feel powerful - powerful enough to rush head-long down unclear and arcane Paths at the command of their masters. Once these neonates build up a good momentum of supernatural fury and arrogance, they are pointed in the direction of the Camarilla and let loose.
This routine was effective during the Dark Ages, when there were scarcely any mortals willing to challenge the might of a vampire. As the vampires came to dwell closer and closer to their prey, however, the routine became more costly. Not only were dramatic displays of vampirism opposed by the Camarilla now, they were opposed by mortals with confidence born from science, religion and fire.
Many of the Sabbat neonates who follow alternate moralities do so because elder Cainites have rallied them to the cause. Elders drive them toward goals they're not yet strong enough to reach or even understand. When the young Sabbat head out and try to fly on their master's orders, they end up being burned by the sun. This practice has become such a standard among Sabbat that very few members of their sect manage to become ancillae, and so, they have no one else to set an example for the revolutionary rabble recruited for flashy suicide tactics.
Sabbat neonates attempt to act out their anarchic fantasies in two major ways, and both often lead to the same fate. The first option is to rally against the Camarilla, to lay siege to its social fortress of rules and etiquette in a frenzy of animalistic barbarism. The second option is to avoid the struggle of the sects all together and delve deep into forbidden occult rites in search of some ancient vampire secret that will subjugate frail mortals for all eternity. Both options typically result in the destruction of Sabbat neonates.
Toward the end of the 19th century, a severe generation gap has grown between Sabbat elders and neonates. Elders, entrenched in their havens and secure on their Paths, sanction the Embrace of new followers to replace those who fell against the Camarilla. Being cunning and patient, these elders continued on with the same strategy for decades, eliminating neonates and trying again. Thus, during the Victorian age, the Sabbat is dominated numerically by untried neonates struggling to master the first stages of alternate moralities and ruin the Camarilla. In the shadows behind them lurk the elders, growing stronger and very comfortable with the dwindling number of would-be rivals. They have power and security.
Meanwhile, the Camarilla thrives.
Seduced by Humanity
In the Victorian age, humanity turns science on itself and discovers the disciplines of psychology and anthropology. The arts, which have always been at least marginally focused on the nature of humanity, enjoys an influx of societal interest in the form of wealthy patrons and vast metropolitan galleries. Important discoveries are made in the field of medicine, revealing new secrets about the human body... and its blood. All of civilisation, fascinated with its own successes, examines itself. Scientists, poets, painters, musicians, doctors and politicians all ask what it means to be human. The vampires in their midst become likewise interested.
Mortal civilisation advances faster than most vampires have ever seen before. Humanity's awareness of mysticism, science, history and the occult have never been more balanced, even if it isn't particularly thorough. Even the Kindred marvel at what the mortals are capable of. It is an age of astonishment, a time for revelling in the wonders of the world, and even the undead have been swept up by it.
During this revelation of humankind and mortal history, vampire society quietly looks at itself and the history it has witnessed through damnation. Members of the Camarilla become more and more involved in mortal endeavours and arrogantly loosen their grip on the mortals around them. This proximity to mortal society stirs echoes of human feelings in a great many vampires who once walked dangerously close to the Beast. The decisions so many vampires make during this era reaffirm the Path of Humanity and guide the direction of the Camarilla into the next century.
While the Camarilla grows strong by attaching itself to the infrastructure of mortal civilisation, the Sabbat begins to fall apart. Those Sabbat elders who had entrenched themselves in once-strategic positions now find themselves far away from the action. Those rare few ancillae who survived the suicide tactics of the sect, and who sought power down other Paths to use against mortals and Camarilla instead find themselves distracted by the burgeoning power of those mortals.
The Path of the Future
The secret proliferation of vampire society within mortal society certainly affects the Kindred more than the mortals. Mortals, impacted by the presence of vampires, most often have their world view altered for a few short years (or minutes). Vampires, meanwhile, impacted by the presence of mortals, can potentially dwell on their experiences for centuries. This is the reason why so many vampires, even elders, are on the Path of Humanity during the Final Nights. For all that vampires may claim to detest humans, they are nothing but a shadowy reflection of them.
The Sabbat will be deeply impacted by this era as well. Sometime between the Victorian age and the Final Nights, Sabbat Cainites come to understand the self-annihilating route they have chosen and see through the propaganda. Those Cainites who truly understand alien codes of morality aren't willing to sacrifice themselves on stale Sabbat suicide raids for faceless elders. Instead, they will gather the lore they can and hide it away from their weaker kin. No longer will foolish childer grope blindly toward power. From the turn of the century on, promising monsters would be invited to walk the Paths. The rest could burn for the Sabbat.
Camarilla vampires Embraced during the Victorian age naturally continue to observe the Path of Humanity and seldom learn of any alternatives. Even Caitiff commonly face their Humanity during this era. By overwhelming majority, the Sabbat and the most experienced of the independent clans are the only ones who truck with alternate moralities in the Victorian age.
