Viewpoints

# Viewpoints

Viewpoints

of Note

Individual Lasombra see the world and their role in it many different ways. For survival’s sake, like-minded vampires tend to cluster together, particularly in the Sabbat. They only commit to Vinculum bonds with others they like or at least respect to some degree.

Most of the Lasombra subcultures have no organization or even a well-known name. They’re outlooks rather than institutions. The only clanwide institution is the Courts of Blood (and the Friends of the Clanbook: Lasombra Night behind them). Everything else is unofficial. A group that became organized enough to challenge the courts would be co-opted and folded into the Friends themselves or destroyed, depending upon how well the group’s leaders pled their case.

The Factionless What the hell are you talking about?

— Druitt, pack member, Detroit Most Lasombra identify themselves this way: “I’m a Lasombra and a Sabbat.” They don’t worry about other details much, and they don’t feel driven to identify themselves with subgroups of any sort.

The factionless aren’t mindless supporters of the status quo, or at least don’t have to be. Many of them take part in the debates about future policy for the Friends of the Night and the Sabbat as a whole. They argue about how to deal with the Lasombra antitribu, about who are the Sabbat’s biggest enemies and other practical matters.

Factionless Lasombra vary widely in how much attention they give to their clan heritage. In some ways it’s inescapable, thanks to the clan’s signature Discipline and role in Sabbat history. (Not all Lasombra learn Obtenebration, of course, and thanks to sharing between packmates, a fair number of non-Lasombra also know it. Some vampires revel in the fact, proud of having inherited power and glory and a tradition of using both effectively. Others just don’t care. They’re interested in building their own empires, however defined, and they regard the clan heritage as irrelevant or even a nuisance that pressures them to conform to norms they reject.

The Crusaders We are an army. Not a fan club, not a sporting league, not a philosophy. An army. You stand on the brink of destruction at the hands of the Antediluvians’ pawns.

You speak of independence, but wish for yourself only the independence of annihilation. I will make you survive and triumph, regardless of what you think you want now.

Submit to me and win.

— Dr. Julius Sutphen, Bishop of Atlanta A minority of Lasombra are “crusaders,” Cainites who view the Sabbat as a religious and military organization almost to the exclusion of the Sabbat as an ideology of freedom. More elders favor this approach than neonates, though a surprising fraction of the Lasombra Embraced in the last few years share their elders’ concerns, thanks to the rising possibly of Gehenna.

Assigning numbers and fractions to any set of vampires is an inexact art. Too few vampires exist, and ideas don’t spread evenly around the world. Any large Sabbat city has at least a few crusaders in its ranks.

In a few large cities and several small ones, crusaders dominate the local hierarchy. In most councils, the crusaders are the annoying handful who either end up totally ineffectual because everyone hates them or making most of the decisions because they wear their critics down.

In the Sabbat at large, the Ultra-Conservative faction includes both Lasombra and Tzimisce elders, along with some antitribu elders, especially Ventrue. The crusaders specifically favor Lasombra leadership of the Sabbat, pointing out that Lasombra began the crusade and often citing prophecies of doubtful reliability to the effect that Lasombra shall complete it.

The Faithful When Jesus was crucified, we were there, to darken the skies until He died. We continue now, darkening the hearts of those who reject the salvation we can no longer escape, guiding them to destruction. In the end, we will gather all darkness unto ourselves and descend into the Abyss, leaving behind the world God intended. Thus we serve Him.

— Brother Paul, Franciscan, Barcelona Chapter Two: The Keepers’ Unlit Halls In earlier nights, many Lasombra took Christianity very seriously indeed, as smaller numbers did Judaism, Islam and other faiths. They regarded themselves as servitors of God locked into certain or near-certain damnation. Their actions likely wouldn’t earn any reprieve from divine wrath but might postpone final judgment as long as they remained useful tools.

Cardinal Monçada personified this approach to unlife. He was for centuries the leading exponent of the Faithful outlook, surviving the destruction of many of his former comrades. He sought to kindle the spark of faith in new generations, but with little success. Vampires who lived in cultures that didn’t worry much about God seldom developed an interest in the subject after their Embrace. Even the Cardinal’s occasional pet project of mass Embrace in the midst of religious revivals didn’t work very well. Few flavors of postmedieval religion lent themselves to the concerns that drove him. Embraced snake-handlers, speakers in tongues and evangelicals had no use for the cosmology he offered them.

With the Cardinal’s passing, the Faithful lack a strong leader. Half a dozen rivals — almost all Latin American or Mediterranean archbishops — seek to establish themselves as “Monçada’s heir,” but none of them can make a very strong case. Archbishop Menard of Nicaragua has the most widespread support at the moment, combining a deeply traditionalistic Roman Catholic fervor with fanatical devotion to the Sabbat’s various wars. Unfortunately for his campaign to succeed Monçada, his vision remains focused on Latin American concerns, and too many Faithful elsewhere simply get bored by his diatribes about the leftist influence in Latino Catholicism and the need for a purge.

The Black Angels Taint of sin in my soul? Fuck, yes! My every act makes it manifest. It is my glory. Let me share it with you.

— Madd Killah, ductus-in-training Since the first Christian centuries, some Lasombra have interpreted their role as being literal devils on earth, serving Satan’s will by feeding moral as well as physical darkness. Even before Christian teaching spread, similar movements existed on the fringes of Zoroastrian and other dualist beliefs. In the Middle Ages, the Angellis Ater or Black Angels constantly provoked the Friends of Night with their reckless and relentless assaults on mortal society. The Black Angels’ depredations fueled popular support for the Inquisition’s monster hunting. The clever survivors among the Black Angels played a crucial role in bringing the Sabbat together with a doctrine of supremacy in evil.

In the last thirty years or so, the Black Angels have re-emerged from the margins of Lasombra culture. Explicit dedication to evil appeals to surprising numbers of neonates who’ve grown up in societies they find bland and unprincipled — any code of conduct will do, it seems, as long as it provides a firm justification for their depredations.

The Abyss’s Children I find no truths except in darkness. The world will not interest me until all traces of light have been expunged from it forever. I act only to hasten the end of the last day.

— Filipe Toreaso Maguno, pack member, Cali,