Cappadocian (World of Darkness)
Encyclopedia
The Cappadocians are a clan
of vampire
s from White Wolf Game Studio's role-playing games Vampire: The Dark Ages
and Vampire: The Masquerade
.
Cappadocians are an extinct clan, who were driven by their desire to understand the limits between life and death. Their progenitor was Cappadocius, who unlike the other Antediluvians, sought peace, understanding of the world and of the curse of his blood in order to hopefully escape from its grasp.
The Cappadocians were marked by a desire to understand the limits between life and death. Some of them meticulously studied death and decay; others chose to focus on the possibility of bringing life back into a dead body. Their clan Discipline, Mortis, gave them the power to animate corpses (or parts thereof). As their interests met, some Cappadocians shared information with scholars of the occult from the Tremere
clan; others kept correspondence with Jewish Kabbalists
regarding the powers inherent in the name of God
(the manufacture of golem
s from inert matter might be an example).
Around the time of the Dark Ages, Cappadocius had his second in command bring to him a powerful man named Augustus Giovanni to be Embraced into the clan. Augustus Giovanni turned on Cappadocius and diablerized
him, thus making himself a third generation vampire. Augustus then founded the clan Giovanni
and had nearly all Cappadocians hunted down and killed.
It is believed that a few Cappadocians live on as the Samedi
bloodline, cursed with the appearance of death. The Sabbat bloodline calling itself the Harbingers of Skulls also claims descent from the Cappadocian clan.
Cappadocian history begins with three events: The embrace of Caias, which creates the clan proper, the first visions of Cappadocius, which would guide the future of the clan (even towards its extinction), and an encounter outside of Jerusalem. There, Cappadocius encountered a lone traveller who introduced him to the nameless God, who would become the goal of all of Cappadocius' projects.
The first of these projects was the construction of Erciyes, the vast temple-complex at the mountain of the same name. This site became the Cappadocian headquarters, containing a monastery and the home of the Antediluvian and his oldest Childer. Erciyes became the heart and research center of the clan, with the majority of the clan returning regularly to trade discoveries and set clan policy. Cappadocius had a goal, and unlike some more anarchic clans, the entirety of clan Cappadocian was dedicated to this goal of meeting, and then diablerizing, God. Cappadocius, a priest in life, was the only Antediluvian to adopt a human religion - following Christianity in his own fashion.
He called another meeting of the clan at Kaymakli, with Japheth and Caias in attendance. Leading the members of the clan deeper into the cave complex underneath the city, he asked his descendants a sequence of questions to measure their worth to society. The ones who answered (on the surface, at least) correctly were sent to the surface and the remainders were brought further and further down. At the lowest level, Cappadocius sealed thousands of Kindred in the caves with the curse of an Antediluvian: "Let no Childe of Caine ever leave through this passage; let no Son of Seth ever enter". There, bound by their father's ward, the rejected children of the clan starved, frenzied, fed and fell to torpor.
The Feast of Folly led to another reduction of the clan: Lazarus had not attended the gathering. Along with his Childer, he had remained in Egypt. At this time, Egypt was close to forbidden for the clan, as the Followers of Set would make short work of invaders to their territory. By dint of power and darker measures, Lazarus ensured his safety there, but he and his Infitiores were severed from the clan, renouncing their identity as Cappadocians for their own projects.
Following the Feast, the founder sought further assistance for the clan in unraveling death's mysteries. Selecting a family of Venetian necromancers, the Giovanni, Cappadocius brought their patriarch into his undead fold, seeking to complement the Cappadocian mastery of death with insights into existence after it.
Embracing Augustus would become the undoing of the clan, however. Augustus Giovanni had his own motives for the embrace, and eventually betrayed his clan, diablerizing the Antediluvian and remaking it in his own image in 1444. The only survivors of the clan were small offshoots: Lazarus' Infitiores and the Premascine Giovanni under the canals of Venice.
The Cappadocians were well known for partnering with the Ventrue, often serving as stewards or aides to Ventrue Princes. In this fashion, a Cappadocian could acquire what resources and protection he needed to pursue his own projects.
The Cappadocians were also highly religious, and would often adapt Christian religious practices, even if embraced before Christianity. As a result, there were a large number of Cappadocian monks, priests and the like.
A recent addition to the Sabbat, the bloodline calling itself the Harbingers of Skulls claims a history of treachery, for which it seeks to exact a hellish vengeance. Members of the bloodline are quite powerful without exception, and they claim to have returned from their banishment to the realms of the dead. Long ago, they whisper, a rogue society of sorcerers hunted them for their blood, stealing immortality to further their own arcane lusts for power. Few Sabbat believe this fairy tale of ancient injustice in these modern nights, but the Harbingers are afforded a wide berth nonetheless, given the immense potency of their magics and their discomforting eccentricity. The Harbingers of Skulls are necromancers on par with (and some say exceeding) the dreaded Giovanni, surrounding themselves with miasmas of death, murder and mortification, all toward the end of righting their legendary wrong. It would seem, however, that for all their polemics, something rots below the surface they present. Like the corpses they themselves resemble, something eats away at them from within.
Harbingers of Skulls, also known as the Lazerenes, appear as semi-decomposed corpses with the skin covering their skull, stretched tight over it. Harbingers wear elaborate masks to hide their disfigurement. The leader of the Harbingers, a vampire known only as Unre, takes this fetish to an extreme, wearing a bull's skull with shrunken human heads mounted on top. The Harbingers have only appeared recently, joining the Sabbat under mysterious circumstances. These vampires
are extremely old and powerful, and the reason they have chosen to support the Sabbat cause remain unknown. No Harbinger is known to have sired, further adding to their enigma. What is known is that they are master necromancers
, with skills unknown to even the Giovanni
. They have managed to parlay their strength and powers into positions of influence in the Sabbat. Along with their necromatic skills, they have the disciplines of auspex (insight) and fortitude (supernatural endurance).
One scenario in the Gehenna companion book reveals that the Harbingers of Skulls were a sect of Cappadocians sired by Lazurus who survived the "Feast of Folly". Cappadocius, seeking to purify his clan led many of his children to the town of Kaymakli. Those he found unworthy he sealed into a vast network of catacombs with the curse; "Let no childe of Caine ever leave through this passage, let no son of Seth enter. The Lazarenes, however, viewed their entrapment as a test. While their vampiric brothers devoured each other, they continued to develop their powers of death and eventually managed to pierce the shroud that separates the world of the living and the dead. However, they found themselves trapped once again, this time in the underworld. Hundreds of years later they finally managed to escape, emerging in the final nights both physically and mentally twisted by their ordeal. They learn of their clan's destruction at the hands Giovanni and join the Sabbat as a means of exacting their revenge against him. The scenario details that Giovanni himself has recently entered Kaymakli in an attempt to learn the lost secrets of Cappadocius, and players seek out the Harbingers of Skulls for information on how they can freely enter and leave the city.
The Harbingers of Skulls practice The Mortuus Path of Necromancy. This path allows the necromancer to manipulate the actual state of undeath for personal utility and offensive applications.
Similar to the Blood Brothers bloodline, the Harbingers of Skulls are not necessarily meant to be controlled by players, and best work as unique NPCs.
The Harbingers of Skulls also appear as a bloodline in the card game Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
. They mix well with the Ventrue anititribu and the Nagaraja. They are even strong enough, if maybe a bit too costly in terms of capacity, to be played in a single-clan deck (although their small number would mean having multiples of each in the crypt).
The Lamia are a cult, still practising their rituals and devoutly spreading the word (and disease) of the Dark Mother. While men are Embraced, women are seen as closer to Lilith and have much greater influence over the bloodline. As worshippers of death in the form of the Dark Mother, the Lamia carry a curse they call "The Seed of Lilith". This is a virulent disease that can infect those from whom they feed, especially men, and is invariably fatal; other Kindred who feed from Lamia are also infected, but they become carriers only.
According to the Giovanni, when Lamia herself was diablerized, she passed on the curse to the Giovanni, which manifested as the Giovanni's extraordinarily painful Kiss which deals more damage than "normal".
In Dark Ages: Vampire, Lamia started with the Deimos, Potence, and Mortis Disciplines. Deimos was, however, later changed into the Path of Four Humors path of Mortis (which in turn would later become paths of Necromancy), and thus the two disciplines were combined. Fortitude was then added as the third discipline.
Clan (World of Darkness)
In White Wolf Game Studio's role-playing games about vampires, a clan is a group of vampires joined by blood relations...
of vampire
Vampire (World of Darkness)
A vampires is a fictional creature in the role-playing games and books based on the World of Darkness setting by White Wolf Game Studio. The concept of a vampire in WoD takes many elements from the folklore surrounding traditional vampires in Western culture, and adds a number of specific features...
s from White Wolf Game Studio's role-playing games Vampire: The Dark Ages
Vampire: The Dark Ages
Vampire: The Dark Ages is a role-playing game originally published by White Wolf Game Studio in 1996. Later, in 2002, the gameline was replaced by Dark Ages: Vampire...
and Vampire: The Masquerade
Vampire: The Masquerade
Vampire: The Masquerade is a role-playing game. Created by Mark Rein·Hagen, it was the first of White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness role-playing games, based on the Storyteller System and centered around vampires in a modern gothic-punk world....
.
Cappadocians are an extinct clan, who were driven by their desire to understand the limits between life and death. Their progenitor was Cappadocius, who unlike the other Antediluvians, sought peace, understanding of the world and of the curse of his blood in order to hopefully escape from its grasp.
The Cappadocians were marked by a desire to understand the limits between life and death. Some of them meticulously studied death and decay; others chose to focus on the possibility of bringing life back into a dead body. Their clan Discipline, Mortis, gave them the power to animate corpses (or parts thereof). As their interests met, some Cappadocians shared information with scholars of the occult from the Tremere
Tremere
The Tremere are a clan of vampires in the Classic World of Darkness setting.The Tremere backstory is heavily based on Ars Magica, and the original House Tremere appeared as a Hermetic house in that game system. As the World of Darkness progressively diverged from Ars Magica's medieval Europe,...
clan; others kept correspondence with Jewish Kabbalists
Kabbalah
Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...
regarding the powers inherent in the name of God
Names of God in Judaism
In Judaism, the name of God is more than a distinguishing title; it represents the Jewish conception of the divine nature, and of the relationship of God to the Jewish people and to the world. To demonstrate the sacredness of the names of God, and as a means of showing respect and reverence for...
(the manufacture of golem
Golem
In Jewish folklore, a golem is an animated anthropomorphic being, created entirely from inanimate matter. The word was used to mean an amorphous, unformed material in Psalms and medieval writing....
s from inert matter might be an example).
Around the time of the Dark Ages, Cappadocius had his second in command bring to him a powerful man named Augustus Giovanni to be Embraced into the clan. Augustus Giovanni turned on Cappadocius and diablerized
Diablerie
In the context of White Wolf Game Studio's vampire books and role-playing games from the World of Darkness, diablerie takes place when a vampire drinks not only all the blood of another vampire but also their soul, generally in order to increase their own powers...
him, thus making himself a third generation vampire. Augustus then founded the clan Giovanni
Giovanni (World of Darkness)
The Giovanni are a clan of vampires, from White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade books and role-playing games. In the newest version of White Wolf's Vampire: The Requiem role-playing game they are a bloodline of the Mekhet Clan called the San Giovanni .The usurpers of clan Cappadocian and...
and had nearly all Cappadocians hunted down and killed.
It is believed that a few Cappadocians live on as the Samedi
Samedi (World of Darkness)
The Samedi are a minor independent bloodline of vampires from White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade books and role-playing games, native to the Caribbean....
bloodline, cursed with the appearance of death. The Sabbat bloodline calling itself the Harbingers of Skulls also claims descent from the Cappadocian clan.
Origins
Unique among the Antediluvians, Cappadocius viewed the Embrace as a unique opportunity to examine the condition of death and unlife. Throughout the early history of the Damned, he studied alone. Of all the Antediluvians, Cappadocius appeared the least interested in politics or power; even Saulot sired Childer and fought in wars. Cappadocius saw no need to do so until he realized he would never find his answers alone, long after the flood, even after the demise of the Second City. Even then, he began with one Childe, Caias Koine, and with Caias he began to study mortal civilizations in order to understand death.Cappadocian history begins with three events: The embrace of Caias, which creates the clan proper, the first visions of Cappadocius, which would guide the future of the clan (even towards its extinction), and an encounter outside of Jerusalem. There, Cappadocius encountered a lone traveller who introduced him to the nameless God, who would become the goal of all of Cappadocius' projects.
The first of these projects was the construction of Erciyes, the vast temple-complex at the mountain of the same name. This site became the Cappadocian headquarters, containing a monastery and the home of the Antediluvian and his oldest Childer. Erciyes became the heart and research center of the clan, with the majority of the clan returning regularly to trade discoveries and set clan policy. Cappadocius had a goal, and unlike some more anarchic clans, the entirety of clan Cappadocian was dedicated to this goal of meeting, and then diablerizing, God. Cappadocius, a priest in life, was the only Antediluvian to adopt a human religion - following Christianity in his own fashion.
Dark ages
Cappadocius, a vampire of the "I wake up and read for the next 300 years" variety, ruled his clan with a project but a relatively loose hand. He was a visionary, not a manager, and the clan was largely controlled by his favored Childer: Japheth Cappadocius, Caias Koine and Lazarus. These three had Childer of their own in positions of power (most notably Constancia, and Lamia, the founder of the bloodline of the same name. After those, the ones Cappadocius would regularly see, the clan spread far. So far that they populated two cities of their own: Kaymakli and Derinkuyu. Cappadocius was not aware that his clan was, in fact, the largest of all the clans until the mortals of Derinkuyu told him. Remorseful at this, Cappadocius committed genocide on his own clan.He called another meeting of the clan at Kaymakli, with Japheth and Caias in attendance. Leading the members of the clan deeper into the cave complex underneath the city, he asked his descendants a sequence of questions to measure their worth to society. The ones who answered (on the surface, at least) correctly were sent to the surface and the remainders were brought further and further down. At the lowest level, Cappadocius sealed thousands of Kindred in the caves with the curse of an Antediluvian: "Let no Childe of Caine ever leave through this passage; let no Son of Seth ever enter". There, bound by their father's ward, the rejected children of the clan starved, frenzied, fed and fell to torpor.
The Feast of Folly led to another reduction of the clan: Lazarus had not attended the gathering. Along with his Childer, he had remained in Egypt. At this time, Egypt was close to forbidden for the clan, as the Followers of Set would make short work of invaders to their territory. By dint of power and darker measures, Lazarus ensured his safety there, but he and his Infitiores were severed from the clan, renouncing their identity as Cappadocians for their own projects.
Following the Feast, the founder sought further assistance for the clan in unraveling death's mysteries. Selecting a family of Venetian necromancers, the Giovanni, Cappadocius brought their patriarch into his undead fold, seeking to complement the Cappadocian mastery of death with insights into existence after it.
Embracing Augustus would become the undoing of the clan, however. Augustus Giovanni had his own motives for the embrace, and eventually betrayed his clan, diablerizing the Antediluvian and remaking it in his own image in 1444. The only survivors of the clan were small offshoots: Lazarus' Infitiores and the Premascine Giovanni under the canals of Venice.
Victorian age
Until the 19th century, the clan was exterminated by the Giovanni, who extracted a promise of non-interference from the Camarilla. As the Cappadocians fell, various offshoots of the clan mutated in fashions that had already begun before Cappadocius' death. Some of the Infitiores decayed physically, becoming little more than rotting, mobile corpses.Final nights
The Sixth Great Maelstrom gave many dead creatures a chance to escape the Underworld. None were more prepared for this than a cabal of 50 ancient, powerful and very angry Cappadocians who broke through the shroud, claiming or forming new decayed bodies and seeking vengeance. These Harbingers of Skulls are nominally allied with the Sabbat, but it would be more appropriate to say that they are the enemies of a Camarilla which sold them out.Organization
The Cappadocians maintained a rather collegial organization: The members of the clan were generally friendly towards one another, but loosely organized. Cappadocians would correspond extensively on their work, but generally were solitary, with Sire-Childe relationships being the most common. The clan had respected elders, but given the generally loose structure of the clan, clan prestige and power was mostly associated with insight into the mysteries of death and life.Culture
The one word that sums up the old clan is "passive". The Cappadocians had their own projects and plans, and generally focused on those while ignoring the larger affairs of the world. Blessed with an unusually active Antediluvian and a generally placid nature, the Cappadocians were much less concerned about Gehenna, political backstabbing and the other niceties of undead life. This, of course, made them natural targets for the Giovanni.The Cappadocians were well known for partnering with the Ventrue, often serving as stewards or aides to Ventrue Princes. In this fashion, a Cappadocian could acquire what resources and protection he needed to pursue his own projects.
The Cappadocians were also highly religious, and would often adapt Christian religious practices, even if embraced before Christianity. As a result, there were a large number of Cappadocian monks, priests and the like.
Giovanni
A family of Venetian necromancers that diablerized Cappadocius, replacing the Cappadocians as the main clan of death in modern nights.Harbingers of Skulls
While few Kindred suspect the truth, the Harbingers of Skulls are the last remnants of the Cappadocian clan in the modern nights.A recent addition to the Sabbat, the bloodline calling itself the Harbingers of Skulls claims a history of treachery, for which it seeks to exact a hellish vengeance. Members of the bloodline are quite powerful without exception, and they claim to have returned from their banishment to the realms of the dead. Long ago, they whisper, a rogue society of sorcerers hunted them for their blood, stealing immortality to further their own arcane lusts for power. Few Sabbat believe this fairy tale of ancient injustice in these modern nights, but the Harbingers are afforded a wide berth nonetheless, given the immense potency of their magics and their discomforting eccentricity. The Harbingers of Skulls are necromancers on par with (and some say exceeding) the dreaded Giovanni, surrounding themselves with miasmas of death, murder and mortification, all toward the end of righting their legendary wrong. It would seem, however, that for all their polemics, something rots below the surface they present. Like the corpses they themselves resemble, something eats away at them from within.
Harbingers of Skulls, also known as the Lazerenes, appear as semi-decomposed corpses with the skin covering their skull, stretched tight over it. Harbingers wear elaborate masks to hide their disfigurement. The leader of the Harbingers, a vampire known only as Unre, takes this fetish to an extreme, wearing a bull's skull with shrunken human heads mounted on top. The Harbingers have only appeared recently, joining the Sabbat under mysterious circumstances. These vampires
Vampire (World of Darkness)
A vampires is a fictional creature in the role-playing games and books based on the World of Darkness setting by White Wolf Game Studio. The concept of a vampire in WoD takes many elements from the folklore surrounding traditional vampires in Western culture, and adds a number of specific features...
are extremely old and powerful, and the reason they have chosen to support the Sabbat cause remain unknown. No Harbinger is known to have sired, further adding to their enigma. What is known is that they are master necromancers
Necromancy
Necromancy is a claimed form of magic that involves communication with the deceased, either by summoning their spirit in the form of an apparition or raising them bodily, for the purpose of divination, imparting the ability to foretell future events or discover hidden knowledge...
, with skills unknown to even the Giovanni
Giovanni (World of Darkness)
The Giovanni are a clan of vampires, from White Wolf Game Studio's Vampire: The Masquerade books and role-playing games. In the newest version of White Wolf's Vampire: The Requiem role-playing game they are a bloodline of the Mekhet Clan called the San Giovanni .The usurpers of clan Cappadocian and...
. They have managed to parlay their strength and powers into positions of influence in the Sabbat. Along with their necromatic skills, they have the disciplines of auspex (insight) and fortitude (supernatural endurance).
One scenario in the Gehenna companion book reveals that the Harbingers of Skulls were a sect of Cappadocians sired by Lazurus who survived the "Feast of Folly". Cappadocius, seeking to purify his clan led many of his children to the town of Kaymakli. Those he found unworthy he sealed into a vast network of catacombs with the curse; "Let no childe of Caine ever leave through this passage, let no son of Seth enter. The Lazarenes, however, viewed their entrapment as a test. While their vampiric brothers devoured each other, they continued to develop their powers of death and eventually managed to pierce the shroud that separates the world of the living and the dead. However, they found themselves trapped once again, this time in the underworld. Hundreds of years later they finally managed to escape, emerging in the final nights both physically and mentally twisted by their ordeal. They learn of their clan's destruction at the hands Giovanni and join the Sabbat as a means of exacting their revenge against him. The scenario details that Giovanni himself has recently entered Kaymakli in an attempt to learn the lost secrets of Cappadocius, and players seek out the Harbingers of Skulls for information on how they can freely enter and leave the city.
The Harbingers of Skulls practice The Mortuus Path of Necromancy. This path allows the necromancer to manipulate the actual state of undeath for personal utility and offensive applications.
Similar to the Blood Brothers bloodline, the Harbingers of Skulls are not necessarily meant to be controlled by players, and best work as unique NPCs.
The Harbingers of Skulls also appear as a bloodline in the card game Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
Vampire: The Eternal Struggle
Vampire: The Eternal Struggle, published as Jyhad in the first or "Limited" edition and often abbreviated as VTES, V:TES or V:tES, is a multiplayer collectible card game set in the World of Darkness. It is published by White Wolf, Inc....
. They mix well with the Ventrue anititribu and the Nagaraja. They are even strong enough, if maybe a bit too costly in terms of capacity, to be played in a single-clan deck (although their small number would mean having multiples of each in the crypt).
Lamia
The Lamia are a bloodline of the Cappadocian clan, founded when Lamia, a descendant and high priestess of Lilith, was Embraced by Lazarus, child of Cappadocius. While they are loyal to their parent clan, the Lamia are forever separate, and Lamia's children worship the Dark Mother as she did in life. More physical and sensual than their studious parent clan, they are also great warriors, and bolstered the defences of the Cappadocians. The Lamia accompanied the Cappadocians into Europe during the Dark Medieval period, but were persecuted and destroyed when their parent clan was overthrown by the Giovanni. The last Lamia was destroyed by a Camarilla blood-hunt in 1718.The Lamia are a cult, still practising their rituals and devoutly spreading the word (and disease) of the Dark Mother. While men are Embraced, women are seen as closer to Lilith and have much greater influence over the bloodline. As worshippers of death in the form of the Dark Mother, the Lamia carry a curse they call "The Seed of Lilith". This is a virulent disease that can infect those from whom they feed, especially men, and is invariably fatal; other Kindred who feed from Lamia are also infected, but they become carriers only.
According to the Giovanni, when Lamia herself was diablerized, she passed on the curse to the Giovanni, which manifested as the Giovanni's extraordinarily painful Kiss which deals more damage than "normal".
In Dark Ages: Vampire, Lamia started with the Deimos, Potence, and Mortis Disciplines. Deimos was, however, later changed into the Path of Four Humors path of Mortis (which in turn would later become paths of Necromancy), and thus the two disciplines were combined. Fortitude was then added as the third discipline.
Version differences
Insofar as there are version differences, they are mostly tied in with the Giovanni. The Cappadocians were created after the Giovanni, and the Cappadocian clan was not really created until Vampire: The Dark Ages. As a result, earlier material (such as Giovanni Chronicles I) creates several Cappadocian characters who are Giovanni.Further reading
- Bruce Baugh etal, Dark Ages: Vampire (White Wolf Game Studio, 2002, ISBN 1-58846-276-5)
- Justin Achilli, Clanbook: Cappadocian (White Wolf Game Studio, 1997, ISBN 1-56504-280-8)
- Jennifer Hartshorn, et al., Vampire: The Dark Ages (White Wolf Game Studio, 1996, ISBN 1-56504-275-1)