The Lancea Sanctum finds itself in a very different world and in desperate need of serious changes.
I'm just going to let that one sink in for you for a bit.
See. You can imagine what the reaction would be to the Spear to wake up one night to a world where things had turned completely upside down and all the traditions that they had lived by needed effectively to be thrown out and re-written. You can imagine how well that was going to go down.
And of course, It was worse than that.
No group lost more in the Revelation and the incipient war than the Spear. Where many Invictus elders went into Eclipse, many Sanctified Elders stayed awake, convinced that the end of the world was at hand and that the "Revelation" as they coined it, was indeed "Gods LAST test." Their Elders stayed awake, many of them joining the fight against the humans with a renewed and refreshed zeal. Hardliners went on a major recruiting drive of the other covenants, and when this failed, they began to embrace directly into the covenant.
It was of course always done in secret, usually by a single vampire embracing numerous candidates at a time, and then driven into torpor as penance. But it could mean as many as 6 new shock troops for the sanctified. Many of the "Volunteers" for these mass embraces were people who spoke against the war effort or were suspected of Heresy of some sort. So it the additional effect of depleting the ranks of those who were against the war, and doubling the number of new vampires indoctrinated into the covenant.
As the war worked itself into a fever pitch, Those who hewed more closely to Unifier ideals learned to keep their mouths shut. But the war took a toll on the Sanctified. Whole congregations of Sanctified were wiped out in the war with the humans. Many of the Sanctified Elders ended up destroyed along with the rest of their parishes. The spear had risen, almost as one, to take up the mantle of protection of the kindred, and while they received hefty support from the Invictus, they fought the war, largely by themselves.
They fought. They fought with a god-fired madness. The sheep had risen up and struck at gods wolves. How dare they! And it seemed that all of the rest of the kindred had shown their true colors. Brood and VII had come out of the woodwork in heretofore unseen numbers. The Invictus had shown their cowardice and their godless megalomania. The Crones and the Ordo were like coiling snakes hiding in the dark. and the Carthians…
The hate that the Sanctified bear the Carthians is nothing compared to the hate they once bore the Crones.
But hate can only sustain things for so long. And even a divine fire needs air and fuel to keep burning. The Sanctified suffered greater casualties than any other covenant in the war…and at the point where it seemed bleakest for the kindred side, the Invictus and the thrice-damned Carthian movement betrayed them all by suing for peace.
Recent nights haven't been kind to the Sanctified. What few hardliners remain have scattered to the four winds, hiding in pockets waging secret wars against any and all comers. Most of the martially inclined among those who remain a part of kindred society have taken 2 or more drinks in order to ensure their loyalty. Most of the rest have sworn binding oaths to follow and obey the laws of men. In addition, many of the Sanctified have been pressed into service as a kind of secret police for the Kindred. As you can imagine, some have taken to this role and others have not done as well.
Of those that remain, unifiers and neo-reformists are the largest factions still extant. And of the religion, it may be these vampires that might have a chance of re-wiring the religion from the ground up. New ideas are possible in a way that wasn't before. So are heresies. The inquisitors have circled the wagons and are trying to figure out what to do.
Those that still hew to the idea that Vampires are meant to be God's scourge on mankind have had to alter their course a bit. Some have found that they are still able to act as a tool of God's justice but need to do so in a much more subtle way. Gone are the nights of indiscriminate feeding and terrorizing, with the Invictus cleaning up the mess so the unsuspecting humans don't freak. Now, when the Spear reaches out to scourge mankind it does so through proxies and cunning uses of the softer disciplines.Certainly, you can't make a man kill himself with dominate or Majesty. But you can drive him right up to the edge of the cliff and give him lots of reasons to either jump or amend his life. Other Faithful have found that maybe the language of the old ways was perhaps less specific than was needed. Many Sanctified speak of how judgement of the flock ought to be indiscriminate, but Reformer Sanctified have put forth the idea that this may make faithful and innocent humans into collateral damage. However, targeting serial rapists, pedophiles, and other "Serious" sinners is seen as a compromise and often there might be certain understandings with mortal law enforcement. To say that Special Victim Units compile "Skate Lists" which are then turned over to the Spear...Why such scurrilous slanders cannot be countenanced!
This is the guy, you're more likely to run into than any other:
"Hey. I know. You've torn your girlfriend apart in a frenzy and now you don't know what to do. Hey man…We've all been THERE. Don't worry about corpses and cops right now…We'll take care of all of that. Just let me ask you if you know what this means in the larger scheme of things…See. I believe that things like this happen for a reason. That there is plan…"
The Church is in flux and no one really knows what its new shape will be. Anyone who says they know is selling something.
No comments:
Post a Comment