Tzimisce



If you described a Tzimisce as inhuman and sadistic, it would probably commend you for your perspicacity on the inhumanity, and then demonstrate that your mortal definition of sadism was laughably inadequate. The Tzimisce have left the human condition behind gladly, and now focus on transcending the limitations of the vampiric state. At a casual glance or a brief conversation a Tzimisce appears to be one of the more pleasent vampires. Polite, intelligent and inquisitive they seem a stark contrast to the howling Sabbat mobs or even the apparently more humane Brujah or Nosferatu. However on closer inspection it becomes clear that this is simply a mask hiding something alien and monstrous.

Early History
While [Tzimisce] is presumed dead at the fangs of Lugoj, the Tzimisce clan still holds their deceased founder in some reverence. Far more than their Darwinist Lasombra brethren, the Tzimisce are a clan of tradition and history, and while the founder may be dead, its ideals and quests still capture the minds of the Fiends.

What the Eldest originally was is open to debate, although only marginal interest - the Tzimisce consider humans to be clay at best, and the Eldest's mortal existence would be a trivial prelude to a far more important undead career. However, at least one legend among the Tzimisce suggests that the Eldest was an experiment. Enoch, seeking to expel all of his bestial qualities spat out his existence into an Embrace using a modification of the Protean discipline - the beast, according to those Metamorphosists who adopt this theory is not just rage, but also change, whimsy, intuition and imagination, all traits that the Eldest showed after its embrace. In this interpretation, the Eldest is not just a creature, but also a visible manifestation of Vicissitude.

The Eldest struck out early, eventually travelling to Eastern Europe, where it became tied to the land and Kupala, the demon of the area. In this place, it embraced others, notably Yorak, Kartariya, Byelobog and the Dracon, each of these descendants spread both intellectually and physically around the world. While the Tzimisce are now noted for the madness and sadism of metamorphosists like Yorak, creatures like the Dracon show an entirely different side - the Tzimisce are experimenters and creators, whether it be Constantinople or the Cathedral of Flesh.

Dark Ages


The Tzimisce Voivodate, a loose confederation of Tzimisce domains in Eastern Europe, had survived since the fall of the Second City only to face new threats to its existance during the Dark Ages. The first threat to Tzimisce power in the region was the emergence of the Tremere. Though the magi of the Order of Hermes were a familiar presence in the region, the invoked the wrath of the neighboring vampires after prying the secret to vampirism from captured Tzimisce. House Tremere, led by Goratrix officially became Clan Tremere in the wake of the diablerization of Saulot. Despite making enemies of mortal magi, the Tzimisce, the Salubri and later the Gangrel and Nosferatu, the fledgling Tremere managed to survive the Omen War with the Tzimisce. Voivode of Voivodes Vladimir Rustovich's assault on the Tremere was interrupted by the invasion of the Ventrue under Jürgen of Magdeburg. While Jürgen's assault was ended through the efforts of Myca Vykos and the Obertus Order, the Omen War continued on until the Anarch Revolt rendered the Tzimisce incapable of any real organized efforts as a clan. Despite the Warlocks' continued survival, most Tzimisce continue to bear a grudge against them into the modern era, though many younger Tzimisce fail to comprehend why. The Voivodate, and with it the feudal structure of Tzimisce society, would last only a few centuries longer.

Anarch Revolt

 * Kupala's Eve
 * Diablerie of [Tzimisce]
 * Founding of the Sabbat

Victorian Age


Perhaps the most significant thing in the Victorian Age for the Tzimisce was the publishing of Bram Stoker's Dracula. Perhaps the most famous vampire novel (although by no means the first), it actually detailed a member of their clan (although a somewhat errant one). It introduced audiences to Transylvania, the home of the clan.

However, it was the Victorian Age that saw the beginnings of the Tzimisce's decline - once proud and aristocratic, the modernising of the world turned them into anachronistic jokes. The ease at which mortals could travel and communicate meant that the Fiends could no longer exist as lords and rulers of their own fiefdoms - troubling news of shambling monstrosities and villagers impaled on pikes would reach more civilised parts of the globe in no time.

Science began to shake the iron foundations of folklore and superstition that the Tzimisce had built their fearsome reputation on. This was truly a double-edged sword for the Clan. Their hated enemies, the Tremere had become very powerful during this time, and the peasants over which most of the Fiends ruled rose up against their masters. Once again burned from their rotting manses and forced to hide from the Kine, most considered the age a great indignity. But the leaps and bounds made in medicine and the sciences during this time yielded both a new crop of potential childer and a new way to study the effects of mutable forms. The Tzimisce had always been students of a sort, and having biology and anatomy codified and much easier to learn, their own knowledge of the body expanded.

Final Nights
The Tzimisce are a clan in decline, and have been ever since the Anarch Revolt. However, only in the Final Nights do these events come to a head and only, until the last moment, in the head of one vampire.

Lambach Ruthven, unwilling sire of Dracula finds himself dissolute and wandering throughout Sabbat territory, haunted by occasional messages from his dead sire. Weak-willed and ineffective as Lambach is, he is still fifth generation and a major figure in the Anarch Revolt - respected (and feared), he is largely left alone by the cannibals of the Sabbat. He is eventually forced, or encouraged, or led to the sewers of New York City, where he finds a horrifying truth: Lugoj was destroyed that night, and [Tzimisce] "lives".

The Tzimisce Antediluvian, through advanced mastery of Vicissitude, has become a gigantic (miles-long) pseudo-fungal infestation under the tri-state area. Its consciousness is spread across thousands of creatures, and it can form bodies or new selves at will. It offers Lambach metamorphosis, a chance to be as it is as part of what it is. Lambach flees and tries to tell anyone who will listen, but the result is fruitless.

Organization
Historically, the Tzimisce embraced broods who maintained a particular plot of land. Tied to the land, Tzimisce broods were incestuous, violent hierarchies of hateful creatures who maintained a bare modicum of civility through raw power and the blood bond. With the elimination of this hierarchy during the anarch revolt, the Tzimisce have become intensely solitary creatures. They now tend to embrace more....unusual individuals, psychopaths and sadists are common choices as are people who indulge in self-mutilation, however intelligence and dignity are still key concerns: the tzimisce would choose Hannibal Lecter over LeatherFace any day of the month.

In the modern era, the Tzimisce have a recognized clan head, the voivode, but the office is largely religious. for most Tzimisce, authority is a function of power.

Within the Sabbat, the Tzimisce are the spiritual leaders and scholars, in contrast with the Lasombra's preference to leadership and temporal power. While the Lasombra are the Cardinals and Bishops, the Tzimisce prefer being pack priests, Prisci, or even not having titles at all and focusing on personal development. Some people even ponder(out of earshot, of course) that the Tzimisce are not very sincere in their attachment to the sect, and that the only reasons they are even present amongst the Sabbat is their dislike of Camarilla clans (especially the Tremere) and not fitting with the Camarilla's policy of hiding among humans(Tzimisce tend to see humans as mere plaything below their consideration). However, those Tzimisce who show genuine dedication to the Sabbat ideal are paragons of their sect, impressing(and even scaring) other Sabbat with their fervor and contributions.

However, in Eastern Europe, many Tzimisce give only lip service to the Sabbat, and prefer to live solitary unlives following their own pursuits. Most Sabbat give these Tzimisce leeway, since most of them are very old and very powerful. More than one upstart neonate has been toyed into an unrecognizable visceral mess by angry Tzimisce wanting to be left alone.

Culture
Even before the rise of the Sabbat, the Tzimisce viewed their mortal charges as little more than a sophisticated form of herd beast; following the Anarch revolt, the majority of Tzimisce have abandoned lordship in favor fo their own project. As a result, the Tzimisce are intensely focused on the Vampiric condition: they gladly abandon their Humanity in favor of the Paths of Enlightenment, and they have spent more time thinking about their state than any other clan. One of the immediate results of this is that sabbat culture is derived from medieval Tzimisce culture, traditions such as Vaulderie derive from Tzimisce custom.

Tzimisce culture, philosophy and self-image is intimately tied with their practice of Vicissitude. The Tzimisce view Vicissitude as a key to unlocking higher mysteries of the vampiric state, and consequently see deeper mastery of vicissitude as part and parcel with vampiric enlightenment. Tzimisce almost invariably modify their own appearance using Vicissitude, sometimes on a nightly basis.

Tzimisce also use Vicissitude as a solution to a variety of problems that wouldn't occur to a vampire possessed of a conscience. Unlike most rulership clans (e.g., the Ventrue or Lasombra), Tzimisce have no particular facility for Dominate. As a result, they rule their subjects not by mind control, but through sheer fear, using creative applications of Vicissitude to strike that fear home. Giant sculptures of living flesh, tables made from ghouled children, lovers glued together and transformed into dogs, all of these are tools for a sufficiently insightful Tzimisce. The most infamous of these creations, the szlachta and vozhd, are used as bodyguards and tanks.

The Tzimisce are also the last practitioners of a form of Koldunic Thaumaturgy.

A particularly interesting phenomenom which is practically exclusive to the Tzimisce is the existence of Revenants. Revenants are families of ghouls constantly maintained by the Tzimisce, who serve as mortal pawns and possible candidates for the Embrace. Centuries of vampiric contact, infusions of vampiric blood and inbreeding have transformed the Revenants into a distinct type of supernatural creature. They produce a weak vampiric-like vitae, which sustains their bodies way beyond normal human lifespans(although not immortal, Revenants can live to be hundreds of years old), and also gives them the ability to use Disciplines. Revenants are fanatically loyal to their vampiric masters, and consider themselves superior to the average human, as well as "regular" ghouls. This, added to their treatment by the Tzimisce and their inbred, unsavory lifestyles, have shaped their mindsets into completely alien directions. Most Revenants could never function as normal human beings. The four Revenant families also provide the Tzimisce with a very diverse "breeding stock", giving the clan a lot of flexibility in its membership. Warriors, scholars, aristocrats and freaks are all found in equal measure amongst the Revenants, and this translates to them being found amongst the Tzimisce as well, once they Embrace the Revenants in question. Although there are other Revenant families in the World Of Darkness, the four Tzimisce families (the Bratovitches, the Obertus, the Grimaldi and the Zantosas) are the biggest and most well established. What follows is a description of the four families:

-The Bratovitches are the muscle of the four families. Violent and animalistic, they are quick to anger, rough and savage. They are also the kennel masters for their lords, raising dogs, wolves and other wild animals so that their masters may shape them into fearsome creatures they may hurl at their foes.

-The Grimaldi are the Tzimisce's main liaison with human society. They are the most "human" of the Revenant families, and are usually in charge of maintaining Tzimisce estates and handling mortal endeavors like finance and politics. They are also the most independent of the Revenant families, some of them even secretly plotting to free themselves from their masters' yoke. Other Revenant families see the Grimaldi as soft, and hold them in contempt. The Grimaldi return the favor, seeing the other families as mindless slaves and freaks.

-The Obertus are scholars and occultists, and are held in high esteem by the Tzimisce, as many of their greatest scientists, spiritualists, leaders and sorcerers have been Embraced from their ranks. Sascha Vykos, the most famous(and notorious) Priscus of the Sabbat, was formerly Myka Vykos of the Obertus family.

-While the Grimaldi are the Tzimisce's pawns in mortal society, the Zantosas are their main link to culture. Zantosas are hedonistic social butterflies, on par with any Toreador in their dealings with human culture. They stimulate their senses and play with humans with reckless abandon. They are probably the Revenants in least control of themselves (even moreso than the Bratovitches), and many believe the only reason the Tzimisce haven't wiped them out is because they value their tradition and history. The Fiends' anachronistic mindset may be the only thing saving the Zantosas from annihilation.

The Tzimisce are unique in how much their culture is centered around their signature Discipline, Viscissitude. This unique and quite disturbing Discipline allows the Tzimisce to shape flesh and blood (both living and unliving) into practically any shape they can think of. Their exploration of it rivals(some people even say surpasses) that of the Tremere towards Thaumaturgy, and the Tzimisce ascribe a spirituality that contrasts with the Tremere's practical view of their own Discipline. This results in most Tzimisce not looking at all like humans, having shaped themselves into alien or monstrous forms, or even looking beyond human, having sculpted themselves into paragons of mortal beauty canons, more beautiful than any human created by nature. In fact, this exploration of the Discipline, along with their studies into how it affects the body, mind and soul of the user or subject of its use, have led to whole philosophies being based around it, particularly the Path of Metamorphosis (it also fascilitates studies in the other Tzimisce path of enlightenment, the Path of Death and the Soul). Rumors of [Tzimisce]'s godlike proficiency with the Discipline have given way to the Fiends giving it an almost religious importance. While other clans may have their own personal Disciplines (like the Gangrel's Protean, or the Assamites' Quietus), none base their unlives around them like the Tzimisce do with Viscissitude.

Embraces
Historically, the Tzimisce have viewed mortal life as largely irrelevant before the embrace. While they do look for certain mortal characteristics, they tend to see this as the barest flicker of potential rather than a compelling argument. Tzimisce embraces are supremely selfish - often based around specific obsessions or interests of the sire, rather than any distinctive characteristic of the childe. Those with interests matching their own are particularly prized, and many Tzimisce childer were masters of their field in life - whether this field was medicine or serial murderer is a trifling distinction though.

That said, the Tzimisce have a reputation for choosiness, largely from a general disdain for mortals. The Tzimisce have partly addressed this by instituting breeding programs among mortals, resulting in ghoul families such as the Bratovitch or Zantosa line, which serve as the preferred fodder for an embrace.

Version Differences
Between second and revised edition, the Tzimisce were subject to a controversial change imposed in Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand. DSotBH introduced the concept of Souleaters, alien entities who reproduced by spreading the Vicissitude discipline. As the clan of Vicissitude, the Tzimisce were hosts for the souleater disease. Souleaters were retconned out of the WoD history, but some rules (notably Vicissitude as a disease) were maintained.