Cathedral of Flesh

The Cathedral of Flesh was a bastion of the Tzimisce, once located in the Carpathians. The Cathedral's name is quite literal: it was fleshcrafted from the living bodies of countless mortals and ghouls over a span of millennia. The Cathedral was the creation, the haven, and the ward of Yorak, a childe of the Tzimisce Antediluvian and the clan's preeminent scholar of Metamorphism, of koldunism, and of the demon Kupala.

In 1472, Yorak summoned a guest to the Cathedral with the intent of Embracing him into Clan Tzimisce. This guest &mdash; none other than Vlad Tepes, Dracula &mdash; has been prophesied to bear a great influence on the world of the Cainites; thus, many other influential elders had sought to Embrace him into their own clans, if only to prevent him from acting as an agent of some other clan. Although Dracula was initially intrigued by Yorak's offer of the Embrace, the Cathedral itself had other plans. The Cathedral &mdash; likely acting under Kupala's influence &mdash; drew upon the vitae congealed within its living veins to engulf and diablerize Yorak. It then attempted to do the same to Dracula and his Cainite companions. Dracula and the Cainites managed to flee from the Cathedral's squamous clutches, despite the fact that the Cainites had been driven into a mad frenzy by the horror that threatened to consume them. Dracula, having seen the lengths that Cainites would go to amass power over one another, decided that he would still seek out the Embrace, but only under his own terms, and without the vulnerability that came with the blood bond.

Soon after its fatal revolt against its master, the Cathedral liberated itself from the Carpathian soil where it had rested for ages, leaving nothing but a gaping hole in its wake. It eventually became the residence of a group of Baali led by Ansen, the nominal Prince of the Romanian city of Deva. In time, the Cathedral tired of the Baali and simply devoured them en masse. The Cathedral was later inhabited by corrupt Lupines, who formed a loose alliance with Marelle, Archbishop of Deva. Its subsequent activities and whereabouts are unknown.

The massive, mutated form of the Tzimisce Antediluvian that currently lies beneath New York City is described as having formed a Cathedral of Flesh in Nights of Prophecy, although here it is directly stated that this Cathedral was created by the Eldest from its own flesh and vitae. Similarly, in Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption, the Tzimisce Methuselah Vukodlak dwells within a Cathedral of Flesh beneath New York City. Although Vukodlak's Cathedral could easily be (part of) the Eldest's Cathedral-body, it is unlikely that either of them is meant to be Yorak's original Cathedral of Flesh. Additionally, the details of Redemption's canon are frequently at odds with the established the World of Darkness &mdash; although the game's protagonist Christof Romuald does appear elsewhere in Vampire canon, suggesting that at least the essential elements of the game's storyline are canonical.