Kerberos (VTR)

The Kerberos go back two thousand years, to the Greek isles. Their progenitor saw too many Embraces for the population. He petitioned the local tyrant for an official role as a gatekeeper, an arbiter for the Embrace. He claimed his sire was Typhon, the Father of Monsters. This afforded him the authority to judge, to determine who did or did not deserve the Embrace. A potential sire would go to him, presenting the childe-to-be.

Over time, the need for his intervention spread and grew. He could not keep his duties up with the swaths of population he needed to cover. He Embraced childer to task with his role elsewhere.

As the centuries passed, a growing number of vampires grew disgusted with him and his childer. They felt it was their own responsibility to choose and Embrace their scions, and none should limit their rights as such. They rose up and destroyed the bloodline founder, and many of his brood. The survivors spread to the winds, and abandoned their mission in their sire’s absence.

Their skill was always to test others and find how they handle the taint of the Beast. Coming to Byzantium in the sixth century, the line found a new role in the form of master interrogators for vampires of the nascent Lancea et Sanctum. They unleashed the Beast on victims, forcing them into submission and demanding obeisance.

This new purpose lasted a handful of centuries, before the New Rome movement painted them part of the pagan scourge looking to infiltrate and conquer the church. Again, they found themselves chased into the wilds, rejected and eschewed by their patrons.

They took on numerous other roles over the years. Each time, that purpose lasted for some time, before ending shamefully. Now, they’re looking for an identity once again. They need a new purpose. Some members of the line lobby to put themselves back in their historic role as judges for the Embrace. Of course, no covenant or rational city would allow such a thing, except from the deepest of shadows, murdering unworthy sires and investigating prospects for the Embrace.

Tonight, they act as social predators and urban monsters, cowing the competition with their fierce Beasts in back alleys and boardrooms.