Covenant (Conspiracy)

The Covenant is a third-tier vampire conspiracy based upon Abrahamic monotheism. In this respect it is superficially similar to the Lancea et Sanctum, but the underlying theology and social functions of the two are quite different.

Overview
The Covenant recognizes Longinus but does not center around his veneration. Instead, they count as their founder a Roman general named Julius Marius, who supposedly encountered an angel of the Lord while in Thebes. This Angel revealed to Marius that the Kindred cannot be saved until the Rapture; therefore, the Covenant's primary goal is to make the world as terrible as they possibly can in order to hasten the Rapture's coming. In this they see themselves as God's instruments--an angry God prepared to chastise His children, Old Testament-style.

Structure
All members of the Covenant are blood-bonded to a Confessor, a senior member of the conspiracy who both directs them and offers absolution for their numerous crimes. Each city's Confessor, in turn, is blood-bounded to one of the Council of Thebes, a network of 100 elders who direct the Covenant's large-scale Apocalyspe-provoking activities. They are, in turn, blood bonded to the Patriach, a dim figure who is rumored to be Julius Marius himself. (He isn't, but the rumor is terribly convenient.)

Additionally, some members of the Covenant serve as Scriveners, would-be prophets who take notes on anything they see or hear that might be a message from God and forward them up the ladder to the Council of Thebes. The Council then searches these missives for actual prophecies. Finally, the Covenant maintains its own Inquisition, which roots out the most benevolent do-gooders in the world and eliminates or breaks them.

There is a rumor that the Covenent controls an entire city somewhere, a cross between the Vatican and Gomorrah where the Council of Thebes lives almost openly among their herds and blood flows in the streets. More troublingly, there are rumors that someone exists with even greater authority than the Patriach--the vampire Anti-Christ, God made undead flesh.