Set (VTM)

Set or Sutekh is the Egyptian god of storms, associated with serpents, evil and darkness. To most Kindred he is an Antediluvian, founder of the clan known as the Followers of Set; to the Setites, he is a true god and the first vampire.

Origin and history
The Malkavians claim that Saulot, Malkav and Set were "brothers", that they each were mystics of a sort - Malkav with the mind, Saulot with the soul (or maybe the Beast), and Set with the senses. Set was presumably in Enoch at some point, but his history there is irrelevant. The history of the Antediluvian is the history of Dynastic Egypt and, if the stories of his childer are true, then the events of Egyptian legend are true.

Set travelled to Egypt around 5,000 BC. Set had a brother of the flesh, Osiris, and two sisters, Isis and Nephthys. In addition, he had a father in Ra and ambition to rule a kingdom by assassinating his older brother, perhaps a powerful vampire in his own right. According to legend, Set struck down Osiris, and then the king's son Horus. Taking Egypt as his own, he ruled in power - and perhaps (or perhaps not) sought to free mankind from the bonds of law imposed by Ra. Whatever the truth may be, Horus came back from death as a Mummy and sought vengeance for his father's destruction, ejecting Set from the throne of Egypt and beginning a crusade that would consume millennia.

Set the God
Setites believe the stories of Egyptian mythology about their founder, but they reject the notion that he was originally a mortal, Embraced by one of Caine's childer. Instead, they believe Set, Osiris, Isis and Horus were all truly gods, and that after his nephew's triumph, Set was cast down to Duat, the Egyptian land of the dead, to rule as the God of Storms. There he bested Apep, the great serpent of the Underworld, and took the creature's power as his own. He learned that Ra, Osiris and Horus all hid the truth from mortals: that human souls were not fundamentally different from those of the gods, and that only ignorance of what was possible prevented them from attaining great power.

Determined to get revenge, and to liberate the souls of humanity, Set snuck out of Duat using his new powers. As a creature of darkness, castrated by Horus, he was no longer able to walk in Ra's light or sire children, but by night he recruited twelve talented Disciples. He taught them the truth, and together they swore an oath to bring down Ra and the other false gods and become gods themselves. Set mingled his blood with that of his Disciples and when they drank of it, he gave up the greater share of his power, granting all thirteen almost equal might (though as a true god, he remained the most powerful).

Their meeting did not go unnoticed, however; the Moon, whom Set thought he could trust, betrayed him to the other gods. Seeing their blood oath, Ra interrupted the meeting and cursed them all to feed only on the blood of others, and shared Set's curses of darkness and impotence upon his Disciples as well. The Disciples, fearful for their lives, betrayed Set and his teachings and begged forgiveness, and so Set swore to destroy them all.

Appearance
Set's appearance is open to debate, although it is commonly believed that he has red hair. His most powerful childer are able to take the form of the Typhonic beast, the traditional form of Set in Egyptian mythology. Followers of Set claim to encounter him during their Embrace, but this may be caused by other factors.

Set's fate
Set disappeared from view shortly after the Crucifixion, and has not been seen in the modern era. In the Final Nights, however, many signs and portents seem to indicate the impending rebirth of Set and/or his most powerful childer. The opening fiction of Gehenna revolves around one such event, and Set himself is involved in most of the Gehenna scenarios in varying degrees.


 * VTM: Clanbook: Followers of Set Revised, p. 13
 * VTM: Gehenna