Daughters of the Sun

The Daughters of the Sun are a small and largely eremitic group based primarily in Arabia but claiming followers all throughout the Middle East. According to local history, the god that was to become Allah had known a previous incarnation as a moon god in pre-Islamic Arabia. The idol of this god, along with that of all the other pagan deities of the day, was housed for many years in the great Ka’ba in Mecca. Beside this idol of Allah (then known as Al-Ilah) sat the idols of three other highly popular deities, collectively referred to as Allah’s “daughters.” These three sister-goddesses were Al-Ussa, goddess of passion and the (un) living embodiment of the planet Venus; Al-Lat, the goddess of astrology, wisdom and learning; and Manat, the goddess of fortune and fate. When the Prophet (peace be upon him) arrived, however, he cast down all the false idols in Mecca, and in so doing killed the nexus of worship for all other gods but Allah. The worst of this damage was done to the worship of Allah’s three daughters, whose previously substantial cults of personality all but vanished overnight.

All Daughters of the Sun are, whether they know it or not, dedicated to these three sistergoddesses. The cause of all those who do this cult’s work is slowly but surely to reinvigorate the lost names of these three daughters of Allah, primarily through the gradual weakening of Islam. The vast majority of those actual Kindred within the cult proper hail from the Malkavian clan. The remainder, those who do much of the cult’s work, are either mortals directly indebted to the group’s vampiric leaders or those who do the cult’s work unwittingly. The Daughters realize that they are pilgrims in an unholy land, surrounded by those who would see them fail horribly in their goal … or worse. Because of this, their operations are highly secretive and circumspect, with information being handed down on a strictly “need to know” basis. In that regard, the cult has quite a detailed and effective bureaucracy, spearheaded by the close circle of tightly knit Malkavians who comprise the core of the cult’s leadership. The cult is predominantly female in make-up, and even its few male members are likewise referred to as “daughters” (even in highly traditional areas of the Middle East).

History
To understand the core doctrine to which they subscribe, one must fi rst recall the paradigm that was pre-Islamic Arabia. Before the arrival of the Prophet (peace be upon him), the Arabs worshipped as many as 360 different gods, gods whose likenesses — indeed, whose very focus of worship — were housed in idols placed within the great Ka’ba in Mecca. When Muhammad came and cast down all the false idols, proclaiming that “there is no god but God,” these other deities were brushed aside, forgotten now in favor of Allah. At the time this occurred, Al-Ussa herself (or at least the ancient vampire who had assumed her name and thus her followers) lay buried in torpor beneath the Ka’ba, drawing off the energies of those who daily came to bathe her in their adulation. The almost overnight rise of Islam, and the associated rise in the area’s True Faith levels, has permanently trapped Al-Ussa beneath her own former temple, a site now dedicated to a god of men and mortals. As the force of Islam grew, so too did the oppressive din of the Keening (the supernatural cry emanating from the Ka’ba), the force of which has been driving Al-Ussa madder and madder over the last fourteen centuries.

Nonetheless, Al-Ussa remains the strongest of these fallen idols. Although she is the only one of the three sisters who cannot emerge from her place of torment of her own volition, hers is the voice with the farthest reach and the one that drives the hearts and minds of all Daughters. According to cult dogma, the other two “goddesses” — weak from the oppressive power of Islam — have voluntarily taken their own places of rest elsewhere (well away from the power of the Keening), awaiting the time when the force of Islam’s faith has ebbed to a level whereby they might be free to rise and aid their entombed sister. All Daughters’ efforts, from the top down, are directed at achieving this ultimate goal. Thus, they actively encourage dissent and even violence between Muslim factions and work to pull existing Muslims away from their faith, in truth if not in name.

Reference

 * Vampire The Masquerade - State of Grace, p. 100, 101