Mystikoi

The Mystikoi are a heretical bloodline of Gangrels who pursue enlightenment through communion with the Beast.

The roots of the bloodline lay in Albania, where a dualistic heresy influenced by Gnosticism and Manicheanism arose near the end of the first millenium. These heretics were eventually welcomed into Byzantium, and the Kindred among them were mostly converted by the Lancea et Sanctum. A couple of holdouts, however, were granted permission to continue their philosophical studies, and were granted the title of Mystikoi. The bloodline scattered after the fall of the eastern Empire, but reunited around the Ordo Dracul in its earliest days due to a shared interest in the Kindred condition.

Mystikoi believe that the Beast represents the eternal, divine self, and that through frenzy and communion one can get closer to the Godhead. As a consequence, they are unable to resist going into a frenzy, making them volatile even by Gangrel standards. Their signature discipline, Spiritus Sancti, allows them to communicate with spirits through their Beast, and at the highest levels causes disturbing mutations that they take as external signs of their bond with the Beast. These mutations are concealed from those outside the bloodline but proudly displayed within it as marks of honor.

A schism exists in the bloodline in modern nights, as a few members have begun to doubt the divine nature of the Beast; indeed, increasingly they see it as something that imprisons Kindred and keeps them from Unity, and while they still use Spiritus Sancti they see it as a tool for investigation rather than a means of self-improvement.