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The Church of Set, historically known as the Walid al-Set (source of the highly reductive term 'Followers of Set') is a worldwide blood cult dedicated to worship of the antediluvian Set as a Gnostic anti-god destined to one day free the world from the oppressive laws of God.

Until the early 2010s, the Church of Set was synonymous with the clan descended from Set, due to membership of the Church being the assumed default for all members of the clan. However, after the majority of said clan (officially) abandoned the Church and reformed into the Ministry, the Church and terms for its followers (i.e. 'Setite', 'Follower of Set', etc.) have been accepted as referring to all members of the Church, irrespective of clan or mortality. The remaining members of the Church of Set consider themselves the 'orthodoxy' to the manifold heresies of the Ministry.

Descendents of Set who remain in the Church (and form the majority of its membership) almost always prefer to keep the old moniker of 'Setite' and reject being called Ministers. As a result, at least among the clan of Set themselves, the titles 'Setite' and 'Minister' are generally considered mutually exclusive. Outsiders tend not to notice the distinction, of course, and the lack of an adequate umbrella term has led to 'Setite' usually referring interchangeably to both factions.

Description[]

Most Ministers have rediscovered their cosmopolitan, multi-faith roots. While they still revere Set as their founder and the first vampire, it is less common for a Setite of the Ministry to cling solely to the worship of Sutekh. This is not the case among those Setites who claim membership in the very Church of Set.

Dedicated to the rites of Setite Orthodoxy, the Church of Set’s members believe they must conspire to weaken all other clans and their founders to pave the way for the resurrection of their founder. Your membership in the Church of Set may be as a new adherent, desperate to find meaning and mentorship in a hostile world, or you may be one of the dedicated faithful, rejecting the idea of enslavement to other Antediluvians and seeking freedom from all chains by following Set’s holy guidance.

Loresheet[]

  • Menu hover bulletMenu bulletMenu bulletMenu bulletMenu bullet Congregation: You have access to a herd of kine, but these mortals are a unified religious flock you can manipulate. This congregation can belong to any mainstream or fringe religion, and whether they see you as their leader or just another parishioner, you can feed from them easily. This lore is equivalent to a two-dot Herd, though it requires you to show up and uphold the faith regularly.
  • Menu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu bulletMenu bulletMenu bullet Tap the Secret Vein: Through the method of a simple interview, you can analyze whether a mortal or Kindred has a secret they’re trying to hide. You gain a two-dice bonus to Insight-based tests to find whether someone is keeping a secret.
  • Menu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu bulletMenu bullet Freedom from the Aeons: Set despises his fellow clan founders, or so the legend says. The Setites consider the other founders Aeons and demonstrate resistance to their power. You gain two additional dice on rolls resisting Dominate and Presence attempts from vampires of other clans.
  • Menu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu bullet Degenerative Process: The Church of Set teaches its adherents that a man must be brought to his lowest before he can rise to meet glorious Sutekh. You can push any being, mortal or immortal, to indulge in degenerative corruption only to come out clean on the other side. With a successful Manipulation + Persuasion roll, you can persuade any individual to break a Tenet or Conviction, gaining at least one Stain. When it is done, they feel purified. The targeted character restores up to three Superficial or one Aggravated Willpower damage.
  • Menu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu hover bulletMenu hover bullet Body of Set: You possess a fragment of Set’s skeleton, sarcophagus, or burial robes. Though the implication of Set’s Final Death is debatable, the holy (or unholy, depending on your perspective) artifact gives you drive to succeed and impressive influence over other Followers of Set, conveying a four-dot Status among other Ministers. The relic also helps you to touch the mind of Set through meditation, and once per story you are able to reduce Stains gained from breaking a Tenet by one, if following what you and the Storyteller perceive as the will of your god.

History[]

Curse, liberation, radical conversion. All of the stories together make the shape of truth, but in the telling they become lies. The Church preaches that Set made his curse a gift and delivered it to his congregation, the gift of flesh that never rots and blood that flows more potent than the rivers of the underworld. The corruption of Apep burned through that which was fallible in him and left only perfect, atom-fine edges of obsidian. Duat’s unliving waters could not have converted the god, changing him from one purpose to another, so much as everted him, stirring the exalted appetites within.

Regardless of how one feels about his eminent divinity and the mythical origins of his church, scholars of the Hecata, Malkavians, and Ministry record Set’s last appearance on Earth as 33 BCE. He sundered the ground with earthquakes, shook the palaces of Cairo with wild storms, and delivered his final mysteries to the faithful. When a cabal of Hierophants and witches came to his resting place, they found the obsidian sarcophagus empty and shattered, razor black shards embedded in the sandstone walls.

Ancient History[]

The ancient Hierophants of the clan ruled in his absence. The faithful tended to Egypt through the reign of each pharaoh and invading king, guiding from the shadows and pruning the crop as they had already done for millennia. Their ideology and history had already prepared them in unique ways for the many and varied changes in leadership, from Macedonian to Ptolemaic. Enemies of the word of Set were deeply polluted — by necessity of their rejection of him — and it was the role of the faithful to encourage that pollution to destroy their enemies from the inside out, and make those who survived worthy of Set’s favor.

None of the fearsome conquerors of Egypt showed any interest in rooting out the priests of Set and plundering their flocks. While a few elder leaders groused at the supposed dilution of his kingdom by endless waves of barbarians, the orthodoxy held — Set is also the god of foreigners, in his role as the Lord of All Outside Egypt, and there was more to gain in bearing an invader’s indignities than in burning him out.

Purge of Baybars[]

(See also: Proclamation of Red Tears)

The faith’s greatest test, however, came during their first Inquisition. Not the Christian-led burnings Western Kindred refer to — for the Church of Set, their Inquisition came a full century earlier, at the hands of the Sultan Baybars. His commitment to the eradication of infidels did not stop at his decisive campaigns against European crusaders. Baybars’ Mamelukes destroyed ancient temples, burning and burying their relics. They hunted two Eternals of Sothis, methuselahs of the Church, and brought them to their final death. They pillaged the Founding Temple Ombos, most holy among the Church’s body, and desecrated its contents.

The Purge of Baybars drove the Church of Set out of Egypt and into exile, taking with them any artifact they could carry. They lived in diaspora for decades until Baybars’ assassination. Many of the old treasures smuggled out during the Proclamation of Red Tears still have not been returned, though modern movements arise to repatriate those that have found their way into the collections of unwary museums or wealthy erudites.

Forty years of exile in foreign lands brought the followers of the Church new wisdom through pain. They found that while the European Kindred despised them for their faith or their subtleties or their skin, they craved what the Church could provide them. The Church of Set fed these cravings gladly. It began with simple trade goods — silk, spices, rare animals. The Church’s coffers swelled, and so did the hungers of wealthy Europeans. Setite merchants began to trade in opiates, hashish, specialized servants. Then, goods more abstract and cunning. A perfect forgery of a grant of arms, for an ambitious commoner. An ignorant child with particular physical traits, to pass off as a rival’s bastard. A sorcerous elixir of potency, for a knight afraid to meet his death in foreign lands. The Church grew as a network of fixers and informants, collaborating in secret, passing goods from follower to follower. Each branch and temple began to keep records of their resources, as well as members’ skills and connections.

Set’s treasuries grew, and so did his flocks. Setites learned they could lean ever harder on those who had grown dependent on them for favors of their own, deeds they couldn’t risk doing themselves. Entrenched as they were, the faithful of Set could avoid the worst of another Inquisition, purchasing the silence of infidel priests and redirecting hunters to worthier targets. Meanwhile, Western clients who could withstand their poisonous addictions were invited into the Mysteries of the faith. And those who fell were, naturally, doomed from the start.

Second Millennium[]

With the Renaissance, and the resulting Age of Reason, the West saw a resurgence of classical thought and gnostic cabals. Philosophers of science needed ever more taboo materials for their research. Alchemists, sorcerers, and their secret societies became inexplicably fashionable. There were seductive new ideas to spread, and who better to help their dissemination than the world’s first cult of mystery?

The thought-experiments of the Enlightenment led to wars of revolution and renewed conquest. The nascent New World promised liberty and happiness, as entire peoples from half a world away paid for it with their bodies. The Church was there, too, everywhere, a contact in every port and palace; sometimes, they were first.

The presence of the faithful in all corners of the conscious world, and their history of playing both sides, leads many outsiders to think the Church had some part in every atrocity of the last three centuries. According to the Church, these claims are flimsy lies. The Church of Set has and always will stand in opposition to all forms of tyranny, whether from one man over few or one man over a nation — or one false god over a universe. The Master of Duat did not allow himself to be denied the throne of heaven only for his childer to love other kings and despots.

Modern Nights[]

It must come as no surprise that many of the faithful in these modern nights have taken up with the Anarchs, though members of the Church rarely cling to the Movement as fiercely as they do to the faith. Leave that for lay-Ministers. Church members are encouraged to enjoy the disdain of all sects, in their own understated ways. Outsider Kindred have long disdained the Setites as up-jumped pimps, troublemakers and fixers. Being underestimated serves the Church just fine... especially now.

After the Red Star appeared in the sky at the turn of the millennium, the high scholars and new witches reached an exceptional consensus: the Red God sleeps no longer. He is here. The modern world groans under the distended corpse of capitalism. Whole nations are bought and sold on the trade of weapons and narcotics. The Second Inquisition burns Princes in their manors. Those with Blood of a thinness previously thought impossible walk the land — walk in the light! The Earth itself simmers and boils with the injustices visited on its body.

The world is ready for Set. And if they are to be believed, it is the faithful of his Church that will begin the threshing.

Setite/Ministry Schism[]

In the nights following Gehenna, a curious — though not unprecedented — schism occurred within the flocks of Set, so the Serpents claim. Just as Set’s sarcophagus at Ombos was said to shatter many centuries ago, so too in these nights did the body of Set’s faith fracture into dangerous shards. One such splinter group, shedding ties to its venerable history and even abandoning the name of the Red God himself, refers to itself as the Ministry. The Church of Set refers to them as heretics, and yet, it is the Ministry who dominate the clan tonight.

The Church does not involve itself in the sectarian wars. So committed is the Church to decrying these pretenders that they will justify a Contending against any adherent who abets a Minister outside the Church, to be called off only if the wayward child returns to the flock and sufficiently atones. Anyone shown the true path who still allows the silvery voices of the worldly to lead them astray has become useless in the eyes of the Red Pharaoh.

To the rest of the world, the Church and Ministry appear to occupy a shared history, but distinct spheres in these modern nights. They share some members, they share some ideals, but the two are opposed at a structural and philosophical level. The Church of Set’s leadership outwardly regards the Ministry as insignificant, incorrigible children at best. Ministers are not in the business of being ignored, and seem to delight in overt, ill-advised stunts that threaten scrutiny by the Second Inquisition. Such theatrics are to be smothered or undermined with any resources a temple, priest, or lay member has at hand. The Church even says honest cooperation with the Camarilla to suppress known Ministers is preferable to the Ministry operating unchecked.

Of course, that’s what the Church of Set wants other Kindred to think. The damage from this so-called schism is difficult for any outsider to ascertain. The Church of Set maintains the fractures between Church and Ministry are dire heresies. Some Ministers, however, believe the front-facing aspect of the clan is just that: a carefully erected façade that allows the Church to continue its own practices and aims, deflecting all out-of-clan attentions toward the new kids on the block making such a noise within the Anarch Movement.

If this is true, the Church of Set is successfully playing the Anarch Movement and many of their own clanmates. The Serpents have, after all, served Set for millennia. An overnight reformation is unlikely. The danger to the clan from all this scheming, is the possibility of their new face growing in power and relevance over the ancient traditions and beliefs of the orthodoxy. If the Church of Set deliberately cultivated the Ministry, they may have lit the fuse for a bomb destined to collapse their foundations.

Culture[]

See also: Path of Typhon

A vampire can follow Kindred society’s laws, uphold the Camarilla’s Traditions, cling onto their pillars of Humanity, and struggle nightly with the growling Beast in their heart. Or, a vampire can make their own laws, drive their heel into the Camarilla, divest themselves of their mortal shackles, and make their Beast a weapon.

The Church of Set favor the latter option. It is what they preach. It is what they believe. Possibly the oldest of all Kindred religions, stretching back in time across millennia, the Church of Set have always been present to “liberate” vampires from society’s strictures and encourage them to find their true calling. Yes, many fall, become wights, and are used as valuable teaching lessons. But for those who survive? They become stronger, and praise be to Set for helping those vampires become everything they are meant to be.

Due to their attitudes toward liberation from rules, theoretically, many Kindred should oppose the Church’s very existence. They are servants of chaos, advocating that unlife only possesses meaning if vampires free themselves from the edicts of ancient masters such as Princes and Justicars. Yet, vampires see in the Church of Set wisdom that comes through age and experience, freedom through anarchy, and a chance to rebel against all the external tyrants and internal guilt trips that hold them down. Whenever a domain holds a temple of Set, the Kindred know there’s a place they can visit for a form of enlightenment, counsel, and hard, bitter truth. They also know that by attending this temple, they can find purpose in the meaningless nature of eternity.

The Church of Set is strong because it appeals to a Kindred’s base nature, while promising to eradicate the worst of those desires. It is chaos, storm, and promise of change. When the alternative seems like stagnation, it’s no wonder neonates of tonight increasingly flock to the temple doors. Despite their message of freedom, however, the Church of Set is not some utopic faith to which all fledglings must cling. Even the Ministry — the clan most commonly associated with the Church, through their Blood, founder, and religious practices — urges caution to those seeking to follow Set’s path.

Church Of Set Convictions[]

While ultimately doctrine is less important to the Church of Set than ritual and experience, neither of those will be of much use to an initiate who has no idea why she is doing what a priest commanded her to do. That said, the Church follows closely the idea of secret knowledge: that certain authorities possess divine dispensation to withhold truths from followers who are unready to receive them. An initiate is meant to receive the lessons on her body and soul first, as guided by someone well-versed in the mysteries, before she is permitted to study the texts of a temple library.

The Church of Set finds the idea of commandments distasteful, but for those who require an easily memorized litany of convictions.

  • Always strive to liberate others of their vices. Vice is a tool, not a recreation. The faithful initiate can best serve Set by winnowing the souls of the world—that is, separating the wheat from the chaff—by determining who is prone to degradation and who is strong enough to resist. What can be liberated, will be liberated, and what remains will be a legion of refined souls in service to Set, freed from their bondage to literally anyone and anything else. You are the thresher, not the threshed.
  • Never refuse aid to another member of the Church. The Church of Set claims that when they rule this world, or move on to the next, they will do so as a brotherhood of many. There are no kings here, save the Red Pharaoh himself.
  • Always respect the commands of those in later Hours. The priests, and also the warriors and faithful witches who plumb the depths of Duat ahead of you, have made ready the path you yourself travel. You are free, but they are more free. Their wisdom and guidance must be observed.
  • Always do what is necessary to test another’s resistance to liberation. What an individual might think of as “compassion” is, to the Setite mind, nothing less than violence. In refusing to test another soul’s limit for freedom, you are dooming it to slavery and denying Set his due. Do not wait for permission when their liberty could begin now.
  • Always seek the mysteries of Set, hidden throughout the world. The more Mysteries a Setite understands, and the more secrets they wield, the better they will serve the Red God and his Church.
  • Always do what is necessary to test the flaws in a social order. Beware the individual who desires authority. Organizations, both mortal and Kindred, are inherently degenerate by virtue of their disconnection from the true god. If they are really as inviolate as they claim to be, then they must be brought into service of Set’s living Church, or otherwise dismantled and allowed to rot.

Rites and Rituals[]

Historically, membership of the Church of Set has been inextricably linked to the practice of the Path of Typhon, and the majority of the 'loyalist' Setites who remained in the Church after the schism are those who continued to walk the path even in the modern era, where Paths of Enlightenment are increasingly uncommon outside the Sabbat. However, to think that their membership is defined by bloodline or even Path is small-minded. The Church of Set welcomes members from across sects, and numbers among her body the paths of Lilith, the Warrior, and others. Morality is personal. Doctrine is essential. In order to be a member of the Church of Set, one must be inducted by a priest, and follow the guiding principles of the Dead God. All else is optional.

The two primary rituals surrounding one's induction into the higher ranks of the Church are referred to as the Lesser and Greater Mysteries of Set. For more junior members, however, rising through the ranks of enlightenment more often takes the form of the Nine Gates.

The Burning of Baybars, a special yearly ceremony is held in orthodox temples of Egypt, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. Some particularly radical branches in the West may participate, though the ritual trappings are singularly difficult to come by. On the anniversary of Baybars’ death in 1277, the faithful gather around a ceremonial brazier, tended by the acting Hierophant or High Priest. He reveals a knife of obsidian and a bone preserved from Baybars’ corpse.

Leading the flock in the Execration Litany, the priest shaves a sliver from the bone and holds it over the fire, releasing it at the climax of the ritual chant. When the wraith of the old Sultan appears in the flames, the followers shout it down, spit on it, and otherwise relish the eternal torture so delivered on their ancient enemy.

Organization[]

Because of the Church of Set’s reputation, both unearned and carefully cultivated, leadership must construct and disclose their houses of worship with a prudence bordering on paranoia. There are many branch cults with no physical structure to speak of, all the better to go to ground if the Camarilla or the Second Inquisition decide to drive out the snakes.

Mortal-facing fronts are small, mobile institutions, meeting regularly and in-person, usually with Greco-Roman influences. In the ‘70s, these were bland New Religious Movement centers. The ‘80s and ‘90s saw a switch to substance-abuse support groups. In the 2020s, pop-up mindfulness practitioners are coming into fashion. The format does not matter — the Church favors any organization that preaches detachment from what binds you. Even at this level, the doctrine of the Church of Set can be introduced in subtle, bowdlerized formats. Leaders are encouraged to downplay use of serpents and Egyptian gods in their organization names and heraldry, in favor of the more palatable imagery of Mars, Bacchus, or Pluto — all three, if possible, as they are identified with Set as Typhon Trismegistus.

Rather than a more rigid hierarchy as seen in other ancient blood cults, members of the Church of Set are 'ranked' based on their placement in the Hours of Night, which correspond (very) broadly to their level of respect within the Church. One's standing in the Path of Typhon and location in both the Mysteries of Set and Nine Gates are all folded into one's progression through the twelve (ten in practice) Hours.

The Cohort of Wepwawet, which for most of the Church's history served as a sort of 'church military', persisted through the schism, and has since become focused on bringing the Ministry back into the Church's fold, generally by force.

Temples of Set[]

Pierce this mundane shroud of counselors and life coaches to find the true face of the Church — the temple. The architectural requirements for a temple of Set are few but unusual: there must be an inner room from which all outside light can be blocked, and there must be space within this room for a larger-than-life statue of the Red God. Movie theaters are the obvious choice, and darkrooms are equally valuable though rarer in this age of digital photography. The Church is nothing if not resourceful in this regard. Lacking the space or resources to construct a new temple, and in absence of the perfect pre-existing architecture, many smaller temples are assembled in abandoned garages, cellars, or large storage units, with the inner sanctum separated from the outer by blackout curtains.

The temple’s outer sanctum prepares the celebrant to face their god. Priests help them strip to their skin, cleanse themselves in a consecrated mixture of ashes and urine, and finally dress in shendyt, or Egyptian waistcloths, in deep red and green. Past the light-blocking barrier, the inner sanctum is stark and somber, empty save for the black statue of the Master of Storms and the dim red lights that illuminate its alien edges. Individual prayers and offerings occur here, as well as the smaller or quieter rituals.

Temples with size and secrecy enough can stockpile donations within their walls, serving as a storehouse within the greater decentralized treasury of the Church. Still older temples feature libraries of Setite ritual and magical texts. These texts are precious in themselves and never loaned out under any circumstances.

The most ancient artifacts and cornerstones of the Church’s doctrine can be found in aptly named Founding Temples. Such temples include Red Hook in the Harlem borough of New York City, founded in 1893 as the oldest temple of Set in the Western hemisphere. Scholars of Typhon Trismegistus make regular pilgrimages to the Cave of Apples temple in Naples, when they can manage the trip, though this seat of Church operations in Europe has been steadily emptying in the nights since the Beckoning began. Of course, most famous is the legendary temple Ombos at Naqada, Egypt, once the resting place of the Red God himself. Some say Ombos still lies in ruin, and some claim it is rebuilt. The few modern pilgrims have not returned or even sent back word.


Gallery[]

References[]

Vampire: The Masquerade blood cults
Major Ashfinders · Bahari · Church of Caine · Church of Set · Cult of Mithras · Cult of Shalim · Hecata · Nephilim · Sabbat
Minor Amaranthans · Bloodless Pilgrims · Butterflies · Children of Salvation · Cleopatrans · Cult of Isis · Eremites · Eyes of Malakai · Gorgo's Nest · Meneleans · One True Way · Orphans of Enoch · Praesidium · Servitors of Irad · Shattered Spear · Shepherds of Ur-Shulgi · Sons and Daughters of Helena · Whispers of the Dead · Withered Ones
Regional Children of the Devourer (Canada) · Cultivars (Chicago) · Hunters of the Golden Cicada (Chongqing) · Los Hijos de Si (Peru/Bolivia) · Mga Hari ng Ilog ni Magwayen (Philippines) · Penny Dining Club (England) · Third Day (Germany) · Throne's Keepers (Pristina) · Soldiers of the Adversary (Texas) · Wellspring (Denmark)
Defunct Brotherhood of the Ninth Circle · Cainite Heresy
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