Immortal, they've lived for centuries, existing on the blood of thousands and watching all they love age and die. They're seen their own power ebb and flow and watched humans come and go, building and destroying. They've siredchilder, made ghouls, formed alliances, begun romances and battled allies. They've existed on the brink, and now their emotions are dying.
The Deeper the Pain
For the more the elders experience, the more it takes to touch them. The entertainments of the past mean nothing to them, and the only way to fight the waning of the soul is with constant stimulation and more powerful emotions – hatred, anger and rage. Only in this way can the ancient undead feel alive.
Elysium: The Elder Wars includes:
Systems for creating elder characters, characters who can date back millennia
The unique view elders have on the world around them, how to add them to a chronicle and how they manipulate other
The secretive Gehenna cults and the elders who join them.
Contents[]
Introduction[]
A page out the journal of ToreadorElderRedondo de Vasquez. Introduction to Elder Chronicles' themes and mood with reference suggestions to reading and music.
References
George Bernard Shaw (Man and Superman, The Devil's Disciple, Major Barbara)
Anything by Voltaire (Candide)
Shakespeare (Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear)
George Eliot's Silas Marner
Wall Street (Movie)
Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills (Movie)
Mood Music
Handel, Wagner, Elgar, Mozart and Bach
Orf's Carmina Burana
Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings
Rachmaninoff's Rhapsody Theme by Paganini
Pachelbel's "Canon"
Grieg's "Hall of the Mountain King"
Loreena McKennitt
des Prez, Palestrina, Luther, Monteverdi, Scarlatti, Haydn and Beethoven
Brahms, Mendelssohn, Chopin, Liszt, and Verdi
Schoenberg
Stravinsky's Rite of Spring
Frank Zappa
Schubert
Chapter One: Power Structures[]
Playing the Deadly Game. The Elder Relations to Childer with the Five Pillars of Power by Redondo de Vasquez, 12th Century Toreador. The Elder Relations to Other Groups.
Chapter Two: The Status Quo[]
A triste on the Pathology of the Elder Psyche by one time NosferatuJusticarAnna Magdelena. History of Resistance to the Elder's Games. Definitions of Elysium and the creation of such places. Examples of Salons and their importance to Elysium. There is an excerpt from the Diary of Mme. d'Excavalier, Ventrue Elder.
Chapter Three: Tools of Control[]
How Elders build a Vampiric Empire through:
Allies
Contacts
Disciplines
Influence
Military Force
Resources
Status
Clan attitudes towards each of these.
This chapter also deals with Elders and Storytelling, how they destroy good ideas through the Jyhad and through Coteries.
Interior artist Jason Felix was accidentally left out of the book credits. This was later apologized for in the credits of Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, published later the same year.
Word from the White Wolf Game Studio discusses that the White Wolf BBS is permanently down. They can still be reached through AOL, and to keep your eyes for them on the Internet (Website established in 1996).
Playtesters for this book are credited: Tiffany Devon Borders, Heather Curatola, Alan M. Fisher, Harry Heckel, Rob Kaminsky and Jonathan Sill.
Ads at the back of the book include Dark Destiny and World of Darkness: Gypsies (Nov.).
Memorable Quotes[]
“
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
”
— Job 42:6
“
Power is the great aphrodisiac.
”
— Henry Kissinger, January 19, 1971
“
The first time a man hurled a curse instead of a stone was the start of civilization.
”
— Sigmund Freud, Collected Works
“
Power, like a desolating pestilence,
Pollutes whate'er it touches; and obedience,
Bane of all genius, virtue, freedom, truth,
Makes slaves of men, and of the human frame
A mechanized automaton.
”
— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Queen Mab
“
For everyone that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
”
— King James Bible, Leviticus 20:9
“
The best Party is but a kind of Conspiracy against the rest of the Nation.
”
— Lord Hallifax, Political Thoughts and Reflections
“
Withhold not correction from the child; for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.
”
— King James Bible, Proverbs 23:13-14
“
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place, and they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die.
”
— King James Bible, Deuteronomy 21:18-21
“
Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat well of the good of the land; but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured.
”
— King James Bible, Isaiah 1: 18-20
“
Thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword; But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies.
”
— King James Bible, Deuteronomy 20: 13-14
“
For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
”
— King James Bible, Acts: 20:29
“
Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
”
— King James Bible, Exodus 22:18
“
With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding. With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding... He poureth contempt upon princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty. He discovereth deep things out of the darkness, and bringeth out to light the shadow of death. He increaseth the nations, and destroyeth them.
”
— King James Bible, Job 12: 12-13
“
They hunt our steps, that we cannot go into the streets; our end is near, our days are fulfilled; for our end is come. Our persecutors are swifter than the eagles of the heaven; they pursued us upon the mountains, they laid wait for us in the wilderness.
”
— King James Bible, Lamentations, 4: 18-19
“
Not necessity, not desire - no, the love of power is the demon of men. Let them have everything - health, food, a place to live, entertainment - they are and remain unhappy and low-spirited; for the demon waits and waits and will be satisfied.
”
— Friedrich Nietzche, Daybreak
“
The man who never alters his opinion is like stranding water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
”
— William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seems to me are all the uses of this world ...
Things rank and gross in nature possess it merely.
”
— William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“
All, or the greatest part of men that have aspired to riches or power, have attained thereunto either by force or fraud, and what they have by craft or cruelty gained, to cover the foulness of their fact, they call purchase, as a name more honest. However, he that for want of will or wit useth not those means, must rest in servitude and poverty.
”
— Sir Walter Raleigh, A Collection of Political Observations
“
Fame is the sun of the dead.
”
— Honore de Balzac, La Recherche de l'Absolu
“
The need to exert power, when thwarted in the open fields of life, is the more likely to assert itself in trifles.
”
— Charles Horton Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Order
“
The wretched have no compassion
”
— Samuel Johnson, Letter (1781)
“
Age in a virtuous person, of either sex, carries in it an authority which makes it preferable to all the pleasures of youth.
”
— Sir Richard Steele, The Spectator
“
I reject the cynical view that politics is inevitable, or even usually, a dirty business.
”
— President Richard Nixon, August 1973
“
I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power the greater it will be.
”
— Thomas Jefferson, Letter (1815)
“
Capital is dead labor, that, vampire-bite, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor that it sucks.
”
— Karl Marx, Das Kapital
“
If the egotist is weak, his egotism is worthless. If the egotist is strong, acute, full of distinctive character, his egotism is precious, and remains a possession of the race.
”
— Alexander Smith, On the Writing of Essays
“
Power tires only those who do not have it.
”
— Giulio Andreotti, Italian Prime Minster (1992)
“
The politics of the world is too serious a business to be left any more to foreigners.
”
— The Spectator (1970)
“
Knowledge in the form of an informational commodity indespensable to productive power is already, and will continue to be, a major - perhaps the major - stake in the worldwide competition for power. It is conceivable that the nation-states will one day fight for control of information, just as they battled in the past for control over territory, and afterwards for control over access to and exploitation of raw materials and cheap labor.
”
— Jean Francois Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
“
Union may be strength, but it is mere blind brute strength unless wisely directed.
”
— Samuel Butler, Note-books
“
War is much too serious a thing to be left to the military men.
”
— Attributed to Talleyrand
“
Greed is all right ... Greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself.
”
— Ivan F. Boesky, U.C. Berkeley School of Business Administration Commencement Address (1986)
“
I love power. But it is as an artist that I love it. I love it as a musician loves his violin, to draw out its sounds and chords and harmonies.
”
— Napoleon Bonaparte, in Havelock Eillis' The Dance of Life
“
As for Hitler ... his god was an argument at a political meeting and a manner of reaching an impressive climax at the end of speeches.
”
— Albert Camus, The Rebel
“
Power may be at the end of a gun, but sometimes it's also at the end of the shadow or the image of a gun
”
— Jean Genet, Prisoner of Love
“
It is the authoritarian upbringing of little children, the teaching them to be fearful and submissive, that secures for the political power monger the slavery and gullibility of millions of adult men and women.
”
— Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
“
We're men of straw, we're men of sand.
Our castles crumble, never meant to stand,
We're two born losers meant to fail ere we've begun,
We're snowmen built for melting in the sun.
”
— Nick Mahoney, Men of Straw
“
Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument form it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief.
”
— Edmund Burke, A Letter to a Member of the National Assembly
“
He is a self-made man, and he worships his creator.
”
— attributed to John Bright, speaking of Disraeli
“
Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
”
— Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind
Characters[]
Iontius, 4th Generation Toreador Elder. Sire of Ishaq ibn Ibrahim. Childe of Ariekel.
Ishaq ibn Ibrahim, 5th Generation Toreador Elder. Sire of Redondo de Vasquez. Childe of Iontius.
Redondo de Vasquez, 6th Generation Toreador Elder. Childe of Ishaq ibn Ibrahim.
Alyana, Toreador Elder who wrote a treatise on the symbols of Gehenna.
