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 Toreador Elder Redondo de Vasquez. Introduction to Elder Chronicles' themes and mood with reference suggestions to reading and music.
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 Patholoy of the Elder Psyche by one time Nosferatu Justicar Anna 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 exert from the Diary of Mme. d'Excavalier, Ventrue Elder.
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.
Memorable Quotes
“
I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
”
— Job 42:6
“
Power is the great aphrodisiac.
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— Henry Kissinger, January 19, 1971
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The first time a man hurled a curse instead of a stone was the start of civilization.
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— 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
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For everyone that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death.
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— King James Bible, Leviticus 20:9
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The best Party is but a kind of Conspiracy against the rest of the Nation.
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— Lord Hallifax, Political Thoughts and Reflections
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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
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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
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For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock.
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— King James Bible, Acts: 20:29
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Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.
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— 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.
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— 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.
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— Friedrich Nietzche, Daybreak
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The man who never alters his opinion is like stranding water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
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— William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
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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
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Fame is the sun of the dead.
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— Honore de Balzac, La Recherche de l'Absolu
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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
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.
