A Latin term meaning "Festival of the Dead", a great Sabbat celebration during the second week of March in All Sabbat held cities. All covens attend, as do any nomadic packs in the area that can make it. To not show up for this is very bad form, and can end up meaning your unlife will not last.
The "Festival of the Dead" occurs during the entire second week of March. All Sabbat in a city take part, and nomadic packs make their way to the nearest Sabbat-held city to celebrate. The purpose is to revel in being a vampire, celebrating immortality by laughing in the face of death and decay. The celebration culminates in a Blood Feast of epic proportions, and nightly Vaulderies take place among (and sometimes between) the collected packs of the Sabbat. The revels are tailored to each individual pack, and the event has as many differences in celebration as it has commonalities. Some packs participate in ritual scarification. Some may waltz in slow circles around a bonfire, using disinterred corpses or bodies borrowed from the local morgue for dance partners. Others will re-enact passages from the Book of Nod. Against the backdrop of all this revelry, the bishops and archbishops watch with interest, encouraging their malignant "children" to indulge in what it truly means to be a vampire while participating in their own bloody, bacchanalian excesses. One popular event uses up to six Sabbat "contestants", each with a live human victim. The vampires use whatever means they can come up with to dismember and kill the victim, causing the most suffering and wasting the least amount of blood to spillage. The results are voted on by a panel of judges. The winner receives the honor of drawing first blood in the nightly Blood Feast.
Sabbat spend the entire week socializing and gorging on vitae. The packs hunt at will, giving little thought to hiding from the eyes of mortals. Often, mortals are singled out and used for games of fox and hound. Anything relevant to vampiric nature goes on at this celebration of immortality, and packs often mingle to trade war stories and concoct secret plans of their own. The festivities of the Festivo dello Estinto open once the highest-ranking priest in town declares it underway. For this week, very little is taboo, and as much happens behind closed doors as does amid the festival's events proper. Generally, this is a time of undead celebration; rivalries are put aside and Monomacies are forgotten as the Sabbat unite in a show of solidarity to bring Hell to Earth.
References[]
- VTM: Clanbook: Lasombra, p. 46-47