| “ | I can't help but think of all the blood shed in Africa and the Middle East for this Gehenna Crusade, all the Cainite lives lost, of how we celebrated the one in twenty vampires who returned from conflict with a Methuselah, bloated like a tick on new power. We just forgot the nineteen fallen and where their vitae went. Who it fed. Who or what the ashes of Methuselahs summoned to the surface. | ” |
| — An unidentified Lasombra turncoat[1] | ||
The Gehenna War, also known as the Gehenna Crusade, is an active Kindred sectarian conflict between the Camarilla-Ashirra alliance and the Sabbat.[2]
Overview[]
Primarily believed to be fought in the cradle of civilization, the Middle East and Africa,[3] but its true scope is in fact global[4]. For reasons that are not entirely clear, elder Kindred around the world are subject to a supernatural "Beckoning"; which compels them to travel to the region to participate in the conflict.[3]
The Sabbat, calling the war a crusade, have all but entirely deserted their international holdings en masse and endeavored to travel to across the world in order to uncover and kill Antediluvians.[4] Conversely, the Camarilla seeks to contain them, protect the Masquerade, and to protect the graves of torpored methuselahs from being disturbed by Sabbat who might confuse them for Antediluvians.[2]
Fateful encounters with the presumed Lasombra Antediluvian during the conflict are thought to have been an immediate cause of the Amici Noctis deeming the Crusade a suicide mission primarily benefiting the Antediluvians and methuselah, and beginning a migration of Clan Lasombra to the Camarilla.[1]
Version Differences[]
The scope of the Gehenna war was originally limited to the Middle East, as shown by the Corebook, and early versions of Camarilla, which were changed to make it a more widespread event across Europe as well. In Sabbat: The Black Hand however, it is clarified that it is a global event.
