The Oradea League is an alliance of a dozen Old Clan Tzimisce elders that refused to bow down before the Sabbat. They maintain their own feudal lands around the Romanian city of Oradea, much like they did during the Dark Ages. Aside from that, the League is quite influential in Russia, which serves as refuge to an unknown number of Old Clan Tzimisce, possibly more than the Romanian dozen. Each Tzimisce within the League is extremely powerful, and most have survived the Anarch Revolt.
History[]
The League was – and still is – based on a set of absolute rules, designed exclusively to protect the unlives of the founders. Thus, siring is prohibited unless all founders give official clearance. A large portion of the Transylvanian Alps has been divided into several domains to fit the needs of the founders. All of these ancient vampires abide strictly by the Tradition of Hospitality.
Last but not least, all members of the League have pledged unity against any individual threat from the outside world, be it Lupine or vampire of either sect. After the first century of its existence, such collective action was seldom needed: the outside world seemed to have forgotten the Old Clan, and the reverse seemed to be true as well. However, after the fall of the Shadow Curtain, aggression from the Shadow Lords escalated and the League became more territorial and protective about their domains.
The Oprichniki, the youngest of the Revenant families, serves the Oradea League.
Modern Nights[]
Originally composed entirely of Tzimisce elders, ancillae and their pawns, in this age of Gehenna, several Gangrel and Nosferatu have claimed the ancestral titles of their masters, alongside the Tzimisce.
The Oradea League had grand ambitions when it formed, but now it’s riven between dissension between radicals and those seeking to maintain its traditional role. In an uncommon inversion, its often the old who seek change and the young who wish to maintain things as they are. Many Oradea lords relish the chance to humiliate the Ventrue and Tremere for ancient slights or even take down the Camarilla itself, feeling that the time to do it is now in the shadow of the Gehenna War. In contrast, the ancillae who have begun to replace lords and ladies lost to the Beckoning have little such ambition.
The remaining elders still yearn to replace the Camarilla, thinking that the League was always destined to rule over all Kindred. The fact that the Camarilla rose to hegemony in many areas is an insult that can never be forgiven. But it can be forgotten and the ancillae, both those who now hold ancestral titles and those who still serve their lords and masters, have been seeding a handful of well-trained childer into Camarilla domains in the hopes of perhaps one night doing the inconceivable: merging their holdings into the Camarilla and abolishing the League altogether.
Organization[]
The League is something of a throwback to the medieval, pre-Camarilla model of organizing a domain where a tyrannical Prince brutalizes their subjects through sheer supernatural power. As such, it has lost a lot of territory and influence over the years to Camarilla domains with Kindred more able to change with the times and adapt to subtler, more discreet methods of wielding influence. The League is just one example of what’s effectively a mini-Camarilla, a local alliance of domains with their own rules and traditions. There are others, especially in South America and anywhere east of Poland.
Perhaps the biggest problem held by the League is that its members fight each other incessantly. Composed as it is of current and former Tzimisce liege lords, their allies and compatriots, it boasts precious few members capable of compromise. Its traditions and laws emphasize protecting its leaders. Nonetheless, the ancient lords are not free of the chaos in the Time of Thin Blood, and new cracks are developing between the elders and their childer.
The ancillae and elders of the League seeks to make the League itself appear bigger than it is and sometimes responds to smaller or medium threats with excessive force, like an animal bristling to make itself larger. Questions of pride are often mixed in with tactics. If a League member’s status has been called into question, that merits a highly aggressive response.
Members[]
References[]
- VTM: Clanbook: Tzimisce, p. 22, 27-28
- VTM: Clanbook: Tzimisce Revised, p. 19, 29-30, 47-48, 65
- VTM: Havens of the Damned, p. 55-59
- VTM: Gehenna War, p. 121-122