Path of Death and the Soul

The Path of Death and the Soul is a Path of Enlightenment that surpresses the beast by detached study of death, undeath and the soul. A practitioner is normally known as Necronomist.

The Path is undoubtly inspired by teachings of the Cappadocians and can be considered a branch of the Path of Bones.

Overview

As one of the more scholary paths, Necronomists see the vampiric existence as a means to explore the mysteries of life and death. They divide the universe into the rational realm of flesh and physics and the irrational realm of pain, mysteries and supernatural phenomena. To explore these differences and to find the answer to their questions, a vampire has to explore his own state and the nature of the soul, an irratinal spark of divinity within a cold rational world, in order to explore how the irrational and the rational converse with each other. Strong emotions, like Frenzy or Rötschreck, are a part of the irrationality of the soul and have to be explored, analiyzed and classified. Interactions of the soul with the body, like when a vampire is staked and cannot move due the penetration of its heart, and study of the emotions that wraiths need to substain themselves in a similar way vampires need vitae, have lead to the general assumption among the Necronomists that the soul is what keeps the vampire from crumbling to dust and the metaphysical and material heart is the anchor of it. Due to the bloods interaction with the heart, the soul is able to substain the body. Most Necronomists study Cathayans and Wraiths in order to find a unified theory of death and the soul.

Followers of the Path are usually depicted as cold, curious, scientific, elitistic and callous, more concerned with the things to come or the things that were that the present. Many had morbid obsessions and are somewhat detached even before they study death, allowing them to partake in the studys of the limitations of pain and vivisection. They participate in the Sabbat because the Camarilla won't tolerate their practices and many of the followers are Tzimisce, but some are known to have correspondence with certain kindred scientists such as Douglas Netchurch.

Members of the Path have a strong rivalry with the Giovanni.

Ethics

• Study the transition of life and death

• Only by classifying the irrational can one truly be rational

• Do not fear death, for the soul is immortal

• By understanding the rational mind, one can catch glimpses of the irrationality of the soul

• Attempt to understand as much as possible

• Explore your emotions, but never indulge in them

• Accept that everything follows some patterns, even when you do not understand these patterns

Hierarchy of Sins
Score	Moral Guidline	Rationale
10	Attachment to the living world	The material world is ultimately ephemeral and of limited use in garnering understanding.
9	Fearing Final Death	All souls return to the cycyle. Final Death is not a death of the soul.
8	Being guided by emotion	Emotions may be studied as expressions of the soul, but they aren't useful in cultivating functional understanding.
7	Frenzying	The impulses of the Beast don't lead to enlightenment.
6	Not killing when useful or necessary	Make death a tool. Kill selectively and learn from the victims' passing.
5	Not pursuing enlightment	The purpose of the Path is to increase knowledge.
4	Showing an aversion to death	Death is the doorway between the material and the eternal. It must be embraced and acknowledged.
3	Showing compassion	Suffering is a step toward inevitable death.
2	Killing without studying death	Murder offers no opportunity to increase insight.
1	Preventing a Death	All things must die. Don't meddle with the universe's cycle.