Tremere lich

Tremere
Nicknames	The Embalmed
Path	Moros
Order	Any (left-handed)
Arcana	Death

The Tremere liches, often simply referred to as the Tremere, are a left-handed legacy of the Moros that originated with a line of vampires. They are simultaneously a legacy of Reapers and liches, with their ideology claiming the latter as a way to assist the former. In second edition, the Tremere Houses are a secret Nameless Order.

The Tremere use the souls they steal to power their unnatural abilities, and through them gain a measure of immortality. When they don't have access to souls, their bodies rot and decay. A mage must be voluntarily initiated into this Legacy by having his own soul severed by his teacher and replaced with someone else's. The soul link between instructor and pupil transmits the lich curse once the new soul is attached. Usually, the master then attaches the pupil's soul to himself, for Awakened souls last much longer than Sleeping souls. It is extremely rare for a young or even middle-aged mage to make this hideous choice. Usually, only those near the end of their natural life spans choose to become liches in hopes that, by unnaturally extending their lives on a diet of souls, they might unlock the key to Ascension and rise to the deathless lands of the Supernal World.

First Edition

The Tremere themselves claim heritage to a sage from the time of Atlantis, who searched for the true nature of the soul. As the dragons (the incarnate souls of the Watchtowers in their cosmology), whose teachings Atlantis used to prosper, didn't offer any answers to him, he decided to find the truth alone. In the secret teachings of the barbarians who lived before and outside Atlantis, he uncovered a Sixth Dragon, the Dragon of Blood, whose secrets he tried to uncover in order to find the secrets of the soul. After the Fall unleashed hordes of monsters across the world, it was only after centuries that the Tremere's eyes fell on vampires. The Tremere thought their abilities flowed from a form of unified soul magic and wished to command it themselves.

By threat and bribe, they convinced a few vampires to perform the transforming Embrace. Volunteers only died — the Awakened soul refused the Blood. But through these early bargains, the Tremere uncovered the legend of the Theban: an undead sorcerer capable of changing his own nature. However, when they found him, the creature enslaved them, turning them into creatures that fed on breath, not blood, and hungered for souls.

When the Theban sent them against a Bound from the time of Atlantis, five Tremere managed to free themselves and were cast into the threshold of the Abyss in Astral Space. They saw a thorny tree twist out of the chaos, and knew they had fulfilled the Tremere quest. They beheld the Final Watchtower of the Soul. The five survivors — the first true liches — did not carve their names upon it. The Watchtower sang their names, claiming them. A paradoxical Awakening ripened within them. It gave them magic without souls. They believed they had found the supreme source of magic; the Seventh Dragon, whose power unites the Subtle Arcana into one supreme Art. Once they prevail, their Watchtowers will conquer the Towers of Death, Fate, Mind, Prime and Spirit. They will crush the old dragons beneath their heels. Until then, they must reclaim every shard of lost knowledge. Until the day of Imperium, every soul, and every secret of the soul, belongs to the Tremere.

Second Edition

These Tremere's prehistoric progenitors reasoned that, since they possessed Awakened souls with limitless potential (which demoted the gods below the Exarchs), souls should be the principal focus of their studies. Freed from any sacral duties or taboos, the renegades were free to study the “most-Fallen” entities: great beasts, living nightmares, and blood drinkers.

Seventy-seven generations of Tremere tortured Mysteries out of gods, monsters — and mages obsessed with the mythic Golden Age. Souls of limited vision served the quest for enlightenment by providing, first, whatever narrow insights they had, and then the power of the souls themselves. By the Roman era, the Tremere took on their modern name, but avoided Roman civilization, except on raids for gods and souls. In that era, the Order produced the first versions of their sacred text, The Suspire, recording generations of study and oral tradition.

In search of a cure for their suffering, they experienced visions of a being they called the Seventh Dragon, the personification of a final Watchtower erected from cosmic necessity. It contained the entire nature of the soul, and would heal them — if the Tremere freed it. The Seventh Dragon was imprisoned in the Carpathian fortress of Chur by a cabal of warrior-Masters, the Invoked Veil, known only in name. The Tremere promised their god-monster prisoners freedom if they assaulted the tower. With their aid, the Tremere dispatched the Invoked Veil and destroyed the seals confining the Seventh Dragon.

When the Diamond discovered the Tremere were devouring the Reaper Legacies they relentlessly hunted and using those Left-Handed Arts for themselves, it banished them from its ranks. Today, the Tremere comprise a Nameless Order. Neophyte Tremere are called enfantes (“children”). Not all enfantes reap membership benefits, but they usually earn them after surviving on their own for a time. This is no easy task; Tremere risk every- thing to feed, and virtually all other mages despise them. Elder Tremere wouldn’t have it any other way. They are unapologetic, if disciplined, predators.

Organization

In their quest for souls, the Tremere have developed a highly rigid hierarchy. In their quest for dominion, they devoured and enslaved other Legacies that also dealt with the soul and created Houses to further their knowledge of soul magic. Bound together by The Sevenfold Oath, these Tremere Houses have hidden their true agenda from both the Seers and the Pentacle for ages.

Trivia

• The Tremere liches are based off of the kindred Tremere, a clan of arcane vampires from the Classic World of Darkness. The Tremere vampires, in turn, were based on House Tremere from the game Ars Magica.

References

• MTAw: Mage: The Awakening Rulebook, p. 363-366
• MTAw: Left-Hand Path