VII

VII
Nicknames	First Edition Ahranites, the Betrayed, Sleepers Second Edition the Betrayed, the Fallen Princes, the Imposters, the Sages, the System, the Trumps, the Wraths of God
Primary clans	Akhud
Bloodlines	First Edition The Betrayed House Alexander House Grigorovich House Irinavici House Marisovich House Petronavich House Semeonovic Princes of the Fallen City Dunia Rexroth Stawa
Advantage	First Edition Princes of the Fallen City Access to Ahranite Sorcery

“

This is the writing on the wall.

”

VII are vampires who hunt vampires and the five covenants share a common fear of them. They are the subjects of rumor and terrified speculation, leaving behind the wreckage of their Kindred victims along with the three characters that make the Roman numeral for seven. Some connection between VII and the Strix seems to exist - as when the Owls appear, the hunters of VII are not far behind - although the exact nature of this connection and whether VII hunts or serves them is unknown.

History

Where VII came from is a mystery and there is no certainty whether they are old or new - if they go back to the days of Rome or if they are a new phenomenon. Seven rumors occasionally filter through the Cacophony and any one of them, more than one of them, or none of them at all may be true.

1. They do not know what they are doing and every vampire of VII is brainwashed, hunting in a post-hypnotic trance triggered by some obscure cause for reasons to lost to time.
2. Their minds and souls have been broken and remade by the God-Machine, now serving a corrective work to destroy or kidnap other vampires that they too might become mindless destroyers; only the God-Machine knows why only seven exist in any domain at a time and why they leave their mark.
3. They are led by a lost clan, the princes of a city destroyed in the days of the Old Testament due to God’s wrath upon the dead. They follow some terrible mission to restore their long-destroyed city’s fortunes in the eyes of God and what looks like the Roman number seven is really a sigil from a long-forgotten alphabet - a sign of the forgotten clan.
4. They are vampires that escaped the mastery of the Strix - perhaps through a ritual known only to the vampires of VII - and now hunt the Owls and their servants and allies. Since the Kindred do not know whom the Strix have corrupted, VII’s victims appear random but they are actually carefully chosen.
5. They belong to a mystical cult - its acronym VII - who practice a powerful form of blood magic. They offer Kindred a simple choice: join or be destroyed. Joining brings with it terrible consequences, perhaps even the bartering of its members’ souls.
6. A human king betrayed by the Kindred in the Middle Ages begat seven families, who themselves became Damned to better pursue and destroy the Kindred.
7. They are not true vampires; rather they are the supernatural doppelgangers of vampires, shadowy beings that are either creations or slaves of the Strix. Only seven exist at a time and they mirror the Kindred, with every one has one vampire whom it must kill, at which point it ceases to exist.

The Black Death (1346 - 1353)

A chain of villages in the Black Forest succumbed to the Black Death and overnight, six of the victims were arranged in a grim tableaux atop the tallest hill in one such village - a 'Dance of Death'. The seventh victim, whose corpse burst into flames at sunrise, appeared to not have suffered the plague at all, but had a stake driven through its heart. Some Kindred consider such to be the work of VII.

Ankou

Some stories say the Lady of Death - the first Ankou, whose real name is forgotten but is universally agreed to have written the code of death - formed a covenant known as Ogma's Sword, consisting mostly of Mekhet sages studying the Strix. Ogma's Sword sheltered some Kindred who were rumored to have defected from VII and while some of those deserters were honest, a few were spies. Ogma’s Sword collapsed from within, although the Lady managed to escape and with the knowledge learned from the covenant she created the Ankou bloodline. As a result, the Ankou consider VII to be indiscriminate killers that require culling.

Practices

VII do not seem to need to communicate, as they hunt silently. It is unknown whether they hunt and follow their victims for more than a single night, as they give no signs or warnings and they are effective enough that their quarry has no clue - they may even need only one night to do their work. The three characters “VII” displayed by a victim’s remains often provide the only clue that they are the perpetrators. While not all instances of a Strix sighting precede an assassination by VII, most of VII’s murders follow the sighting of a Strix.

As hunters and soldiers, the vampires of VII are calm, efficient, and apparently emotionless as nobody has ever seen a Kindred of their number frenzy. VII may teach a system of blood sorcery unknown to the other covenants to it hunters, as evidence of rituals - odd objects and magical circles - are sometimes left behind at the scenes of their killings.

VII do not come into power over cities as the other covenants do; if they have the upper hand, vampires disappear one by one and soon no vampires are left, not even VII. They hunt the Kindred and then they are gone, with where they go and where they come from remaining a mystery. VII's vampires do not seem to be concerned what happens to them and it is unclear whether they will destroy themselves when their work is done or if they consider themselves different.

First Edition

VII is an unknown entity among the vampires of Vampire: The Requiem. They are a covenant in the loosest possible sense of the word, and might not even be a covenant in the sense of a political/spiritual organisation. It is unknown if VII is a true covenant, a particularly insular clan, or merely a strange cult among the Kindred.

The name Seven, by which Kindred recognise the sect, originated due to the use of a symbol left behind at the scenes of many attacks upon the Kindred - the Roman Numeral seven - VII. Members of VII are fanatics on a mission to exterminate all Kindred who are not a part of themselves. It believes itself to be a legacy of vampires which exists purely to destroy the betrayers who brought about the pain of their current existence.

Details on this history differ, as with all memories of the past. Some members of VII believe that their Kingdom is hidden by a mystic curse, while others believe that their kingdom is a metaphor. However, all members of VII are united by the idea that only by removing the Kindred, or the spawn of the Betrayer, that they will achieve their "Sabbath", which is seen to be the return of the lost kingdom.

By any account, there are very few members of VII, and most cities are free from their genocidal members. What is lacking in numbers, sadly, is made up for drive and hatred. Members of VII apparently do not suffer the pangs of Frenzy upon meeting other members of the Kindred for the first time. They claim to be able to identify Kindred on sight, with some concept of each Kindred carrying a "Mark of the Betrayer". Attempts to mentally probe the minds of captured members reveal only mental images of the Roman Numeral "VII" or characters from alphabets unknown even to the probed.

Versions

In the sourcebook on VII, there are three versions of VII presented, each intended to be exclusive from the others with a complex history that has lead the group to its present state. In a given chronicle, only one VII is expected to exist, but there may be a number of false leads and complicated inconsistencies so that uncovering the truth could take the better part of a Requiem chronicle.

In the Princes of the Fallen City, vampires of the Seven are presented as descendants from the nobility of the ancient city of Gomorrah. A strange vampire came to the city's court and enthralled the gluttonous king before leading him and his people into ruin. When the city was falling apart, the princes made a deal with a demon called Shaddad which led to a blood curse but also their continuation. This created the "quasi-clan" of Akhud which carries the dark influence of Shaddad to this day and drives the princes' vampiric descendants to seek revenge and to topple Kindred society, recreating it with them once more in a place of power. Other vampires from non-VII clans can join this movement, sometimes severing ties with their old covenant and sometimes serving as sleeper agents.

In the Betrayed, the Seven are instead the descendants of seven children of a king brought to ruin by a vampire he had formed a pact with in medieval Russia. The king served as a ghoul to the vampire, who agreed to certain restrictions for his kind only to eventually break the contract and lead to a war. When he was killed, the king's children each turned into vampires themselves, giving rise to the vampires of the VII. This version of the tale has seven bloodlines, offering the most variety of new material for a chronicle with VII as protagonists, all of which seek vengeance against the vampires who ruined their ancient kingdom.

• House Petronavich, like the Ventrue, considers itself the natural leaders of their kind.
• House Semeonovic follows a religious calling in their fight against vampires, much like the Lancea Sanctum.
• House Alexander is a line of predatory creatures, much like the Gangrel, who readily admit to being monsters.
• House Grigorovich are also like the Gangrel and rarely stay still, driven on by a need to constantly hunt.
• House Irinavici use money and power to conduct their crusade clandestinely, a combination of the tactics used by Ventrue and Nosferatu.
• House Marisovich are antiquarians of the dark and sinister, living in shadow like the Mekhet and amassing knowledge like the Nosferatu.
• The vampires of Dubrov are no longer around, either dead or in hiding.

In the Sleepers, vampires of VII are not the victims of an ancient betrayal, but of a more recent experiment which has gone on for the last century. In an effort to destroy the sin inherent in Kindred existence, a clandestine organization with little leadership but great ambition has sought to purge the selfish impulses of the individual from vampires. Their soldiers can operate and move through Kindred society fluidly but are gripped by a strong mental programming that drives them to carry out a secret mission, even if they themselves don't realize it.

References

• VTR: Vampire: The Requiem Rulebook, p. 70
• VTR: VII (book)

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