This clan has a dark history. Many, many years ago, whilst Cappadocius had been cloistered away inside his temple reading (Cappadocius being a vampire of the “I wake up and read for 300 years” variety), he realized that his clan had grown too large - feeding as well as other resources were stretched thin, or so Cappadocius decides. Cappadocius recalled all his clan to join him in Kaymakli, resulting in a pilgrimage of over 12,000 Cappadocian vampires to a tiny underground city in Anatolia (modern day Turkey).
The objective of the trial was to judge those whom he deemed unworthy of his blood. The event took place in the ancient city of Kaymakli, thousands of years ago, and ended with the imprisonment of nearly half of the Cappadocian vampires that existed at the time. Unsurprisingly, the clan did not know the real intent behind the strange questions that were asked of them that year.
For one week, Cappadocius and his childer quizzed his descendants, sending those who answered certain questions in the affirmative deeper into the city. Questions such as:
Who among you cannot read or write?
Who among you has not helped build a church?
Who among you does not follow our philosophy?
Who among you does not pursuit the answer to the great enigma?
Thousands of vampires went into the mountain, only to have Cappadocius seal the place shut with a millstone and a curse. He condemned thousands of his own descendants to cannibalism and then eternal torpor.
Cappadocius sent the mortal residents of Kaymakli out into the world, telling them the city was cursed and they should never return. He and his surviving progeny then returned once more to the various tasks that lay ahead of them.
This "Feast of Folly" was a defining moment in the structure of the clan; the majority of Cappadocians from then on hewed to the stereotype of placid, heaven-obsessed, thanatophiles, completely conditioned, controlled and encouraged by their mad founder. The few who rejected this - often privately - fled the clan entirely, or took up as advisers to powerful vampires of other clans far away from their homeland.
Of course, any mention of the clan during the later times of the Renaissance would be lacking without the inclusion of the Giovanni. Originally an ancient merchant family known as Jovians within the Roman Empire, they were keen researchers of necromancy and the nature of death. By the 13th century, the family’s name has shifted over the years to ‘Giovanni’ - and their knowledge of necromancy has only developed further. The existing Cappadocians were unparalleled experts when it came to necromancy and knowledge regarding the moment of death - the very act and transformative state of dying. Their expertise on what came after was not quite so thorough. This made the Giovanni extremely attractive.
Augustus Giovanni was the first member of the family to join the ranks of the undead. A promising individual adept in necromantic arts even as a mortal, more than one clan had their eyes on this human - much like the empowered mortals the Giovanni would later gather for their auction. The Cappadocians offered him the most power and aligned interests - not to mention the fact that Augustus believed them to be the most socially malleable with their scholarly persuasion. Augustus was drained of his life and provided a small amount of blood belonging to Cappadocius himself, and so Augustus was Embraced into the Clan of Death. After this point, Augustus set about Embracing much of his mortal family - at least those who showed potential in either necromancy or in the vicious political arena of Cainite society. The Giovanni have almost become a bloodline of their parent clan, conducting themselves separately from the rest of the Cappadocians in such a way that might leave some members of the original clan somewhat…. concerned.
The Giovanni
The parent clan is suspected of originating in the depths ot Anatolia or Armenia; several clan legends mention desert sands, subterranean cities and rolling plains. The Giovanni family, however, were merchants based in the city of Venice, and with ties and connections throughout Europe. Their patriarch was a loathsome, power-hungry beast of a man by the name Augustus. The Giovanni accomplished wonders with the arts of necromancy, delving far more deeply into the world and secrets of the dead than most, if not all, who had come before. The Cappadocians who discovered them, elated at the possibilities they presented, returned immediately to Erciyes (their mountain stronghold) with the news.
An old but wonderfully relevant video on the clan by Matthew Dawkins, author of a fair bit of some great official Vampire the Masquerade material! (Just be aware it is not for the Renaissance time period, bur rather our modern day. And don’t worry about any unknown terminology.)
Japheth, an elder of the clan, always cautious, wanted to wait and observe these Giovanni before bringing them to the attention of the slumbering Cappadocius, but Constancia - with an impatient force - refused to wait. She communed with Cappadocius through dreams and the ancient was overjoyed at the news. He had Japheth take a jar of Cappadocius' own ancient blood and set it aside use in Embracing Augustus Giovanni, should he decide to accept their invitation.
For his own part, though he took almost a year to consider it, there was never any real doubt what Augustus' answer might be. The power he was being offered - especially considering that the Cappadocian messengers rather downplayed the disadvantages of the vampiric condition - would have tempted a far less ambitious and more scrupulous man than he. Augustus travelled to Erciyes where, over the strenuous objections of Japheth and even Constancia (who upon meeting Augustus completely changed her mind), he received the blood of the Antediluvian and became Cainite.
Augustus went on to begin Embracing selected members of his mortal family, bringing them into the fold as well. It is likely that someone, perhaps Japheth himself, must have told old Augustus about the Feast of Folly and the massacre of half of the clan for over-breeding - for the numbers of Giovanni Embraces suddenly dropped off sharply, after those first few nights. Still, by that time, a substantial number of Giovanni were no longer mortal.
In The Renaissance
The Cappadocians share something of the Brujah's interest in the Church repositories of ancient lore, and their interest in the spirit world reinforces this. The prevalence of the Road of Heaven in the clan means that many Cappadocians practice Christianity. Despite their founder's original vocation as a priest and his secret pursuit of a Christian apotheosis, Cappadocius' clan have no formal, organised presence in the Church hierarchy - they belong more to graveyards and crypts than to great offices of station, preferring the role of viziers to kings and researchers unto themselves - but Church theology and knowledge is valuable to them. Many Cappadocians are priests, monks or nuns, but they pursue personal religious vocations rather than trying to conquer the Church bureaucracy.
By the beginning of our game in 1454, the Cappadocians and Giovanni remain allies (though this might be but surface deep between most individuals). The Conspiracy of Isaac is yet to take shape, but as the Renaissance blossoms it can be assured that change is on the breeze. As human advancement into the understanding of the flesh and medicine flourishes, so too does the understanding of the soul. It is an era of spiritual debate and discovery - both Cappadocians and Giovanni would certainly not pass up the opportunity to embrace those exceptional scholars of these varied disciplines in pursuit of their goals. Meanwhile, Europe is seeing a huge rise to power from the merchant class - essentially creating a whole new caste between the low-born and noble by birth. You no longer need to be born blue-blooded to come into wealth and status, though the existing nobility might certainly look down on these upstarts. Such a massive social development will be incredibly important to the mercantile Giovanni family.
Italy is also one of the current epicentres of cultural development, from writing, to visual art and fashion. Cainites like the Giovanni based in Italy would surely have access to some of the continent’s most cutting edge and influential fashions, as well as a number of masters in the fields of crafts and sciences.
The Graverobbers are not quite so common in Italy as elsewhere. Still, they may be found here, searching for the secrets of Roman antiquity, advising Princes or experimenting in the shadows. They are rife in the lower levels of the Church and also maintain a presence in most coastal cities where they can maintain contact with brethren in Africa and the Levant. There is a substantial population of Cappadocians in Venice, watching over their new experiment, the necromantic Giovanni, and Cappadocius himself is rumoured to surface sporadically in Rome.
It is a cosmopolitan clan, with as many of its members claiming humble origins as hail from noble or clerical stock. To the Cappadocians, a keen mind is more important than breeding, and any Cainite with an inquisitive nature earns the esteem of his sire and peers.
Cappadocians usually make their havens away from the mortal world and even other Cainites, where they may study in seclusion or conduct morbid experiments without unsettling other residents. Such havens include disused chambers of castles, out-of-the-way monasteries, neglected cellars and Roman-era sewers or cisterns. Of all the High Clans, the Cappadocians are probably the least exclusive when it comes to choosing prey. Indeed, many Cappadocians see the Kiss as little more than a function, and they deny the emotional charge it gives to both predator and prey.
Clan Opinions on…
The Embrace
There is no clan more disunited in how they Embrace than the Cappadocians and, perhaps, the Malkavians - a similarity few of them would thank you for. Though they often take the roles as viziers to Princes or Seneschals and Chamberlains (second in command in various vampiric domains) they are still a High Clan and proud of it. At least some of them are. Clan Cappadocian has been given a rather long leash by their founder to do as they will, a matter which most of them use to the fullest, burying themselves in books and personal research into death and the soul, while advising those they need to advise. The only matter that most of them seem to attend to with any unity is - if not the style of the Embrace itself then - the frequency of the Embrace. Few if any Graverobber will risk a repeat of The Feast of Folly or iring their still-active founder, who stalks the night somewhere. Even those Cappadocians Embraced in recent nights inevitably come to hear of the fabled massacre that wiped out half of their clan due to “overpopulation”.
Excluding a few, very rare Cappadocians (notably those lone wolves attached at the hip to powerful Methuselah) the clan keep their heads down, keen not to draw attention. This seems to be a shared idea, for even the Giovanni do the same. Pathologically so.
Being possessed of somewhat morbid mindsets, the Cappadocians sometimes Embrace those who are interested by death or work with it in some fashion, or those whose scholarly talents may be turned to the Graverobbers' own intellectual and spiritual pursuits. Soldiers, priests, hermits, pilgrims, gravediggers and supposed witches have all been Embraced into Clan Cappadocian. Additionally, the clan seems inclined to less of the European prejudices than the other clans exhibit, Embracing such far-flung folk as Persians, Moors and other foreigners.
The Auction
As spiritual scholars and priests of the highest order, the Cappadocians looked to the Black Dawn as a sign of great importance. Those truly devoted to God may believe it to be a damning omen of judgement to come - perhaps embracing the Giovanni was a great mistake that has displeased the Lord? Others might see it as confirmation of their faith or a blessing of the new era. Scholars would have been sent into a frenzy of research by this enigmatic phenomenon - but it was the Giovanni themselves who first discovered the mortals blessed by such an auspicious event.
It goes without saying that many members of the Giovanni family are intimately connected to the auction given one of their own members - Claudius - is hosting. Most of the Cappadocians from outside this insular family would not have been told anything about the event until they received their own invitations, so it is likely that plenty older Cappadocians will be suspicious and even reproachful over the Giovanni withholding information. Many of these mortals might after all hide the keys to the mystery of mortality itself and the nature of death. Thus far the Giovanni have played innocent (and indeed even some of the Giovanni were left in the dark as to Claudius’ scheme); they are all too able to claim that the parent clan have had a rather hands-off approach to their affairs, and they didn’t realise they needed to alert them all. It is within Cappadocian interests to gain favour within vampiric society, no? We have all been so terribly distant from the world, after all.
Even amongst the Giovanni there might be animosity - it has certainly not been indicated that Claudius is giving any sort of special consideration or discount to his own family. Despite this, it cannot be denied that these mortals will bestow a great boon of strength and social dominance to whomever is able to Embrace them, and this could massively empower the clan of Death. This might just be enough to ensure the attendance of those that would otherwise be outraged at the lack of transparency and/or nepotism.
Important note: At the time our game begins, the Giovanni share the same clan weakness as the core Capppadocian clan. That is to say they possess the same ashen, corpse-like complexion of their forebears rendering them clearly sinister and at minimum deathly sick to mortals.
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