Giovanni: The Last Supper

The mass slaughter of their clan has all but eradicated the unique culture that once thrived amongst the Tzimisce.

More and more young Tzimisce are fleeing the conflict in the East, and their road of exile leads them directly through Italy. Many Princes are already bracing for even greater numbers of immigrants. They were a clan that flourished during the Dark Ages, managing their population and territories with a system of domains ruled by powerful voivodes. The remote nature of their lands gave them freedom to practice their conspicuous disciplines and to breed generations of humans infused with their blood and talents to produce formidable revenants - creatures that dwell between the human state and vampirism.

In recent nights, the Tzimisce who have survived have lost much of what they had built over many centuries - and they have had to turn the other cheek as their villages of revenants burn down and their academic progress in the art of fleshcrafting  grinds to a halt as they are forced to focus on survival alone.

From the earliest nights, the Tzimisce have haunted the European east, laying claim to northern marsh and southern mountain, fertile plain and trackless forest. The koldun — the clan's witch-priests and lore-keepers — have preserved the tale of how the Eldest, solitary and arcane, turned his back on the ruin his siblings' power-struggles had made of the Second City and went into the world to build a dominion of his own shaping. He came to the mountainous heart of their homeland as though called, and there he settled. He laid deep roots and forged pacts of blood and kinship with the old gods of the earth, binding his line to the land in a sacred union. God-touched through their unbreakable tie to the earth, the clan both ruled and served, offering sacrifice in the blood of the men and beasts within their domain to renew the earth, and paying the price from their own strength when that was not enough. This duality and symbiosis persisted for millennia, and the Tzimisce were unconquerable within their homeland.

All things come to their end.

Kolduns and Fleshcrafters

But it is not only the Omen War and the progression of the modern era  that have altered the Tzimisce way of life. Invasion of their lands by both Christian and Islamic armies has threatened another intrinsic part of their culture - their religion. Historically, the Tzimisce have always followed the traditions of Slavic paganism and the worship of the old gods of their land. For some Tzimisce who refer to themselves as the Old Clan or Carpathians, this practice runs deeper than the river of faith. Kolduns are Tzimisce who have harnessed the power of the elements  and can exert their will through the manipulation of earth, air, fire and water. These sorcerers of the clan almost always shun the use of Vicissitude/fleshcraft as they believe it is banal and barbaric at best - and a damning link to their parasitic progenitor at worst.

There is a persisting schism in the clan between the Old Clan or Carpathian Tzimisce and the fleshcrafters of the clan - sometimes referred to as Draconic Tzimisce due to their supposed descent from an ancient Fiend known as the Dracon. The divide between fleshcrafters and Kolduns is not black and white and only the Elders of the clan remember the origins of this rivalry - supposedly a bitter fight to the death between the Dracon and his brother in the blood, Triglav. The younger, more pragmatic members of the clan of Dragons resent this schism and view it as just one more factor contributing to the division and decline of their noble clan.

Hospitality and Hoarding

One of the traditions that all Tzimisce hold to regardless of their lineage is the law of hospitality. There are differences between individuals in their formal greetings and welcome rituals, but all members of the clan agree with a few pertinent points. Anyone who has been offered hospitality within a Fiend’s haven will have shelter and nourishment provided for three nights. They will be offered protection from any third party who might wish them harm and all feuds and conflicts will be considered to be under a temporary truce for the duration of their stay. In order to qualify for such hospitality, a guest is expected to exchange gifts and obey their host's rules and customs. No guest must ever stay longer than the agreed period of hospitality - lest they wish to suffer the legendary ire of their host. 

Tzimisce are also known to be great collectors of curiosities and valuable artefacts, though what is considered to be curious or valuable... differs greatly depending on the collector in question. Many fiends are fond of acquiring objects that are quite reasonably deemed to be desirable. Ancient books, archaeological finds, relics of antiquity and beautiful jewels can all attract the keen eye of a Tzimisce. However, many fiends shun these more mundane interests in favour of collecting curios of a darker bent - preferring to acquire interesting humans to add to their breeding projects or choosing to delve into the dangerous but lucrative realms of occult artefacts and tomes.

The Tzimisce seem to enjoy amassing such objects in order to reflect on the unique and rare nature of their hoards - unlike the Toreador, their collecting is not particularly driven by a deep fascination or obsession but rather a desire to possess, to own and to accumulate. Whatever the motivation or particular proclivity of an individual, one can always depend on the giving of a carefully selected gift to further social progress with a Fiend.

In these nights, the Tzimisce are beset from all sides. From the very heart of their homeland, the sorcerous Tremere have violated both Tzimisce blood and domain and have provoked the most vicious nocturnal war since the fall of Carthage. In the north and west, Germanic Ventrue have taken the opportunity to invade territories left vulnerable by the struggle with the Tremere, assaulting pagan enclaves in Livonia and Lithuania through crusade and undermining the weak-livered Kingdom of Hungary with commerce. Worse yet, within the clan, hereditary rivalries and fresh resentments sabotage any attempt at unified action. More and more of the clan's eldest broods disintegrate amid petty struggles for power, and precious knowledge is lost with every koldun who falls.

Tzimisce pride is the red-hot goad that has blinded them to their own failings, to the undeniable fact that there are forces arrayed against them that can finally drive them to their knees. Within the most stable domains of the voivodate, unlife continues in traditional fashion — elders rule their childer, their childer scheme and serve in the hopes of earning favor, and they sire offspring of their own who do the same. Among themselves, the Tzimisce still value what they always have: respect for (and submission to) their elders, concern for personal honor, adherence to the demands of the family hierarchy and, above all else, a fierce love of and devotion to the homeland.

"No man may take what we have claimed for our own — we are the very soul of this land," Tzimisce sires whisper over the ritual graves of their childer. This is true. What is also true is that the holy ties of earth and blood are no longer enough. If the Tzimisce wish to survive, they must unite beneath a hand strong enough to shape them as they have sought to shape their world.

The Renaissance 

The Fiends are irrevocably tied to the earth of the land that they were embraced upon,  a tether which has prevented them from taking advantage of the increase in trade and travel during the Renaissance - that is, if they wanted to leave their homeland at all. Deep down, all Tzimisce consider themselves superior and aristocratic - lords of their own sovereign land and peoples. They are often prejudice and xenophobic and many of the Elders amongst the clan are particularly hateful towards individuals who follow Abrahamic religions as they blame them for the eradication of their pagan faith.

As one can imagine, these attitudes have prevented the Tzimisce from prospering much in the heartlands of Western Europe and the Renaissance. Many of the Elders of the old country stay shut up in their fortresses, burying themselves in their works while the Omen War rages outside of their walls. Those who would fight the Tremere are battle-scarred and exhausted, and some have begun to leave their pride behind and risk leaving their homelands to escape the war - travelling west towards the enlightened cities of the Renaissance.

Far from the forests of the old land, the Byzantine Tzimisce from Constantinople have led quite a different life from their Slavic cousins. The clan of the dragon played a pivotal role in the upholding of The Dream and now that it is dead - they have fled west and established themselves in the thriving cities of Renaissance Europe. These Tzimisce are more in touch with the modern world than their archaic, fortress-dwelling counterparts and they definitely view themselves as the more cultured branch of the family. The Kolduns and the Old Clan who have never left eastern Europe contest this, and believe that these newfangled notions have only served to distance the Bytanzine Tzimisce from their true cultural roots that must be regularly fed by the soil of their homeland. 

Overall, the Renaissance has brought a combination of benefits and disadvantages to the Fiends’ table. Those Tzimisce who have long studied the human form through fleshcraft are both fascinated by and critical of the recent human developments in medicine and anatomy. The scholars among the clan - particularly those from Constantinople - are gradually being drawn out of their dusty, cloistered libraries in favour of the rich variety of new texts and schools of learning to sink their tapered claws into. Geopolitically, the rise of the Ottoman Empire in this era has brought an unforeseen level of instability to the already feudal lands that the Tzimisce reign over as the Ottomans continue in their siege of Wallachia and the Balkans - the Fiends loyal to these lands do not attempt to disguise their hatred of any individual associated with these grasping invaders of their sovereign soil.

The Church?

The Tzimisce are in a similar position to the Tremere where survival is winning about above everything. Their ancestral lands are threatened by the Tremere, so they have little time to worry about the Church and the Renaissance as a collective, but there are exception. A few voivodes care, seeing value not only in the Church but in this new dawning era, with its growth and technology being potential weapons against the Usurpers. Some even attempted to direct the eastern branch of the Church toward the "evil" mage infestation of Tremere vampires. Subtlety, however, does not come naturally to the Tzimisce, and the Church is an unnatural vehicle for their pagan thought. The Tzimisce's contempt and disregard for Christianity have dangerously blinded most of them to the increasing Christianization of their territories: the Church is undermining the old Gods, and Tzimisce rule with them.

Clan Opinions On…

The Embrace

Traditionally, young Tzimisce are selected from among the clan's revenant minions and groom one for the Embrace from a young age. Fiends frequently plan their Embraces meticulously. More rarely, a particularly gifted (or lusted-after) individual captures the attention of a prospective sire, or a koldun suggests that the auspices are right tor enlarging "the family." The war with the Tremere and other interlopers has added a more practical impetus to many recent Embraces, however. More warriors than "brides" or "pets" are selected in these nights and in greater haste. Even so, when at all possible, Tzimisce sires gift their fledgeling with the funeral rites believed to cement the new childe's holy bond to the earth. This consists of exsanguinating the intended and literally burying the childe-to-be alive until they suffocate and die, or, more commonly, killing them and dropping them in the earth after Embracing them, having some servant shovel over the childe and claw their own way back up.

This mystically binds the childe to the earth. Some say without it the clan’s inherent curse or weakness is that much worse. It’s not necessary - of course. But wise.

To emerge as vampyr, the childe must dig her way up and out, through a stew of earth, worms and corpses. Some weaker childer do not manage to dig their way back out; these weaklings are contemptuously left to rot in eternal torpor. Those childer who do worm their way from the earth generally undergo profound emotional trauma - having "died" and returned from the "afterworld," the childer are prepared to assume the mindset of undead predators. This can prove profoundly distressing to childer who belonged to the Church in life, but as far as the Fiends are concerned, such a shattering of faith is all the better.

The Auction 

Many Tzimisce would have a particular interest in attending an auction of unusual humans as they already spend quite a bit of their precious time searching for robust and powerful mortals to diversify and strengthen the blood of their Revenant lines. Each fiend has a different set of characteristics that they look for when acquiring  new breeding stock and Claudius’ auction seems to have something to offer for every palate. 

The Kolduns and scholars among the Tzimisce have paid close attention to the events surrounding The Black Dawn, which was unexpected enough to pry them from their old tomes and practices. Even if they are not interested in obtaining a mortal affected by the eclipse for their breeding properties, they would certainly be interested in how they are connected to this cosmic event and how this strange rearrangement of the Heavens has empowered them.

Outside of the main attraction of the auction, many Tzimisce will come to Claudius’ gathering of Cainites with more extracurricular objectives in mind. Their lands are torn apart by warfare and their clan is beset open from all sides by a formidable range of foes. The rare pragmatic and co-operative members of the clan hope to use the opportunity to gain allies and aid them in their fight against the Tremere, the native werewolves to the forests and even the human armies of the Ottoman Empire that threaten to take control of their lands. The more warlike Fiends hope to learn the weakness and ambitions of their enemies and the politicians and scholars of the Byzantine lines may prove helpful in assisting these ambitions through careful observation and participation in the Claudius Exchange. 

Although the cultures, background and goals of the Tzimisce may differ by individual, all fiends expect Claudius to hold to the laws of hospitality when inviting the clan of the dragon to nest under his roof and they will respect his rules in return - for the requisite three days and three nights only, of course.

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