Preview: The Chaos Cult
over 4 years ago – Sun, Dec 22, 2019 at 07:31:16 AM

Hello Bloodthirsty Backers!

If you're in the northern hemisphere, like me, yesterday was the winter solstice, and that makes last night the longest night of the year - surely a special time for members of the Cults of the Blood Gods! And, again, another great day for our campaign!

We're inching ever closer to our next Stretch Goal - blood drop by blood drop, as they say - and continue to add new backers each day! Welcome aboard everyone!

To all the new backers and those peeking in from the outside thinking about joining us - I'm going to share another preview for you today, a glimpse of something all backers will be able to read as part of a manuscript preview tomorrow. Join our Bloodthirsty Blood God Backer Cult and you'll be able to read the entire manuscript preview before the campaign ends! No holiday surprises here! We want you to have a pretty good idea of what you're signing up for with this project.

And, with that, another bit of art and another preview to share...

The Chaos Cult

A vampire can follow Kindred society’s laws, uphold the Camarilla’s Traditions, cling onto their pillars of Humanity, and struggle nightly with the growling Beast in their heart. Or, a vampire can make their own laws, drive their heel into the Camarilla, divest themselves of their mortal shackles, and make their Beast a weapon.

The Church of Set favor the latter option. It is what they preach. It is what they believe. Possibly the oldest of all Kindred religions, stretching back in time across millennia, the Church of Set have always been present to “liberate” vampires from society’s strictures and encourage them to find their true calling.

Yes, many fall, become wights, and are used as valuable teaching lessons. But for those who survive? They become stronger, and praise be to Set for helping those vampires become everything they are meant to be.

Due to their attitudes toward liberation from rules, theoretically, many Kindred should oppose the Church’s very existence. They are servants of chaos, advocating that unlife only possesses meaning if vampires free themselves from the edicts of ancient masters such as Princes and Justicars. Yet, vampires see in the Church of Set wisdom that comes through age and experience, freedom through anarchy, and a chance to rebel against all the external tyrants and internal guilt trips that hold them down. Whenever a domain holds a temple of Set, the Kindred know there’s a place they can visit for a form of enlightenment, counsel, and hard, bitter truth. They also know that by attending this temple, they can find purpose in the meaningless nature of eternity.

The Church of Set is strong because it appeals to a Kindred’s base nature, while promising to eradicate the worst of those desires. It is chaos, storm, and promise of change. When the alternative seems like stagnation, it’s no wonder neonates of tonight increasingly flock to the temple doors.

Despite their message of freedom, however, the Church of Set is not some utopic faith to which all fledglings must cling. Even the Ministry — the clan most commonly associated with the Church, through their Blood, founder, and religious practices — urges caution to those seeking to follow Set’s path.

Church and State

In the nights following Gehenna, a curious — though not unprecedented — schism occurred within the flocks of Set, so the Serpents claim. Just as Set’s sarcophagus at Ombos was said to shatter many centuries ago, so too in these nights did the body of Set’s faith fracture into dangerous shards.

One such splinter group, shedding ties to its venerable history and even abandoning the name of the Red God himself, refers to itself as the Ministry. The Church of Set refers to them as heretics, and yet, it is the Ministry who dominate the clan tonight. To understand the Church of Set, one must first understand the Ministry.

The Ministry are the Clan of Faith, but they are not a single religion. The Ministry holds the keys to salvation and uses them to deface every surface around them. They are known to steal, reproduce, and even forge texts of orthodox doctrine, disseminating them among unbelievers, unworthies, and the otherwise unready. Doctrine is often twisted to fit their own needs, especially when it comes to the holy search for the mysteries of Set. Ministers have shown themselves eager to enshrine Set within or attribute to him anything that benefits their autocratic philosophies or actions, syncretizing him with tyrannical kings, chosen Antediluvians, or, among the radical fringe, Set’s inimical brother Osiris. The Ministry is content to use Allah, Catholic saints, Vishnu, or any other being of reverence as a mask for Set. They attract followers because the clan is made up from followers of every religion, every culture, and every background. The Ministry are a clan of chaos, but they are the body, the bureaucracy, and the society that ostensibly governs the realm of faith among Kindred.

The Ministry perverts doctrine of all religions to bring its members closer to Set. They are wreckers and despoilers to some, but liberators and counselors to others. Ministers might spread terrible lies about supposed abuses of power committed by the Church of Set, just as the Church of Set finds itself taking in Ministry survivors who have been subject to those same abuses. It is not unheard of for a temple of Set to offer shelter to kine or Kindred misused by the Ministry. To many, it appears the Ministry and Church are at war. To others, it is clear a cycle of abuse and manipulation in the form of nurture propels vampires between them.

The Ministry is devoted to the cause of individual Anarchs rather than the spirit of independence and freedom as a whole — that is, Ministers seem eager to rule Anarchs rather than convert them, in contradiction to the edicts laid down by the Red God. This is where the clan and the Church most widely differ. As infiltrators and warmongers, the Ministry makes itself a frequent target of the Camarilla, but while the Ministry take the flak and earn support from their downtrodden Anarch brethren, the Church maintains a distance. The Church does not involve itself in the sectarian wars. So committed is the Church to decrying these pretenders that they will justify a Contending — a trial more akin to a kangaroo court than a place to express one’s defense — against any adherent who abets a Minister outside the Church, to be called off only if the wayward child returns to the flock and sufficiently atones. Anyone shown the true path who still allows the silvery voices of the worldly to lead them astray has become useless in the eyes of the Red Pharaoh.

To the rest of the world, the Church and Ministry appear to occupy a shared history, but distinct spheres in these modern nights. They share some members, they share some ideals, but the two are opposed at a structural and philosophical level. The Church of Set’s leadership outwardly regards the Ministry as insignificant, incorrigible children at best. Ministers are not in the business of being ignored, and seem to delight in overt, ill-advised stunts that threaten scrutiny by the Second Inquisition. Such theatrics are to be smothered or undermined with any resources a temple, priest, or lay member has at hand. The Church even says honest cooperation with the Camarilla to suppress known Ministers is preferable to the Ministry operating unchecked.

The Clan of Lies

Of course, that’s what the Church of Set wants other Kindred to think. The damage from this so-called schism is difficult for any outsider to ascertain. The Church of Set maintains the fractures between Church and Ministry are dire heresies. Some Ministers, however, believe the front-facing aspect of the clan is just that: a carefully erected façade that allows the Church to continue its own practices and aims, deflecting all out-of-clan attentions toward the new kids on the block making such a noise within the Anarch Movement.

If this is true, the Church of Set is successfully playing the Anarch Movement and many of their own clanmates. The Serpents have, after all, served Set for millennia. An overnight reformation is unlikely. The danger to the clan from all this scheming, is the possibility of their new face growing in power and relevance over the ancient traditions and beliefs of the orthodoxy. If the Church of Set deliberately cultivated the Ministry, they may have lit the fuse for a bomb destined to collapse their foundations.

Tomorrow, I'll be sharing the full manuscript preview for the Church of Set! See you tomorrow, backers!

#V5BloodGods

#V5ChurchOfSet

BACKERS ONLY – MANUSCRIPT PREVIEW #2C
over 4 years ago – Sat, Dec 21, 2019 at 03:01:31 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Preview: The Heresy Falls, The Heresy Rises...
over 4 years ago – Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 03:37:10 AM

Hello Bloodthirsty Backers!

We're still within the first 100 hours of this campaign (and will be for another day!) - can you believe it? It seems like so much has happened already, but we're still just in the early neonate stage of this kickstarter project! So much more to come!

I'll touch on our current and upcoming Stretch Goal targets after a tiny taste of what all backers will be able to enjoy tomorrow with our regular manuscript preview download. Tune in tomorrow for more!

The Heresy Falls

For over a thousand years, a vampire subsect of Gnostic Christianity operated within Cainite society. This group, known to some as the Crimson Curia, to others as the Church of Caine, and to their enemies as the Cainite Heresy, posited that Caine was God’s divine angel of murder who had absorbed the soul of Christ, and that all vampires were his children and just as blessed. It was their divine mission to cull the weak, turn the living hell of the world into a heaven, dominate the Catholic Church, and usher in the Time of Caine, or third resurrection of Caine and Jesus, prophesized to arrive in the year 1239 CE.

The Cainite Heresy subverted the faith of mortals and vampires alike, its adherents believing themselves to be God’s chosen predators. Most importantly for other vampires, their actions inside and outside the mortal Church drew the attention of the Catholic Inquisition as well as hunters from the ranks of the Muslims of Iberia. In a rare show of unity, imams sided with churchmen and put the torch to the Cainite Heresy before their Time of Caine could arrive. The parent clan of most of these “Gnostics” was the Lasombra, and along with vampires of the Banu Haqim and Clan Brujah they hunted down the remaining stragglers.

The Church of Caine reached its end close to the time when mortal Gnosticism was declared a heresy punishable by death. Just as the Catholic Church had no more patience for rival faiths within its own sphere, the Lasombra ran out of tolerance for the Church of Caine’s increasingly aberrant views of Earth as hell, vampires as angels, and mortals as soulless cattle. Vampires who knew of the cult’s denouement celebrated its fall, and those who campaigned against it worked hard to scrub the cult’s name from the scant Cainite history books that recorded it.

The Heresy Rises

The idea of a Demiurge on high, responsible for all the evil in the world, alleviating of that responsibility the perpetrators of criminal acts, is a reassuring one to some. Vampires have a tendency to find excuses for their terrible acts, and when one can point elsewhere and say “He made me that way,” it — at least in the mind of the vampire — helps absolve them of their sins. Not that the modern Church of Caine are truly looking for absolution.

The re-emergence of the Gnostics in the modern nights is a subject of great mystery and conjecture. Few Kindred recall the original Cainite Heresy, most being Beckoned, succumbing to the sleep of ages, or destroyed in the last eight centuries. While some believe the rising Gnostic tide must be at the beck and call of methuselahs who wisely slept instead of facing the torches of the Inquisition 800 years ago, the modern Church of Caine shows few of the hallmarks of a methuselah-led cult. They don’t have a hierarchy based on age, they care little for lineage and clan, and their centralized power comes in the form of the renewed Crimson Curia — a council of priests — rather than a single, ancient figurehead.

Of course, the other conclusion is that Caine brought the Church back into being, though there’s no evidence to show he was ever around to see the Church in its original form, let alone approve of its purpose or methods. The idea that this cult may exist in direct service to Caine is a thought that undoubtedly troubles many Kindred, however, and leads a surprising number to join its ranks just to err on the side of caution. If the Dark Father is real, awake, and leading a sizable cult, better to be on his side.

What is known, is the Church of Caine has leaked out of the darkness again, with its words, beliefs, and practices becoming visible for the first time in centuries following the Beckoning’s commencement. The Church claims Caine himself calls his errant childer to fill his long-empty veins, and only the Church will be saved. Caine is the face, voice, and mind of the Demiurge in this hell on Earth, and he will not be denied. His angels will ascend with him once the rest of the world accepts their place as the meek and the fallen. Until then, his will be done.

Hell on Earth

The Church of Caine has long held the view that the world is divided into many planes of existence, with the Demiurge above all, and his angels governing the ranks of the unknowing. At each level of awareness, an individual grows closer to becoming an angel themselves, but these levels go down as well as up, and the farther down one descends, the closer they come to being damned forever.

This view may seem incompatible in a modern world, but to vampires of the Church, and mortals who believe themselves more enlightened — through intellect, influence, money, or even charm — it’s a rational view. It’s a class society imposed by a supreme power, and it makes sense to an amoral mindset. The Church of Caine for instance believes that while the Demiurge is all-seeing and all-knowing, he sends a representative (sometimes more than one) to Earth to mete out his will. Specifically, the Church posits, this representative is Caine, though infamous vampires such as Sutekh and Mithras may have been his angels as well, and Lilith certainly fits the mold of an angel who couldn’t help but abuse her power and fall. The Antediluvians were likewise angels, but fought Caine’s children and therefore fell from grace. They still deserve punishment for this. Likewise, humans with proficiency in angelic arts — whom the Tremere call mages — are of greater importance and value than the sleeping kine.

Earth is not a median point in this cosmic theory. Earth is hell, and receiving the Embrace is a step toward escaping that hell. All worlds layer on top of each other, so it is possible to exist in heaven and hell at the same time, but divine right grants one resilience against hell’s slings and arrows. At least, that’s the Church of Caine’s theory behind Disciplines such as Fortitude, and their reasoning for why all their powers are symbolic of the type a god might use against a mere mortal.

STRETCH GOALS

Look for our backers-only update tomorrow detailing the Church of Caine! And now, let's check in with our stretch goals and additional rewards!

ACHIEVEMENTS UNLOCKED!

A little re-arranging of the order in which these were achieved presents the Trail of Bone and Ashes, now containing these 4 playable stories for your V5 gaming table:

• An intimate playable story in which the bonds of family loyalty are tested, when the Hecata are forced to discern the loyalty and potentially punish the betrayal of a beloved and famed relative suspected to be consorting with cults outside their clan.
• A political playable story in which we explore the burning enmities of the Cappadocians, Harbingers, Samedi, Giovanni, and Lamiae, and whether, in the historic domain of Florence, they can ever be repaired.
• A mystery playable story in which the subject of Golconda is addressed, explored, and put to the test when a vampire with all the answers arrives in the city and somehow converts the Prince.
• A religious playable story, where the coterie takes over an abandoned cult eager for leaders, the members of which promise much but may lead to each of the vampires' fall.

All backers receiving the Cults of the Blood Gods PDF as part of their rewards list will automatically have the Trail of Bone and Ashes PDF added to their rewards.

In addition to more content in the form of supplements, we have what I like to think of as a "celebration" Stretch Goals, marking our achievements and adding in another opportunity to show our love for this game. With this, we'll be able to get decked out in Blood Gods style!

Hosted on the Redbubble store for a limited time, a Cults of the Blood Gods-themed shirt will be priced at a discount. All backers will be notified when the shirt becomes available.

UPCOMING STRETCH GOALS

And, as we continue down our own bloodthirsty trail, we have another celebration on the horizon, and then we mark a milestone by making our primary concern - the Cults of the Blood Gods book itself - even better!

At $90,000 in funding - DIGITAL WALLPAPER: An awesome digital wallpaper for your computer desktop featuring art from Cults of the Blood Gods. All backers will have this automatically added to their rewards list.

At $100,000 in funding - ART BUDGET INCREASE: Additional funds will be allocated to the art budget for Cults of the Blood Gods, allowing Onyx Path to include even more awesome art in this sourcebook.

Yes, I know I referred to the artwork as "awesome" twice in a row! It's been a busy week! I'm running out of superlatives! And I really like the art we've seen!

If we cross the $100,00 funding target - which would be AMAZING! - I think we can expect to start building another supplement for all backers, perhaps digging deeper into details of some of the cults from the book or other religious expressions of the Kindred. Let's keep this project going and find out together!

#V5BloodGods

#V5ChuchOfCaine

BACKERS ONLY – MANUSCRIPT PREVIEW #2B
over 4 years ago – Thu, Dec 19, 2019 at 03:37:11 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

Preview: Who Was Lilith?
over 4 years ago – Wed, Dec 18, 2019 at 05:56:27 AM

Hello Kickstarter Campaign Cultists!

Well, how was your day yesterday? Because mine was amazing! What a launch!

Together, we accomplished a remarkable feat - we funded the creation of a hardcover version of Cults of the Blood Gods, and funded a print run that will not only sit proudly on our shelves, but also go into distribution to game and hobby stores and spread the shadow of the World of Darkness even further. IN LESS THAN ONE DAY!

I don't want to speak for the Onyx Path team too much, but I know that your support for this project means a lot to them. For a long, long time, Onyx Path was sort of a steward for the World of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade, working to keep the game alive and support it despite some major obstacles and resistance. And they're very excited to see the enthusiasm and rekindled fires of passion that burn with the release of Vampire: The Masquerade Fifth Edition.

It may not seem like it, since all of the PDFs sit on the same digital shelf, and all of the hardcover books fit so nicely together, but Onyx Path is a much smaller organization than some of the other parties involved in the V5 tabletop RPG world. But you've shown that, when the property is approached with respect and creativity and enthusiasm and love  - well, you're ready to support these amazing projects, and enable Onyx Path to stand proudly alongside others in the V5 world.

Thank you! 

But this is all just the first step in our journey! Matthew Dawkins and his team have much more to reveal in the manuscript previews that we'll be sharing throughout this campaign. Today I'm going to give a small taste of what to expect next, and then I'll talk about where else we can grow this project.

These preview posts are also an excuse to show more of the artwork from the book, so I'll try and feature new images as much as possible!

Who was Lilith?

Few ask the question, mortal or not. Some say she was the haughty first wife of the first man, who took off to consort with demons because of a conflict rooted in a gendered and sexual inequality. Or, she was the victimized first wife of the first man, who ran to the darkness beyond Eden for safety.

In the medieval period, new versions of her story leapt into being, with one among others capturing the imaginations of many. Created by the debates of holy men and a satirist, it would prove to be the one that dug deepest. Lilith was the first wife, and Eve was the second. Lilith and Adam quarreled from the day they met, and Lilith grew tired of it. She used a secret name of their Creator to whisk herself away to safety. When mothers put amulets on their babies to ward off Lilith, they were warding off a woman whose rage was eternal, who would take all children in the night, and leave them dead. To kill the children of Adam and Eve was to strike back at their shared Creator, to unmake parts of a world that had been set in motion long, long ago. Despite the powers ascribed to her, there was almost something human to her pain and hate. In other tales Lilith is confronted by angels and stakes her claim on the lives of newborns. She becomes a consort of the Angel of Death, and evolves into a figure of powerful evil, one connected to a violent, roiling world beyond that of the average mortal; one that was terrifying, but perhaps necessary for existence to have the meaning that it does. Perhaps, if Lilith sits upon her throne, she will not come down into the night, and take more than just newborn babies. In each myth, intermixed, the smallest seeds of the truth can be found by the determined reader. There is something almost human to her pain, and hate, but also to her love, and her grief. She does not simply access a world beyond the mundane human reality, she is part of it. For a time, she was the lover of an angel. In all her grief, she has had only herself to rely on.

Lilith is loyal to herself. She is self-assured, she is above human morality, and she possesses a power and sexuality utterly alien to many, even some of the Bahari. She is self-sustaining and resists heaven, Caine, and humankind, century after century. She is power, and knowledge. And she is a scapegoat, for humans and Cainites alike, for their fears and their desires. Her story has been passed back and forth between the children of Adam and Eve, and her own children. It is not pure, nor is it untouched by the hands of men, uninfluenced by those who do not know her revelations. Those who follow her know that without question, they will die. They will know fear and be forced past it, their bodies sent past the breaking point. They will suffer greatly for understanding and to protect each other. They are dedicated to bringing about the goals of the Dark Mother, and these are their reasons for living.

What is Lilith, is the most important question. She is the voice heard in the dark apartment, when no one else is present. The fragment of a song that obsesses but seems to come from nowhere. Dreams of blood-filled trees or the full to bursting belly gorged on food and blood, before the bed is ripped apart. The mother wailing and rocking the bodies of her dead children. A woman whose garden has been burned to the ground. All of the Bahari must know loss in their time. Physical and psychic pain. The role of a feast in the night. The role of being the feast in the night. To worship her is to be a fragment of her, to feel pain and crave vengeance.

The many Gardens of the Bahari have their own feelings about what parts of the scriptures or satires or scholarly treatises of mortals have captured an inkling of the Dark Mother. Each Garden has as many opinions of the Revelations and rituals as a pomegranate has seeds.

Stories about the Dark Mother are like holding a fistful of writhing snakes. The observer may see the storm, air, flight, angels, night, light, lovers, loss, desert, birth, sea, thorns, violation, magic unimaginable — and by that point they will be bitten and die.

STRETCH GOALS

I'll post our next Backers-only manuscript preview tomorrow, detailing the children of Lilith, The Bahari. 

For today, let's look at what your support as enabled - beyond our primary goal of publishing of Cults of the Blood Gods -  with the THREE Stretch Goals we've already unlocked!

Together, we've unlocked the creation of a supplement for Cults of the Blood Gods called Trail of Bone and Ashes! All backers receiving the Cults of the Blood Gods PDF as part of their rewards list will automatically have the Trail of Bone and Ashes PDF added to their rewards. 

This supplement will feature playable stories for V5 featuring themes, locations, characters, and organizations taken from Cults of the Blood Gods. And we've already added THREE sections in this first day! 

• An intimate playable story in which the bonds of family loyalty are tested, when the Hecata are forced to discern the loyalty and potentially punish the betrayal of a beloved and famed relative suspected to be consorting with cults outside their clan.
• A political playable story in which we explore the burning enmities of the Cappadocians, Harbingers, Samedi, Giovanni, and Lamiae, and whether, in the historic domain of Florence, they can ever be repaired.
• A mystery playable story in which the subject of Golconda is addressed, explored, and put to the test when a vampire with all the answers arrives in the city and somehow converts the Prince.

The Trail of Bone and Ashes PDF will become a reward to all current backers - and all new backers who join in! You're already unleashing more rewards just by supporting this project! And the more we can grow our kickstarter campaign coterie / clan / cult, the more we can grow our rewards lists!

So, let's keep it going and growing! Remember to share your enthusiasm and let others know about this campaign! Share in your social circles and your social media. Let's help Onyx Path continue to support the World of Darkness and Vampire: The Masquerade with their creativity, reverence, and passion!

And let's see what else we can add to this project! As I'm typing this, we're just $2,000 shy of adding some Blood Gods style to our wardrobe options...

At $70,000 in funding - KICKSTARTER BACKER T-SHIRT — Hosted on the Redbubble store for a limited time, a Cults of the Blood Gods-themed shirt will be priced at a steep discount. All backers will be notified when the shirt becomes available.

And then, let's get more content and travel further down the trail...

At $80,000 in funding - TRAIL OF BONE AND ASHES PDF — THE WELLSPRING: Help us fund a religious playable story, where the coterie takes over an abandoned cult eager for leaders, the members of which promise much but may lead to each of the vampires' fall.

Let's stay bloodthirsty! And let's get some Blood for the Blood Gods!

#V5BloodGods

#V5Lilith