Tzimisce

File:LogoClanTzimisce1.png

Tzimisce Clan Symbol

The Tzimisce (Template:Pron-en) are a fictional clan of vampires in White Wolf Game Studio's books and role-playing games Vampire: The Masquerade and Vampire: The Dark Ages.

The Tzimisce consider themselves apart from and superior to other Kindred, by dint of their unique Disciplines, unnatural ethical views and the inner-structure of their Clan. Many Tzmisce are warriors or religious leaders within the Sabbat, though many lead existences devoid of other Vampiric contact, instead surrounding themselves with servants and slaves. They are obsessed with their birthplaces and graves, usually possessing some of the soil from the location of their Embrace, over which they are fiercely territorial.

The Tzimisce are known for their body altering technique, called Vicissitude or, less formally, "fleshcrafting". Tzimisce can supernaturally alter the bodies of living and undead organisms, even to the point of melting them. For this clan, body alteration is an art and a philosophy. In the modern ages, most Tzimisce are simultaneously radical transhumanists, posthumanists, and prescriptive social Darwinists. Sooner or later, many Tzimisce become totally lost in this detached and inhuman way of thinking, often losing all contact with the concepts of mercy, compassion, or moral or ethical value as understood by the human mind.

The Tzimisce seek physical and spiritual purification and perfection, though their interpretations of these concepts are often alien or incomprehensible to humans and sometimes even to other vampires. They often "fleshcraft" themselves into forms they believe to be beautiful and/or terrifying. The most common "path of enlightenment" for a Tzimisce is called the "Path of Metamorphosis", and is a replacement for their lost humanity. Tzimisce with this path only have one goal with their whole existence: to become so powerful that the whole world becomes part of themselves — Azhi Dahaka, when the world becomes a part of yourself, a sort of inverted Nirvana.

Clan	Progenitor	Faction	Disciplines	Nicknames	Weakness
Tzimisce	Tzimisce Antediluvian (Possibly Mekhet)	Sabbat	Vicissitude, Animalism, Auspex	Fiends	Whenever a Tzimisce sleeps, they must surround themselves with at least two handfuls of Earth from a place important to them as a mortal. Failure to meet this requirement halves the Tzimisce's dice pools every 24 hours, until all their actions use only one die. This penalty remains until they rests for a full day amid their earth once more.

History

The Tzimisce were one of the High Clans. In medieval times, it was common for the Tzimisce to hold vast domains in Eastern Europe, and command armies of men, ghouls and monsters of their own making; in some places they were revered or worshipped almost as gods. The most (in)famous Tzimisce was Vlad Ţepeş, commonly known as Dracula.

The Tzimisce were among the preferred victims of the Tremere clan, who often employed Tzimisce as raw material to craft Gargoyles. The Tzimisce of old held the Tremere in utmost contempt.

During the Dark Ages, the younger members of the clan were subject to blood bonds with their elders, until they found a way to break them and slaughtered most of their masters. This ritual is called Vaulderie and consists of a blood bond with the pack members rather than a single elder, thus bonding to a community (or pack) of fellow Tzimisce and breaking their sire's control upon them. The Vaulderie is now one of the Auctoritas Ritae and practiced by all of the Sabbat, in theory at least.

It was also during the Dark Ages that the Koldun arose as a whole Tzimisce faction. In the modern World of Darkness, Koldun are so rare as to be considered extinct.

In Vampire: The Masquerade, the Tzimisce clan is associated with the Sabbat. Their symbol is the Ouroboros.

Vicissitude

Vicissitude is the trademark Discipline of Clan Tzimisce, and one of the most horrifying powers available to Cainites. With it an experienced crafter can sculpt the flesh and bone of a subject, making them a creature of alien beauty or gnarling them into a deformed monstrosity. Tzimisce use Vicissitude on themselves extensively, altering their appearances with their mood or changing their bodies to be as vile as their souls.

Outside of Thaumaturgy, Vicissitude is the most versatile of the Disciplines, and is often used in tandem with extensive ghouling. Tzimisce tend to deform their servants into war-forms szlachta, which are optimized for combat through extensive bone plating, spiked forearms and other modifications. True masters of fleshcrafting are capable of fusing multiple victims together into mammoth killing machines known as vozhd, but such creations are incredibly rare. Vicissitude was also used to create the Blood Brothers bloodline, and their Discipline Sanguinus is a derivation of the Tzimisce art. While its effects are normally permanent, vampires of lower generation can heal fleshcrafting transformations over time. Likewise, the clan curse of the Nosferatu cannot be removed through use of Vicissitude.

The nature of Vicissitude is shrouded in mystery, with even the most elder Fiends only speculating as to its origins and true potential. More than just a Discipline, it seems to act as a virus that "infects" others through transmission of blood. It is assumed to be invented by the Tzimisce Antediluvian, with some speculating that Vicissitude itself is an extension of the Elder Tzimisce and that it continues to learn and experiment through those that fleshcraft. The Tzimisce themselves view the control over physical forms granted by the Discipline as proof of their superiority over mortals who are slaves to their bodies. Practitioners of the Path of Metamorphosis go a step further and consider Vicissitude the path to achieve individual evolution and transcendence through a somewhat scientific approach of research and experimentation.

In Dirty Secrets of the Black Hand, Vicissitude was said to be a parasite that originated in the Deep Umbra and was brought back by a Tzimisce named Andeleon. As a disease, it eats away at the body, mind, and soul of an infected individual until they are consumed and taken over by it, becoming a Souleater. Supposedly the Old Clan Tzimisce were the few Fiends able to isolate themselves and avoid becoming infected. The True Black Hand was devoted to wiping out the alien invasion, while at the same time keeping it a secret from the world.

The idea of Souleaters and Vicissitude as an alien plague received a great deal of criticism and was a divisive element of canon. The Vampire Storytellers Handbook Revised stated the idea was merely the result of a "lunatic fringe" within the Old Clan Tzimisce, and to be disregarded. However, the Guide to the Sabbat reintroduced an optional rule with Vicissitude as a disease that can infect anyone that comes into contact with tainted blood. Infection is necessary for learning Vicissitude, and the degree to which one is afflicted influences the difficulty of learning levels of the Discipline. Instead of taking over a practitioner's mind, however, the disease makes it more likely those infected gain a derangement.

Minor bloodlines

Old Clan Tzimisce

Old Clan Tzimisce are the members of the Tzimisce clan who did not join the Sabbat or cultivate the use of Vicissitude; they do not consider themselves a bloodline. They are old (at least 500 years, as most predate the formation of the Sabbat), of low generation, and rule small domains almost exclusively in Eastern Europe. In the Old World of Darkness, Dracula is a member of this bloodline.

The majority of Tzimisce elders met Final Death when the clan joined the Sabbat but a fair number escaped their vindictive progeny. Securing their demesnes against the ravages of the Sabbat, these vampires continues to exist much as they had for centuries, albeit more warily.

Though some refer to these Tzimisce as the "Old Clan," that is a misnomer. These hoary vampires have little use for sect, clan, or other ties. They remember well the nights of old, when each vampire was a law unto itself, and any other vampire was a potential enemy. (Note that Old Clan Tzimisce do not call themselves "antitribu," as do the surviving non-Sabbat Lasombra.)

Accordingly, Old Clan Tzimisce society is structured around individual broods comprising a sire and one or more Blood Bound childer. Childer, for Old Clan Tzimisce, fill the roles of lovers, family, friends, bodyguards and servants. Tzimisce mastery over the Blood Bond allows the sire to attune the emotions of his childer to a desired pitch. Thus, a vampire lover may be Blood Bound to feel all-consuming desire for the sire, a guard may be Blood Bound for loyalty, and a mate may be "programmed" for love. The fact that these emotions are artificial and one-sided rarely bothers the sire.

Old Clan Tzimisce rarely congregate. Other Tzimisce are, if anything, even less trustworthy than other vampires. Indeed, many Old Clan Tzimisce spend more time brooding over some millennia-old, centuries-forgotten slight by one of their "peers" than they do worrying about the very real threat that the Sabbat poses. This is not to say that Old Clan Tzimisce have forgotten their traitorous progeny. On the contrary, many Old Clan Tzimisce have gone so far as to disown younger Tzimisce entirely. These Tzimisce, the Old Clan claims, are not vampires at all, but fleshly hosts for otherworldly parasites called "Souleaters." This distinction seems to be based on the possession of Vicissitude, although some ancient non-Sabbat Tzimisce have verifiably possessed Vicissitude for millennia.

Some Sabbat whisper that a few Old Clan childer have been rendered immune to the Vinculum by their elders and sent into the world with the purpose of infiltrating the Sabbat and bringing it down. The clan publicly scoffs at these rumors, but some high-ranking Sabbat have expressed private unease about such a prospect.

Members of Old Clan Tzimisce rarely concern themselves with vampire politics; the bloodline has no organization of its own, and its members concentrate on ruling their domains.

Old Clan Tzimisce also appear as a bloodline in the the card game Vampire: The Eternal Struggle.

Bloodline	Founder	Parent Clan	Faction	Disciplines	Nicknames	Weakness
Old Clan Tzimisce	Tzimisce Antediluvian (Possibly Mekhet)	Tzimisce, (The Tzimisce may actually be descended from the Old Clan Tzimisce)	True Black Hand	Animalism, Auspex, Dominate	The Old Clan	Whenever a Tzimisce sleeps, they must surround themselves with at least two handfuls of Earth from a place important to them as a mortal. Failure to meet this requirement halves the Tzimisce's dice pools every 24 hours, until all their actions use only one die. This penalty remains until they rests for a full day amid their earth once more.

Creatures of the Tzimisce

War Ghouls

A ghoul created by vampires of Clan Tzimisce, intended for combat against one supernatural threat or another (such as other vampires, werewolves, mages, and the like) is called a War Ghoul. Crafted from the body or sometimes several bodies of beasts and/or human beings, often overfilled with the Vitae of their masters (causing an insane subjection to the Blood Oath), these vicious things are intended to kill and keep killing. Though it is uncommon, some War Ghouls live for decades as dedicated killing machines or bodyguards to their creators or owners, however it is much more often that they are applied as crude but effective disposable warriors. In dire battles or when planning a siege, several Tzimisce may work together to create packs of war Ghouls, fleshcrafting in concert.

War ghouls are rarely used in modern nights as they tend to attract the kind of attention that the Tzimisce and their Sabbat allies don't want, and aren't intended to survive any longer than the battle for which they were made.

Szlachta

Szlachta are small, deformed little creatures that vampires of the Tzimisce clan use as servants and guard dogs. They are usually remnants of failed experiments in fleshcrafting and bonecrafting; "waste not, want not" being a catchphrase of the Fiends. They are sometimes ghouled.

Szlachta are featured in the Vampire: The Masquerade - Redemption video game published by White Wolf. They are presented as short, pale little creatures in a mine, and which make gurgling, wailing noises that sound "like a lamb with blood in its lungs."

Vozhd

Vozhd are mammoth living siege weapons created by the Vampires of Clan Tzimisce. These nightmarish creatures are created by 'fleshcrafting' multiple (usually 15+) human or animal Ghouls together into one being.

Vozhd are created in a process that involves either a (6th level) Koldunic Sorcery Ritual or a combination of the Viccisitude and Animalism Disciplines. Many (on rare occasion more than twenty) animals, humans or a combination thereof are forced to consume the blood of their Tzimisce master, enslaving them to the Blood Oath. Then the ghouls are forced to drink each other's blood in a ritual similar to Vaulderie. A congregation of Tzimisce then meld the ghouls into one composite entity. Such a creature is enormous and, with its multiple limbs and organs, is capable of unleashing a maelstrom of destruction. Excess tissue can be molded to bestow carapaces, spines, claws, tusks, palps, mandibles, fanged maws or whatever the creators desire. Vozhd are mindless and unsalvageably mad, killing, eating or trampling anything in their path. Since the process of becoming a Vozhd invariably drives the component beings insane, some Tzimisce lobotomize their victims before the gestalten assembly occurs. A lobotomized Vozhd is immune to Animalism, Dominate and Presence; only rumors exist of sapient Vozhd.

The end result of creating a Vozhd is the equivalent of a flesh-and-bone tank: huge, slow, unintelligent and devastatingingly powerful (levels of Potence, Fortitude and Blood Pool generally equal to twice those of the highest level among the component ghouls). The creation process irrevocably bonds the Vozhd to a single creator; this Tzimisce alone can 'command' the Vozhd, though the war beast rarely comprehends commands of more than two or three words.

Vozhd are usually starved before a battle, so they may be pointed in the general direction of the opposing forces. Vozhd are nearly as dangerous to their creators as they are to their enemies, thus typically deployed into the enemy's soldiers. The very size and ferocity of the monster often work to the detriment of the Sabbat; few things can better convince Camarilla elders, Anarchs, Inconnu, and neutral clans to unite against a common foe, than a fifteen foot wall of destruction.

On the other hand, few things can convince Camarilla elders, Anarchs, Inconnu, and neutral clans to surrender to the Sabbat so quickly as seeing their city's Prince torn to pieces and greedily devoured by a rampaging Vozhd. Therefore, they rarely see use in any but the most frenzied conflicts in modern nights, as a Vohzd wreaking havoc in a major city would attract the kind of attention that even the Sabbat doesn't want. Their implementation in combat has only been historically recorded by the Kindred, and even then only a handful of accounts exist beyond rumor.

Revenant families

Revenants are families of ghouls created by the Tzimisce by inbreeding countless generations of ghouls of the same family. This practice was started as early as the 9th century A.D., and resulted in families of ghouls with hereditary powers. They were and are used by the Tzimisce as infiltrators, warriors, servants, seneschals, and in some cases as their contact with the mortal world or as breeding stock for new vampires. Besides some minor families that have been destroyed, several such families still survive into the modern nights, namely the Zantosa, Bratovitch, Grimaldi, and Obertus families.

Bratovitch

Brutish monsters that usually serve the Tzimisce, they are fighters and trackers, and rarely engage in finer social events. Most Bratovitch know little about humanity and follow Paths or Roads

Disciplines: Animalism, Potence, Vicissitude

Weakness: +1 diff to resist frenzy

Grimaldi

These revanants spend their time in society and social atmospheres, they maintain a facade of normalcy and often act as go betweens between the sabbat and areas of mortal influence.

Disciplines: Celerity, Dominate, Fortitude

Weakness: Bonded to bishops or archbishops

Obertus

Scholars of the sabbat, they spend much of their time researching the occult.

Disciplines: Auspex, Obfuscate, Vicissitude

Weakness: Derangement (Obsessive)

Zantosa

Decadent and wealthy, these revenants pursue their own pleasures, many of them Follow the Path of Cathari.

Disciplines: Auspex, Presence, Vicissitude

Weakness: May become obsessed to pleasure and sensation, easily addicted

Ducheski

Though they once served the Tzimisce, this family now serves the Tremere. They are very talented with mechanical devices, and many tremere have the Ducheski maintain their libraries and laboratories.

Disciplines' Auspex, Dominate, Thaumaturgy

Weakness: Inbreeding has caused some birth and personality defects. No Ducheski can have a social trait above 2.

Rafastio

Witches and practitioners of magic, they once served the Tal'mahe'Ra. With the Tal'mahe'Ra's destruction the family remained independent, preferring to carve their own destinies.

Disciplines: Animalism, Auspex, Thaumaturgy

Weakness: Rafastio cannot be embraced, attempted embrace will result in death. Furthermore, they are cursed with a type of Lunacy which causes discipline difficulties to vary with the moon's cycles.

The Cathedral of Flesh

The Cathedral of Flesh is a gigantic living being formed into a cathedral. Tzimisce legend and aesthetics hold it the most beautiful creation ever. It is said that the high priest was part of the cathedral and that he spoke with its walls instead of showing himself in person. The cathedral has moved several times since it was created and is now located under New York City.

The Cathedral of Flesh is actually Tzimisce itself, the clan's Antediluvian founder. It has transcended humanity and vampirism to become a gigantic blob of constantly mutating flesh. In one Gehenna scenario, Tzimisce erupts from the sewers of New York City and devours vampires and mortals alike.

In the last chapter of the official PC game Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption, the player's Brujah character has to go into the Cathedral of Flesh and fight one of Tzimisce's childer, Vukodlak, to rescue New York.

Tzimisce of note

• The Dracon, eldest child of The Eldest
• Vlad Tepes / Dracula, Son of the Dragon
• Myca (later known as Sascha) Vykos, Caine's Angel, Priscus of the Sabbat
• Velya the Vivisectionist (and Elaine Cassidy), Cardinal(s) of the Land Beyond the Forest
• Righteous Endeavor, Inquisitor of the Sabbat
• Radu Bistri, Cardinal
• Yorak, High Priest of the Cathedral of Flesh (deceased)
• Vladimir Rustovich, Former Voivode of Voivodes
• Andrei, Sabbat leader based in LA

References

• Lucien Soulban & James Stewart et al., Clanbook: Tzimisce, (White Wolf Game Studio, 2001, ISBN 1-58846-202-1)
• Justin Achilli et al., Guide to the Sabbat (White Wolf Game Studio, 1999, ISBN 1-56504-263-8)
• Justin Achilli al., Vampire: The Masquerade Revised Edition (White Wolf Game Studio, 1998, ISBN 1-56504-249-2)
• Steven C. Brown & Ken Meyer, The Storytellers Handbook to the Sabbat(White Wolf Game Studio, 1995, ISBN 1-56504-042-2)
• Steven C. Brown & Jeff Starling, A Players Guide to the Sabbat (White Wolf Game Studio, 1995, ISBN 1-56504-042-2)

Links

• Vampire NPC gallery NPC (non-player character) gallery with examples of Tzimisce characters