Sabbat Leadership

CHINESE MUSIC

“Explain this happening!”
“It must have a ‘natural’ cause.”
“It must have a ‘supernatural’ cause.”
Let these two asses be set to grind corn.
May, might, must, should, probably, may be, we
may safely assume, ought, it is hardly question-
able, almost certainly—poor hacks! let them be
turned out to grass!
Proof is only possible in mathematics, and mathe-
matics is only a matter of arbitrary conventions.
And yet doubt is a good servant but a bad master; a
perfect mistress, but a nagging wife.
“White is white” is the lash of the overseer; “white
is black” is the watchword of the slave. The Master
takes no heed.
The Chinese cannot help thinking that the octave has
5 notes.
The more necessary anything appears to my mind,
the more certain it is that I only assert a limitation.
I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on|
awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt,
and found her a virgin in the morning.

—Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

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Sabbat Leadership of the Northern Colonies

New York is critically important to Barcelona, and is buttressed by a complex and occasionally redundant power structure. Naturally, the ultimate leader is the Regent, Prince Gratiano of Barcelona. The Regent ensures the loyalty of New York through his trusted progeny Lilitu, the Cardinal of the Northern Colonies. “Sister Lilith” is advised by a ten-member Syncelli Council known as the Latrocinium. As Lilitu has the entire Northern Colonies to govern, securing New York requires a more direct hand. This is provided by Archbishop Malachi Voordebrax, who is served by a circle of advisors known as the Gotham Syncelli Council.

These three bodies comprise the leadership of the Gotham Sabbat, and are detailed below in hierarchical order.

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La Catedral Envuelta

The “New World” of the Sabbat is overseen by the prisci dwelling in La Catedral Envuelta. The Sabbat’s inverted answer to Santa de Luzarches, the “Engulfed Cathedral” is a flooded, upside-down edifice located outside of traditional time and space. This citadel serves as an arcane nexus for the Sabbat, and is simultaneously located in Boston, New York, New Orleans, Los Angeles, Montreal, Bogotá, São Paulo, Buenos Ares, and Barcelona. There was also a “doorway” in Mexico City, but that connection has been recently, and mysteriously, severed.

The Prisci
Ancient vampires transformed by millennia of Vicissitude into something more alien than Kindred, the prisci of La Catedral remain aloof from the mundane responsibilities of actual governance—such duties are carried out by cardinals and archbishops. Nevertheless, they set the spiritual tone of the Barcelona Sabbat, and they are regarded with a sense of religious dread.

Vhaindra and Angelus
Primi Prismi—Tzimisce?
Also known as “Mother” and “Father,” Vhaindra and Angelus are a pair of ancient Tzimisce who have passed beyond human form. Their flesh is fish-belly white, marked by mysterious glyphs and tattooed with arcane inscriptions from a dead language. They glow with an aura of black light, a fluorescence that drains the will of any Kindred who enters their presence. Vhaindra has the opaque black eyes of a shark, her mouth filled with double rows of translucent, needle teeth; it is rumored she practices diablerie through her vagina dentata.To look into the eyes of her mate is to glimpse a starry field of deep space; when Angelus opens his mouth, his distant voice issues from a yawning void. The pair claims to have been gods in another world; cast down when their Aeon was destroyed, they were reborn in this universe as Cainites in the time before the Deluge. Although few believe this outlandish tale, even Sabbat Elders are overcome by awe when standing before Mother and Father. They spend most of their time in torpor, and may only be consulted by the highest-ranking Sabbat officials. Although they rarely speak, their pronouncements are regarded as doctrine.

La Muñeca
Legate—Tzimisce?
In a voice like tinkling crystal, La Muñeca articulates the wishes of Mother and Father during their long periods of torpor. A strange creature believed to be a Tzimisce, the Doll has flesh like porcelain, and moves with the articulated deliberation of an automaton. Because she seems to have the ability to be in different locations at the same time, there may actually be several Dolls.

El Navegador
Legate—Unknown?
A mysterious boy of an unknown bloodline, the Navigator floats in the air as if gliding through water. He is always accompanied by a figure clad in a nineteenth-century diving suit, who seems responsible for keeping the floating boy tethered to a leather hose. Although technically El Navegador refers only to the boy, the title has come to represent both figures in this plural being. El Navegador is summoned when a Sabbat official desires a consultation with Mother and Father; true to his appellation, he leads the way through “El Laberinto Negro” to the inner sanctum of La Catedral Envuelta.

Malahidael
Priscus/Counsel—Angel?
Dwelling within the cathedral’s Garden of Pain, Malahidael is a lugubrious being who professes to be a fallen angel. Seeking refuge with the Sabbat, the beautiful creature has forsaken his angelic domain of “Courage” to become the “Prince of Circumspection.” Although the Sabbat honors Malahidael’s story, most believe he’s an ancient Tzimisce, a tragic figure who has succumbed to his own delusions and has flesh-crafted himself into a mythological being. Nevertheless, none doubt the sagacity of his advice, and his counsel is rarely dismissed. No Cainite is allowed to drink from Malahidael, who is presented with an unbaptized human infant each New Moon. The fallen angel seems to devour the child whole, bones and all.

Paramándala Voin: “La Reina Bruja”
Priscus/Oracle—Tzimisce
A monstrous Tzimisce wracked by Vicissitude, the distorted body of the Witch Queen is spread across the walls and ceiling of her cathedral chamber. Acting through various extrusions known as pequeñas brujas, La Reina Bruja foretells the future using bizarre cards grown and harvested from the flesh of imprisoned ghouls. Her very existence provides support to the cult of Old World Tzimisce who reject Vicissitude as a symbiotic form of alien possession rather than a true vampiric Discipline.

The Unnamable
Priscus/Judge—Old World Tzimisce
Serving as the Sabbat’s Judge, this nameless Tzimisce is a knight errant who fell in love with a possessed witch in medieval Germany. For this reason, he is sometimes called Der Richter; but most refer to him as the Unnamable. An imposing figure with a bulky, muscular body, his head is enclosed by an ornate bronze box, and his naked flesh is engraved with the names of every Cainite he’s sentenced. Made deaf, dumb, and blind by the bronze, it’s said that tiny demons whisper into his ears, describing what he should see and reproducing what he should hear. Der Richter’s judgements are passed using an iron-bound book—he simply opens it to an appropriate page and points. No matter how unique or complicated the case, the revealed inscription is always precise and appropriate. The judgments of the Unnamable are final, and may only be “appealed to the Sun.”

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The Latrocinium

Lilitu is advised by a ten-member Syncelli Council consisting of three personal canons, an Inquisitor, and the six archbishops who govern the Sabbat strongholds of the Northern Colonies—New York, Boston, Providence, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and Baltimore. This Syncelli Council is known as the Latrocinium, and is the most important body of Sabbat rulers in North America. Although New York is the largest and most important city in the Northern Colonies, the Latrocinium itself is based in Boston. Selected Latrocinium members relevant to New York City are described below.

Cardinal Lilitu
Cardinal of the Northern Colonies—Lasombra
Commonly known as “Sister Lilith,” this cold-blooded Lasombra favors a snow-white suit, and conceals her inhuman eyes behind a pair of mirrored sunglasses. Her long black hair is streaked with white, and her skin has the consistency of alabaster. Cardinal Lilitu is an avowed Satanist, and deliberately cultivates an aura of mystery—no one knows her age, her origins, her lineage, or her relationship to Prince Gratiano. It is said that her shadow has an independent existence, and murders children as it falls across their cradles.

Azra Ingeloquin
Canon of the Northern Colonies/Templar—Assamite
Lilith’s personal bodyguard, Azra is an Assamite Templar who claims to have been present when “the world was born.” Analytical and cautious, Azra has the unerring ability to predict his enemy’s tactics, and has prevented countless ambushes, coups, and betrayals. Although not Blood Bound to Cardinal Lilitu, he serves her with religious devotion, and genuinely believes her to be the first wife of the Biblical Adam.

Dr. Galahad Barrow
Canon of the Northern Colonies/Oracle—Toreador
This surgeon is a Black Toreador, an antitribu exiled from his clan for jeopardizing the Masquerade through flagrantly unethical practices. The final scion of a long line Kentucky witches, Barrow is fascinated with the “sublime zone between the living and the dead.” According to Barrow, through the art of surgery one may eventually learn to pinpoint the precise nexus between living tissue and crystalline mineral. If consciousness is merely a pattern of atoms, by applying the correct methodology, it can be transcribed into an inorganic medium, preserving a subject’s intelligence—what the ancient Egyptians called the ka—and perhaps even one’s soul!

This unhealthy obsession has driven Barrow to all manner of grotesque and fatal experimentation, leading to the “incident” that forced him from the Toreador in 1952. A mathematical genius with an eidetic memory, Barrow was welcomed into the Sabbat by Cardinal Lilitu, where he serves as her personal oracle. Lilith uses Barrow as “Mentat,” a living computer who can recall any fact and make instantaneous calculations, from simple arithmetical computations to complex statistical analyses. Additionally, Barrow continues working on his magnum opus, promising Lilith that one day soon he’ll be able to imprison the consciousness of her slain enemies, keeping their spirits on hand like a reluctant gallery of agony aunts.

When Barrow is not fulfilling his usual role as Lilith’s canon, the good doctor spends his time at La Catedral Envuelta, where he tends another of his dark creations—the Garden of Pain. Only there, amidst the fleshy petals and trembling stamens of the once-living, can Barrow feel truly at peace, his scalpels and needles flashing as he licks them cleaner and cleaner…

The Mime
Canon of the Northern Colonies—Toreador
A Toreador antitribu versed in the art of inflicting pain, the Mime serves the Latrocinium as High Torturer. Dressed in black with her face painted white, her most unnerving feature is the irrepressible cheer she radiates while performing her duties. It is believed she was Embraced by the Black Toreador Venerio Brexiano during his infamous staging of Judith and the Holofernes, but where she resides when “off duty” is anyone’s guess. Some contend that she is actually a Camarilla Toreador from Boston with a split personality, but it’s more likely she simply vanishes into the anonymous night.

Father INRI
Inquisitor of the Northern Colonies—Lasombra
A Lasombra Elder, Father INRI follows the teachings of the Vortici, a heresy destroyed by the Church during the Middle Ages. Serving as the Latrocinium’s Grand Inquisitor, the fallen priest has a reputation for merciless exactitude, and mere mention of his name is usually enough to bring an insolent Cainite back to his senses.

Malachi Voordebrax
Archbishop of New York/Bishop of Manhattan—Tzimisce
A dissipated Landsknecht Embraced during the Battle of Pavia, Malachi is a Tzimisce monk who cultivates the mannerisms of a contemporary wizard, complete with a theatrically mysterious demeanor, an irritable aloofness, and the tendency to make cryptic pronouncements. Sardonic but strangely charming, pale but handsome, Malachi is over six feet tall, and has a shock of bright red hair that falls over twinkling green eyes. He favors black Versace suits, opera capes and slouch hats, and occasionally carries an actual staff sized somewhere between a cane and an alpine walking stick. The pièce de résistance is Malachi’s left hand—a failed experiment in Vicissitude has permanently transformed his hand into a raven-like talon. Although he covers this deformity with a black leather glove in public, the Archbishop is not above employing it for the odd dramatic flourish. While Malachi’s peers sometimes dismiss his “sinister Wotan look” as a ridiculous façade, many younger Cainites take delight in his appearance: “Now, that’s what a Sabbat Elder should look like!”

For all his conceits and affectations, the Archbishop exhibits a shrewd grasp of Realpolitik. Malachi is not above making deals with the Camarilla aligned against St. James, and is believed to have a sub-rosa role in the Manhattan Cabal. Some in the Latrocinium see his willingness to “cooperate with the enemy” as a sign of potential disloyalty, a concern not assuaged by rumors that the Archbishop has been secretly meeting with Sabbat representatives from Mexico City and Montreal. Nevertheless, Malachi remains an effective and successful leader, and the Sabbat thrives in Manhattan because of his tactics.

Additional details on Archbishop Malachi and his Manhattan coven may be found in the “Sarnath Coven” section.

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The Gotham Syncelli Council

The counterpart to the Camarilla’s Primogen Council, the Gotham Syncelli Council advises Archbishop Malachi. It includes a praelatus, four canons, and four bishops, each responsible for governing a different borough, with Malachi serving as Bishop of Manhattan. Because of the significance of the city, the office of Archbishop of New York is nearly as powerful as that of Cardinal of the Northern Colonies. Recently, some Gotham Cainites have been declaring that New York City should be emancipated from Northern Colonies and granted equal status, with the position of archbishop elevated to that of cardinal. Needless to say, this only exacerbates tensions between Lilith and Malachi.

Veronica Tryst
Praelatus of New York—Toreador
With her wry sense of humor and penchant for irony, Veronica Tryst conceals the broken heart of a romantic beneath a cynic’s scowl. Widely viewed as one of the greatest Toreador of the nineteenth century, Tryst is the genius behind the stained glass windows of Santa de Luzarches, the Toreador cathedral. After defecting from the Camarilla in 1916, she joined the Sabbat, where she works tirelessly on a yet-unseen Gesamtkunstwerk she refers to as “Number Negative One.” A deft politician with keen strategic insight, Tryst advises Malachi on his interactions with the Latrocinium and Camarilla.

Violetta Luzhin: “Myshelovka”
Canon of New York—Old World Tzimisce
Married to a KGB director during the height of the Cold War, this Olympic gymnast was the brains behind her husband’s political manipulations. Embraced by an Old World Tzimisce in 1965, Luzhin now serves as Malachi’s spymaster and chief assassin. She still possesses the muscular frame of her human youth, but she prefers to do her work from a distance—Luzhin is an expert in arranging “accidents,” from simple mishaps to elaborate, Rube Goldberg sequences that terminate in the destruction of her target. Luzhin boasts an encyclopedic knowledge of the Kindred personalities ruling the world, and enjoys the preternatural ability to assess a subject’s weaknesses. Fortunately for Malachi, Luzhin is loyal to a fault—“I mate like wolf. Forever.”

Don Macedonio Carriego Casares
Canon of New York—Lasombra
A former diplomat from Argentina, Don Carriego Casares serves the Syncelli as chief financial advisor. Renowned for his elegant manners and old-world charm, the Lasombra is an expert in human law, and his resources on Wall Street rival those of Clan Ventrue. Carriego Casares is also responsible for overseeing the nuncios that maintain political order among New York’s covens. This ultimate loyalty to Sabbat principles tends to alienate Carriego Casares from Archbishop Malachi, who rightly suspects that the Lasombra reports directly to Cardinal Lilitu. Luzhin has offered to poison Carriego Casares on numerous occasions, but for now, Malachi is content to feed him the occasional bit of misinformation.

Father Carniveau and Mother Casmaron
Canons of New York—Tzimisce
No one knows if this pair of Tzimisce were born as human twins or have flesh-crafted themselves into similarity, but they are inseparable and virtually identical. Embraced during the infamous Inquisition of Loudon, Father Carniveau was a follower of the apostate Urbain Grandier, and Mother Casmaron was an Ursuline nun. Practitioners of Enochian magic and the dreaded arts of Infernalism, Carniveau and Casmaron oversee the coven priesthood, and attend to the rituals that unify the Sabbat into a cohesive sect.

Alsatia Véronique
Legate—Tremere
A Tremere antitribu with an Anarch streak, Alsatia acts as an ambassador between the Gotham Sabbat and the New York Camarilla. Descended from a long line of voodoo mambas, she is rarely seen without her battered top-hat, which she alleges to be a present from Baron Samedi himself. She tends to talk in riddles, a habit known to deeply irritate Immanuel St. James.

William Pynchon III
Bishop of Brooklyn—Tremere
A puritan witch-finder originally from Kingsport, Massachusetts, Bishop Pynchon is a Tremere antitribu who was sired during the infamous “Congregation” witch trials of 1722. Tall and aristocratic, Pynchon dresses in black, plainclothes suits tailored by Stake & Bledsoe, and is not above donning his seventeenth-century ministerial garb for special occasions—stockings, white ruff, cockel hat and all! Embraced at the age of 66, Pynchon has a the bearing of a wealthy patrician, and still maintains the gravitas of his Calvinist heritage. This severity is tempered by a dry sense of humor and a fondness for irony. Reputed to be the actual author of Monstres and their Kynde, Pynchon is currently writing a book on the detection, hunting, and destruction of vampires. While the Bishop owns a beautiful mansion in Park Slope, lately he has been spending much of his time in Boston, working with the Latrocinium on “the Montreal Question.”

Details on Bishop Pynchon and his Brooklyn coven may be found in the “Green-Wood Coven” section.

Archimedes Mercer
Bishop of Queens—Lasombra
A ferocious privateer who terrorized the waves during the Revolutionary War, Bishop Mercer is a loyal Lasombra who protects Queens from the Anarch shadows of central Brooklyn. He is ruthless and intelligent, exercising his power with a natural authority that binds his coven tightly together. He is also quite wealthy, but cunning enough to keep his resources concealed under a patina of ruin and decay. Details on Bishop Mercer and his Queens coven may be found in the “Smugglers Pack” section.

Virgil Crowley
Bishop of the Bronx—Brujah
A Brujah antitribu, Crowley was a World War II fighter pilot who drowned his postwar depression in whiskey and mayhem. Nicknamed the “Satanic Mechanic,” Crowley presides over the mayhem of the Bronx with his biker gang, the Crow Magnum MC. He owns several important Sabbat properties in the Bronx, including the Night of Pan, Hellcat Auto & Repair, Locust Point Marina, and a private airfield in Yonkers. Details on Bishop Crowley and his Bronx coven may be found in the “Crow Magnum MC” section.

Dame Lucy Astaroth
Bishop of Staten Island—Cappadocian
An Irish elder who claims to be Luiseach Meallbhaigh, the original Cailleach Bhéara once cursed as the “Witch of Moher,” Dame Lucy is one of the few surviving Cainites of the near-extinct Cappadocian clan. Independently-minded but fiercely loyal to the Sabbat cause, Bishop Lucy has been assigned to conquer Staten Island by any means necessary. Details on Bishop Astaroth and her Staten Island coven may be found in the “Alabaster Madonna” section.

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Sources & Notes

This document was first uploaded on 31 October 2000. The banner image incorporates H.R. Giger’s 1975 painting, Crowley (The Beast 666). I would like to thank my friend “Dagon” from the Netherlands, who first provided me with ideas for Lucy Astaroth and The Doll, and loaned me a few notions about Sabbat hierarchy.

Many of the Tzimisce of La Catedral Envuelta were borrowed from my previous role-playing games and repurposed for Vampire. Vhaindra and Angelus were actually deities from the D&D campaign I ran as a teenager back in the early 1980s. They were the “Old Gods of Bain,” a Melniboné rip-off that served as the standard decadent evil empire in my fantasy milieu. Who doesn’t love a good vagina dentata? (Answer: my Mom. I still recall having to explain this to her after she found my D&D notebooks.)

The fiction of Michael Moorcock also inspired Malachi Voordebrax, who began life as an NPC wizard in the same D&D campaign, and was loosely inspired by Moorcock’s Dancers at the End of Time series. Though his name is right out of my 13-year old imagination—can you tell?

El Navegador was inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Although I am a big fan of Bioshock, the image of an unearthly child escorted by a mysterious figure in a diving suit was my own creation, and also dates from my 1980s D&D campaign, where a guild of “Navigators” as described above were required to safety escort sailing vessels across the “Sea of Illusions.” (“Es gibt viele Maschinen auf Ix…neue Maschinen…”) The term “Mentat” is also from Dune, although it seems to have entered the general vocabulary of science fiction.

Paramándala Voin first made her appearance in my college Cyberpunk 2020 campaign, where she represented a rogue, Lovecraftian AI manifesting from a sort of, uh…faux, 1980s idea of a 3D printer, I guess? Anyway, she was inspired by the artwork of H.R. Giger. (What wasn’t?) I was also certainly ripping off Neil Gaiman’s Sandman #3, that scene with John Constantine? “Your woman’s father, I would surmise.” Ugh.

The idea of an angel trapped in a “garden of pain” I might have stolen from another comic book, but I can’t recall which one—Hellblazer? Sandman? Grimjack? Der Richter was inspired by the opera The Fiery Angel by Sergei Prokofiev. If you haven’t heard Prokofiev’s opera, it’s pretty dark, and the DVD linked to above is respectably R-rated for an opera production! Father Carniveau and Mother Casmaron were inspired by Ken Russell’s film The Devils, which is still woefully unavailable—Criterion? Please?

Author: Great Quail
Original Upload: 31 October 2000
Last Modified: 8 July 2018
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
PDF Version: [Coming Soon]