Sarnath Coven

TERRIER-WORK

Doubt.
Doubt thyself.
Doubt even if thou doubtest thyself.
Doubt all.
Doubt even if thou doubtest all.
It seems sometimes as if beneath all conscious doubt
there lay some deepest certainty. O kill it! Slay the
snake!
The horn of the Doubt-Goat be exalted!
Dive deeper, ever deeper, into the Abyss of Mind,
until thou unearth the fox THAT. On, hounds!
Yoicks! Tally-ho! Bring THAT to bay!
Then, wind the Mort!

—Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

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Sarnath Coven

The largest Sabbat coven in Manhattan is based at Sarnath, the nightclub built in the remains of St. Sebastian, a former church on the Upper West Side. Nominally led by Malachi Voordebrax, his position as Archbishop of New York occupies most of his time, so the quotidian affairs of the coven are managed by his ductus, a Gangrel antitribu named Spiral. Much the same way that mortal Manhattan perceives itself above the “bridge & tunnel” crowds of the outer boroughs, the Sarnath Coven treats itself as “first among equals.” This naturally generates some friction with the outlying packs, all of which experience greater existential threats from the surrounding Kindred. It’s not that Malachi ignores the problems of the outer boroughs—he’s actually a supportive leader, and goes to great lengths to ensure that Sabbat resources flow to where they are most needed. The tension is more cultural than political, and many of the other packs view the Sarnath Coven as overbearing and arrogant, overly confident of their glittering position, and prone to a certain amount of decadence. This view is shared by Cardinal Lilitu, who makes no attempts to hide her contempt for Malachi’s “feckless posturing.”

Selected members of the coven include:

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, younger Cainites often 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 internecine politics. 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 Montreal and Mexico City. Nevertheless, Malachi remains an effective leader, and the Sabbat thrives in Manhattan because of his bold tactics and talent for Realpolitik. 

Spiral
Ductus of the Sarnath Coven/Manager of Sarnath—Gangrel
Spiral is the rare Gangrel who enjoys the hustle and bustle of city life. Energetic and wiry, her muscular frame seems like a coiled spring ready for action, and her Lupine blood grants a distinctively feral cast to her striking features. Wild in battle and abandoned in pleasure, when the situation demands a clear mind, Spiral becomes instantly cool and collected. She is famous for her razor-sharp wit, which she uses to maintain coven discipline even more than the promise of her equally-sharp claws. A runaway Mormon from Arizona, Spiral is intensely devoted to Malachi, who rescued her from a pack of California Gangrel in 1957. Although he couldn’t prevent her Embrace, he adopted her into the Sabbat, and she’s rewarded the coven with unwavering loyalty ever since.

A former home economics teacher and self-taught accountant, Spiral’s business acumen and pragmatic approach to management are vital to the success of the club, and she’s the only Cainite able to stand up against Malachi when he falls into one of his “black moods.” Spiral makes her haven below the Catacombs, where she sleeps curled among a trio of female neonates—her lovers, as well as her progeny. These Gangrel sister-wives are the only Cainites who know Spiral’s real name, and they would give their lives to protect their alpha. 

Pope Mickey II
Nuncio—Malkavian
Ordered by Cardinal Lilitu to appoint a nuncio for his Sarnath coven, Malachi spitefully selected this deranged vicar, a Malkavian who watches over the spiritual well-being of the coven from a strait-jacket chained to the wall. 

Jörg Sander
Sexton/Assistant Manager of Sarnath—Lasombra
The progeny of Don Carriego Casares, Jörg Sander is a handsome Lasombra neonate from a family of German bankers, chemical engineers, and opera impresarios. He is new to the Gotham Sabbat, and is serving a twelve-year apprenticeship at Sarnath, after which he’ll be released to found his own club in Buenos Aires. Suave and diplomatic, Herr Sander is the public face of Sarnath, and is responsible for media relations and P.R. events such as wining and dining celebrity VIPs and throwing parties for trendy fashionistas. Sander is also in charge of tending the complex web of illicit connections which keeps Sarnath untroubled, including doling out bribes and special favors to the police, contributing campaign donations to the correct politicians, ensuring the organized crime syndicates remain happy, offering generous kickbacks to the local Catholic diocese, making secret payoffs to protest groups, and of course, dispensing hush-money when things need to be covered up. Although most of these issues could be solved by the strategic use of Domination, both Malachi and Don Carriego Casares agree that the time-honored system of human corruption is often the best way of dealing with the mortal world.

Konstantin Stravescu
Templar—Tzimisce
A Paladin of the Black Hand, Konstantin is an severe Old World Tzimisce who serves Malachi with a strange mix of loyalty and hatred. Clad in black leather and surveying his world through a pair of darkened lenses, Konstantin has the ability to move through a packed crowd as if he were a ghost; and his ability to instantly materialize at a source of trouble is both reassuring and unsettling. He may be found prowling Sarnath on nights that Malachi is expecting the kind of trouble that might be over the head of traditional security. Konstantin knows eight languages, but generally refuses to speak anything but antiquated Romanian.

Because of his humorless and tightly-wound personality, Konstantin is the target of numerous rumors: He is the progeny of Azra Ingeloquin and the Sire of Zathael. He is having an affair with Adrienne Tabor, a Camarilla Toreador. He was originally tasked with assassinating Malachi, but failure bound him to his target for life. He is actually one of Radu’s progeny in disguise. To his credit, Konstantin greets such talk with a stony impassivity. The only time he spoke on his own behalf was when Venus and Orchid claimed that Konstantin used to be a regular at the Lamia Club. He replied in perfect English, “I am many things, Madame, but I am neither a rapist nor a whore.” It nearly caused his True Death at the hands of Malachi, but Venus stayed the hand of her former lover, suggesting only, “He should have seen you in Africa, darling…”

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Sarnath Personnel

The following members of the Sarnath Coven help operate the nightclub, and have few political responsibilities extending beyond the grounds of St. Sebastian.

Gimli Watts
Head of Security—Brujah
A short, stocky biker from Allentown, Jimmy Watts acquired his dwarven nickname during his days as a roadie for Blue Öyster Cult, and was Embraced by a Brujah groupie at the climax of a Rainbow concert—the Ronnie James Dio years, of course. In charge of security at Sarnath, Gimli trains his staff of bouncers and Nightgaunts with the understanding that he is not just policing a popular nightclub, but protecting a crucial Sabbat haven. Not big fan of dancing, drugs, goth music, or clubbers in general, on most nights Gimli may be found in his office, playing chess with various luminaries and dispensing advice to his staff. He’s rarely seen in anything besides jeans, a denim jacket, and a vintage concert shirt; favorites being Nazareth, U.F.O., and Uriah Heep. A former member of the Crow Magnum MC, Watts departed the Bronx Coven over “creative differences”—i.e., “I’ve had enough of this Satanic bullshit.”

Ruth Addams
Asylum Manager/Music Director—Human
The Asylum’s resident goth queen, Ruth is a Sarnath institution despite her unusual status—Ruth Addams is a regular human mortal. Even as one of the “kine,” Ruth is kept abreast of major Sabbat activities, but she consistently declines Malachi’s offers for Cainite blood. Most of her undead coworkers find this puzzling, and cruelly point out that Ruth is getting older, picking up weight as she enters her late thirties and developing wrinkles that her beloved make-up cannot disguise. Why on earth would she refuse Malachi’s gift…?

Sarnath’s musical director since 1984, Ruth has a vast and nuanced knowledge of all musical forms relating to goth, punk, and industrial. Her ability to procure obscure pop-cultural artifacts and rare LPs is unparalleled, and her talent to make tricky bookings is the stuff of industry legend—“Bauhaus? No problem, I can schedule them in after the private Tappi Tíkarrass reunion. But first, we need to clear up that visa problem for Hawkwind.” Despite her obsession with goth culture, Ruth rarely comes across as morose or flaky; in fact she’s a rather cheerful woman with an active social life. She is currently in a long-term ménage-à-trois with a classical cellist and her husband, but her efforts to keep them insulated from her supernatural life have become increasingly strained. A fairly well-known writer of weird fiction, the cellist’s husband is researching a novel about vampires, and has begun visiting Sarnath for “inspiration.”

Mozan Yoshi
Sanctum Manager—Lasombra
A serene and vaguely androgynous Lasombra, Mozan Yoshi is a Japanese ancilla who manages the Sanctum. An intriguing creature with a colorful history, Yoshi began life as the bastard of an unnamed officer in the Imperial Navy. Reportedly connected to the League of Blood, Yoshi’s father committed suicide after the May 15 Incident, having first made generous arrangements to provide for his illicit son. Trained as a high-end Sushi chef in Tokyo, Yoshi was Embraced by a Syrian Nazi during the fire-bombing of Dresden, passed his fledgling days studying the art of torture in a Napa Valley monastery, and spent the sixties working as a black market chemist in Hong Kong. He relocated to New York in 1974, where he opened a Lower East Side club called Shiria Kiku, a “marinaderie” where Cainites could bring humans to flavor them with a mixture of innovative narcotics. After the club was burned down—originally believed to be a Camarilla attack, but later discovered to be the work of mortal arsonists—Malachi installed him in the newly-established Sanctum, where he began developing his infamous Black Light Coffees. Yoshi is currently training a pair of assistants who will eventually replace him, after which he’s been promised a position serving Cardinal Lilitu as her personal torturer.

Mozan Yoshi commands the respect of every Cainite in the club, and his word carries as much practical weight as Spiral’s. In fact, in manners touching the Sanctum, he will often oppose Malachi himself if he disagrees with a policy decision. Mortal patrons, however, find him cold and off-putting. Yoshi views humans as little more than exotic glassware designed to contain his experiments; the more transparent and unbreakable the better.

Dieter Zeit
Technical Director—Toreador
A Toreador antitribu whose experience in stagecraft dates to the Victorian era, Dieter Zeit is Sarnath’s technical director, and is in charge of the club’s lighting and special effects. A genius in the medium of light, Dieter pursues his muse with the devotion of a worshipper and the fetishistic precision of an addict. Whether lacerating the dancefloor with a fifty-kilowatt kaleidoscope, summoning Rothko-esque castles of ambiance in the shimmering air, or spotting a cabaret singer with just enough delicacy to conceal her imperfections, but hint seductively at her bruises, God’s first words were enough for Dieter.

In 1922, Dieter founded “Lichquanta,” a private company devoted to stagecraft. After being driven from Berlin by the rise of the Brownshirts, Dieter traveled to New York, where he rebranded his company as “Zeitgeist” and avoided Kindred allegiances, whether to sect, clan, or coterie. During his time as an Independent, Dieter worked with dozens of human designers, from the glory days of Broadway to the rise of stadium rock in the eighties. In 1987, Dieter discovered one of Sally de Angelou’s fledglings feeding from his human client, an engineer working on the new Pink Floyd show. Not only had she killed the man, she was in the process of stealing Dieter’s designs for an upcoming neon light exhibition at Gallery Desmodius. Flying into a rare frenzy, Dieter killed the young Toreador and drank her blood. It was his first taste of diablerie, and he discovered that he liked it. Although Duncan Capelthwaite ruled that Dieter’s actions were justified, he found himself despised by de Angelou’s coterie, and it didn’t take long for her to poison the Camarilla waters. Dieter sought advice from his friend Veronica Tryst, and she convinced him to join the Sabbat. When Spiral offered him a position at Sarnath, Dieter accepted under the conditions that she triple the lighting budget, provide Dieter with an office and two assistants, and purchase stock in Zeitgeist. Malachi readily agreed to these terms, adding a million dollar signing bonus as well.

Dieter secretly enjoys the stereotype Americans have of Germans, and plays his role to the hilt. Clad in black turtlenecks with his sandy hair cropped close, he speaks in his best Berliner Schnauzer and relishes making unsolicited critiques—“Your so-called avant-garde fiction is rubbish! Only Beckett knows what pain is, only Beckett stabs you in the heart again and again; that is art, not this, this—shit!” Dieter is equipped with the latest technological gadgets, and sports an expensive pair of polarized Zeiss-Ikon glasses that change their opacity at the tap of a finger. Needless to say, the staff teases Dieter with frequent Sprockets impressions, but he is afforded a great deal of respect, and he’s nearly worshiped by his ghoul assistants, DJ Blitzen and Firefly. During periods when Dieter is off consulting with his company, his assistants are free to experiment on their own, with Firefly preferring technologically-sophisticated Vari-Lite arrangements and DJ Blitzen strobing the dancefloor in stark contrasts of light and dark.

Although Dieter has resigned himself to his new role as Toreador antitribu, he remains aloof from many of the Sabbat’s beliefs. He finds the sect’s embrace of evil distasteful, their treatment of humans deplorable, and dismisses their fixation on magick as “bourgeois nonsense.” Nevertheless, Dieter admits that diablerie has its attractions, and he is at his most creative after the Rites of Vaulderie. While the resulting Vinculum is strong enough to keep Dieter’s sense of humanity in check, he refuses to engage in wild hunts, and has more than once intervened to spare a human’s life. Malachi allows him these indulgences, despite—or possibly because of—Lilith’s disapproval.

Elizabeth Auzenne
Activity Director—Gangrel
A Gangrel antitribu, Elizabeth Auzenne is one of Spiral’s wives, and serves Sarnath as planner for their occasional burlesque nights, cabaret shows, and fetish parties. A buxom Creole from Texas, Betty occasionally takes the stage as Bouncing Betty Boop, a burlesque dancer with a WWII shtick. Warm and pleasant, Betty jokes that she’s more “were-panther” than Gangrel, and her feline mannerisms have earned her the additional nickname of Creole Kitty. She maintains professional connections with the Byzantium Coven, but she finds them a humorless lot who’ve “sucked the fun out of sex by turning desire into religion.” Betty is also appalled by Byzantium’s darker activities, and actively lobbies for the Latrocinium to shut down or disavow Siddim.

DJ Leng
Head DJ—Pander
A quiet Cainite of obscure Asian origin, DJ Leng is a Pander who seems blissfully unconcerned about Sabbat politics—all he cares about his making music. Performing in his trademark saffron robes and “Bokrug” frog-mask, Leng cultivates an aura of laconic mystery, rarely speaking except to deliver the occasional dry witticism that keeps the club amused for months. Indeed, no one even knows his real name. One look at his—Chinese? Tibetan? Nepalese?—features, and Malachi flippantly named him after Lovecraft’s alien plateau. Of all Sarnath’s resident DJs, Leng mixes the hardest beats, shredding the Nave as he gazes placidly over the writhing bodies. Having become famous among New York’s Live PA scene, he’s recently been invited to perform at clubs in Chicago and LA. Whether or not Leng remains anchored to Sarnath seems a question of time—and money.

Mistress Dis Astra
House DJ—Lasombra Ghoul
A tall Slovenian woman with neon orange hair, Mistress Dis Astra is a Lasombra ghoul and the second most popular house DJ. Although her specialties are techno, house, and occasional spirited mixes from the eighties, lately she’s been delving into more ambient forms, and has recently formed a trip hop band called Astral Chord. She runs Rubyfruit Jungle, the Asylum’s monthly lesbian party.

Idi Amin
House DJ—Brujah
Idi Amin is an Brujah Anarch who DJs at Sarnath, the Tunnel, and Webster Hall. An imposing figure, Amin stands six-foot-three and dresses head-to-toe in military gear. He wears pale contact lenses that glow ice-blue under ultraviolent light, and sports numerous tattoos, piercings, and body modifications, including African tribal scars on his face. Despite his fearsome appearance, Idi Amin—real name Dexter Stevens—is a peaceful fellow who follows a “live and let live” creed. In fact, he collects stamps. His musical tastes run to hip hop, jungle, and occasional forays into R&B, and he usually spins in the Madhouse. Lately, Amin’s been lobbying Spiral to let him host a hip hop party tentatively named “Black Sabbat.” Her reluctance to move the club “in that direction” has engendered some feelings of racial animosity, and Dexter has begun expressing his curiosity about life outside the “Lilith-white” covens of Manhattan.

Easter & Esbat
Sarnath Hosts—Malkavian
One of the stranger couples on the Manhattan scene, Easter is a drag queen fashion model and Esbat is a drag king DJ, both are Malkavian neonates, and both are madly in love. Unfazed by Kindred politics and global Jyhads, they breeze away each night in campy bliss, feeding blithely from oblivious club kids, willing blood dolls, or eager lovers enticed to their bedroom behind an Amsterdam Avenue sex shop. They seem possessed by an irrepressible urge to party, and their ecstasy consumption would melt the spines of mere mortals. Old regulars at Jackie 60, Sperm, and Click & Drag, a few years back Spiral asked them to host a similar party at Sarnath, and Tuesday night’s “Puss & Boots” is the happy result. Generally well-liked by the staff, there is still something unholy about their search for constant sensation, and a fragile emptiness may be glimpsed in the depths of their manic, drug-addled eyes.

Ion Mall Corbin
Head Bartender—Gangrel Ghoul
Ion Mall Corbin is an expatriated Ravnos thrall, now given over to Spiral and transformed into a Gangrel ghoul. With his piercing eyes, flowing locks, and sexy Romanian accent, Corbin is an oasis of calm in the frenzied atmosphere of the club, presiding over his staff with paternal care as he deflects the advances of besotted patrons. More than just a pretty face, Corbin is also a master of numerous illicit activities, including pickpocketing, forgery, and information brokering. It is understood that he will be made into a Cainite one day, but he is awaiting apprenticeship with a Ravnos—no offense to Spiral, but Corbin has little desire to be Embraced as a Gangrel.

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Sources & Notes

The characters described in this document were first uploaded to New York By Night in July 1995, but were extensively revised during the July 2018 update. Though I now find it hard to believe, I once enjoyed clubbing, and frequented many goth and industrial nights in New York and Philadelphia. Many of the descriptions of Sarnath and its personnel were pulled from my own experiences, which is why it seems so very 1990s! Jörg Sanders was actually an early contributor to the original New York By Night, so I turned him into a vampire. Ruth Addams is based on a real-world friend; or possibly my imaginary girlfriend in the eighties.

The banner image uses an illustration from Jason B. Thompson’s “The Doom That Came to Sarnath.” He is a wonderful artist, and you should check out his amazing Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath! I bought a copy at NecronomiCon 2017, and it remains one of my favorite adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft. I imagine DJ Leng’s Bokrug mask looks a lot like that froggy critter in the lower right. He’d really get the party hopping!

Author: Great Quail
Original Upload: July 1995
Last Modified: 25 July 2018
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
PDF Version: [Coming Soon]