vtm moodboard + lyrics: rain in soho [the mountain goats] [part one]
No town more barren than our town
No haven safer than the one they tore down
No greater love than to lay my life down for a friend
No sweeter pleasure than to see the credits clear through to the end
Twelve years ago, the world ended.
(a girl died in a filthy tunnel, and the touch of a god burned through her rising madness. a woman reclaimed scraps of herself and began to assemble them into a divine shape. a man watched the skies for the red star heralding the end of his line, and yearned to become more.)
Something lulled the apocalypse back to sleep, but the aftershocks are visible to those who have trained their minds to accept the awful truth. And the Antediluvians still dream; they see a shining city, an island of limitless potential, and are drawn to its shores as so many other Kindred and kine before them have been.
new york: the fourth city.
Ten years ago, the Camarilla wrested Manhattan from Sabbat control, and the Anarchs claimed Staten Island for their own. All sides entrenched themselves in their islands and settled in for a cold war. A revenant family planted their ancient charge underground. A demonologist studied the remnants of the Third City. A loud thought directed the Ventrue to pull forth a new world from the void – no matter the cost. A garden of thorns grew under Central Park. More and more Nosferatu vanished, and none of their information networks revealed the cause. The ranks of the thin-blooded swelled, testing the edges of the Masquerade.
Demons broke free from their prisons. The Malkavians assembled to witness a great and terrible sacrifice.
An unlikely coalition hatched a plan: to awaken the city and transform it into an ark, capable of navigating the turbulent tides of Gehenna. They carved divine letters under the city and tried to reconstruct a ritual attempted once before but never completed, a masterpiece of magic and a monument to Kindred ambition.
Two years ago, four vampires escaped from the modern Inquisition. The Prince of New York bound them together with blood magic, and charged them with hunting down their captors. The dove deeper into the mysteries of the city, unearthing ancient schemes and assembling powerful allies – and enemies – along the way. They have stared down Final Death again and again. Not all of them have survived.
Now they stand at the nexus of the Jyhad…and as the end nights approach, all paths begin to converge.
vtm moodboard + lyrics: selene + control [halsey]
i’m well acquainted with villains that live in my head
they beg me to write them so they’ll never die when I’m dead
Selene’s new world is within her grasp. She’ll weave it from the threads of influence and power she’s gathered to her, and she’s gathering more and more every day. She can manage them all; the alternative is to fail, and failure in the face of the apocalypse is fatal.
She’s gambled everything on this. It has to work. And for so great an ambition, what price is too high to pay? Cleveland needed a priestess, and Selene knows how to rally a flock. Morninglight needed a visionary, and Selene knows how to look to the horizon. She’ll bend all their agendas to her grand design.
(unless she’s struck one bargain too many. unless there are people who see the grooves worn into her soul long ago, and know how to play her like a record. but admitting that would mean that she hasn’t cast off the vestiges of who she used to be. that there’s still vulnerability and weakness within her. and the weak have no place in the jyhad.)
Her elders warn her to slow down. Selene likes to think she’s capable of doing so, if she had a hundred more years. She doesn’t. Too many powerful and dangerous things have taken notice of her, and it’s too late for hiding to do any good.
(something is chipping away at the edges of her soul. she pretends not to notice.)
She has to forge her own path. No one will do it for her.
(but who set her feet on that path?)
.
(act i)
Cora (act ii): The Unshackled
There are terrible things to see in this world. A bronze door, cut with evil symbols, buried in the desert. The roaring darkness beyond death. Locusts splitting out of their husks. Cloth-wrapped, fork-tongued bones. A hundred bodies moving as a single organism, without understanding or consent.
Cora has seen and seen. And every time, a livid, lidless eye flared inside of her, unnoticed. It never stopped her. It never interfered.
(W̵a̶t̷c̸h̷i̷n̵g̵)
She searched for a hidden antediluvian, her progenitor’s twin, hoping to reach her before he did.
(Ŵ̵͚a̵͎̓ĭ̵̮ẗ̶̰́i̶̭͋n̸̦͗g̶̍͜)
She kept every Malkavian in the city alive, against incredible odds.
(D̵͓̬̊i̵̭̹̐͋ŕ̸̗́è̷͚͈͝ć̷̱̈́t̷̬̊i̵̧̩͒̂n̴̗̮̐g̶͇̍́)
She gathered her clan around her, desperate to give them the means to fight their dark god at the end of the world. They are many, he is only one, they’ll outnumber him, outsmart him, pour the hidden name of God into his ears, destroy him somehow–
(Ȟ̷̢͖̜̻̺̜̤̗̳̗͛͐̋̓É̴̳͈̦̩͑̆̈̓̾̈́̾͜R̴̛̼͙͇̗̤̄̉̍͊̍͘͜͠Ȩ̴̢͔͖̖̱̜̺̖̩͕̽̎̄̈́̎̈́̏͐̋͊̚͠.)
—
To be a puppet is a sickening thing. To be a puppet to the creature that split her mind from her self is worse.
And so she cuts off the infected limb and flings herself free.
—
In the aftermath, she knows three things: she has taken the Second Embrace, and become one of the mysterious Baali. She has her gaze fixed on the light, tethered by her heart to the saints who protect the kine in the city. And she is no longer made helpless by madness.
The eye still searches for her.
Cora is ready.
.
Ellard Murnau: The Saint in the Desert
The last scion of an ancient house of vampire hunters, and the righteous hand holding darkness back from the doorstep of humanity. A judge of monsters and men. Spare and purposeful, he moves through the world at the side of his twin sister, their lives mysteriously lengthened for some end they cannot imagine.
The source of his power is a mystery. He prays for the Lord’s influence, while fearing the direction of a darker master. In the end, there is no way to know. He is touched (cursed) by something unknowable and sacred, and can only climb upwards towards the hope of heaven, because there is so far to fall.
He is desperately human, and brutally marked by his soul-searing devotion.
For a time, settled in the city of New York at the end of days, he wondered if he’d found shelter from the blistering heat of God’s eye. A sliver of the world for himself, and his own happiness. He thinks now that he should have known better. There is only the desert, and the endless wind, and an encroaching martyrdom.
Holiness and despair have the same bitter taste.
Morninglight: A Cold And Brutal Bastion.
“The universe instantiates all mathematically coherent phenomena. Our purpose here is to investigate, via complex telemetrics, those dimensions which contain mathematically improbable objects.”
After 7 months of brutal testing, Sarah Soze found in the Void an idea God had never had, drifting through the infinite dark like the husk of a desiccated insect, vast and cold.
“Objects beyond the Horizon have the potential to exist in our space. They are simply more likely to exist in dimensions which allow for greater probabilistic ambiguity, and so they slide out of our reality, in accordance with the Darwinian action of natural forces.”
Jason Armoise cut off his own right hand to make them open the door. They asked him bloodless questions about his choice. Why the right and not the left? Why a hand and not a foot? Why now, and not ten minutes ago, or ten minutes from now? He answered them until he passed out from loss of blood.
“Our instrumentation allows specialists to seek out those objects.”
We have broken the wall of Heaven to peer through the crack.
“These objects may represent wonders, like unrealized futures, or entirely different laws of physics. And we believe we can bring them here.”
Chained to the Observatory, our mad navigators plummet through the darkness in search of the shell of something never born.
“You are part of the most important project in history.”
Your will is counterproductive to our goals.
“Together, we can change the world in ways no one has ever dreamed possible.”
Fear nothing.
Nikolai Zantosa: The Investigator.
A legacy of slavery can last for so long that you forget to even think of freedom.
Kolya is in New York to exonerate his family. They are accused of obedience to the wrong master: the ancient god of the flesh-twisting monsters who created them. A sacred obligation, in previous centuries; treason, in the modern nights. If Kolya fails to prove their innocence, the Zantosas will be exterminated. Everyone involved would agree that it is the Tzimisce’s right to slay them. It is a Zantosa’s duty to kneel before Tzimisce swords.
What turns his blood white: Kolya knows that they are guilty.
Brilliant, wry, and burdened: Kolya holds shut the bars of his cage from the inside, and prays he finds some way out for the people he loves before his masters realize that he’s free.
.
Selene: The Adored
Selene intends to become a god.
Other kindred get to be divine; the shining centers in whirlpools of arrested eyes and devoted hearts. Why not her?
She arrived in New York City quietly, with nothing. The lack of fanfare was intentional; everything Selene does is intentional. A church opened on the lower east side. Slowly, inexorably, her flock grew around her. She taught them to set their minds on the hidden truths of the universe, and they hung on her every word.
It’s a spoonful of what she desires: more than enough to whet her appetite.
Selene wants to be worshiped. She wants to be loved. And when that adoration finally burns brightly enough, no one will be able to hurt her again. A new world, in her own image. A world as beautiful as she is. Why should anyone want to stop her?
In her efforts, she’s found a friend in the demon Cleveland, who has been uncharacteristically open-handed with her help. Selene has weighed the risk. She’s come back again and again, and found Cleveland, small and bright-eyed, again and again. Ready to teach her another secret.
Hey again, tumblr!
Turns out the second semester of law school makes the first one look like a merry romp through fields of flowers. I want to say that I took a hiatus so I could get myself centered and better-adjusted, and that’s…kind of true? This site has, at times, not been great for my mental health. But honestly, I was finding it hard to engage with people (beyond what I had to do because of school and stuff) – even just by posting pictures with dogs in them. Over the past month, I’ve been pushing back against my tendency to turn into a hermit crab. It’s not easy, but it’s better for me in the long run.
I’ve never been the most prolific poster, and I doubt I’m going to become more so. The only fandom I’m actively creating content for these days is the Body of American Jurisprudence, and boy you should see all the arguments about interpreting canon and how closely you have to stick to it.
But I’m here, and I’m doing better. And I guess that’s enough right now.
.
Krystiyan: The Dragon
There was once a man of great passion, who burned hotly in anger, in revenge, in love. Now, there is Krystiyan.
Untouchable in his stronghold on the upper east side, the Tzimisce voivode strips flesh from bone, manipulates nerve and sinew, bleeds and drains and flays with impossibly delicate surgeon’s fingers. He watches. He notes. He tracks every spasm, pinching shut drooling capillaries with the singular focus of a black-eyed shark. He is a scientist, and a seeker of enlightenment.
The screams are terrible.
Over centuries, Krystiyan has severed his ties with this world and those within it, Kindred and kine alike. Their attachments, their qualms, their insipid ethics – all sentiment. His path rises higher and colder, in perfect isolation. And yet.
Yet he teaches, gives away knowledge, finds concert with the mind of another.
Yet he is drawn to audacity, to brilliance, to the kind of hubris that could rend the stars from the sky.
Stumbling blocks, chains around his legs. They keep him from the summit. But one day soon, here at the end of the world, he will rise with an unfurling of wings and tear himself free.
Any fool who attempts to stop him will be devoured.
krystiyan is like /it for me/ he is terrifying alien and monstrous and utterly utterly unconcerned with anything remotely human he has killed everyone in our party save one he had tadek and nadine murdered to teach isaiah – his apprentice – of the uselessness of emotional attachments he flayed cora alive and cracked open her ribcage like slats on a broken porch spun out her nerves and brain like sugar and kept them to study he is as distant and incomprehensible as something in the blackest parts of the ocean but still somehow casimir is convinced that he can drag him back from the brink casimir who loves him and is ready to destroy him in equal measure who – despite the yawning moral waste between them – wants krystiyan by his side krystiyan meanwhile looks at casimir’s rise out of utter ethical decay and curls his lip you had /promise/ you could have walked the same path not ‘together’ but side by side what a mewling sentimental waste (but even now even still – over and over again – krystiyan will not rip the tether that binds them from casimir’s hands entirely) (it will happen) (they are on a collision course) (casimir has the utter fucking temerity to think he can save him) (and krystiyan will show him that the alien does not care) (yeah I ship the jesus christ out of this: surprise) (via @wizzard890)
Krystiyan is the greatest threat to New York City. He’s self-evidently the greatest threat to the party, with a 3/3 kill streak since the start of the campaign. He held his own for a full minute of brutal combat with the demon Cleveland. He will reduce Casimir’s apothic plan to save the city from Gehenna to a charnal house, churning wet gristle into fuel for his transcendence.
He has never even been an enemy. At times the party has collaborated with him closely. But swim alongside a shark for long enough and you’ll eventually be torn apart. His proximity is what’s fatal.
Casimir will either rehabilitate him or kill him. Krystiyan invites him to try.
@hellscabanaboy adds:
Krystiyan is the terrifying high priest of Isaiah’s chosen path, the
model of what he hopes one day to twist himself into. When he sought to
understand something more than human, Krystiyan showed him that he could
become it. Reached inside him and showed him that he was
nothing but flesh, and that flesh can be molded at will. He has taught
him a sense of moral courage, by the nightmarish standards of their cold
and alien code.
He has killed every one of Isaiah’s longtime allies. Isaiah has learned to understand his reasons.
On the Path of Metamorphosis it is forbidden to teach or be taught. Isaiah knows there will come a day when the fascination of working in concert with his master instead becomes a fetter holding him to humanity, as he must surely be to Krystiyan when it comes time for him to ascend. The thought does not burden him as it once did. He thinks - he hopes - that when the time comes he will be ready to rise above such bonds.
Until then, he learns all he can, and shares a glimmer of an understanding that was never meant to be shared.
Margueritte Delacours: The Ritualist
Margueritte’s progenitor was the greatest ritualist who ever lived. He created the most powerful, most subtle magic in history: the animation of Carthage. The Romans sacked the city before he could complete it.
Margueritte was embraced Lasombra; turned Baali; and has spent nearly two centuries impersonating a Tremere, to learn the deepest secrets of the Chantry. She has been exposed to every tradition of ritual magic. It’s her calling and her art. Ritualism is the slow, deep magic that peels back the raw flesh of the world and writes her will upon its bones.
She wants to perform the greatest ritual ever devised: Moloch’s ritual of Carthage, perfected. Because it could save lives: certainly. Her own included.
Because it’s perfect.
Because she has the talent to do it.
Great works deserve to be completed.
