Carthian Movement
The Carthians promise upheaval, and in many ways are the change they wish to see, modifying their ideals on an almost nightly basis. The Carthians do not question the necessity of reform, but they are willing to question reforms themselves. Some nights, this makes them fractious…but on many more, it leaves them well prepared.
The Carthians promise real change — but into what? Carthian elders, their consciences worn down by their long Requiems, are appallingly dangerous, because they do not back down. They’re pragmatic monsters, but see themselves as part of something bigger and will make sacrifices for the future. They will suffer and inflict suffering to make Carthian Law the only law.
Where we came from
In 1779, an apostate from the Parisian Lancea et Sanctum published a pamphlet on a private press entitled Contre Les Vampires Patriarcals. Like much of the best literature of France just before the Revolution, it was a subtle, nuanced text, rich with hidden meanings. Presenting as an allegory the idea of the aristocrat as bloodsucking monster, the pamphlet was in fact a call to arms for the neonate to throw off the shackles of the elder.
The treatise was published under the name of Emmanuel Baptiste Carth. This wasn’t the author’s name. His name was apparently Eric Giraud. Giraud met Final Death under a midnight guillotine in the 1790s, but Carth lived on; and as revolutionary fervor gripped France, Carth took on a life of his own. Across Europe, east and west, pamphlets under the name of E. B. Carth appeared, each offering a political message for the dead coded under an apparent tract for the living. Neonate movements and reformers had existed before, but now they had a name and banner under which to join, a shared identity.
By the middle of the 19th century, vampires who followed the pamphleteers were calling themselves Carthians. E. B. Carth is still publishing, mostly on the Internet. Everyone knows that Carth is a fiction, but then, that’s the source of his power. He is an idea, and the Carthians are those who will kill for an idea. It is the power of the Carthian idea that created, in the second half of the 20th century, the phenomenon of Carthian Law, where the Blood itself obeys the ideology of the vampires.
Carthian rhetoric, with its talk of equality and justice, can make the Movement seem the most benevolent of the vampire covenants. But the Carthians’ ideas of equality extend only as far as the dead. Some of them are capable of treating the living with a terrifying utilitarianism. After all, they are called to serve the greater good.
Our practices
Everything the Carthians do is dedicated towards the creation of a new vampire order. The traditions of vampire society have their uses, but the way the established covenants enforce them leaves a lot to be desired. The Carthians preach that all vampires are equal, but the fact is that some corpses are more equal than others. Nobody’s going to shed a red tear for a knight who follows her prince to the stake.
Since the Carthians use political systems adapted from modern ideologies among the living, it’s only natural for them to use the human radical groups they so resemble. Political groups, particularly radical groups with uncompromising views, split like crazy. The Carthians, with the powers of the dead and the application of a few drops of blood, can bring splinter cells under their power.
All the Carthians muck in — it’s fair to say that Carthians are probably the busiest vampires, always seeming to have a project, always looking for an opening. They aren’t, however, mindless zealots. Where the Invictus deal in intimidation and bribes, the Carthians are often the first to the bargaining table. Somehow, though, the deals they make always manage to favor the Revolution.
Carthians are often found in the governments of other covenants. Being open about their shared agendas makes them a peculiar type of honest. Other covenants, particularly those that don’t possess a specific political ideology, find that honesty makes the Firebrands the devil you know. The Ordo Dracul and the Circle of the Crone often think this way. For all that Carthian ideology sets them in conflict with existing governments, their reputed ideological purity makes them reliable. Their usefulness as part of the state in turn gives them a wedge to push their reforms.
Nicknames: The Revolution (within the covenant), the Firebrands, the Movement (within the covenant), the Vermin (Invictus)
Concepts: Sexy campus recruiter, firebrand ideologue, distant intellectual, street ganger, disenchanted war veteran, guiltridden liberal arts teacher, well-intentioned political extremist, middle-class freedom fighter, liberation theologian
When we are in power
Our ideologies triumphant, Carthian purges and executions begin. Vampires who surrender and recant their former allegiances should expect to be closely watched by Carthian thought police, lest they end up mindcontrolled or bound by blood bonds. Nonetheless, they’re allowed in — a successful Carthian state grows by bringing vampires outside the covenant into the fold. Yet it’s often at this point, when we have won, that we are at our least united. We Firebrands are well aware that power corrupts, and many of us are as willing to remove our own governments as those of the Invictus.
When we are in trouble
Carthians against the wall operate as plucky underdogs; we work in a strange way, in harmony with our ideals. Without the problems of power to undermine us, the Movement can behave as it always meant to. We are still monsters, but we hold together. We support each other, keep our possessions — ghouls, herds, havens — in common, and work hard to ensure our both survival, and the survival of our comrades. When in the minority, we do our best to recruit or suborn lower-level members of the establishment, and are rarely above stooping to honeytraps, blackmail, and mind-control. Yet, our commitment also breeds a kind of patience. The Revolution will happen. And it will happen in fire. But not yet. Suicide will not bring change.
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